I was raised Muslim and I am not a very frequent practicing Muslim.

I go to the Mosque for Eid prayers. I celebrate Eid and try to fast during Ramadan.

I never drank in college, socialized too much with the opposite sex etc until after I graduated.

I started to slowly drink socially at Happy Hours and such since it seemed an easy way to get to meet and know more people.

A few years out, I don't drink anymore. I satisfued my curiosity and I do not find drinking very appealing. I'll have a glass of wine every few months with friends but I have never been drunk in my life.

I may have some photos on my social media with me holding a drink from those days. I did block all of my parents' religious friends who would be scandalized.

I don't want to offend anyone or put my parents in an awkward situation.

Anonymous wrote:Two points, for the general DCUM population, not just for this OP.

1. I've noticed that traffic has really slowed down on this site lately.

This is off topic and doesn't really belong in this thread. But you're talking about posters like me. I used to come on here all the time, but now I drop in every few days or even once a week.

2. There seem to be more baity trolls than ever before, like this one. What's with that?

Anonymous wrote:
you are a fundie b/c you keep using the word madhab for different schools of thought within Islam- ordinary, non extremist Muslims use the word madhab for a different religion altogether- Islam is our Madhab, only religious extremists are so bent on the purity and rightness of their particular school that they refer to other schools within the single madhab of Islam as a different madhab altogether. I don't drink and don't agree with the above poster b/c paradise isn't a real place - we don't go to hawaii when we die- but I think this is one of the things that immediately struck me as strange and frankly alarming about your language use. If you aren't that sort of person, you shouldn't use that kind of language- only crazy ppl who support Mumtaz Qadri say stuff like that

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35684452

I disagree with you that ordinary Muslims use the word "madhab" for a different religion altogether. First of all, they don't, madhabs are pretty specific to Muslim thought, no Muslim would say that Christians follow a different madhab, that just doesn't happen at all. Second of all, it would be more accurate to say that ordinary Muslims are not aware of different madhabs and their distinctions, and that is why they don't use that word and don't classify themselves as followers of any particular one. You don't have to be an extremist to follow a particular madhab (or to be bent on its "purity"), it can be guided by your community, family or tradition in the place where you grew up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question to the Muslims on the thread:

If wine flows abundantly in Paradise what's wrong with drinking it on earth?

Would your answer vary depending on which "nation" you or your ancestors are from, on which madhhab is followed there?

Thank you.

Oh look, a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others. Shocking.

Please explain to us how making an accurate observation that wine flows in Paradise, then asking two questions depicts me
as:

"a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others."

How am I fundie? What am I failing to read, Oh wise one? And how am I criticizing anything?

you are a fundie b/c you keep using the word madhab for different schools of thought within Islam- ordinary, non extremist Muslims use the word madhab for a different religion altogether- Islam is our Madhab, only religious extremists are so bent on the purity and rightness of their particular school that they refer to other schools within the single madhab of Islam as a different madhab altogether. I don't drink and don't agree with the above poster b/c paradise isn't a real place - we don't go to hawaii when we die- but I think this is one of the things that immediately struck me as strange and frankly alarming about your language use. If you aren't that sort of person, you shouldn't use that kind of language- only crazy ppl who support Mumtaz Qadri say stuff like that

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35684452

You apparently are a Westernized Moslem, if you are Moslem at all, who resorts to the BBC for your "expertise."

I see you the BBC and raise you Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller a classic manual of Islamic sacred law,

translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Amana Publications, revised edition, 1994.

Available from Amazon.

First, you use the meme language of "extremist" Muslims, which tells me you know nothing about canonical Islam.

Observant Muslims don't believe they are being "extreme" by being observant. Secularist Westerners think to be observant is to be extreme. Thus the self-serving meme.

Guardian article, "Can we stop using 'moderate Muslims' because it's meaningless?" I don't have that cite memorized but it's available.

Prime Minister Erdogan, speaking at Oxford's Center for Islamic Understanding (from memory, it's close enough), said
There's no such thing as moderate Islam, there's just Islam.

Now, as for your "Islam is our Madhab...." your opinion is factually wrong.

Reliance:

Book B The Validity of Following Qualified Scholarship the four Sunni schools, obligation of following b7.6

To be Muslim means to worship Allah /the way the Prophet Muhammad worshipped Allah./
It isn't a do-it-yourself make it up as you go along thing.

You deny Paradise exists. I hope you don't believe that while continuing to call yourself Muslim, if you are.

I don't care what you think of me because if you are Muslim you are quite Westernized.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question to the Muslims on the thread:

If wine flows abundantly in Paradise what's wrong with drinking it on earth?

Would your answer vary depending on which "nation" you or your ancestors are from, on which madhhab is followed there?

Thank you.

Oh look, a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others. Shocking.

Please explain to us how making an accurate observation that wine flows in Paradise, then asking two questions depicts me
as:

"a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others."

How am I fundie? What am I failing to read, Oh wise one? And how am I criticizing anything?

you are a fundie b/c you keep using the word madhab for different schools of thought within Islam- ordinary, non extremist Muslims use the word madhab for a different religion altogether- Islam is our Madhab, only religious extremists are so bent on the purity and rightness of their particular school that they refer to other schools within the single madhab of Islam as a different madhab altogether. I don't drink and don't agree with the above poster b/c paradise isn't a real place - we don't go to hawaii when we die- but I think this is one of the things that immediately struck me as strange and frankly alarming about your language use. If you aren't that sort of person, you shouldn't use that kind of language- only crazy ppl who support Mumtaz Qadri say stuff like that

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35684452

I had a modern muslim friend who drank and ate pork!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just personal opinion. It seems reasonable to me that the Muslims who find themselves in Kufaar lands for professional reasons, or who emigrate here, are more attuned to our ways than those who are observantly Salafist.

Behavior that would be troublesome if not dangerous back home is remarked upon in the vein of, "Oh, you're an LDS/you're a Muslim who drinks...."

Many non-Muslims who've heard of that proscription know exceeding little about what Sunni Islam's holy texts say. Even fewer care to look and see what they say. Hearsay on the media is good enough for them.

Tangential to OP's question, I wonder how many Muslims here are more culturally Muslim than devout followers of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and whichever maddhab they identify with?

Devout Catholics tend to walk their talk. I would suppose devout Muslims do too.

Let's not confuse "Muslim-in-name-only," when the relatives are there to call them on it, with the observant living in predominantly Muslim locations.

By and large, different behavior.

Most Muslims don't even know what the text say. Alcohol isn't even forbidden - the real crime is drunkenness, or rather, the lapses in judgment that result from drunkenness. Wine is flowing abundantly in the Muslim version of heaven, where the time of judgment is over.

But Islamically speaking, a little bit of alcohol here and there is actually halal.

As is the pattern in the way many people practice their religion (Islam, Christianity, or otherwise), people tend to resort to extremes.

Actually that varies- many shiites believe that intoxication is forbidden, most sunnis believe that intoxicants are forbidden

as to the above person referencing salafi islam : most salafi/wahhabis think anyone who is not salafi/wahhabi is a munafiq/hypocrite and that it is their task to serve as gatekeepers of the umma and identify the munafiq within - most of these types of people don't believe in ayat 256 of sura al baqara ( They're shall be no compulsion in religion) or only believe that it applies to ppl who don't self identify as Muslim, they believe that if you self identify as Muslim anyone who has power can compel you to abide by their interpretation of Shariah.

Wine is not forbidden in the Quran- the way surah al maideh verses 90-91 are translated: intoxicants are forbidden but i know many muslims who believe it says intoxication is forbidden like the above poster. Since faith is between Allah and HIs creation and its not my job to judge, I stay away from intoxicants but respect other's beliefs and their self identification as Muslims. There are 600 plus commandments , maybe they are better at keeping some of those than I am, no-one else has any right to judge wether a Momin is one or not aside from the ONE worthy of worship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am Muslim and did drink socially for a couple of years. I would censor pics online (rather, avoid taking pics while imbibing). Almost all of the Muslims I know that drink or smoke (or wear revealing clothes) are similar.

OP here, and I have tended to do the same, as do most of those Muslims I know who drink, although I'm kind of tired of the censoring. It's kind of absurd - we all do it... and know many of our peers do... but why the censoring? Because of one or two aunties/uncles?

Your social media only has 1-2 aunties/uncles who'd judge? For me it would be my parents, every real aunt/uncle/much older cousin, and then the various aunties/uncles who aren't real family. IDK if my family is overly conservative or not; most of the older gen prays 5 times/day but no one does hijab etc., everyone wears American clothing etc. Not worth it to me. I can do what I do without pics - I rarely post pics anyway so I certainly wouldn't with drinks in hand.

++++++++++++

Disinterested observer here.

At what point do American Muslims, who may have been born here, so identify with Western ways,

and in practice distance themselves from what Islam calls you to do (for example, the Five Pillars)

that you are Muslim in name only? If that is the case, if your behavior is indistinguishable from your secular humanist friends,

why not end the charade by leaving Islam?

Can't speak for all American Muslims can only speak for myself. I don't view it as a "charade" any more than it is a charade that a Catholic who doesn't do much all year will go to church on Christmas and Easter; they believe at some level - but not at the level where they are going to mass and taking communion multiple times a week. So for me - cafeteria Muslim comes to mind. I do believe overall, I just don't practice in the restrictive way that it is "expected" - nor do I identify with the cultural restrictions so much, being born and raised in the US. So maybe it's a charade to you, but I want to do the parts that I do and others can practice how they want (and other Muslims can judge about how I'm doing it all wrong - bc that's what they do).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am Muslim and did drink socially for a couple of years. I would censor pics online (rather, avoid taking pics while imbibing). Almost all of the Muslims I know that drink or smoke (or wear revealing clothes) are similar.

OP here, and I have tended to do the same, as do most of those Muslims I know who drink, although I'm kind of tired of the censoring. It's kind of absurd - we all do it... and know many of our peers do... but why the censoring? Because of one or two aunties/uncles?

Your social media only has 1-2 aunties/uncles who'd judge? For me it would be my parents, every real aunt/uncle/much older cousin, and then the various aunties/uncles who aren't real family. IDK if my family is overly conservative or not; most of the older gen prays 5 times/day but no one does hijab etc., everyone wears American clothing etc. Not worth it to me. I can do what I do without pics - I rarely post pics anyway so I certainly wouldn't with drinks in hand.

++++++++++++

Disinterested observer here.

At what point do American Muslims, who may have been born here, so identify with Western ways,

and in practice distance themselves from what Islam calls you to do (for example, the Five Pillars)

that you are Muslim in name only? If that is the case, if your behavior is indistinguishable from your secular humanist friends,

why not end the charade by leaving Islam?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am Muslim and did drink socially for a couple of years. I would censor pics online (rather, avoid taking pics while imbibing). Almost all of the Muslims I know that drink or smoke (or wear revealing clothes) are similar.

OP here, and I have tended to do the same, as do most of those Muslims I know who drink, although I'm kind of tired of the censoring. It's kind of absurd - we all do it... and know many of our peers do... but why the censoring? Because of one or two aunties/uncles?

Your social media only has 1-2 aunties/uncles who'd judge? For me it would be my parents, every real aunt/uncle/much older cousin, and then the various aunties/uncles who aren't real family. IDK if my family is overly conservative or not; most of the older gen prays 5 times/day but no one does hijab etc., everyone wears American clothing etc. Not worth it to me. I can do what I do without pics - I rarely post pics anyway so I certainly wouldn't with drinks in hand.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question to the Muslims on the thread:

If wine flows abundantly in Paradise what's wrong with drinking it on earth?

Would your answer vary depending on which "nation" you or your ancestors are from, on which madhhab is followed there?

Thank you.

Oh look, a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others. Shocking.

Please explain to us how making an accurate observation that wine flows in Paradise, then asking two questions depicts me
as:

"a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others."

How am I fundie? What am I failing to read, Oh wise one? And how am I criticizing anything?

Anonymous wrote:Question to the Muslims on the thread:

If wine flows abundantly in Paradise what's wrong with drinking it on earth?

Would your answer vary depending on which "nation" you or your ancestors are from, on which madhhab is followed there?

Thank you.

Oh look, a fundie who can't read and likes to impart their judgment and criticism of others. Shocking.

Question to the Muslims on the thread:

If wine flows abundantly in Paradise what's wrong with drinking it on earth?

Would your answer vary depending on which "nation" you or your ancestors are from, on which madhhab is followed there?

Thank you.

I am not religious, but my family is Muslim and I avoid drinking pics on FB, it just not really worth dealing with the gossip and then stuff my mom would have to hear. Although I am sure all those aunties kids are drinking too.

Anonymous wrote:I am Muslim and did drink socially for a couple of years. I would censor pics online (rather, avoid taking pics while imbibing). Almost all of the Muslims I know that drink or smoke (or wear revealing clothes) are similar.

OP here, and I have tended to do the same, as do most of those Muslims I know who drink, although I'm kind of tired of the censoring. It's kind of absurd - we all do it... and know many of our peers do... but why the censoring? Because of one or two aunties/uncles?