Friday 31 July 2009

Positive Islam Blog or I LOVE ISLAM!!!!

I love Islam, I feel that there is a sense of balance, measure and justice in every aspect of this faith and I feel like it speaks the truth to me. Whether I turn to it with logic or intuition, whether I listen to what my heart say or probe the tenets of Islam with my questions, I find that the teachings of Islam stand up to my interrogations at every turn.

My faith guides me in my decisions, in the way I choose to live my life and in the way I conduct my relationships. It helps to reign in my baser instincts and as flawed as I am it encourages me to try and better myself.

With Islam, I find my position as a woman, a daughter, a mother and wife elevated. I find that everything I do has the potential to be infused with spirituality and become an act of worship – whether something as important as raising my children or as ordinary as washing the dishes.

I am very aware though, that the rest of the world does not necessary share my perception of my faith. There are those who deny the existence of any kind of Creator. There are those who believe in Him in a different manifestation or form to me. Living in London, I have come across people of every faith and no faith and most of the time our differences have been no problem, more a topic of discussion and an opportunity to enlighten each other.

I was stunned then when a few years ago I started surfing the web to learn more about Islam and Muslims and came across a level of vitriol I had no idea existed. First there were those sites that purported to be about Islam and created by Muslims. I would read and something would niggle at me as not being quite right. There would be a page of fact with one inaccuracy imbedded in that most people would not catch out but that would be very damaging to the reputation of Islam. I would follow the links to the home site and end up on the site of another faith! These were the subtle attempts at maligning my beautiful faith. Then there were the less subtle ones. Websites openly dedicated to offending Muslims, spreading lies about the faith and taking every opportunity to slander Islam and Muslims.

After stumbling upon one too many of these websites, blogs commentators and media articles I came to the point that I felt so upset that I no longer wanted to use the internet at all. This didn’t alleviate the fact that the nastiness was out there. In the end I decided to go one better and begin my own little blog. It wasn’t much, but I hoped that it would give an example of an ordinary Muslim woman with her ordinary life and family and with the same fears, desires and hope that everyone else has, albeit with her faith to help her along in her life. Not the oppressed woman or suicide-bomber we are all made out to be by some.

I wanted to take this one step further. I love it when I come across something positive about my faith and I love to share what I learn. So I thought I would collect all the good stuff in one place on my new blog: POSITIVE ISLAM. Please do come over and visit and leave me your feedback. Better still, if you see any articles, posts or websites online which show something good about Islam or Muslim’s please do e-mail me on umm_salihah@yahoo.co.uk and share in my little endeavour.



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