this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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Showerthoughts
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While there must certainly be some devout Muslims who try their best to keep the "rules", as I'd expect in any group, a lot of Muslims are not so different frombthe rest of us non-Muslims.
My coworker is a former Muslim who had to leave his home country due to persecution when he became a Christian. Here, he's made Muslim friends who regularly invite him over for dinner and they serve... Pork. They say because he is not a Muslim, they respect that and don't force him to eat halal. But why does not forcing him to eat halal equate to them eating pork?
They are genuinely his friends, but he is also their "excuse" to break halal.
LOL, that's funny. They're definitely making an excuse to eat pork.
The Muslims I know are pretty strict about following the commandments. Of course nobody's perfect, but they pray 5 times per day, take their prayer rug to work, and follow their dietary restrictions. Of course I'm not around them all the time though, that's just what I've seen.
The person who is the most serious about it that I know isn't Arabic or Persian. He's an African American living in the American South, and he's very serious about his religion. The Muslims I know that seem the most relaxed about it are immigrants from Iran. Several of their first generation American kids are atheists.
I live in Malaysia, and Islam is the dominant religion here. Yet every store has a "haram corner" where they sell alcohol and pork, and some smaller supermarkets are even completely non-halal by default.
And while I haven't seen a muslim eating pork, I had a few beers with some on several occasions. And I haven't seen or heard anyone praying, with the exception for Malacca city, which is apparently a bit of a stricter area.
I guess every religion old enough has such kind of loopholes. I know from Roman Catholic that there can be made up so many exceptions that the 40 days of lent before Easter books down to a few days of actually fasting. No lent if you're travelling (commute to work counts), no lent if you have guests, and of course no lent if you are a guest somewhere else. And Sunday is exempt from lent anyways.
When I was in Dubai for work it was explained to me that while it is prohibited to drink alcohol for Muslims under normal situations, they are allowed to have alcohol as part of business meetings/dinners since they court an international audience for various business prospects which is crucial for their economic future as a county.
Supposedly, that's why everyone has a "business", and you always see 2 bros in white robes chillin at a restaurant having drinks for a "meeting".