#Ex Muslims of North America

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://quranx.com/hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-2608/

Narrated Anas ibn Malik: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: Go in Allah's name, trusting in Allah, and adhering to the religion of Allah's Apostle. Do not kill a decrepit old man, or a young infant, or a child, or a woman; do not be dishonest about booty, but collect your spoils, do right and act well, for Allah loves those who do well.

https://quranx.com/hadith/Muslim/Reference/Hadith-1745/

It is reported on the authority of Sa'b b. Jaththama that the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ), when asked about the women and children of the polytheists being killed during the night raid, said: They are from them.

https://www.alim.org/hadith/fiqh-sunnah/4/89/

An-Nawawi said, "This is the sound view held by the eminent scholars, and it is supported by Allah's words, 'We will not punish anyone until We have sent a Messenger.' (Qur'an 17.15) Now if an adult is not punished for the reason that the truth did not reach him, it is far more reasonable to assume that a child will not be punished."

It's a shame Allah wasn't wise or powerful enough to show the invaders which were the children and which were not. Or to tell the Islamic savages not to invade or murder anyone.

https://quranx.com/4.89

They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.

Oh, that's right, he said the exact opposite. But it's okay to murder babies, because they'll go to Jannah. Phew.

[atheismvids]

Video description:

What does it mean to lose faith within the context of an American Somali family? Jamal talks about his loss of faith as a teenager and how his family reacted to his apostasy.

[revelation29]

Looking for official statements on the Gaza conflict on the websites of Ex-Muslims of North America and the British Council of Ex-Muslims. Finding nothing.

[violexides]

switching blogs for this but i was bitching about the betrayal of realizing ex-friends are hardcore Zionists while simultaneously self-identifying as a 'leftist' and how that scalds as an Arab leftist lol (vs someone who seems to think that being neurodivergent and like, wanting gay marriage makes them the leftist of all time). anyway back to scheduled programming

something i think about heavily whenever i find myself trying to sympathize across lines (a la "no revolution exists without the masses" talk that leaves you straddling between recognizing that workers on the ground should unionize regardless of geopolitics but also seeing that there are hard lines that delineate a leftist from a fed) is like... when we say free Palestine is our red line we literally mean that as clearly as possible.

b/c if folks have sat around the last yr and never got radicalized to realize what "israel" is doing, they never possessed an actual understanding of what "america" did to Indigenous nations. their keyboard shortcuts turning australia into Aotearoa are for naught because they don't really know what that means. they never understood that the united states of "america" ruined Iraq. if they are backing "israel" they probably can name five African countries total and they think that Whatever Someone Did To Make Africa Like That is bad, but they don't know the names of any substantial political figures in Africa and they don't know that Africa had any leftist political movements and they don't know anything about African culture except their general perception that it's probably homophobic and backwards down there. they'll reblog that one post about how people blaming Appalachians during any natural disaster bc they voted red is bad (which is a good take to be clear) and then immediately talk about how they see the MENA region as a desert wasteland where a Bad Muslim will shoot you on sight because you have a mullet. if you don't realize what "israel" is doing you will literally never actually learn about China or North Korea like you're still stuck on the ABCs because it literally could not be more clear that "israel" is committing genocide and is bloodthirsty to massacre people in all Arab countries. but they are still stuck on their ABCs, mare, c'mon, they haven't even found out Arab people are people yet!

And i realize that's harsh and also maybe counterproductive because, the point can be made that Zionists are smart. or some of them are. some Zionists do know and care about these things! but my point is that a Zionist who knows who Lumumba is doesn't care. a Zionist who has cross posted about Land Back on their instagram story doesn't actually want Indigenous people to get their land back, they just kind of want to stay in the limbo where nothing of the status quo changes. Zionists know enough to know that the US should be funding public education and disaster relief and universal basic income but they want billions to support "israel" and Ukraine because they read about the Monroe doctrine when they were a gifted kid and school and think "america" isn't doing enough to protect folks over seas.

and all of this relates back to being a leftist (Marxist or anarchist or some other niche and esoteric sect, I don't care) because the tax dollars spent on bombing children were taken from the working class masses of the country who are getting evicted into the streets because nobody told them they had a hearing and then getting thrown in jail because their tents looked like The Big Bad Encampments and they were dark and dirty and gave the cops a mean look. The same cops were trained with the same procedures as the people bombing children oversees, and they're talking about a union that they've got like it matters. my university won't do shit to inform students about the food pantry and will fight back against contraceptives on campus but they'll wine and dine Lockheed Martin with the money they pried out of the proletariat. The colonists of "america" enslaved Black people from Africa and the Europeans tortured the Congolese and named a whole country after the materials they wanted to extract out of it and destabilized Rwanda for decades and decades to come and that's just the tip of the ice berg and all of it, at its core, involves labor and control.

and all of this is maybe just my rage for the genre of white folk who are disabled/queer/neurodivergent/some kind of legitimate issue that they use as their card of being The Most Oppressed Ever, who are Zionists and after october 7th scrubbed their entire online life clear of any acknowledgement that Arab or Muslim people exist outside of backing "israel". people who circle jerk in their own misery and could never get out onto the streets to do something about it because the big scary Black/Brown people and their inaccessibility in talking bad about genocide supporters keeps them shivering in their blankets made by a worker somewhere in a country they couldn't even find on a map. None of them will ever know what it was like inside a Palestine encampment, knowing that there was collaboration and food and love and protection. Their leftism mirrors the vague talking points Harris used before she finally begrudged into giving a party platform that just shows how Democrats aren't really on the left anymore - but sorry I forgot talking bad about Harris makes me a fake leftist that's my bad guys i love #women and #abortion and #genocide. I forgot that I never had the heartbreaking difficult liferuining experience of having Thanksgiving dinner with my white conservative grandfather ! mostly because my grandfather was thrown into prison in Iraq and then died a few years after his release for reasons i blame the prison for. And my other grandfather might die because of "israel". but i'm sure it's been a really difficult year for the white people out there fs lol

This isn't much of an intellectual rant but it just drives me crazy, actually being out in my community and talking to people and then seeing the folks on here I used to look up to when i was like a literal child on the internet as like Cool Leftists stumble around trying to defend "israel" as it massacres children. i believe in the core of my soul that in order to have an actual revolution we need to unite the masses of the working class and in that sense i do hope that i see some of these people evil as they might be on the streets. But I also hope that they spend the rest of their lives in the state they must be in now: lonely and scared. because they never knew what community meant. they never knew what freedom meant. and i hope that someday they figure it out, just for the sake of people as a whole, and never, ever, ever forgive themselves. and that's the kindest way i'll end this.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.17 (after 1930)

1930 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law. 1932 – Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits. 1933 – Union Station massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash. 1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is executed in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison. 1940 – World War II: RMS Lancastria is attacked and sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed in Britain's worst maritime disaster. 1940 – World War II: The British Army's 11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo in Libya, Africa from Italian forces. 1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union. 1944 – Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic. 1948 – United Airlines Flight 624, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board. 1952 – Guatemala passes Decree 900, ordering the redistribution of uncultivated land. 1953 – Cold War: East Germany Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion. 1958 – The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing 18 ironworkers and injuring others. 1960 – The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of land undervalued at four cents/acre in the 1863 treaty. 1963 – The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools. 1963 – A day after South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm announced the Joint Communiqué to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed. 1967 – Nuclear weapons testing: China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon. 1971 – U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised press conference called drug abuse "America's public enemy number one", starting the War on drugs. 1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee during an attempt by members of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to illegally wiretap the political opposition as part of a broader campaign to subvert the democratic process. 1985 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-G mission: Space Shuttle Discovery launches carrying Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist. 1987 – With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct. 1989 – Interflug Flight 102 crashes during a rejected takeoff from Berlin Sch��nefeld Airport, killing 21 people. 1991 – Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth. 1992 – A "joint understanding" agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II). 1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. 2015 – Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. 2017 – A series of wildfires in central Portugal kill at least 64 people and injure 204 others. 2021 – Juneteenth National Independence Day, was signed into law by President Joe Biden, to become the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

[frankplads]

HIJAB #1:

We celebrate #NoHijabDay on February 2nd because of so many tragic stories around the world. F*ck hijab day and all patriarchal religion.

Remember – for women in many Mus/im countries, EVERY day is hijab day. Because they are not allowed to show their hair.

Read and watch via Ex-Muslims Of North America.

Also click on the hashtag #WorldHijabDay to see what people post about the topic.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Grown adults think this obvious fairytale is the most important information humans will ever hear.

[gettothestabbing]

Omar (not his real name) tells his story of growing up as a gay ex-Muslim in a country where both homosexuality and apostasy can be met by death. 

Directed by Sarah Haider, produced and edited by Aurora Creative Media. Support our work. Donate today and shine a light in the dark https://exmuslims.org/donate

[thecrushheb]

Thanks for all the resources and the thoughtful response. I have a couple things to put in before I read some of these just for clarity's sake.

Firstly on your point 6, i should have specified, they aren't interested in living in a muslim country as they are currently run. Since the arab spring particularly muslim countries have been very forcibly conservative in even the most forgiving circumstances, and so most of my friends, ex coworkers, etc who expressed this were referring to that, not only that they wouldn't want to live in a Palestinian state (though they also mention how it would be Hamas controlled at least at first and that scares them as well). To pick one example from many, the headteacher at the school i taught at said she would bring her family to America if Israel collapsed or folded because one of her sons is disabled and she doesn't trust a conservative government with him. Other examples i have have to do with LGBT issues, misogyny, and other just general dislike for conservatism.

The topic of "what if this all ends?" Is a constant in people's minds there, they all have their contingency plans, muslim and Jewish.

My other point has to do with your accusation of islamophobia. Are you aware of the expulsion of jews from muslim countries (and iran)? Its just something that happened after the establishment of Israel. Members of the League of Arab States (most of middle east and north africa. Syria's membership is currently suspended) seized all Jewish bank accounts. It forced over 900k jews to flee these countries. Following the iranian revolution 70k iranian jews had to flee there too. Yes it was due to the establishment of Israel that the public and official feelings turned, but dissolving Israel wouldn't cure that and immediately set the relationship between the locals and returners to what it was pre expulsion. As you mentioned, previously non-existent hostility due to the establishment of Israel: do we think it will all go away if Israel was dissolved? We're in a post 1940s world, saying wounds shouldn't have happened doesn't heal them, and scars like the nakba will remain for a long time. And all Jews regardless of their relationship to Israel will feel it. The more antisemitic countries that kicked it up several notches when Israel was established won't suddenly forgive if it fell.

I think thats the biggest thing you don't address here. I get that it's not the Palestinians job to find all the jews in Israel a place to land, but they do have to go somewhere. And yes, European and russia/former soviet countries should give reparations and welcome jews back, but as activists for the betterment of Palestinian lives, thats an awful lot to say "should" happen, and awfully optimistic in the view that things will be safe if jews returned.

I'm trying to look at it as an activist, what are the real goals, what is achievable that i should be asking for and looking for? Is asking every country that expelled jews or jews had to flee from to take their populations back in full plus all branched descendents something that could be done? Would the jews there be safe from the locals who just got an enormous refugee population added? Would asking for Jewish right of return type immigration laws in more countries be more effective in making a post-israel world possible? These are the types of steps I think should be focused on, and I think "free Palestine" is very vague.

Ill go now, I've got that reading to do. But also, thanks for helping me work through what some realistic action points could be. Ill leave with one last thing - a ton, and i mean a ton, of jews in Israel would move out if given that option as long it was into another large Jewish community. Of course there would be the hardcore that would want to stay, but give them an option of somewhere they could live that won't have mandatory military service and not a constant threat of being bombed and I think you'd do well taking steps toward making a free Palestine a reality.

Saw this post floating around, don’t wanna target anyone or argue with Zionists, but it is my duty (especially as an actually indigenous Jew) to educate well-meaning gentiles who might see this and think they have no right to speak on the matter. I’ll go point by point.

1) “Is it so terrible for a Jew to be a Zionist?”

If we were living in any other era, where the genocidal crimes of Israel were not as widely known (though they were very well documented), you could perhaps ask this question in sincerity. Many Jews (such as myself) grow up in religious educational settings which either fail to mention the human rights violations of the state or claim they’re justified because “they want to kill us!” Past a certain point, though, one can’t continue to claim ignorance of what Zionism actually does. Short answer: yes, it is terrible for anyone to claim to be a Zionist, but this will be more evident as I continue to analyze these arguments.

2) “Zionism is the belief in the inherent right of the Jewish people to return to their homeland”

First of all, Palestine is not the “homeland” of the Jewish people any more than Siberia is the homeland of indigenous american tribes. Is there a historical connection? Yes, but though assimilation and migration Jews have found homes across the world. For me, my homeland is Mexico, because my family has lived there for generations, partly through migration but mostly through having cultivated the land for millennia. Even biblically speaking, Palestine does not “belong” to the Jewish people, it belongs to G-d. Furthermore, there is no shortage of Jewish scholarship and activism that asserts that wherever we live, that is our homeland. Frankly, I’m more interested in fighting to stay where I am than fighting to force people out of their homes to accommodate me.

3) “Zionism is the belief in the Jewish right not to be murdered”

By murdering others instead? Once again, there is no shortage of Jewish scholarship and activism in favor of Jewish self defense where we live. Jewish resistance fighters lived and died fighting the nazis in Europe under the third reich. If Zionism was actually interested in preventing Jewish death, it would fight antisemitism where it is. “Preventing murder” is not an excuse to commit genocide.

4) “there are so many definitions of Zionism”

Sorry but I just think of this tweet from @jewdas on Twitter when I read this: “There’s a actual existing Zionism which practices apartheid and denial of human rights. But there’s another Zionism inside my head which is all rainbows and kosher marshmallows, so who can say which is the real Zionism?” In other words, the actual, material consequences of Zionist beliefs are more important than what any individual thinks their Zionism is. Once again, we live in the Information Age, where anyone can easily learn about the damage that Zionism has done in Palestine and abroad. There is no excuse to continue using the label that doesn’t presuppose complete ignorance of Israeli violence.

5) “zionists just want to be safe from antisemitism in the diaspora”

See points 3 & 4.

6) “and this is different from evangelical zionists”

Materially speaking, not really. Once again, see point 4. Until you pull all US/european colonial support for Israel, this claim falls flat.

7) “zionists just want to live peacefully with other indigenous people in the area”

That’s not what indigeneity is, it doesn’t mean “from there,” it’s a specific relationship to the land and to its cultivation. (On a side note, even biblically and historically speaking, Jews are not “from” Palestine.) See point 2. Zionism has proven it is not a peaceful ideology. See point 4.

8) “people refuse to see the difference in types of Zionism because they hate the Jews”

No, it’s because there are no material differences. See point 4. Evangelical Zionism and Jewish Zionism actually share quite a bit in common. The “Jewish state” would not exist without evangelical Zionists. See point 6. And the original Jewish Zionist thinkers had a vested interest in tying the two together.

tl;dr, Zionism is a violent ideology in practice, and no amount of making excuses can hide the fact that it is genocidal and serves European/American interests. Additionally, just because one is not Jewish does not mean one does not have a duty and an obligation to eliminate Zionism wherever it crops up. Zionism has had disastrous consequences for Palestinians, and as western citizens, we benefit from their suffering. It must end now. May Palestine be freed in our lifetimes.

[a-woman-apart]

Logical or philosophical criticism of Islam does not have to be caustic or Islamophobic. Acknowledgment that for the most part Islam does not support egalitarianism in gender roles is not bad or evil.

As a "friendly atheist" and Ex-Evangelical I really appreciate Sarah Haider's perspective. I too do not think that religion is a net harm and I also do not believe in proselytizing people to atheism. However, I think resources should be available for those who want to leave religion of their own free will.

If we can criticize Evangelical Christianity for it's anti-LGBTQ+ policies, complemantarianism, and science denial then it is not Islamophobic to criticize certain Islamic sects for the same reason. We do not encourage hatred towards Muslims as a religious group. We are simply encouraging people to view it-- and all religion-- critically.

[ithacanradio]

every discussion about politics ive had this past week has ended with the other person saying 'you have points but I don't feel like being so critical of the united states/this united states politician.' even though they did not know of past US policies/that politician's past voting record when i brought it up.

Why are we all seeing how awful the United States government is abroad and to its own citiziens but we are still deciding to trust it? Stop thinking the US is a saviour, that its politicians care when oil and weapon companies are buying their every action. stop thinking the empire can 'bring democracy' and you'll start seeing things more clearly love i promise.

[the-incorrigible-chaia]

Hi, OP here, just gonna try to head things off at the pass, because as much as I understand the frustration of banging our heads against a wall, I don't think it really... works? So I'm gonna try a different approach.

So, @spacemulder, I understand why there's hesitance towards the term "cultural Christianity". I understand that it feels like being lumped in with Christians. But I want to clarify that there is a notable, important distinction between practising Christians and culturally Christian people, and we're not calling you a Christian.

The simple, plain fact of the matter is that all human beings, everywhere, are part of some form of culture. And in North America and Europe, the dominant culture is informed by Christianity. Things like public Christmas and Easter celebrations and business closures, the fact that Jews had to fight for Shabbos to be part of the weekend in the early 20th century, that American Muslims still have to work on Jumu'ah, or that the calendar counts the years since the birth of Jesus. And that's just the material stuff, not even getting into the way that American and European conceptions of morality and ethics are informed by the church. No individual person living within that culture can separate themselves from it, any more than a white person can separate themselves from whiteness.

That is what we mean by cultural Christianity. It's something all-encompassing that cannot be individually opted out of by those who are immersed in it. The idea that religion and culture even can be pried apart is a Christian idea, and the secular culture born of that idea is shaped by Christianity as a result.

That was what my post was trying to get at. If we want to deconstruct Christian hegemony, the work necessitates being able to discuss how that hegemony extends past the bounds of the religion. It's not an easy conversation to have, and it prods at a lot of people's traumas - both ex-Christian atheists' and religious minorities'.

I really don't want to say "suck it up, buttercup" to anyone, because that's not how trauma works. But the only way to leave cultural Christianity behind is to dismantle it, and that's something we have to change on a societal level, not an individual one.

If you want to coin a different term for the way that hegemony extends even past the church doors and through the people who've left other than "culturally Christian", I'd genuinely love to hear it. It'd be helpful to have a term that doesn't create such a visceral reaction. But right now, "cultural Christianity" is the most accurate term we have for a phenomenon that we need to talk about.

So, I've been reading the arguments that several Jumblr folks, including @starlightomatic and @tikkunolamorgtfo, have been having with ex-Christian atheists over the term "culturally Christian", and said ex-Christian atheists' staunch refusal to engage with the term, and it got me thinking that I see a very similar dynamic to that with white liberals, especially white queer people who came from conservative areas.

A lot of the time, white liberals from conservative areas, especially queer white liberals, have been hurt, sometimes badly, by their conservative communities. They've been marginalized and oppressed by white conservatives, and so they run as far in the opposite direction as they can to disassociate themselves with them. Which, I will add, is perfectly valid, and I can understand why they do so.

What's not valid, however, and is also extremely common, is when a person of colour then starts talking about white supremacist culture, and the white liberal insists that they cannot be racist, because they were marginalized by white conservatives, and they react with extreme hostility.

What's missed here is that the axis of oppression is a different one. Yes, white queers are marginalized by white conservatives, but it's on the basis of their queerness, and they still benefit from white supremacy on account of their whiteness. In the same vein, yes, ex-Christian atheists are marginalized by Christians, but it's on the basis of their atheism, and they still benefit from Christian hegemony on account of their being...

And here is where the term "culturally Christian" comes into play: All the things adjacent to Christianity that are still informed by and contribute to Christian hegemony. Analogously, whiteness is adjacent to, informed by, and contributes to white supremacy. And just as a lot of white liberals really, really don't want to think of themselves as white, because it feels like being lumped in with the white conservatives who hurt them, culturally Christian atheists don't want to think of themselves as being culturally Christian, because it feels like being lumped in with the Christians that hurt them.

And just as whiteness portrays itself as the absence of race, making it extremely hard to map out its defining characteristics as a discrete phenomenon, Christianity's portrayal of itself as a religion separate from culture—and the ensuing portrayal of ex-Christian atheists by themselves of being a cultureless secularity—makes it extremely hard to map out the defining characteristics of cultural Christianity.

But, just as we have to mark out the bounds of whiteness to dismantle white supremacy, we have to mark out the bounds of cultural Christianity to dismantle Christian hegemony.

And those bounds aren't policed from the inside.

EDIT: Accidentally @'d the wrong person.

[a-room-of-my-own]

To track the ‘incel’ diatribes uttered and read by Jake Davison, murdering women can seem like the logical conclusion to their seething hatred.

The hours after a fatal attack on members of the public are harrowing. Confusion reigns, rumours swirl and anxious people try to contact loved ones to make sure they are safe. Last Thursday evening, as reports of gunfire and possible fatalities on a housing estate in Plymouth began to circulate, the question of whether it was a terrorist incident was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. When Devon and Cornwall police announced it was not terrorism-related, I wondered how they could be so sure – and their judgment has been called into question by everything that has emerged since.

We now know that 22-year-old Jake Davison was a misogynist who shot dead his mother, who had recently been treated for cancer, before taking the lives of four others. There are parallels between Plymouth and the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut in 2012, when Adam Lanza shot his mother five times before going to a primary school where he killed 20 children and six adults, all women. Not for the first time, the significance of extreme misogyny in the genesis of a fatal attack on members of the public seems to have been missed.

It is hard to see how Davison’s actions fail to meet the government’s definition of terrorism, which includes “the use of threat or action… to intimidate the public”. Examples include serious violence against one or more people, endangering someone’s life or creating a serious risk to the health and safety of the public: tick, tick and tick. But here is the get-out clause. The definition stipulates that terrorism must be “for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause” and it is often argued that even the most extreme misogyny does not meet that test.

It seems that its deadly interaction with other forms of extremism is poorly understood, something that struck me forcibly after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017. Five years earlier, Salman Abedi was already showing signs of being radicalised, but the significance of his assault on a young Muslim woman at college was not recognised. Abedi punched her in the head for wearing a short skirt, almost knocking her out in front of witnesses. It was an act of staggering brutality, displaying a toxic combination of misogyny and allegiance to Islamist ideology, along with a low threshold for violence. Yet Abedi was not charged. Greater Manchester police dealt with the incident through restorative justice and Abedi owned up to anger management issues, avoiding a referral to the Prevent counter-terrorism programme. In what seems to be an example of history repeating itself, it has been revealed that Devon and Cornwall police recently restored Davison’s firearms licence, which he lost in December, after he agreed to take part in an anger management course.

Yet Davison made no secret of his seething resentment of women, posting hate-filled diatribes on YouTube. He compared himself to “incels” – involuntary celibates – angry young men who blame women for their inability to get sex and revealed an obsession with guns. In a video uploaded three weeks before the shootings, he came close to justifying sexual violence. “Why do you think sexual assaults and all these things keep rising?” he demanded in a 10-minute rant, claiming that “women don’t need men no more”. One of the questions Devon and Cornwall police need to answer is if they were aware of the content of Davison’s social media posts when they returned his licence.

In North America, incels have been linked with white supremacy, as well as being held responsible for the murders of around 50 people. In Canada, their ideology has been designated a form of violent extremism following an attack on a Toronto massage parlour last year in which a woman was stabbed to death by a 17-year-old man. It was the second such attack in the city in two years, after a self-described incel drove a van into pedestrians in 2018, killing 10 people.

In the UK, however, misogyny is not even widely recognised as the driving force behind violence against women. Time and again, we hear about men who supposedly “just snapped” and killed their female partners in what the police describe as “domestic” and “isolated” incidents. Not so isolated, given that 1,425 women were killed by men in the UK between 2009 and 2018, but we are expected to believe that such homicides could not be predicted or stopped. In fact, it is rare for a woman to be murdered by a current or former partner without a previous history of domestic abuse.

Hatred of women is normalised, dismissed as an obsession of feminists, even when its horrific consequences are staring us in the face. In June last year, two sisters, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, were murdered in a north London park by a teenager. Danyal Hussein, now 19, had been referred to Prevent after using school computers to access rightwing websites, but was discharged after a few months with no further concerns. What seems to have been missed is his virulent misogyny, which led him to make a “pact” with a “demon” to kill six women in six months.

Five years ago, I began to notice how many men who committed fatal terrorist attacks had a history of misogyny and domestic abuse – practising at home, in other words. No one would listen so I wrote a book about it, listing around 50 perpetrators who had previously terrorised current and ex-partners. It was published in 2019 and inspired groundbreaking research by counter-terrorism policing, showing that almost 40% of referrals to the Prevent programme had a history of domestic abuse, as perpetrators, witnesses or victims. Project Starlight has produced a number of recommendations, arguing that counter-terrorism officers need to look for evidence of violence against women when they are assessing the risk posed by suspects.

That is a welcome development, but we need to go further. We are all in shock after hearing about the horrific events in Plymouth, while the grief of the victims’ families is awful to contemplate. But Davison’s murderous rampage demonstrates that our understanding of what constitutes terrorism is too restrictive. Extreme misogyny needs to be recognised as an ideology in its own right – and one that carries an unacceptable risk of radicalising bitter young men

[starlightervarda]

Hey, since you're offering, may I ask something? What Muslim people do on Christmas day? Is it a minor celebration or a completely ordinary day? For fic-writing purposes, I guess it wouldn't be weird for Joe to celebrate it with Nicky to make him happy, right? And of course Nicky would celebrate the most important day of the Muslim calendar with Joe. Which I don't know when it may be ^^' Thanx for the help :)

     HOLIDAYS IN THE MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA

So, most countries these days use both the Islamic lunar calendar and the Gregorian solar calendar - it’s becoming more common to use the latter because it’s easier on an international/interconnected level, unless you’re in somewhere like Saudi/UAE or Pakistan where religious tradition takes precedence but they still acknowledge both. Like on blackboards teachers will write the AD (Year of Our Lord) date on one side and the AH (After Hijra) date on the other side, corresponding, newspapers and certain TV channels do the same. (Ex. today is 25th of November 2020 and 10th of Rabi’ II 1441)

First thing to keep in mind that, as a lunar calendar, the dates in the Islamic calendar aren’t constant and it’s 10-12 days shorter than the solar calendar. It’s why Ramadan always corresponds with a different Gregorian month each year, it tends to migrate backwards, one year it’s in August the next it’s in July, and so on. The same goes for all other holidays, so depending on when you’re depicting your story you might need to consult an old/current calendar or do the math. This is why most people just use the Western/International dates because it’s less of a fuss.

In places like the Mediterranean i.e. the Levant and North Africa, people are more likely to casually use quote-unquote Western languages, adopt and nativize traditions and dishes, and in terms of Christianity’s history in the area they likely already have their own Orthodox-influences. Holidays like Christmas, New Year and Easter are recognized by the government, but other countries like also participate or are starting to partake as an import-holiday. Some countries even have two different dates for Christmas - Dec. 25th (Western Church/Catholic) and January 7th (Eastern Church/Orthodox), the 25th is becoming a more common thing due to international influence/relations/media. It influences midwinter breaks from certain schools which tend to range from maybe Dec 22nd/23rd to Jan 8th/9th depending on where the weekend falls.

It’s celebrated (by non-Christians) the same general irreligious way most in America do, more about Santa Claus/Papa Noël than Jesus, family visitations, sometimes gifts and an excuse to be in a good mood and cozy during the winter. It’s been in growing with participation, traditions are a mix and depend on area, some include Western stuff alongside native traditions, etc.

So, Joe won’t partake in stuff like fasting (do Catholics also fast before Christmas?) or attending the church service (unless Nicky wants company), but he’ll help prepare the food, ready the bakeries and decorate the house/tree, etc.

If this is set in the Canon!Past he, as a Fatimid and a merchant, would have been not just tolerant but informed and involved with many types of people. He may get confused and give Nicky gifts on New Year’s or January 7th instead of Christmas 25th, probably doesn’t get the difference between Saint Nicholas or Saint Basil, stuff like that once Santa becomes a thing historically. In modern times he may be used to Christmas being on two different dates, but will expect a lamb dish instead of a turkey and shortbread biscuits instead of gingerbread. But those have also started to show up in the East, last year a couple of establishments I went to had gingerbread/biscuit houses.

(I still don’t understand a lot of Western Christmas stuff like Krampus. Seriously, what the fuck is that???)

I found some articles in English about Mideastern Christmas that can help.

In terms of important dates that can be similar to Christmas there is the Prophet’s Birthday (Moulid/Mould al-Nabi). Some countries celebrate it, and some don’t (usually Wahabist/Salafist-influenced lands like Saudi and Qatar, or Ahmadi Muslims who don’t celebrate anything really. Some fundies criticize it as an imitation of Christmas, they also object to people celebrating Christmas so *eyeroll*). I think it’s mostly a thing in lands that were part of the Ottoman/Fatimid Empire? I grew up with it being an event with certain decorations, images and foods (I waited every year for the sweets like nougat and sesame/nut bars).

You know how you have reindeer and elves around Christmastime? Moulid usually has a very decorated doll/depictions of a woman called the Birthday Bride/Doll (’Arousset al-Moulid) and a Knight/Horse. Like, if you depict Joe and Nicky in a Modern AU with kids/younger siblings/nieces & nephews who celebrate all religious holidays, the Bride and Horse are things kids usually make/draw at school the same way they’d wear reindeer antlers or have stockings.

Sunni and Shi’ites tend to disagree on when exactly the Prophet’s Birthday is, whether it’s 12th or 17th of First Month of Spring (Rabi’ I/3rd month in the lunar calendar) but I think some Shi’a still celebrate the 12th.

Then, like Christian feast days, there are the Feasts (Eïd), the Little Feast/ Feast of Breaking Fast (Eïd al-Fitr) which marks the end of Ramadan, where people don’t need to fast anymore and celebrate by stuffing their faces and making sweets/desserts like ka’ak and baklava. It spans the first three days of the month of Shaoual. The kahk people make during this feast is also made for Easter, Moulid and Christmas.

Second is the Big Feast/Feast of Sacrifice (Eïd al-Adha) which is based on the story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son to God then being told to substitute him with a sheep, so people will get sheep meat or buy a sheep to be sacrificed then pass out cuts to family and friends and invite them over for meals. You can make substitutions for people who don’t eat lamb/mutton (people usually made me and my cousins something chicken-based). It falls on the 10th of Pilgrimage Time (Zul Hijja/where people make a pilgrimage to Mecca), also lasts three days. Family come to visit, kids get gifted money, you wear your newest/best clothes, and eat mostly the same stuff you did in the first feast, just with a lot more lamb/mutton and savory dishes.

(You can show Nicky and Joe have a fun debate early on in their relationship whether Abraham’s son in mention was Ismail (Islamic) or Isaac (Judeo-Christian) and wonder why there’s a difference in their teachings.)

So, no, it definitely wouldn’t be weird for Joe to celebrate with Nicky, it wouldn’t even have to be for him, it’s probably something he partook in before they met just without religious significance, whether it was in Canon or in a Modern AU. I don’t like this narrative in this fandom that Joe is repulsed by Christian/Western stuff and tolerates it, it’s very gross and disrespectful to Joe, Nicky and people like them. (It tends to reek of Orientalism sometimes). Joe has been shown to drink alcohol and historically speaking he definitely drank in the past, so he’s going to drink eggnog or mulled wine, etc., and if you want to say he doesn’t eat pork for whatever reason, habit/taste/etc. then have him eat lamb instead of ham on Christmas, it’s that simple.

I swear if some Anglo pitches another fit about Joe wearing a Santa hat or baking cookies, and guilts or attacks other people for depicting him celebrating all that purely secular stuff, I will unhinge my jaw like a snake and bite their heads off.

This kind of behavior is what encourages people in the West to avoid befriending, inviting or joining us to events and gatherings, like this is the opposite of helping, this is exclusion, segregation and borders on cultural purism. The world is a lot more involved than many there think it is, and full of centuries of cultural exchange and varied influences. Expecting it to be split into detached categories is baffling. I really am suspicious of many of them who do this, it feels like covert racism but framed in a manipulative ‘caring’ way.

Moral of the story is: don’t listen to bad takes made by WASP-y Americans and Europeans.  Draw Joe in a cheesy pullover with fairy lights and a droopy Santa hat, make goofy headcanons about him burning Nicky’s biscuits and being kicked out of the kitchen. Have him singing those saccharine songs with Nile while they decorate a tree. Have them watch the Muppet A Christmas Carol! It’s the holidays, lighten up! The same goes for the feasts/holidays I listed above.

TL;DR Feasts, birthdays of both central religious figures, celebrating the ends of fasting periods, they share lots of dishes, and Orthodox Christianity’s traditions had the oldest basis in the MENA culture but Western traditions are settling quite nicely, and what one prioritizes depends on surrounding culture/history. You can partake in the celebration aspect just out of culture/habit without being religious, it’s can mostly be about tradition, company and food!

[metaladam]

" Ah yes there it is! The high and mighty boasting! It might not quite the same as mine but it is the same thing and it comes from the same place."

She wanted so badly to offend him with her words, she wanted to make herself seem put together and have him appear little more then a man child.

He wanted to do the same to her of course, it went without saying. Gloves off, no playing dumb. No humor.

" Ex-lovers is such a infantized version of what we were, and still are in some respects babe. We were made for each other, our bodies sprang from the same fucking dirt. There isn't anyone in the world who has that. For so long it was you and me that were the only things we had for company, kinship, I could speak and you would answer. We sat under the night sky, the cold air against our skin as the very first things to give a name to it. All those conversations, those moments togethor, hunkered down in what I thought would be our forever. You were not my lover, our relationship was the force that begat all manner of human bonds. You were my lover, my friend, my enemy, my guardian, my dependent. Of course I know better. Of course I know you.

I know how you so desperately want to feel in control, I know how proud you are, the full weight of your past, your fears of others knowing how empty and broken you are. So broken in fact you'd act like the masks we both wear had always existed."

He lifted his own foot and slammed it on her flesh, smearing his boot against her skin for good measure. An eye for an eye.

" You know Lucifer will never see you as you want him to. He didn't show up to comfort you because he loved you, just like he didn't ruin me and Eve's lives and damn all of humanity to be helpful. That bastard only operates for one reason. PRIDE. He wanted to be the guy, the higher up bureaucracy in Heaven....God themself? They had a vision for man kind, and Lucifer was not a part of that plan, he had no say in how it went, so what did he do? He inserted himself in it, YOU were used, you were a stepping stone, a loose bolt for him to undo to slip into the machine, to make it his, so he could feel better about himself. It didn't matter if he made things worse or better, he just wanted to slap his name onto it. You bought into all his bullshit, he got an ego boost and a hot pair of legs to spread. What did you get out of it though? Power? Wealth? Please.

Who's name is damned and ridiculed across the Earth? Who is the ruler of Heaven? Who do people think of when they think of Hell's ruler? Certainly not YOU. Fuck man, the protestants don't even think you exist! Have you looked over North America, sweetie? Meanwhile there is me! Who is plastered all over the holy text from the beginning?"

It was then his grimace turned into a full blown scowl as he began to to roar his insults at her.

" DO YOU KNOW?! Who do they fucking sing about in their hymns?! ME! Christians of every denomination! Jews! Muslims Shia, Sunni! The Popes, Caliphs, Rabbis and Imams!! ALL! I am the FIRST prophet! I am the patriarch of human kind! ME! As retched as I am! As horrible and broken as I am because of what this world put on both of us at least I accomplished something! You are an extra in this show Lilith, Lucifer's plus one! Everyone who knows you KNOWS this, they just suck up to you to curry favor! You know what I am? I am a fucking broken down car with some value to it! You are a paper tiger! You look good and sound good and that's it! There is no substance to you! You are a hollow! A fuckin pretty vase that breaks from a breeze! The only difference between you and the crackheads you rule is MONEY AND INFULENCE! YOU ARE A DISGRACE! YOUR HUSBAND'S KINGDOM IS THE DIRTY LAUNDERY OF HUMANITY! THE FUCKING GHETTO OF CREATION! "

@metaladam ;  "You are a very good actor. Anyone who does not know you would definitely be fucking convinced you are some untouchable monarch. We know better though."

" Ah, haha...However, do you know any better? Most people take us for ex-lovers devastated by their shredded loathing for one another. "

Slitted snaked colors would narrow toward him. Her head tilted as the flow of platinum strands swirled as if a constant wind was keeping her company. Amusement was always appreciated; she was a woman on stage, thus she was a wonderful fucking actress. Rather than an insult, she would view it as a complement.

One step forward. She would elevate the toe of her heel before stomping it down on his foot, as if killing a bug. " Have you finished? I do not remember saying I had time for your childish nonsense."

Laughter would ring out around his eardrums with poise.

" You're right. I am merely untouchable to you, as I have been since Eden. Your slimy junk food-stained fingers surely want to press against my Hellish body. You make me want to vomit up my eternal organs. "