i have seen a lot of the same behaviors

Submitted by anne (United States), Dec 21, 2006 at 00:21

It is interesting to me as I just ended a relationship with a guy who was raised in a very Muslim family. He grew up both in Egypt and New Jersey. He then moved to California, became a surfer and now smokes a lot of pot, drinks and dates American girls. The things that I noticed when reading this site in common are:

* he claimed he was not religious, but he was stringent on not eating pork

*he very casually explained that women are thought of as lower than men, and said it is not a bad thing, just different.

*he also wanted his wife to stay home and take care of the kids and felt that he needed to be the bread winner

*he told me once that they were taught to pity Christians when we had a discussion about our religions(and I think he still does pity Christians), although at other times he said he didnt care about religion and that they were all basically the same

*he would get really drunk and be rude to me or others in public and showed signs of agression

*he said he never cheated on a girlfriend, but then called me by a wrong name once. he also explained that polygamy existed only with the uneducated muslims, but yet his grandmother was married to a polygamist

*he made lots of promises and plans that he never followed through with

*he had a tattoo that said some arabic phrase about God Almighty

I noticed some of the same things brought up by other women and I do believe that no matter how liberal they seem, if they are raised muslim, they probably will continue to or revert back to their upbringing. I am sure that some of his jerkiness is just him being a guy but I do think these problems and differences would only get bigger if we had married.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".