that’s so sad 🙁
I’m sorry you had to face that, and I am glad you divorced him. Some women find it hard to divorce men even if they treat her like trash, glad you knew better

Love everything u said

^like

In addition to the points made below, don’t get why men who care about how they look and carry themselves are ‘sissy’.

“..he fails to behave according to the traditional male gender role..”

If the ‘traditional male gender role’ he is talking about is the same role Mohammed (pbuh)took – the islamic tradition, then ‘sissy’ is apt for the purpose of describing a man not conforming to that role.

Hitting a women takes no courage or stoicism, so he does seem to lack them.

Why is “going out too much” a problem you ask? Well, ‘too much’ of anything is always a problem, no?

Right, the Prophet (SAW) used to get his wives gifts.

A respected scholar of Indonesia of the early 20th century, known popularly as Dr. Hamka, observed in his Indonesian Malay language tafseer of the Qur’an, from in his travels to Europe and some Muslim countries, that he saw a place where there was Islam but no Muslims, and then a place with no Islam but many Muslims (I paraphrase a little due to an inexact memory). Bear in mind though that the European society he saw was from a time where there might be a lot more congruence in social and political values than today. Still, the observation may yet remain valid.

Even today, when you can say there is a resurgence in religiosity in Asia, the *priority* of things we focus on and spend the most time legislating, speaking about, posting on facebook about, preaching about, write to newspapers about, as communities seem to be different from what I gather from the scholar writings I have had opportunity to read, Hadith, or even the Qur’an.

I used to think that the focus is explained by our shallow focus on outward things, but it is also possible that we like to focus on those Islamic requirements that are only applicable to us, that makes us different, that sets us apart from non-Muslims, regardless of whether the actual relative priority is higher or lower than some other aspects which in the modern context happens to also be things other people identify with or even are the current leaders in. An extreme example I have heard in university, is when a group of students on a supervised jungle walk. One of them, a female, fell into the river and was drowning. The girls could not swim, some of the boys could, but did not jump in. When the facilitator arrived he jumped in to save the girl. Now the most interesting part is the *reason* why none of the boys jumped in. It was not doubt in their swimming skill vs the river strength. It was because since it is haram to touch the opposite sex, they must not be allowed to save her because it would involve touching her. Now most of the time the examples are less extreme, but the underlying prioritisation disconnect remains.

I don’t know whether this is a correct view or not, but if it is, then it seems our collective effort is really driven by an insecurity about our identity. Otherwise we would be a lot more interested about the actual relative importance of the different things required of us, regardless of whether they advertise our Muslimness or not.

Men are called upon at different times and at different stages to do different things.-This is why the Sira of the Prophet remains open to us together with Al Quran. Just like men should look toward Allah, The Prophet SAW and The Sahaba RA for knowing how to lead their lives so must the women look to the wives and the daughters and the First women in Islam to provide them with guidance. Far too many women are looking towards Oprah Winfrey and too many men looking at Eminem for living their lives.
“The last of this community is only put right by the first of this community”-Imam Malik RA