On the Progressive Views of Classical Muslim Scholars

On Tuesdays, I get together with a group of friends for dinner, and we have these really, really stimulating discussions. We try not to select our topics in advance because half the excitement comes from the randomness of the topics. Our group consists of 2 Muslims, a half-Muslim half-Atheist, a Buddhist, a Christian, and a half-Christian half-Atheist. Some weeks ago, I read on this one forum a  comment of this one member telling someone, "So [since you drink and have girlfriends], is it okay in your culture/religion to do that?" And it made me laugh because my friends and I often pick on our Buddhist friend by saying things like, "OMG! Is that ALLOWED in your culture/religion? WOW! So, in Buddhism, you can do XYZ? NO way!" We do the same to the Christian friends and they all do it to me and the other Muslim. It's our way of expressing our resentment towards those ridiculous people who think (no, I guess sneering at the idea) that one person or one group of people can represent an ENTIRE religion or culture or race.

So, as some of y'all know, I'm taking this class called Gender and Sexuality in Islam and that the book we're currently reading is called Homosexuality in Islam. A friend of mine asked what it was all about and which periods the book is covering, and sexuality in which time periods, etc.  And I realized that we (Muslims) have to rely on what our jurists of the 8th - 10th centuries said in order to figure out what's permissible and what's prohibited TODAY. A friend of mine pointed out that "that's ironic. In most other religions, such things were not discussed in the earlier stages of the religion's beginning but discussions/debates on topics in those religions start much, much later!"

An excellent point he made there. It's very true. Muslim scholars and jurists were WAY ahead of their time. I do not believe it was *because* of Islam necessarily. But if you study the works of those guys, they were skilled in MILLIONS of things at once! Read Al-Ghazali, for instance, or Ibn Fadlan, or Ibn Tufayl, or Ibn Sina. Ibn Tufayl, like many others, was one of those people who was a scholar, a philosopher, a theologian, a doctor -- EVERYTHING at once! He also wrote this novel in which his character, Hayy, is a genius like himself. . What he does with the character, the different stages the character goes through ... brilliant stuff, folks. (In a future blog post, ka khairee, I will tell the story of Hayy.)

But what do our "scholars" do today? How do we define a "scholar" today? By our definition, who is included and who's excluded?

My point is, like my (Buddhist) friend said, what Muslim scholars did in the past, scholars of most other religions are doing TODAY. It's TODAY that people are going back to interpretations of sacred texts, turning to debates/discussions to fully understand a scared text. But Muslim scholars, they did this in the past. Unfortunately, we put an end to this whole debating on religions in the 10th century! (As is said, "The doors to Ijtihad have been closed since the 10th century. Everything you study now HAS -- absolutely HAS -- to be based on the conclusions of the Muslim jurists before the 10th century. You may NO longer offer a new interpretation to any text." Forgotten is the fact that those same scholars respected and acknowledged their own limitations. They didn't have a problem openly admitting their weaknesses or faults. Most even wrote in their own texts that "I believe I'm right, but I understand that I MAY be wrong. I also believe that Persons A, B, C, ... Z are wrong, but I admit that they may be right or more right than I am." Who says this today?

Clearly, then, we Muslims today have gone backward: We let our scholars prior to the 10th century (C.E.) decide everything for us, and we think it's blasphemous to go back to the ORIGINAL scripture(s) to study and understand how our scholars said/concluded what they did. What we SHOULD be doing is to appreciate and respect the former interpretations and conclusions and realize that limiting ourselves to only what's already accepted as "tradition" is denying Islam its universality and limiting God's extreme vastness and absoluteness to the understanding of a group of people of one particular time and society only. A major problem in this is that we simply PRIDE ourselves with our "rich" history -- but that's it! We don't go beyond that pride by actually studying that history becuase what those people did back then is considered utterly forbidden by some Muslims today! Often, it's even those same Muslims who say things like, "Study Islamic history! You'll see we had great scholars, scientists, philosophers in that time because of Islam, okay?" I can't help asking myself if they have ever bothered studying it themselves... 'cause those people were very bold, VERY open. Heck, they often discussed things that even I think are "immodest" for public discussions :p (Kidding but not really). That was all because they valued tolerance and intellect. Who does that today? You'd think we should be moving forward; instead, we're moving backward!

What happened then (mostly in the Abbasid Era) was solely because the time and resources were just well-fitting. Nothing lasts forever. We couldn't be successful forever, now, could we? Everything comes to a demise; everything has its own time. That's why I don't lament this. We have a rich and "glorious" history, but it ended just like everything is SUPPOSED to end. No, wait - perhaps "end" isn't the correct word here. I prefer to believe it's come to a halt instead and will continue when the time is apt again. That means we have to work hard, we have to study history and understand why things were the way they were at THAT time and then ask ourselves why things are the way they are today. Once we figure this out while remembering that there are thousands of factors involved in the success and demise of a people/civilization and no one factor is more important than another, we will be able to start working towards a better, more peaceful, more successful future as well. 

Imagine You're a Jurist

** Pasting this from my "Islam and Gender" Blog.**  There's so much more I'm dying to share -- no time to write it in words just yet, though, 'cause the semester is coming to an end, and that means a ton of exam reviews and term papers to complete before we welcome December Jaan!

In upcoming blog entries, either on this blog or on the Gender-Islam one (prolly the Gender-Islam one, though), I'll be discussing the role of interpretation in Quranic verses pertinent to women, inshaAllah! I took notes in class today, thinking I'll just paste those into the blog, but then I realized that my audience includes people who don't believe in "interpreting" a text and think that everything's all clear in the Quran... when it's in fact not. So I'll have to come up with a way to explain what it all means and everything. 

Enjoy this for the time being!

P.S. I'm learning slowly and slowly how boldly and openly classical Muslim jurists discussed "sensitive" topics such as the one below and how sad yet interesting it is that most of us today deem those same topics forbidden and too "immodest" to be discussed in public! Heck, read al-Tabari, al-Ghazali, or even Ibn Katheer (yes, all men of course;  we know that no women jurists existed in the classical period ... or even today! And of course this was all the space of men and men only), and you'll wanna cover your eyes because of the rich descriptions they provide of these "forbidden" topics! It's amazing how behind we've fallen, how we seem to be going backwards instead of forward. As they used to say, "There is no shame in learning and teaching; nothing is too immodest when it comes to discussing it from an Islamic point of view, or understanding Islam's stance on it." More on this another time, but you get the idea. 

Imagine You're a Jurist 

So, during the last  couple of weeks, we've been reading texts on Islamic jurisprudence and sexual ethics. We were heading towards Muslim jurists' views on conception and abortion, the laws on what a woman should do in various scenarios. Before that, our professor had us imagine that we, the students, are jurists in the medieval times and a good, practicing Muslim woman comes to us and asks if premature withdrawal is permissible or not because she and her husband are poor and have several children, and she does not think they should have anymore because they cannot afford them. Her husband claims premature withdrawal is the best method of preventing pregnancy and that using condoms (made of cured sheep's intestine) are forbidden according to Islam. So, she wants to know if it's Islamically acceptable to use condoms and whether or not premature withdrawal is allowed.

We give a response based on Islam (the Quran, hadiths, and jurists' opinions). Some time passes, and she comes back, unhappy, saying that she followed our advice but just found out that she is 2.5 months pregnant. She asks us 1) if she can have an abortion, and 2) if yes, then does she need her husband's permission?

SO! Exciting stuff! And everything we said was to be supported by the Quran, hadiths, and other jurists' opinions, which means we couldn't say, "No, of course you can do XYZ! Who said you can't?" etc... which is where one of the main challenges lies in being a jurist, I see now.

We were not allowed to read up on abortion and conception in Islam, save for the material he sent us that we could use to make our decision. In this blog post, I share what all those are -- ranging from Quranic verses to hadith reports to jurists' statements. 

On the Periphery of Eruption

They try to extinguish these candles of passion
And disturb my ebullience.
They try to silence my thoughts and stultify my valor.
Do they wish I become one of them –
Burn in the rages of ennui and be damned to perdition?
But how am I to relinquish this dwelling of learning?
How must I shun this faith I have descried?
Must I continue reconnoitering new vistas while they regress,
Or must I capitulate to their baleful despise?
Ahhh! How the emollient whispers of each candle compel me
To reject these scathing overtures of a folk unlettered!
I lie here befuddled:
Why seek the approbation of
A people outside my realm of understanding? 
But I must welcome their flagging adoration!    
For, if pondering makes me a miscreant, then a miscreant I shall be!
And I must resist
Until the last candle of passion has consumed itself.
I am but a dauntless soul,
A circumspect acolyte of reason
Learning under the aegis of my teachers,
While caged in a society distended with sanctimony! 
 
~ Qrratugai, October 24th 2010

Persistence is the only thing that keeps you going.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Today, I had the privilege of attending a lecture led by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr (YES!!! I did! OMG!) and followed by Vincent Cornell and Scott Kugle (that's correct!) on the pursuit of happiness.

They talked on the concept of happiness in the Islamic tradition. Other scholars talked on faith and other religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism).

It was SO refreshing, SO beautiful, SO peaceful!

Anyway, so lemme share briefly with you what I learned and what they said. Some narrated Sufi stories and the thoughts of Muslim philosophers and scholars on what happiness is, how it is achieved, what it's for, and where it comes from. They talked on what our scholars of the past meant, and what's meant even today, when they say, "Reject the desires of this earth" (this is important to me personally 'cause I always misunderstood it. I thought it means what many people think it means: to literally abandon this earth, don't associate with anyone, resist all desires, and so on. Ahhh, but that's not what it means! I'll explain another time what it really means, ka khairee). The most interesting thing was said by Kugle: "It is not the pursuit of happiness we should be discussing or seeking; it is the pursuit of contentment." He, like the other speakers, reminded us that contentment is more important than happiness and that happiness is only transitory. Contentment, however, is deeper. To be content is to realize that your goals can become your prison, a dead end; to be content is not to let your heart be attached to anything; to be content is to experience something bad and, instead of feeling depressed or angry, looking at it from a distant, asking what it could mean and why it might have occurred (in other words, "What can I learn from this? What can this lesson teach me? It's not in my control, so what can I get from being angered by it?").

Contentment is best achieved by giving, by being generous, by sharing; to be fully content, one should possess the hospitality of the earth.

Most interestingly, the Arabic word for "happiness" is "Sa'aadah," ("Anaa saeedah" = I am happy). But it also means salvation. The speakers therefore asserted that, in Islam, one can attain happiness by attaining salvation. (I will get into the whole philosophical concept of happiness, heaven, hell, etc. in another blog post, not now.)

They said that another way to attain happiness (and salvation) is by performing dhikr, the remembrance of God. There are many ways one can do dhikr, but, when asked if he could perform it for the audience, Professor Hossein said he does not believe it should be done in or for the public.

And, last, they all also agreed with the other speakers and followers and supporters of other religious ideologies by stating that happiness comes with knowing who you are. They told stories in which this is explained. ... And I'll have to watch the lectures again to be able to share each story here, but that's not happening now, k?

Each of these points can be elaborated extensively, I know, but I needed to write all this down for my own sake, so it's not detailed. I'm just saying it all here because it was a really enlightening lecture, and the feeling of being around those sages was and always will be simply divine.

My New Blog :D

YAY! I got a new blog now! I am still gonna keep this Qrratugai one, of course. The other's one just going to have academic themes only, and my audience will include scholars in Islamic studies, gender studies, ethnography, and other academic interests of mine. And I'm going to be posting all things related to gender and Islam there!!

The link to it is: Islam and Gender
Sorry I couldn't think of a more interesting title or link. But no worries: We can change the link any time we like, so if you've got better suggestions, lemme knooooooow, or don't complain.

Peace!

- Qrratugai

"Living Love" - what it means to love and be loved!

Yes, I remember the first time we talked. I was angry at him, and we talked about God. He had said something about a quality of mine that I never stopped reminding him for the rest of our life. Never you mind—you shouldn’t know that much. Just know that it was love. When we talked, love talked; love talked to us, and we talked to love. And we talked about love, and he’d tell me always that he did not believe in it; love was not for intelligent people, he’d say. Only I, of the billions of women in the world, had the honor to tell him, “You think you’re all that, but you’re not. Come down to earth. You’re worth no more than I am, and I believe in love.”

I remember, too, the first time he held my hand in his. I remember the warmth, the scent, the love, the respect. He said he could read palms, and so he took mine to pretend to read it. I knew he was lying. But it was the right thing to do with him—only with him. It took him several weeks to realize I could read his mind, because his mind was mine and mine was his and we were one, so he didn’t have to lie. Oh but how he lied! It was no Bollywood movie. I wanted him to hold it forever, and he did. He is still holding it.

Abu's Comments

Pa khairuno, Abu (Hurairah)! 

I hope all's well with you.

Kha, so, since the Chatter Box thingie is mostly for hi/bye/sup kinda talks, I figured I should create a whole new blog post for you where you can say anything you want in the comment box below. Feel free to ask all your questions, complain about Qrratugai's beliefs (lol :D), and say whatever else crosses your mind. I'll respond accordingly. 

I think this is better, but if you prefer the chatter-boxie, I guess I can live with that. 

Dre nim darzana manana, wror gwala!

- Qrratu

A Mother's Advice to Her Bride-Daughter

I just read this on some Facebook group, and, and, and . . . well, I wish I didn't have to say that I'm SO sorry for the poor bride who does take (some of) this advice! Consider the boldened parts, for example. Of course, some of it is very helpful, noble truths, I want to call them  -- but they don't apply to women alone; they could prove quite helpful for men as well (example: "Show him as much honor and respect as you can"; So I don't know why the emphasis had to be on the bride only.Yes, there's one point in which the mother tells the daughter to become like a servant to her husband --  but she adds that "so that he will become like a servant to you." I guess it's just that I can't see myself treating my husband like a servant or accepting servile treatment by him! Or that I would never be able to respect a man who cannot handle disagreements (the mother tells the daughter to always agree with her husband so that he will enjoy her company).

Khair, enjoy, folks!

Abd al-Malik (RA) said: "When 'Awf ibn Muhallim al-Shaybani, one of the most highly respected leaders of the Arab nobility during the jahiliyyah, married his daughter Umm Iyas to al-Harith ibn 'Amr al-Kindi, she was made ready to be taken to the groom, then her mother, Umamah came into her, to advise her and said:


'O my daughter, if it were deemed unnecessary to give you this advice because of good manners and noble descent, then it would have been unnecessary for you, because you posses these qualities, but it will serve as a reminder to those who are forgetful, and will help those who are wise.
'O my daughter, if a woman were able to do without a husband by virtue of her father's wealth and her need for her father, then you of all people would be most able to do without a husband, but women were created for men just as men were created for them.
'O my daughter, you are about to leave the home in which you grew up, where you first learned to walk, to go to a place you do not know, to a companion to whom you are unfamiliar. By marrying you, he has become a master over you, so be like a servant to him, and he will become like a servant to you.
'Take from me ten qualities, which will be a provision and a reminder for you.
'The first and second of them are: be content in his company, and listen to and obey him, for contentment brings peace of mind, and listening to and obeying one's husband pleases Allah.
'The third and fourth of them are: make sure that you smell good and look good; he should not see anything ugly in you, and he should not smell anything but a pleasant smell from you. Kohl is the best kind of beautification to be found, and water is better than the rarest perfume.
'The fifth and sixth of them are: prepare his food on time, and keep quiet when he is asleep, for raging hunger is like a burning flame, and disturbing his sleep will make him angry.
'The seventh and eight of them are: take care of his servants (or employees) and children, and take care of his wealth, for taking care of his wealth shows that you appreciate him, and taking care of his children and servants shows good management.
'Know, O my daughter, that you will not achieve what you would like to until you put his pleasure before your own, and his wishes before yours, in whatever you like and dislike. And may Allah choose what is best for you and protect you." (Jamharah Khutah al-'Arab, 1/145)
'Be careful, O my daughter, of showing joy in front of him when he is upset, and do not show sorrow in front of him when he is happy, because the former shows a lack of judgment whilst the latter will make him unhappy.
'Show him as much honour and respect as you can, and agree with him as much as you can, so that he will enjoy your companionship and conversation.
'The ninth and tenth of them are: never disclose any of his secrets, and never disobey any of his orders, for if you disclose any of his secrets you will never feel safe from his possible betrayal, and if you disobey him, his heart will be filled with hatred towards you.

Honors Thesis Topic Finalized at Last!

Hurray for me! I FINALLY (no, really -- I MEAN finally!) settled on a topic that not only interests and fascinates me but is also extremely relevant to modern affairs among Muslims, especially South Asian Muslims. I'm still gonna continue my digging for works on honor and Pashtun women, but that'll have to wait until I am working on my PhD dissertation! If, when the time comes, I realize that I wanna deal with gender in Islamic law and hermeneutics and Islam and feminism or something else, then no biggie at all: I'll just do my fieldwork in Swat/Pashtunkhwa whenever my future allows me, ka khair wee.

What's my topic, you ask? Ahhh, what but the notion of authority in Islam and the great and highly revered Zakir Naik, beloved friends! Now, any thesis adviser will tell you that that's just not specific enough, that it needs to be narrowed down. Sure thing - not to worry: I will deal with Zakir Naik and women's rights and his views on women in other religion, or in the west. (You know how he's always attacking the west for its representation of women. He lives in this ideal world in which women are treated with so much respect and love, and they're so appreciated for EVERYTHING that they do for the world. And the west, this infidel west, is nothing but a bad, bad, bad place for women. He's also always attacking other religions, appearing like an authority on other religious scriptures when anyone who just thinks about what he's really saying about those religions can figure out the wrong things he's teaching about those religions! It's truly a crisis. Muslims listen to them with the idea that "as Muslims, we're the only ones right. Everyone else is wrong. Let's just wait for Zakir Naik to tell us how they're wrong." Dude! Come ON! Read yourself! Study yourself!...k, yeah.) And, so, I think it's important and needs to be discussed in the academic world.

Last year, my "Islam in South Asia" professor asked me what suggestions, if any, I might have for him to make the course not only more appealing but wider in scope as well. Well, the first thing I said was: Academic scholars, especially those educated in western or other secular institutions, have little to no influence on Muslims' lives and belief systems; it is preachers like Zakir Naik, Ahmad Deedat, Yusuf Estes, etc. who have more power, more authority, and more influence. When we discuss Islam in South Asia, we NEED to talk about these figures because, although we strongly disagree with them and are aware of their lack of deep knowledge of Islam, it is THEY who everyone listens to. And so I suggested to my professor that he either write something on this himself or then search for some. You shouldn't graduate with an Islamic Studies badge unless you understand what power preachers like the above-mentioned ones have over Muslims and why Muslims look up to them to begin with.

More about my thesis will be discussed in the academic blog I'm creating right now (it's taking time 'cause it has to have the PERFECT name, PERFECT literature, PERFECT style, PERFECT look -- everything perfect. You understand.), but this was just to say: I am happy and relieved that all worked out well after all :D Hey, now I know how to guide someone who might be in the position I was in these last few weeks!

Peace be upon the world!

Waiting for ... What?

Some weeks ago, friends and I gathered to talk about something very important and relevant in today's busy world: Why are we always busy, and why are we always waiting for the next break?

I meant to share this message a long time ago but forgot in the mean time and was reminded about it today by my sister who is taking a yoga class (which I recommend for every single human to try out if possible!!), and her coach is one of those people who starts off the class with the message to "Leave ALL your worries behind the door, and enter this room with the desire to be happy, to FEEL happy, to relax." Forget lessons on happiness; everyone defines it differently, but the one thing we NEED to agree on is to stop waiting for happiness to come to us and instead go to happiness ourselves.

Now, why're we always waiting for a break? Come Christmas Break, you can't enjoy, you can't relax because you have a lot of homework to do, a GRE/MCAT/GMAT/etc. to study for, a thesis to write, several books to read for academic purposes, and so on. The moment you TRY to relax, you can't enjoy it because you feel guilty that you're doing something fun when you should be, say, studying. But why? And, more importantly, DO you actually end up using every single minute of your life studying? No, of course not. That's humanly impossible, and even the most nerdest people among us can't and don't do it.

Then, once Christmas Break is over, first day of class/work and we're counting days till the next break visits us! Heck, stop waiting for breaks to visit you and go right up and visit those breaks!

So, relax and stop waiting for the next break. Dedicate a good amount of time of your life to taking rest, to relaxing, to doing something that you ENJOY -- be it what I do at times: Reflecting on the day's or week's events, my feelings, what good I've done, what bad I've done, what I've accomplished, what needs to be done. Believe it or not, just sitting alone with yourself and reflecting on your own life every now and then helps relaxes your mind quite a lot.

It's good to plan for the future, for the next moment, yes, but it's unwise to plan the tomorrow so much that you forget to live in the present.

Peace to all!

Back to Blogging :D

Hello, world!

So I decided to get back to blogging again. The main reason is that I'm really busy. Odd, I know. But what I mean is that because I'm busy with my academic life, I need something to do for pleasure as well, something that benefits not only me but others as well. I mean, reading is the most exciting thing to do -- okay, ranking after the most beautiful baby girl in the world (that'd be my niece, yes) -- but that's just for myself. My blogging, however, has benefits for my readers as well, yeah? Writing blog posts could be way of taking a break from the serious moments in my life -- serious like choosing which freaking grad schools to apply to, who my advisers should be, and so on. They give me a headache just thinking about them, you see.

Bottom line: Blogging's the best. don't understand why more people don't turn to blogging. Really, it's such a great medicine for the mind and soul!

Okay, so I have some ideas, and I'm gonna try to share them here.

1. The "really important" things are at last done with: The professional blog, owned by my summer research adviser, that I was monitoring is still running, but since I'm not involved in the research this semester and will be getting back to it either during the Winter Break, ka khairee, I don't have to post in it until then.

2. I need to have an academic blog that'll aid the studies and research of students of Islamic Studies, Gender/Women/Queer Studies, and Religious Studies as well as (Muslim and/or Pashtun) women and other interested individuals. In this blog, the tone of which must be as professional as it can get, I will discuss the books, articles, and other literature that I find important and worth reading and provide PDF links to them (technology: the best thing humans have come up with as of yet! Every time I read a book or something I love, I immediately contact the author. Some of them are kind and generous enough to send me PDF files of their other works! How beautiful that be?!). I also have a gazillion and a quarter ideas for research on Pashtuns, especially Pashtun women, as well as on Muslims in general, and since I may not live long enough to accomplish the goals I have set for myself, someone else needs to hear those ideas so that they may be enforced if/when possible.


3. Coming up with a topic for an honors thesis is one of the most torturous moments of a student's life! Those of you who have been through it share the sentiment. Oh geez, I spent the entire summer reading books to include in my thesis, or to compile a good enough bibliography for the thesis, but it turns out ... I'm not satisfied with that! I need something more intellectually stimulating than what I'd chosen. Khair, I will discuss this in the next blog post -- my honors thesis dilemma and all. But, needless to say, I refuse to quit here and am going to have a highest honors by the end of April 2011, ka khairee.

4. Zakir Naik!!!!! Maaan!! I can't WAIT to write something on this guy! It turns out, my honors thesis MIGHT be on this guy's influence on (South Asian) Muslims! I haven't shared this possibility with my adviser, so it's possible that he disagree with it, but we'll see. (The reason he might disagree is that we have discuss Islamic Feminism and Islamic law extensively, and we had initially hoped to have the thesis on that. More about this later.)

All right, now. So the summary is:

- Blogging is good for the mind!
- I will be creating a new blog that will be for academic purposes only. This one will remain my space for ranting :D
- I need ideas for an honors thesis topic, and I'm still listening to whatever anyone has to suggest.

Peace! I'll be back later.

The Misunderstood Role of the Hijab

 So, a conversation with a great teacher the other day made me realize something that I'd always known and believed but hadn't really thought about: when you wear a hijab, you're expected to be ... abnormal. Allow me to elaborate.

You see, a hijabi girl is not allowed to smoke, drink, talk to non-related males; she must walk properly, dress properly, and be perfect and "modest" (whatever this term means) in every other way. But why? Why does she have to be burdened with all of this? Meaning, if she's gonna do these things without the hijab on, why can't she do them WITH the hijab on, too? People often say, "What's worse is when a HIJABI smokes -- or wears tight jeans or hugs males or laughs loudly in public," etc. But why can't she do this? Why deny her these things just because her hair is covered? And why're we even assuming that she's wearing the hijab out of choice? Why are we ever SHOCKED when we see a hijabi girl holding a boy's hand (a boy who's not her husband)? If you smoke, why should you be forbidden from doing it just because you wear the hijab, for example? Or if you hold your partner's hand in public, why should you be forbidden from holding it in public just because you wear the hijab? Of  course, like everything else, this can be viewed in different ways, both negative and positive. One way could be that when you wear the hijab, you start to represent not only Islam but all Muslims. Hence, you MUST be behave in a way that the ideal Muslim would behave -- or else. Another way could be that wearing the hijab, deemed a symbol of modesty and virtue, means that you are striving to become a better Muslim, which means that you must avoid everything that you're expected to avoid. As a result, since smoking is not something that "good girls" do, hijabi girls, who are normally seen as "good girls," shouldn't smoke. If you don't wear the hijab, however, then you may do so, since you don't have to worry about carrying the burden of representing an entire faith and over a billion people worldwide.

Still, though, why all these expectations with one choice? I mean, it's not even like all females who wear the hijab do so out of choice. Why should they, too, have to do everything they're expected to do just because they cover their hair?

So what I now wonder is . . . why can't you wear the hijab and be "normal" at the same time? In other words, if, for a hijabi woman, doing something without the hijab is normal or something that she would do if she were NOT wearing the hijab, why does it have to become abnormal or unacceptable with the hijab on?

P.S. I imagine folks twisting my words and going around saying, "Qrratugai thinks that hijabi women should drink and smoke, wear indecent clothing, talk indecently, do everything indecent" and so on. hah. Oh believe me - such folks exist!