coz theres always a critic

so its been in the news and a lot of blogs ive been reading talk about the new muslim series : little mosque at the prairie. it got my curiosity and i ended up watching the first two episodes on youtube. some of the parts you can clearly identify with. in mecca muslims pray side by side, or behind each other, but in many of the mosques in US there is a partition, or different rooms. in dubai, its not the norm for women at least in my family to go to the mosque and pray unless you are outside or something. but its not like we have to pray with the jamaat.

neway, the show is strictly ok. but it does touch upon many issues of hypocrisy which is evident. i remember this mosque in philly, that me and my sister used to go to on the weekends. it was a two storey villa kinds. and the bottom was for the men and the top floor was for the female. if a lecturer came in to give a speech or something, and had powerpoint slides to show. we would be allowed to sit in the backroom on the bottom floor. where nothign would be visible. it just irritated me like anything. and it happened once that we were sitting on the first floor and we were told to come down and watch the presentation and we asked these bunch of ladies to come down as well. two of them refused and said "wahan aadmi hai"..err..okaaayy..and this is the same person we saw in the supermarket a week ago. and at the movies too. double standards really irritate me. then there are kids. and sure kids are kids. but theres always bunch of kids who run around the praying area. and parents should at least say something to them. but they dont. and sometimes the husband should volunteer to keep the kids with him during prayer time. its only fair. ure wife needs a break too, you know. but nahin, he would then become 'biwi ka ghulam', no?

and this is the best, after the speech/sermon you are allowed to ask the imam questions but the women have to write their questions down on paper, can't simply ask their questions in the mike. after which some kid will get it from the woman section. and then some dude will read it. and then the imam will read it out. wat crap. and at least the times i visited and sat in through the lectures, no woman ever asked anything. finally i eventually mustered up enough courage to ask. i remember one of my questions coz i never really got an appropriate answer. and coz everyone was staring at me. this was on the imams slides: that one should be scared of the day of judgment and scared of God's wrath which is why we should be good muslims. my question was pretty simple, why should we do all this coz we are scared shouldnt it be for the love of God, rather. while scribblign my question down, coz im only a closet rebel. I mean i could have gotten up and gone to the male section and taken the mike and read out my question. but im a chicken and its only pointless cribbing. and coz my sister kept going dont ask anythign blasphemous and dont do anything stupid coz I (as in me) will leave but she (as in my sister) still has to go back there. anyway, the imam liked my question but never really answered it. there were some other questions i asked, which i cant remember. mostly the guys asked "is hijab obligatory". although, it really it has nothing to do with them. and whether "smoking is haram". i dont know what the solution to this problem is and i honestly think the problem is too often with the culture. which is mistaken for religion.