モイナ・シャイクとミート・ア・ムスリム・イニシアチブ

A silly story-

Part 1

Long, long ago a group humans living in a remote corner of the world realised they have more thinking power than other animals around them. The power to solve problems and do things better and make life easier. Soon they started to share the ideas with family, friends and neighbors. Some felt it is good to write and keep, so it is easy to remember or access. The book of ideas passed down generations as a valuable inheritance. It became a BIG book of ideas. It had everything that you need to live by. So some of them also corroborated that things not in the book were untrue, because anything worth should be there in the book! Not just families but the whole community started living by the book. Eventually it became imperative to have the book and follow it to do anything in life ... how to eat, what to drink, how to love, how to die and even when to kill. Though it was difficult to follow the book, it helped the community to grow, have order and governance. People lived happily. After many generations the book grew in size but lost the details of people who contributed. The small group of people who accessed the book more frequently and who knew more about the book got together and thought- How could we make the book more popular and make it (book/us) relevant for all the people? We declare the book has come from the master of our universe and it is his “word”. The master of the universe had laid the code of living and it is compulsory to live by the laws of the book or else suffer, suffer in a place called "hell". Conversly, people who obeyed the word and lived by the book would go straight to heaven. This sounded great and within no time there was a great demand for the book and people in the book business!

Part 2

Someone traveled far and discovered another strange community of people. He was even more surprised to know they also had a book to live by. A thought flashed in his mind- which book was better?

I worked with plenty of Muslims at Texas Instruments, like the engineer from Bangladesh who hung around my desk several times a day (I was single, he was married with newborn twins) and talked about how wonderful it was to have as many wives in "his country" as he could afford. (I am *not* making this up.) I did ask him how much he'd be making in Bangladesh, and he just laughed. Oh, the reality that "your" country is still in the third world, let's not talk about that. Assimilation, anyone?

They have a prayer room at Texas Instruments dedicated for Muslim use. I once asked if I could use it, as a Christian (thinking at best it must actually be a generic "chapel" - that surely a private business wouldn't promote religion at all, let alone one particular religion), and was told that Christians could pray anywhere. This is true, but it was also pretty disappointing.

The prayer room is there to accommodate Muslims. Many businesses now have this. Don't tell me the US doesn't accommodate other religions. I don't care what religion others practice as long as they don't intrude on my rights. Freedom of religion is a right we all (should) hold dear.

But if a woman is going to defend Islam, I would strongly encourage her to be honest with herself and look at how women and young girls are still treated in Islam countries, where many women still can't even VOTE. When I see a woman in the grocery store literally walking behind a man, my stomach turns. When I read of honor killings - in the US! - and the fact that the "princes" of Saudi Arabia STILL think women shouldn't even DRIVE, I kind of think, "Honey, don't tell ME how great you have it. Just stop lying to yourself, because I already know. Your husband told me this morning."