Check out this video about culture vs. islam. Its just over 6 minutes long....

If you liked that video...check out my website to see his other 9 videos for season 1. I'm working on getting season 2 gathered up.... let me know what you think.

I'm wondering how easy it would be to seperate culture from religion especially in countries where the the majority of the people are of the same religion.

I don't think it is that difficult but it is the outsider's viewpoint that confuses culture with religion. that is just my opinion though...

I think it is just as often the insider's viewpoint that muddies things. The two have been mixed so long they no longer see the difference. The outside looks in with fresh eyes.

I just love Ummah Films clips... Very funny way this brother Ali shares his dawah! Thanks for sharing this Amal.
I think there is fine line between religion and culture when you come from a country that is dominated by their religion. You find more culture then religion. As the clip said "the modified version" is taught... so the true meaning is totally lost.

good point Bosco! Thanks! I think the video is a good reminder to ppl of all religions to take a step back and re-evaluate what they are doing... Are their actions cultural or religious... Are they giving the right message about their religion??..... I love Ummah Films!

True, very true... I have been wrong about a couple things that I thought were religious and they were really cultural and vice versa... It can get cornfuzzied so easily sometimes.

What would be an example of this?

Someone not wearing hijab in American because they may stick out or feel uncomfortable?

I'd imagine that local marriage customs or celebrations in particular are one areas where the line between religious and cultural gets blurred.

Can anyone give specific examples of how in a Muslim community religion and culture are not seperate?

What do you mean? Surely the religion is part of the culture, and surely Muslim culture varies worldwide.

Oops sorry I meant give examples from a specific region/country I guess.

A good example... here goes...
A Sunday school teacher of elementary school age children is seen by some of his Sunday scool students in the Grocery store drunk off his gord and slandering the grocery store for not selling him anymore alcohol. He is cursing and fighting and causing quite the commotion. This child MAY possbly get the impression that it is ok to drink yourself to oblivion and you can still be a good Christian. Now, where in Christianity, does it say to drink until you are incoherent? It doesn't. The culture in the states allows ppl over the age of 21 (21 in my state) to buy and drink alcohol..not religion. Children may very easily confuse the two and think that all Christians can do this and be ok... does that make sense?

Yes... I thought we were talking about Islam hahaha. My bad.

or .. how about someone who wears spaghetti strap shirts but also wears hijab? Are they representing Islam correctly or are they representing their culture? It is seen every day ... there is some woman somewhere in hijab but wearing revealing clothes. that is a cultural/religious conflict ...

well..the quote you bolded .. I said..ppl of ALL religions..so I figured I could use anything as an example sorry

don't be sorry I was just confused. I gotcha ya though

If we don't mind some real examples, here's a Catholic one:

One of my dear friends from college is Filipino-American, and at his wedding (to another Catholic friend), they incorporated some Filipino traditions: wrapping silk cords around the couple, him giving her coins as a sign that he promises to support her, and her formally accepting them. To an outsider, perhaps, who'd never been to a Catholic wedding, it might look like 'Catholicism requires the groom to give the bride coins, and ties them together to ensure he does so.' And if someone's only exposure to Catholicism was through a boyfriend who said 'All marriages I've ever been to have this coin exchange', she might think it was part of the tradition.

Another one: Feast of the Seven Fishes, which is an Italian feast on Christmas Eve where everyone abstains from meat (and hence has lots of tasty seafood.)

More mundane: dressing up in red and green velvet Christmas dresses, or eating pork and sauerkraut at New Years, or getting candy on Easter, or decorating Ukrainian Easter Eggs. Not part of the religion per se, but part of the religious practice as understood by a culture.

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Those, my friends, are some good examples!!!

Is it worse to partake in giving and receiving Christmas presents as a Muslim or to wear hijab with a spaghetti strap shirt?

ooooo ooooo ooooo I thought of another one
We are Muslims in my home but we also do a Christmas tree and exchange gifts. One entering my home might think that Muslims celebrate Christmas the same way Christians do.... but that's not it at all... I like the traditions of having a Christmas tree and exchanging gifts......and as you all know...not Islamically related at all...

Better or worse how? In the U.S., Christmas is also a secular holiday, so it would be possible to celebrate it in that context.

The spaghetti straps and hijab thing doesn't make sense to me, but I'm not Muslim, and I could see someone interpreting the requirement differently or in the context of American culture. (E.g., if the requirement is construed as 'be more modest than the culture around you.')

I have never seen someone in hijab and a spaghetti strap shirt, that seems very odd but I'm sure it happens.

Exactly! I wouldn't be surprised to learn if some things Americans associate with Islam (foods, marriage customs, beliefs about women, whatever) were really artifacts of the local culture all mixed up with it.

hehehe thats funny you posted that as I was posting mine.... I actually had a conversation with my son about Christmas today. He asked if we celebrated it for Jesus or what... I explained why Christians celebrate Christmas and why we do it at our home. I explained to him that we exchange gifts because we like to celebrate that we are alive and a family AND its Noors birthday. It is now just our own personal family tradition and nothing more.
The hijab and spaghetti strap shirt...well thats just sooooooo against anything that Islam teaches. It teaches to be modest and cover your body and to not show your shape. Therefore, in my own opinion, no muslim should wear spaghetti strapped shirts to begin with .. and why cover the head if you're showing the rest of your upper body...whats the point in that?

So do you think it's ok to cover your body but not wear hijab? Do you wear hijab?

which one is more important to cover?

IMO if you are wearing very revealing clothes or tight clothing, there is no point in wearing hijab.

here's how i feel about it. I feel that hijab is worn as part of the modest thing..to cover the body so as to protect us. If a person is wearing hijab but wearing a revealing shirt..or even shorts..then wearing hijab is cancelled out religiously and it is then only worn for style. If a person just plain likes wearing hijab and doesn't care if ppl see their bodies, that is their own perrogative but it is not accepted by God. I am not currently a hijab wearer. It is something that comes with time and by choice. If there are women in hijab and dressed modestly but they are talking in a bad way against a woman who is not wearing hijab...then the hijab ladies are not accepted by God at that time. If the lady not wearing hijab is pure of heart and doing her best to learn Islam..that is accepted... oh, hey, I have a video of that...check this out.... This explains it better than me

definitely to be modest in clothing first...

Just as a gentle reminder, it is Allah who judges and accepts or not as He wishes, not us.

No one is being judged here.

Have you been recruited by the Ramadan police squad?

And I never said anyone was.

So then what is the reminder for?

Can I ask out of curiosity why you thought you should gently remind us of that?

Oh by the way I used your snickerdoodle recipe- delicious thank you!

what! i get a night off free from persecution?

Or not, if one doesn't believe in god. But the topic of judgement is best left to another, or none other, thread.

Amal, I think this is a great topic. I feel like I know a million things that seem to be cultural & religious in regards to Moroccans, and then when I think to add it to the little list here, I wonder, is it religious? or cultural? It's definitely a complicated issue and would probably take lots of history classes to really find out what is what.

As for strappy shirts + hijab, I haven't seen this specifically, but I have seen girls wear hijab, but then when a party, a wedding, function comes around, they dont' wear hijab & wear a strapless, short dress.

That Christmas is a secular holiday makes not a lick of sense to me. If I was Christian, I would be highly insulted by that. Taking my savior and making his Holy Day like any other party holiday is a blasphemy, imo. But, then, I've never been Christian.



Muslims are required to judge sin, as well. It is not true that Muslims cannot judge; the Quran tells us to do so when it says that believers enjoin the good and reject the evil and that we are protectors of one another. There would be no point in having Islamic law, abiding by Allah's commands, or forming an ummah based on doing justice if there was no judgement that Muslims could make upon each other. Islam is not simply a faith between you and God, but a faith that binds you to a covenent with your faith community. Only God can judge who will enter heaven, but we are intended to provide guidance to each other, and that requires making judgments about right and wrong.

In short, the notion that we are not to judge is an example of a western cultural trait that is mistaken for a tenet of Islam.

If you want we can talk about how you went into a yahoo group knowing it was just for women and took screenshots of messages.

don't ever be an animal trainer, you'll beat them to death

I'm going to try to be careful here and try not to start something bad. Christmas, I believe, started as a holiday when ppl celebrated mother earth and all that stuff. Christians took that holiday and incorporated it to the celebration of Jesus' birthday. Therefore, ppl can celebrate with a tree, gifts, decorations of winter, or whatever .. and they're not doing anything wrong in my book. Before reverting, I never did agree with the way Christmas was celebrated. I always felt that we lost the meaning of Christmas by overshadowing it with gifts and pretty lights. And also the fact that Jesus wasn't born on December 25 has always confused me. Why celebrate his birthday on a day that he wasn't born? I would bring that up each year and my family would say..well at least we celebrate it...that never sat well with me.... anyway.... no, I"ll stop there....

THe original celebration held in December was to celebrate the mid-winter it has been celebrated for 1000's of years all over europe, when christianity came about the church decided to make christmas at the same time as the mid-winter pagen celebration to try to stop people celebrating a non-christian event.

So IMO if you choose to celebrate in a non-christian way with a tree and lights and gifts then you are only following the original mid-winter celebrations... if christians and other religions choose to take offence that is there problem....


Kez

How about this for example- the concept in Iran of purdah- sheltering women inside from the view of strangers- existed in Iran long before the coing of Islam to the region. persians merely kept the concept and explained it through Islam. Today it is seem as an Islamic idea.

Or this- female circumcision in North Africa

The hullabaloo over Christmas is interesting, especially considering that the "holiest" day in Christianity is actually Easter, rather than Christmas. And we all know how that's celebrated.... again, the old pagan traditions coming to the forefront.

Now I want a chocolate bunny.

Sarah- I know I am mgoing to open a can of worms, but thinking more about your question, I think hijab itself is an example of where relion and culture get confused.

To me there is no question that Islam talks abotu modesty, but why should I wear Arab-style hijab to look modest? (see this is where the can of worms is opened and someone who does dress this way will take offense to what I have just said abotu me and my opinion). Why is covering my hair a requirement for modesty? I completely understand why many women wear the scarf and say more power to them, but I think their interpretation is only that. The Prophet told the women to draw their clothing across their bodies not go out an dbuy new kinds of outfits. Maybe I am looking at it in a simplistic way, a prejudicial way- but Islam is meant to transcend all cultures not become tied up in the local practices.

I'm not trying to start any crap in here, I'm really not. But I read this and it explained some things for me. If this is truly the belief of Muslims; that they are obligated to judge others, then it certainly explains the mindset of terrorists. Being American and raised as a Xian (long-abandoned, but still a major thing while growing up), I haven't been able to understand the concept of "You are evil, I must now kill you." Now, at least, I can understand it a little more.

As for Christmas....
As far as I have been able to deduce from my research into it, Christmas usurped Yule in the Celtic countries; as mentioned, for convenience. Yule, in the Celtic sense, "borrowed" traditions from the Norse. Until they had significant contact with the Nordic peoples, the Celts didn't have a Yule celebration. The Yule tree, Yule log, and all of the trappings of "Christmas" came from the traditions of the Nordic/Germanic people. When the forced conversion to xianity was in full swing, the Church changed some holidays/stories to coincide with the pre-existing Pagan celebrations/stories. For instance, Easter (Eostere) is the celebration of the rebirth of the Sun (Son?).

Santa Claus - Originally Sinter Klaus or Sinterklaas.
"...the likeness of Santa Claus can actually be traced back far before the birth of Christ with the Norse god, Thor. Thor was the god of the sun, fire and lightning, with an altar that existed in nearly every home in the world in the form of a fireplace. Each year on his birthday, Yuletide Dec. 25, he would slide down the chimney into his element of fire and would put gifts in the drying shoes that children had left behind (especially good children would receive coal to help keep warm). Thor was always depicted as wearing furs in the colors of fire (red) and snow (white), and he was supposedly elderly and heavy with a long white beard. He had a palace in “northland” and he rode through the air in a sled pulled by two flying goats, named Gnasher and Crasher. Thor became known as “Klaus of the cinders” or Sinter Klaus, because children believed he would have to be singed just a bit in order to come through the flaming fire in mid-winter."
http://www.mtulodearchives.com/index.php?i...&artid=4920

I thought Melly was on point. Amal said "not accepted by God", in particular related to hijab with revealing clothing. I thought Melly was merely pointing out while we can take guesses at what God may or may not accept, speculate based on our interpretations, none of us really know. It also conveys a God of judgement and scrutiny over items like clothing - and certainly not everyone agrees with this interpretation.

That is why ALL lessons you are taught should be back up by authenicated sources !!!!! Unforuntately there are still some ppl out there who get their religion from the back of cracker jack boxes (no I am just kidding)...No seriously from unreliabel sources, including family members and friends... I SAY and I am sure ALL would agree no matter religion you are...that religion should be taken from the BOOKS!