Plushness

I think I may have a snippet of how a person can turn from part of a family, community, and nation to an aggressive and ‘terroristic’ counterpart.

I missed my cousin who has long turned religious, and I thought it’s a good chance to meet up with her on my birthday, but then remembered that birthday celebrations are ‘sinful’ in her book.

She was always pious but with time her list of what is sinful grew. First she started going to classes in religion to know more. The she stopped listening to music because its ‘sinful’ to waste your time on music while you could listen to religious programs or the Quran. She then wore the hijab. She then wanted to employ only Muslim help in her household. She then enrolled her girls in an ‘Islamic’ nursery. They then graduated to an all-girls Islamic school.

This cousin is far from being a terrorist or an extremist but I can see how easy it is to call people who are seen to have a long list of sins ‘kuffar’ or ‘infidels’.

Sad it is that even the basics in Muslim rituals can be called ‘sinful’ or ‘bida3’, and its scary how the so called Islamic groups can stand in front of us (the blind) and lecture on how we were taught wrong and that all we’ve been doing is sinning all our lives. Example, 2 years ago in Hajj we had classes in between our rituals given by the administrators. We were shocked to learn that the way we do ‘widhoo2’ and the way we pray is all wrong! Of course our Hajj organizers were ‘Salaf’ who the Ikhwan call Kuffar and who call the ‘Ikhwan’ kuffar—so you can imagine how easily the Ministers and the rest of Kuwait can be called kuffar too.

Tammam.