The greatest way to learn about a religion

Sorry I haven't been updating for so long. I've been busy trying to juggling a life with university and work. It's not fun. It's just not. But one of the great things that has developed since I've begun university again is that I have meant someone that has been teaching me an awful lot about Islam, particularly Shia Islam.

It has really reiterated in my mind that the best way to learn about a religion is to hang around people who actually practice, or have been bought up in it.

So needless to say my interest in Islam has been increasing with the introduction of this person in my life. This and the fact I visited the largest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia, in July.

The one thing I have noticed about hanging around with this person though, is how prejudiced Australia still is towards Muslims. It really is ridiculous, and it comes from people who you would never expect it. On telling my family for instance, the first words out of their mouths was "terrorist". I was so surprised because I literally thought targeting all muslims as terrorists was a thing of the past, or only the thinking of white rednecks. Not so. It can come from every corner of society in Australia - black and white. This is surprising because I would have thought oppressed peoples would understand how the media can totally misrepresent everything a certain societal group does.

And the other thing I have noticed his how prejudiced muslims can be towards each other, and the different sects. It's kind of like the Protestant-Catholic thing, well very much like that in fact. Sunnis don't like shias and shias don't like wahabis. But most of the time I understand that underlying the conflict is political or cultural, rather than religious factors. That's how I see it. Religion is so often used as a cover for political agendas or as justification for other acts.

This just reinforces the fact that Islam is not one homogenous religion. There is debate, their is conflict, there is similarity. This is like every other religion in the world, like every other belief system in the world. There is always going to be disagreement. So why is it that when a Muslim leader comes out and makes a comment, such as the infamous comparison of girls to uncovered meat, we take our outrage on the entire community? We use our outrage at the comments of one Muslim leader to lump in together Indonesians, Pakistanis, Lebanese, Afghans etc etc... people who come from completely different countries and who may have completely different interpretations of the holy texts.

But anyway, I will try and update more regularly now...


For now... a beautiful song from the movie Umrao Jaan. There is no reason, I just was watching it today and think the dancing is absolutely gorgeous.