I'm a muslim guy

Submitted by awz (United Kingdom), Dec 18, 2006 at 19:48

Note: this is a personal perspective, so it obviously doesn't apple to all muslim men.

I'm a British Pakistani muslim guy. I'm actually an atheist but because Islam is so intrumental in most of my cultural identity i still consider myself a muslim. I'm just gonna put down a few things that u might find useful about muslim men.

Islam is more than just a religion. Often it overlaps with ur culture and way of life. i'd say it's like 70% a 'way of life' e.g. everyday things like not drinking, halal diet etc. the other 30% is like the proper religion e.g. fasting, praying sometimes, not eating pork...

Most of us muslim guys aren't too religious, in like we don't care if a woman wants to get a job or do whatever. but it's little things like if she drinks then that becomes a problem (i'm not saying it's justified but u guys should be aware of it). I don't know about individuals but eating pork is a big no no. It's not rational but even as an atheist i can't bring myself to eating pork. Must be all the conditioning we have when we're younger. Like i said it's the little things. so say if ur a sun worshipper and u wanna go to the beach and wear a bikini. again this might be an issue.

Before anyone even starts to talk about getting married discuss a few issues.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
I cannot emphasise how a big an issue this is for muslims. If u guys disagree on this then chances are (i might be wrong) that ur gonna have major issues in ur marriage. If ur pro-israeli then i think chances are very very very slim that u guys will stay together although i did read once about a jewish pro-israeli woman having married a muslim man and they hadn't divorced. Muslim guys tend to sympathise with other muslims on most issues even if they don't agree 100%, especially when it comes to foreign policy in the middle-east.

Immigration:
I don't know much about this one but this might be helpful. I have known and heard a few cases in which men from countries like India and Pakistan prefer to marry British muslim women purely on the basis that they will then get a British passport. Sometimes they leave the wife after they get the passport but most of the times they stay with her. As far as love is concerned i don't know how big of a part it plays in the marriage.
I guess one explanation would be that like anyone else they want to increase their standard of living. They could just marry someone in their own country or move to somewhere like the UK or US where they will have much better oppurtunities and stuff.

Kids:
Generally a muslim guy would ideally want their kid(s) raised as a muslim but if that can't happen then he probably doesn't want them raised in another religion. He would probably be happier to raise them without a specific religion but would want him/her to know the cultural side of islam and his country. Like, say the kid doesn't have to go to mosque but he probably would maybe have to fast sometime in Ramadan and celebrate Eid and stuff.

Polygamy:
shocking though it may sound we don't all want a million wives. I've never met any muslim guy whose had more than one wife and i seriously doubt it's wide-spread judging by my experience. and another thing who the hell beats thier wife. it's probably more common is muslim majority countries but i've never ever heard a muslim religious opinion who says it's ok to beat ur wife. i mean if a guy beats his wife then why would would u stay with ur him? it might be a cultural thing but religiously at mosque i was always taught that it was wrong.

I can't think of other things right now but if someone thinks of something i didn't (which is more than likely) then post it and i'll try to reply if i can.

O yeah and just one other thing. There might be a differnce in the cultural/religious attitudes between arab and asain (pakistani, indian...) men. I've never spoken to any arabs so everything i just said might not apply to them. for all i know they are much more liberal and chilled than me.

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