Misconstrued Identities

I am what they call a "modern" Muslim. 

Scratch that. 

I am a British Muslim. 

And no, that does not mean that I want to blow to rubble my country and its people. Rather, that I hold the values of the West in one hand and the values of my faith in the other. To say that they are compatible with one another, that they go hand-in-hand is by no means an exaggeration.

I wonder when we forgot that, what it actually means to be living in Britain as a Muslim. I wonder when it became so complicated...when we made it so complicated.

I do not deny that my faith defines me. It is the framework of my life. But it is not a rigid structure of steel that cannot be moulded to embrace the values of the country in which I live.

I pray five times a day.
I fast for thirty days.
I read the holy book as often as I can.
I dress modestly despite not wearing the hijab.
I try to live my life by my faith as best as I can.

But I simultaneously embrace the rest of my life. Whilst I do all of the above, I am studying for a degree and working a 9-5 job, I go on holidays and hang out with my friends, I avidly keep up with the football and become obsessed with new books...

My faith isn't a rule book partitioned into "heaven" and "hell" with a list of bullet points that scream at me to do this and not to do that. It is an instruction manual, a guide on how to live a good life, and some steps are harder for some people than others. And that's okay. Everyone is on their own journey, struggling with the steps that they skip from time to time, but ultimately we're all just trying our best to implement our faith in our own ways, in our day-to-day life.

We were not made to hole ourselves up within four walls of a room with just a prayer mat and the instruction manual to read, shutting out the outside world and all the vices it tempts us to flirt with.

I don't know how or when we transformed our religion into a dark and destructive force of nature when in reality, it is beautiful and so unbelievably easy. I think we lost sight of what's truly important somewhere along the way. We've become so hung up on the small, insignificant things while bypassing the bigger picture.

The most beautiful part of our religion is how versatile it is. It is a tolerant, accepting, forgiving faith that actually teaches us to live. We have forgotten that we have been taught to seek knowledge, to become valuable members of society...give back to the people who willingly accept us into the throes of their society, to the people who may not be Muslim, but who have made our lives as Muslims so accessible.
We live in such an inclusive society - and we have somehow taken it upon ourselves to seclude ourselves from it. 

To ignore the outside world, to abandon the struggle in navigating it, only to create a life composed of certain people of certain views alone, is a destructive, narrow-minded, impossibly restricted lifestyle. Slowly adopting it is only ever going to damage the generations to come. Such an insular life in which you forget that the outside world exists is more destructive than it is beneficial.

Islam has always been about moderation, about finding the right balance, that middle ground that lets you live life in a wholesome, fulfilling manner while still remembering your morals and values as a Muslim. And if you forget or break them sometimes, it's okay. We were made to make our mistakes.

I wish we would stop with the nit-picking and actually understand just how much actions are judged by their intentions. It isn't a crime to embrace the festive fun of Christmas...to eat mince pies because you bloody love them, or have a huge family dinner because everybody has the day off, or to think that Christmas lights are the prettiest thing in the world. It isn't a crime to read Harry Potter because it's the best form of escapism on a rainy day, nor is it a crime to light sparklers on Bonfire night because it makes the garden look pretty.

Appreciate that you can be a Muslim and still embrace what makes living in Great Britain great and that it's not the worst thing in the world. 

I firmly believe that if your faith is the most important part of your life and you do your best to live by it, you can do absolutely everything you love within the boundaries it gently sets out.

If only we'd stop focusing on where everyone else is going wrong in their life and instead focused on the bigger things like simply being a good person. Our close-minded views and tight-lipped judgements have begun to betray the unprejudiced, humble teachings of our religion. The irony of hypocrisy does not go unnoticed.

Maybe if we all just made a bit more effort to blend our faith with the modern age and stopped acting like being Muslim in Britain is like mixing oil and water, we'd be living in a much more open-minded, happier and inclusive society.