{"id":2915,"date":"2011-01-22T14:06:47","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T10:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=2915"},"modified":"2011-01-22T14:06:47","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T10:06:47","slug":"what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-muslim-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-muslim-man\/","title":{"rendered":"What does it mean to be a Muslim man?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week my sister called.\u00a0 She has been studying abroad since summer began, so naturally I was thrilled to hear from her.\u00a0 After hearing how she was, I asked about her new home.\u00a0 With her living in a Muslim country, I felt assured that everything would be fine.\u00a0 For that reason, what she described next was a complete shock.\u00a0 She began to describe a place where a girl can hardly leave her house without being verbally harassed by men walking by.\u00a0 She said that the catcalling was no longer the exception; it had become the rule. Then she told me about a Muslim girl she knew.\u00a0 The girl was riding in a taxi and when she arrived at her stop, she handed the driver his money.\u00a0 In many of these countries there are no strict meters, and since the fare is somewhat arbitrary, the driver became angry.\u00a0 Eventually the altercation escalated to such a degree that the driver grabbed the girl by the shoulders and began to shake her.\u00a0 At this, the girl became angry and insulted the driver.\u00a0 The driver then punched the young woman in the face.<\/p>\n

At this point, I was extremely disturbed.\u00a0 But it was what my sister said next that was most devastating.\u00a0 Nearby, there was a group of men who saw what was happening, and rushed to the scene.\u00a0 Naturally they came to help the girl.<\/p>\n

No.\u00a0 They stood and watched.<\/p>\n

It was at this point in the story that I began to wonder.\u00a0 Suddenly I found myself questioning every definition of masculinity I had ever believed in.\u00a0 I wondered how a man \u2014 not one, but many \u2014 can stand and watch a woman be abused, and do absolutely nothing about it.\u00a0 It made me question what ideals define what it means to be a man in today\u2019s society.\u00a0 Had the definition of masculinity become so distorted as to be reduced to just unbridled sex drive?\u00a0 Had the image of the \u2018knight in shining armor\u2019 really been replaced by visions of macho, catcalling boys in the street?<\/p>\n

Most of all, it got me thinking about what it means to be a Muslim man today.\u00a0 I wondered if our dominate definitions as Muslims are really what they should be.\u00a0 Today, a man is expected to be stoic, unemotional,\u00a0inexpressive, tough, and unbending.\u00a0 Physical aggression is glorified and emotional expressiveness ridiculed. I then decided to examine the epitome of what it means to be a man.\u00a0 I decided to look at the Prophet ?.<\/p>\n

One of the most common definitions of manhood today is the lack of emotional expressiveness.\u00a0 It is almost universally believed that to cry is \u2018unmanly\u2019 and weak.\u00a0 And yet the Prophet ?\u00a0described it very differently.\u00a0 When the Prophet ?\u00a0was handed his daughter\u2019s son who was dying, his eyes flooded with tears. His companion Sa`d <\/strong>then told him, \u201cWhat is this, Prophet of God?\u201d He ?\u00a0said, \u201cThis is a mercy that the Almighty has made in the hearts of His servants. And surely God has mercy to the merciful ones among His servants.\u201d [Bukhari]<\/p>\n

But today, a man is not only expected to hide feelings of sadness, he is taught early on that even other emotions are not to be expressed.\u00a0 During the time of the Prophet ?, there were some men who believed the same.\u00a0 Once while a villager was present, Prophet Muhammad ?\u00a0kissed his grandsons on the forehead.\u00a0 At that, the villager said with surprise, \u201cI have ten children.\u00a0 I have never kissed any of them!\u201d Prophet Muhammad ?\u00a0looked at him and said, \u201cHe who does not have mercy will not have mercy upon him.\u201d [Bukhari] In fact, with regards to showing affection, the Prophet ?\u00a0was very clear.\u00a0 He said: \u201cIf a man loves his brother in faith, he should tell him that he loves him.\u201d[Abu Dawud]<\/p>\n

The Prophet ?\u00a0used to also show a great deal of affection towards his wives.\u00a0 Aisha reported that the Prophet ?would only enjoy his meals when she would sit next to him.\u00a0 They would drink from one cup and he would watch where Aisha would place her lips on the cup so that he could place his lips on the exact position.\u00a0 He would eat from a bone after she would eat from it, placing his mouth where she had eaten.\u00a0[Muslim]<\/p>\n

The Prophet ?\u00a0used to also help around the house, contrary to another widely held myth of masculinity.\u00a0 Aisha reported, \u201cThe Prophet Muhammad ?\u00a0used to stitch his clothes, milk the goats and help in the chores inside the house.\u201d [Bukhari & Muslim]<\/p>\n

But, perhaps one of the most common myths of what a man should be is the idea that a man should be \u2018tough.\u2019 \u00a0Gentleness is widely considered only a feminine trait.\u00a0 And yet the Prophet Muhammad ?\u00a0said: \u201cAllah is gentle and loves gentleness. He gives for gentleness what He does not give for harshness, nor for anything else.\u201d [Muslim] In another hadith, he says, \u201cHe who is deprived of gentleness is deprived of good.\u201d [Muslim]<\/p>\n

And yet so much of that gentleness has been lost from our modern definition of masculinity.\u00a0 It is frightening when a boy can consider it manly to sexually harass a woman on the street, but consider it no question of his manhood to stand and watch while a girl is being hit.\u00a0 It makes you wonder if maybe our image of what is \u2018manly\u2019 in fact resembles a Hollywood gangster more than it does our beloved Prophet.<\/p>\n

This article is published courtesy of SuhaiWebb<\/strong>, a site dedicated to moderate Islamic teaching.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YASMIN MOGAHED: A brutal attack on a young woman, observed by a group of men, has caused me to question society’s expectations of men in the Muslim world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":2916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,90,5],"tags":[91,133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}