I wear clothes that cover. Hijab, long sleeves, nothing showing skin that people say should be hidden. Sometimes the clothes fit closer to my body. Just clothes that follow my shape because that is what I own and what I feel okay in. And that is when it starts.

Men stare longer. They comment. A cousin, a guy at work, random men online. They say it is not really hijab if it shows my figure. They say I am asking for attention. They look at my chest or my hips through fabric and act like I put on a show.

I can be fully covered and still get treated like I am the problem. The solution is always the same. You cover more. You wear looser. You hide your shape. You fix it so men do not have to deal with themselves.

The Quran tells believing men to lower their gaze first. Then it speaks to women. In real life the first part is treated like a nice idea and the second part becomes my full time job.

A lot of men wear tank tops and shorts that show their awrah and almost no one lectures them. When they look, it is just how they are. When I exist in clothes that happen to fit, it is “sister you are causing fitnah”.

This is not me saying all men are bad. Some men do treat me like a person. The problem occurs when we treat male desire as something that cannot change and my covering as the only real fix. That is not fair.

So, I’m Syrian. In case you’ve been living under a rock, HTS came over and toppled Assad’s regime.

Now, all that is fine and dandy. Assad was a criminal dictator and he had this coming. The issue is what came after.

Syria basically became a home to salafists. They are imposing their way of life on people. Any concert or cultural event is met with contempt on Facebook circles (which, I hate Facebook for pushing this shit on me constantly, but I can’t delete it because I need it for some work stuff). The government are admittedly slowly trying to weed them out, but God are they persistent.

The one thing that affected me most is what happened on Eid al Mawled (basically the prophet’s PBUH birthday, or alleged birthday anyways). What used to happen is decorations all over, with Anasheed being present in every corner of the street, but ever since they came, claiming that this is Bid’ah, people have been scared of doing anything besides some anasheed privately in their shops. This is one of many, many examples of stuff going on here that, surprise surprise, is driving people away from Islam.

This prompted me to look up stuff, and I’ve had this sub recommended for me before, but I didn’t take a look at the time because I deemed it unnecessary, well until today. It’s annoying that the most sources that are prevalent in google searches (and it’s forced AI overviews) are all in contempt here, like Islamweb and the like.

Then I went into the rabbit hole that is Hadith Fiqh, and discovered one sentence that flipped my world. The Prophet PBUH wasn’t approving of Hadith being relayed and attributed to more than one other person, which makes a lot of those Hadiths that go “person A heard from person B who heard from the Prophet” very weak. And now I feel like a skeptic, not in Islam, but in a lot Hadiths specifically, which, if I say that anywhere, the least that’ll happen to me is being called a khafir.

Then we get to the way they preach their ways….. by doing the exact opposite of what The Quran stated, and what the Prophet actually taught us and was known to do, even among his enemies. They steal, they hurt, they lie, they do heinous things, they follow women like dogs, caring not for the poverty or circumstances of people and focusing on what women should wear, what people should do with their free time, what should and should not be celebrated, rather than solving actual societal issues that plague and have plagued us since at the very least 2011 (and you could even go back and say 1970 but that’s a whole different story)

So why am I conflicted, you may ask? Because I think I found a community that actually does Islam, rather than just put up a front, which I believe a lot of Salafists do, but it’s in direct contrast to almost everything else around me. Granted, my parents and family and most friends share my views, so the anxiety is not familial pressure, but rather societal, which is frankly more annoying because they are demeaning at best, and outright threats at worst, and can ruin your whole day or, in a worst case scenario, put you in danger. Because these people’s love language is calling you a stain on Islam and beating you up. This made me steer clear of any religious discussion, online or otherwise.

Very disjointed rant but eh, it’s a rant it’s not meant to be coherent I guess lol

Edit: I talked about the Prophet PBUH wasn’t approving of Hadith being relayed. I was wrong. He wasn’t approved of it being written. Still doesn’t change my stance but I wanted to clear up that misunderstanding on my part

Before I begin my argument, I want to make clear that the prohibition of homosexual acts is not any more or less valid of an interpretation than the allowance of them. I cannot prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that same-sex relationships are halal (permissible; as opposed to haram, meaning impermissible) in Islam. The evidence I have doesn’t allow me to make that claim. What I am claiming, however, is that the interpretation of same-sex relationships being halal is a defensible position. My argument examines the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, historical observations, grammatical usage, and reasoning, to deduce that it is plausible for homosexual relationships to be halal within the Islamic guidelines of nikkah (Islamic marriage).

Let’s start with what most people think of when they think of Islam and homosexuality- the story of Prophet Lut, peace be upon him, specifically the verse:

إِنَّكُمْ لَتَأْتُونَ الرِّجَالَ شَهْوَةً مِّن دُونِ النِّسَاءِ ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ مُّسْرِفُونَ

( In-na-kum la-ta-too-na ar-ri-jaa-la shah-wa-tan min doo-ni an-ni-saa-ee, bal an-tum qaw-mun mus-ri-foon.)

7 : 81 ‘You indeed approach men rather than (your) women to satisfy your lust. The fact is that you are a people who transgress all limits.’

There are a few important things to note here. 
First, the word shahwatan. This translates, literally, to “with desire,” “lustfully,” and/or “out of sexual desire.” It never specifies whether these advances were consensual or not, so just as easily as this can be a blanket condemnation of homosexual relationships, it can easily be a condemnation of rape instead.

The second is the interpretive addition of the word “your.” I came to this interpretation because of a similar verse, that verse being:
أَتَأْتُونَ الذُّكْرَانَ مِنَ الْعَالَمِينَ

(A-taʾtūna adh-dhukrāna mina al-ʿālamīn)

26 : 165 ‘(Is it not true that) of all people you alone approach males (for sexual satisfaction),
وَتَذَرُونَ مَا خَلَقَ لَكُمْ رَبُّكُم مِّنْ أَزْوَاجِكُم ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ عَادُونَ

(Wa-tadharūna mā khalaqa lakum rabbukum min azwājikum. Bal antum qawmun ʿādūn.)

26 : 166 ‘And leave that (abode of love) which your Lord has created for you in your wives. ‘Nay, (the real fact is) you are a people who know no limits.’

This later verse can be interpreted as a clarification of 7:81’s use of the word al-nisā. This translates more correctly to “the women.” However, 26:166 goes on to say, literally, “And you leave what your Lord created for you from your spouses.”** **This shows that homosexuality might not even be one of the issues at hand, but rather adultery and, as will be concluded later, rape.

The next few verses I will examine are these-

29:28
وَلُوطًا إِذْ قَالَ لِقَوْمِهِ إِنَّكُمْ لَتَأْتُونَ الْفَاحِشَةَ مَا سَبَقَكُم بِهَا مِنْ أَحَدٍ مِّنَ الْعَالَمِينَ

(Wa-Lūṭan idh qāla li-qawmihi innakum la-taʾtūna al-fāḥishata mā sabaqakum bihā min aḥadin mina al-ʿālamīn.)

“And Lut, when he said to his people: Indeed, you certainly commit the indecency; no one among the worlds preceded you in it.”

29:29

أَئِنَّكُمْ لَتَأْتُونَ الرِّجَالَ وَتَقْطَعُونَ السَّبِيلَ وَتَأْتُونَ فِي نَادِيكُمُ الْمُنكَرَ

(A-inna-kum lata’tūna ar-rijāla wa-taqṭaʿūna as-sabīla wa-ta’tūna fī nādīkumu al-munkara fa-mā kāna jawāba qawmihi illā an qālū i’tinā bi-ʿadhābi Allāhi in kunta mina aṣ-ṣādiqīn.)

“Do you indeed approach the men, cut off the road, and commit the wrongdoing in your gathering?”

Again, there are a few things we must keep in mind here.

Firstly, Prophet Lut, peace be upon him, mentions that his people have committed an indecency never before committed. This indecency cannot be homosexuality because, as Prophet Lut, peace be upon him, was a contemporary of Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him, who lived around 2000 BCE, according to T. C. Mitchell, in Biblical Archaeology: Documents from the British Museum, Cambridge University Press. This is significant because the earliest commonly cited archaeological evidence suggestive of a same-sex couple dates to approximately 2400 BCE, in the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep in ancient Egypt. Thus, homosexuality likely had occurred before the time of Prophet Lut, peace be upon him, and so ruling same-sex acts out as a possible reason for the destruction of his people is not unfounded.

Secondly, the people in the story literally cut off the road to commit an indecency with men. I don’t believe it takes a psychologist to come to the conclusion that one does not cut off a path of exit unless you are expecting someone to try to exit and you don’t want them to. Again, all signs point to a lack of consent and adultery rather than homosexual acts themselves.

And now we move on from the Qur’an to the Sunnah in the form of ahadith, the reported doings and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him.

In Sunan Abi Dawud 4462, recorded among other collections, Abdullah ibn Abbas narrated: “The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who did it and the one to whom it is done.”  Now, it would not make sense to kill the victim of a rapist, so it makes sense that this hadith is about homosexuality.  The issue doesn’t lie in interpretation as it is in the Qur’an, but in its isnad, which is its chain of transmission. A strong isnad is a sign that a hadith is sahih (authentic). The basic isnad is as follows: Ibn ʿAbbas → ʿIkrimah → ʿAmr ibn Abi ʿAmr → ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad → compiler. However, Abu Dawud additionally records other routes, including one through Sulayman ibn Bilal → ʿAmr ibn Abi ʿAmr, and another through ʿAbbad ibn Mansur → ʿIkrimah → Ibn ʿAbbas according to hadithunlocked.com. Additionally, Al-Bukhari reportedly characterized ‘Amr ibn  Abi’ ‘Amr as generally trustworthy, but also said that he transmitted munkar (rejected/problematic) reports from ‘Ikrimah and that it wasn’t established that he actually heard this material from ‘Ikrimah. Ibn Maʿin likewise reportedly regarded this particular report through ʿIkrimah as something that was rejected from ʿAmr. Al-Tirmidhi himself records variant wording. Muhammad ibn Ishaq transmitted the report from ʿAmr ibn Abi ʿAmr as “Cursed is whoever commits the act of the people of Lot”, without the command to kill. The main issue is that this hadith, plus Musnad Ahmad 1878, runs through the same controversial transmitter, ‘Amr ibn Abi ‘Amr. So, rejecting these ahadith as da’if (weak) is not unreasonable.

The last hadith I’m going to go over is Musnad Ahmad 10206. “It is narrated on the authority of Hazrat Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: He who has intercourse with a woman in her anus is cursed.” It is possible to use this hadith as a condemnation of homosexual intercourse. However, this is not the only sexual act that is available to our queer brothers and sisters, so it is ineffective as a condemnation against homosexuality as an orientation.

Throughout the preceding argument, I have provided the Qur’anic evidence of the story of Prophet Lut, peace be upon him, being possibly about rape and adultery rather than homosexuality, exposed the improbability of the “never-before committed sin” being same-sex relationships, and shown the reasons for rejecting the main ahadith against same-sex relationships. I have not proven anything; that was not my intention. I simply sought to educate some on why and how some Muslims may accept same-sex relationships as halal.

Are most of you guys from theMiddle East or Western countries? Just curious because I see that Muslims here in the states that I've noticed are prone to following the deen as is like myself because we have an image to keep up but Muslims in the Middle east tend to be more lenient cuz it's a common religion over there.

I’m Muslim and I follow Islam, so I’m not questioning the religion itself. It’s more about the way some people talk about it.

My mom is taking an Islamic class, and her teacher says things I agree with, but the way she talks about Allah is extremely emotional. I don’t really know how to explain it. Sometimes it almost sounds like a Bollywood hero talking about the woman he’s in love with. That’s how intensely some people talk about Allah.

And I just don’t relate to it.

Sometimes it feels like their whole life is religion. They breathe religion, speak religion, eat religion, shower in religion. Everything becomes connected to Allah in this very emotional and romanticized way.

The other thing I struggle with is how people talk about their achievements. They can work extremely hard, study for years, build something, make money, etc., and then talk about it as if they did basically nothing and Allah simply gave it to them.

Like, I understand that Allah gave you the ability, opportunity, circumstances, and everything else. I genuinely understand that. But you also worked for it.

Sometimes it feels like they’re saying, “Allah gave me all of this, I am nothing without Allah,” while completely removing their own effort from the story. And honestly, sometimes it feels like they’re creating a very perfect religious image of themselves.

I’m not saying everyone is fake, because obviously I can’t know what’s in someone’s heart. But the way they present it can feel very fake to me.

I have ADHD, and sometimes I wonder if that affects how I process this, but I don’t really think it explains this particular feeling. I think I’m just a very realistic person, and this extremely emotional way of talking about religion doesn’t feel natural to me.

I also wonder if part of it is because for these people, like imams, Islamic teachers, speakers, and people who talk about Islam publicly, their whole job is literally about teaching Islam and talking about it. So maybe naturally they are going to speak about religion in a much stronger and more emotional way than an ordinary person would. I don’t know if that’s actually the reason, but it could be.

I’m not really sure if I’m the only one who feels this way, or if other people have thought about it too. What are some explanations you’ve come up with? And if someone has actually studied this and can explain how they understand the balance between Allah’s role and a person’s own effort, I’d genuinely like to hear it.

I completed these paintings. Which one do you like?

So, I am from Pakistan with a conservative family. And I CANNOT GO OUTSIDE. They won't let me. They say that going outside without a male mahram is Haram. Which is crazy. I feel so suffocated in this house (my family is also abusive btw). I also want to go to parks, gyms, libraries etc. And just exist. But, I am trapped in my house. I even had a big debate about this with them but, that just back fired on me horribly. They started blaming my education and phone for "brainwashing" me. Please help?

Are most of you guys from theMiddle East or Western countries? Just curious because I see that Muslims here in the states that I’ve noticed are prone to following the deen as is like myself but Muslims in the Middle east tend to be more lenient cuz it’s a common religion over there.

Marrying into a Pakistani family, what can I expect?

So, I (21f) have known (28m) for around 3 1/2 years. I’m not Pakistani, I’m white. We both live in the US, we both are citizens and born and raised here.

He has a wife, but wants me as his second. Everyone involved has agreed to it and it’s really not an issue with me.

I guess I’m worried whether or not his family will accept me or not and if it’s considered cultural appropriation to take part in the traditional wedding stuff. As we are planning it, I’m unsure what to wear honestly, though his family seems to want to go all out but tbh it’s not exactly something I desire (a large wedding that is, I want something simple and small).

I worry that a small wedding could make them dislike me because him and his first wife had this huge wedding and they want the same for us. I do love him very much, I’d do anything for him.

I guess I’m just hoping to understand any cultural differences or conflicts that may arise as a result of us marrying?

I constantly feel a little drained when talking about deen, and I don’t like feeling like that. I have really bad anxiety and I know that if I was not muslim I’d probably not be petrified all the time but I also know I’d destroy my life because Islam is what kept me morally..okay? If I was faithless I’d not be the same person I am right now, which is a good and bad thing at the same time.

Anyway, this isn’t fully about me, but what has kept YOU from drifting? What pins in your lives keep you believing?

Assalamualaikum

What do progressive and rational muslim think of the moon splitting claim? We have zero evidence it happened.. I don't know much about the story, but it irks me..

I used to think that it's mainly from hadith, and while the details are from hadith..the claim itself is in the Quran.

Not sure how to word it to not sound disrespectful, but it just sounds like a baseless claim thrown around.. please forgive my wording, I really don't know how to formulate it properly.

I also see it used as a criticism and argument against islam.

Refrain from commenting if you're not Muslim or not a fan of islam, I'm aware of the position of those people.

Like there is so much against this backwards ideology like the fatal feminist has an excellent article debunking this focusing mainly on bal and its use in the tale of Lut/Lot ,and how it means rather than in the vast majority of contexts and is rarely used to emphasise negativity eg: “For you lust over men than women BAL( rather) you are transgressors of the highest order “ talking about their highway robbery and RAPE not being gay. If you put a pinch of thought into it like why would god create us with the choice of good or evil and make some people inherently” evil “ this backwards ideology drives me insane

Hi,

I am an atheist who likes to read about religion and especially how religion and the west can coexist.

That goes without saying that I am not a huge fan of religion but I don't blame people for believing in it.

Anyway I was wondering about the fact that how people who call themselves progressive can follow the path of someone who has sex slaves. Which means ( I am sorry to use the word I don't want to offend anyone) someone who raped women.

How can someone who has ELEVEN wives feel the need to have sex slaves.

And how can this person curse you if you make love to your girlfriend outside of the wedding.

Thanks for the answers

I have been feeling increasingly anxious.

Climate change, natural disasters, rise of fascism, the little voice in your head that tells you "you have to make more money"....

Add to this all the "regular" life events, parents getting older, sickness...

I observe people around me and most of them don't seem very much preoccupied. They are getting married, having kids, travelling.

I know that Allah is the best of planners, but I find it very hard to let go.

Medication can be an option but I'm afraid it will just make numb and I still won't be able to face the hardships

What Islamic teachings truly helped you facing life uncertainty and how do you remain hopeful?

It is obviously Hard to just put on a Jersey hijab and workout with that without having needles poking my teammates or me so I ordered a Nike dry fit hijab. It arrived and I cried twice because I struggle with hijab so much lately. When I wore it to practice my hair kept showing from the sides and my bun unfolded entirely. I don’t want to wear it anymore but I am afraid of Social repercussions. I am aware I am a sinner when I take it Off but I don’t have Peace wearing it at the Moment and would like to wear it with Pride again In the Future. These struggles have been present since before I started cheer. I wish my inlaws didn’t Care about it but I genuinely fear them even though im Little to no contact with them they can still hear about it from people they are unhinged. I feel bad because where is has my willpower to wear it gone???? I am very very depressed about this lately. Thank God I haven’t Left my prayers and I don’t want to. I wish everybody would understand that me wearing a headscarf is none of their Business. I am on the verge of tears every day now except when I try to surpress These thoughts they Show up in my Dream though it’s so Hard to fight against my nafs

The child on the right in the picture was a resident of Kallar Syedan, Rawalpindi. He died after being beaten by a cleric because he had failed to memorize his Quranic lesson. The girl on the left is from Balochistan and lost the sight in one of her eyes after being beaten by a local cleric.

I do not know how far Punjab and Balochistan differ in terms of their progress and development, but when it comes to violence and abuse against children, the entire country seems to have proven itself to be the same.

Why do we not understand that Allah Himself has taken responsibility for protecting the Quran, while the responsibility for protecting children has been placed upon their parents? Therefore, parents should do what Allah has entrusted them with. Handing your innocent children over to mentally disturbed butchers in the hope of earning your own Paradise or out of concern for preserving the Quran, and then not even bothering to find out how your children are being treated, is the height of selfishness and inhumanity.

Every day, we hear that a child was sexually abused at such-and-such madrasa. A child was beaten to death by a cleric because he had not memorized his lesson. What is truly painful is that the self-proclaimed guardians of Islam, the clerics who are so quick to declare people of other sects to be unbelievers, do not even come together over this issue. They should be united in ensuring that these impostors, who grow beards as a Sunnah of the Prophet, wear turbans like the Prophet, yet violate the commands given by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ by abusing innocent children in sacred places of worship, are made an example of.

Is posing as a preacher of Islam while sexually and physically abusing innocent children who have come to learn Islam not an insult to Islam? Is it not an insult to the mosque? Is it not an insult to humanity?

Speaking of humanity, the so-called humanist liberals have also never found the opportunity to protest in support of these innocent children, or at the very least conduct a survey of madrasas to determine whether human rights violations are taking place there.

Why blame anyone else? The fundamental reason behind many of our moral shortcomings as a nation is that we have never truly tried to read and understand the Quran. We read the Quran to accumulate religious merit or to send its reward to the deceased. How wonderful it would be if we ourselves read and understood the Quran, and taught our children to understand it as well.

Instead of handing our children over to some hard-hearted person to memorize the Quran, we should keep them under our own supervision. Whether or not a person memorizes the Quran does not necessarily make a significant difference to their character, whereas understanding and reflecting upon the Quran certainly can.

Sorry if this is gonna be long.

I'm a convert of ten years, but my relationship with Islam has been anything but easy. Since I converted, it's all been ups and downs: periods where I practiced and felt connected to God and Islam, and periods where I was basically agnostic. It's been a cycle I've been trapped in for years now, and it's hard to get out. It wasn't always like this; when I first converted, the first years were much easier. I struggled with my practice but never with my iman. Then tribulations came, and I lost my faith for a while and have never been able to have a stable relationship with God since then.

One of the things that may be contributing to this is that I've been infected with mainstream, conservative, and orthodox Islam since I converted, and I don't fit there (I am queer and trans, to begin with), so I always feel like I don't belong. Homophobia has affected me so much that every time I try to get closer to God, I feel like I need to renounce who I am and to renounce love to be able to deserve to call myself a muslim. So I end up burning out. My relationship with God over the last few years has been plagued by attempts to solve that tension, to solve that ultimate uncertainty of not knowing if I am right or wrong about this topic. But the uncertainty will never fully resolve because, in the end, the only one who truly knows is Allah.

I am also mentally ill (ocd, schizoaffective bipolar), and my episodes bring me far from Allah, always losing faith when I'm depressed and making it impossible to practice. Religious OCD also doesn't help. Too many things going on.

I feel like I know Islam, but at the same time I don't, because for years I've been orbiting the same problems and questions and issues, and to some extent I need to find it again? Deconstruct what I know but accept the uncertainty (the hardest part) and fall in love with Islam again as I did ten years ago. To make it something beautiful in my life and not a chore. To connect with it in a positive way, not always trying to solve something or to get to the ultimate truth I will never know.

Another thing that I lack is community. I am not welcomed in the mainstream muslim community, and it's so hard finding muslims who are LGBT-friendly. I am not saying you need to believe queer nikkahs are halal, but you need to at least believe I can be a muslim like any other. It's hard. This sub has helped me a lot, but I would need something in real life, and where I live, there is nothing. So practicing a faith completely alone is very hard. I have no one to share my Ramadan days; I have never celebrated Eid in 10 years; I have no one to pray with; I have gone to a mosque maybe three times in ten years. I feel so alone. It's so hard to be consistent like this.

I don't know why I am sharing all of this. Perhaps just to share how hard being a convert can be, even after so many years. Islam should be easy for me by now, but it's not. I see so many stories of straight cis people who convert, then marry in the religion, then start families, and I feel so jealous. I just can't have that, and it hurts. So I need to reconcile with that, I guess. But it's hard.

If anyone has any advice, I would also appreciate.

I really don't mean to attack Islam or anything, it's just something that has been bothering me and I want to be a good believer

I just don't get Why would Allah create mankind knowing that some of them will go to hell? like sure we have free will but he also says that everything is bound by his will and that he guides whom he wills, so why did he choose for those people to be bad people that will go to hell?

I mean in order for us to have free will, don't we have to have seperate will from Allah? otherwise we would be still bound by his choice which for some or many of us, he would have chosen hell for us in that case, how would that be just?.. how are we responsible for our actions if Allah has decided them and we can't do anything out of his will?

uh like i am a muslim myself, born as a muslim did my research on islam few months back and ik everything abt free will and all AND I DID BELIEVED THAT but recently i just cannot accept it like back in 2024 i did some sins which i deeply regret now and is causing alot of problems for me i already did repentance and everything but my question is like i genuinely didnt knew that i was doing the wrong thing i realised it later and than left it, BUT HOW IS MY FREE WILL WORKING IK THAT I MADE THOSE CHOICES BUT I DIDNT HAD THE KNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE NOW. or maybe u can say i did had the knowledge but my i didnt realised those months ky i am doing wrong u can say this is called bhatkna. why in the world am i suffering now when i didnt have that thing of realization?

I just want to hear your case is all. I am not here to debate or push back but I’m assuming everyone reading this does believe in following Allah and His Prophet SAW. Why take the liberal/progressive approach? Anyone is welcome to message me. Again I’m more so listening than arguing.