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Rants: Pious People and Me

By RaniPublicFaith
Maybe I have to don a headscarf or a veil, prostate myself together with other pious people, sing and cite the verses of the holy book loudly in a language that common people do not understand, putting in middle-eastern phrases in every sentences I say, and not eating unlawful food, or even to the extent of not brushing my skin against men and lowering my gaze to the ground all the time to avoid eye contact with unlawful men. Maybe I have to do anything, that makes me appear pious to others.

Maybe I have to do all those things (without true sincerity from my heart to God) so that people will listen to me seriously when I talk to them about basic things and common sense such as love to all humankind, non-violence, and honouring women. When I do all that, people won’t accuse me of being liberal, secular, atheist or even being an infidel. Suddenly, when I do all that, people are not prejudiced against me.

It really annoys me when people are pre-judging me from my surface-appearance and hence not taking what I said to its essence, deeper meaning.

It really annoyed me when one (apparently) pious person said what I was about to say (on love, non violence, and honouring women), those people nodded to him in agreement. But when I said it, I am bashed with prejudice, rebutted without mercy, and accused without defense.

Then on a second thought,
Maybe I should not do all those things, just because I want to appear pious. I don’t do those things, because I don’t believe that God would judge my deed based on how I appear to other people. I should not give a damn on how other people see me as. I can be anything to their eyes, and I don’t care. Those people have no right to gauge and measure my faith and closeness to my God. And if they don’t take my words seriously on love, non-violence, and women’s honour, pity them. I believe that the truth in peace and love, naturally, will overcome anything else.
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Comments

7 responses to “Rants: Pious People and Me”

  1. thalia Avatar
    thalia

    as lame and overused as it sounds, all i can say is: you took the words out of my mouth. well, maybe not. because i won’t be as eloquent as you do…

    basically, i couldn’t agree more.

  2. Debonaire Daisy Avatar
    Debonaire Daisy

    Hi, I enjoy reading your blog. Your unpleasant experiences are something that I can fully understand since we are of the same boat. It is really annoying when remarks and judgements come especially from some of my family members. A lot of pious people are pretentious and hypocrites.

  3. nona cyan Avatar
    nona cyan

    couldn’t agree more….people sometimes are just too judgemental and superficial.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    This life is a preparation for the hereafter, the “eternal home”, to which all human beings ultimately go. As such, Muslims are required to observe righteousness in their daily lives, based on Quranic teachings, like eating halal food, wearing modest clothing, performing prayers, giving alms, etc., because of the fact that they live for God alone. And to those who strive to attain nearness to Him, God sees to it. He says: “O Thou man! Verily thou art ever toiling on toward thy Lord – painfully toiling – but thou shall meet him.” (84:6)

    http://www.themodernreligion.com

    Lia

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    jangan berharap didengar orang, kalau “mendengar” perintah Allah aja gak mau 🙂

    spt saya quota di blog kamu, diantara hal2 yang kamu bilang maybe kamu harus lakukan, ada hal2 yang emang wajib. Kenapa kamu menganggap hal2 yang wajib itu seolah2 tidak harus dilakukan….

    so…maybe…kamu memang sekuler, pluralis, dan liberalis… 🙂

    **Maybe** I have to don a headscarf or a veil, prostate myself together with other pious people, sing and cite the verses of the holy book loudly in a language that common people do not understand, putting in middle-eastern phrases in every sentences I say, and not eating unlawful food, or even to the extent of not brushing my skin against men and lowering my gaze to the ground all the time to avoid eye contact with unlawful men. Maybe I have to do anything, that makes me appear pious to others.

  6. Rani Avatar
    Rani

    Dear Thal, Daisy, and Cyan, thanks for your comments and glad to know that we share the same sentiments.

    The two last bloggers seem unable to read deeper beyond the text. I deliberately use a provocative and metaphoric language to test the water. It is truly interesting to see their reactions.

    Dear Lia, thanks for your comment. I don’t dispute the verse you cited. If you read carefully I don’t even conclude those rituals as blatantly wrong. I would suggest you read between the lines. My posting was about PREJUDICE. I hope it clarifies the matter, but I won’t defend myself on my religion, because my view is that it is none of your business to know about how I do my rituals etc. It is my personal business directly with God.

    Dear Anonymous, firstly read my reply to Lia above.

    Secondly your comment is giving a blatant example of what I was talking about above. Thank you for that. If you pay close attention without prejudice, you should be able to read that I was talking about how my appearance (of non-piety) nullifies everything I said, including things that inherently and indisputably true. It is like, you won’t believe if I say “the world is round” or “leaves are green” because I do not appear pious enough for you. It is as ugly as dismissing whatever Martin Luther King says about humanity just because he is black-skinned.

    Anonymous, you are free to put certain judgment on me. It is your right to call me anything – apostate, infidel, etc. But if you dismiss what I say on the basis on your judgment against me, and unable to separate that there are things that are not embedded to my attributes, then you are a prejudiced bastard.

    Now that I have explained myself without metaphors and if you still don’t get my point, I pity you.

    (Small Summary Notes:

    1. I would love to argue that you have no right to judge me, but I don’t think I can do that because certain people need a firm standpoint in seeing many issues in the world. So there you go, judge me as whatever you want. But please do not prejudice against me nor deafen your ears from everything I say. I might say something that contain a seed of truth in it.

    2. I won’t elaborate further on how I do my rituals and how I interpret the verses and rituals in this posting because

    a. It is my business directly with God and not yours

    b. It is a separate issue and not directly relevant to this posting

    c. It is up to each individual to choose with full conscience what rituals they want or need to do, and again, this is each individual’s business with God, directly and without direct interference from others – just like you can’t dictate a man to love someone.

    3. Usually I would delete the last comment posted by anonymous coward who do not have the guts to say who he/she is, based on basic netiquette. But since the last comment is a clear reprensentative of stupid blind prejudice, I would leave it there. I just pray that Anonymous can feel more secure and confident in the future.)

  7. haghia Avatar
    haghia

    hi rani, was reading your comment.

    this might be a little bit late, but i completely agree with you.

    universality of values such as love, non-violence and appreciation towards woman are undisputed.

    apparently, as a former pious person-life doesn’t become easier. living a life associated with a certain affiliation, especially religion, makes people see you less as an individual but rather as a representative of a religion. and everyone is watching everything that you do, from head to toe until how you say something, eat or drink.

    but sometimes people just dont know what they are saying because they just dont get the big picture, and only sees it from their point of view. “people see thing as what they think it is, not how it really is”

    being in your position for what seems to be forever, and born with a short temper, added with lawyering skills-i learn to shut this kind of people easily.

    and shall i act as your freedom of expression towards i shall say and cite:
    1. the basmalah-the first verse that moslem says in every activity means in the name of God the Merciful and Compassionate- and isn’t your God a very loving God, that He wants you to do everything with love?

    2. “and i create all of you with difference, so you may learn from each other” (ar-Rum), so learn from each other, be it human or other beings. the term learn also means listening and looking for truth, including what other people says.

    3. and the verse from qur’an that says that Muhammad SAW was sent to give light upon human being-not to convert all of human being.

    moslem means one who does not veil the truth- and this needs an open heart-and learn to listen.

    we are not one to judge another-and such judgement would never be found in a Moslem.

    keep on writing rani, i hear the truth in what you say!!

    haghia

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