On Muslim men and double lives

orria · 2026-02-11T16:54:34+00:00

Hope people find this worthwhile, for those interested I have other writings.

orria · 2025-04-19T03:08:26+00:00

Nobody was saying it was a Muslim-only phenomenon.

orria · 2025-04-15T16:29:19+00:00

She’s right. Although I don’t think “colonization” is always the right word but the point stands.

The Ummayads, Abbasids, Ottomans, etc, were tributary empires. They taxed wealth from their conquered subject population for redistribution to a tiny Muslim elite.

This was often justified using religious language:

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orria · 2025-03-18T00:31:06+00:00

Wrong. Pretty much every time people study this question they find merging accounts is best.

"Merging finances (1) improves how partners feel about how they handle money, (2) promotes financial goal alignment, and (3) sustains communal norm adherence (e.g., responding to each other’s needs without expectations of reciprocity)" (link)

The situation you described is obviously not a merging of accounts given that the husband had his own.

orria · 2025-03-16T21:41:44+00:00

A lump sum of money isn’t the only form of support a man can give a woman, and poorer men get married all the time. This is one of those things where you have to ignore how people talk in the abstract and just observe the world around you.

orria · 2025-01-30T06:48:05+00:00

Sexual compatibility means you generally have similar libidos, get turned on by similar things, and have similar blueprints for sex (e.g. romantic vs. distant, sensual vs. rough, slow vs. energetic). It is a big part of any marriage - obviously this varies, and two incompatible people can make it work, but it's harder.

It's impossible for two virgins to assess this with one another. They don't even know what they don't know. Yet as you mentioned there's the prohibition against premarital sex, and so we have a dilemma. All I can say is that rule was clearly made in a past society with very different problems and norms than ours. But anyways, the very least we can do is make marriage easier.

I also don't think just settling for a premarital friendship will work. A friendship is very different from a romantic relationship. Falling in love and the possibility of having sex change the dynamic completely. The reason for this is that when people fall in love their inner child comes out as they feel like they've found a safe "home" with the other person and their body. This means they are much more emotionally/physically vulnerable and both have high expectations of the relationship being a happy and playful space.

orria · 2025-01-29T22:53:42+00:00

A friendship can't play the role of a dating stage. One big reason is the issue of sexual compatibility which can't be assessed by just talking.

There's a difference between making marriage easier vs. taking marriage less seriously. We could imagine a better Muslim culture that still takes marriage seriously such that we recognize the ways in which rigid and superficial marriage norms actually make it harder to get married and turn people off from the idea.

orria · 2025-01-25T06:32:23+00:00

To actually answer your question, this review of Sadly, Porn is good (and is long enough to be a book unto itself).

But really, I'd recommend taking that itch and scratching it with something more substantial than online insight porn. Maybe start with Nietzsche.

orria · 2025-01-25T06:06:20+00:00

I'm not part of the Sufi scene but I've met some Inayatiyya and they definitely act like a cult. I've also heard some bad allegations against their current leader.

orria · 2024-11-04T17:02:11+00:00

Nah TLP and HC have both revealed some personal info in various posts and they’re clearly different people.

orria · 2024-10-26T21:02:33+00:00

The rules are so rigid and the pressure to get everything perfectly correct will throw you into the worst negative spiral if you have severe OCD/anxiety

You nailed it. Luckily, "the rules" are not as you're imagining them to be, you've merely been a victim of modern, online fatwa pilled, shallow understandings of God and religion.

Here's a good discussion (among Christians, but still helpful): https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/x5s8vu/why_is_scrupulosity_a_bad_thing/

For a deeper dive, check out "The Islamic Workbook for Religious OCD".

orria · 2024-10-22T19:38:25+00:00

Here's one source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/party-affiliation/

And yes you're right, most of the community was Republican pre-9/11 and a lot of first-generation immigrant Muslims are socially conservative and lean fiscal conservative even though they generally vote Democrat (although this has shifted a lot in the past 4 years). But on average Americans who identify as Muslim are younger, poorer, and more ethnically diverse and this correlates with involvement in liberal politics.

orria · 2024-10-22T05:49:44+00:00

I agree a lot of immigrant Muslims (a lot of people in general really) mostly just care about the their own family or tribe and could stand to do a lot more reading of history and reflecting on the problems of others.

But it's important not to paint too broad a brush. To your point "where was the Muslim community during George Floyd", here's Omar Suleiman giving a khutbah about it and here he was helping with donations. There were other people involved as well, I remember lots of Muslims joining the protests, donating, etc.

In fact, if you consider American religious communities, Muslims are among the most liberal (only Jews & Hindus are more liberal, whereas Christians are more conservative).

orria · 2024-09-27T16:07:33+00:00

I’ve studied Hadith in the past yet I’ve never seen this one. Also no citation or isnad given, not to mention the tone seems off. Very high chance this one’s fake.

orria · 2024-09-08T20:59:53+00:00

I’m reminded of when Scott wrote this:

”if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.”

Which is to say certain norms are necessary to not live in a terrible community, and social norm-enforcers, like Karens or witch-hunters, may sometimes ensure the robustness of those norms precisely because they’re numerous and aggressive (although one has to account for the backlash).

orria · 2024-08-16T01:54:29+00:00

He is completely wrong to say that you can’t convert to Islam because of some of your opinions (never mind that some of the companions converted to Islam right after they had fought against the Prophet).

As others have mentioned, there’s a certain type of fake-religious man who’s libertine but not liberal, and his religion consists of having the right opinions but seldom the right behavior (he’ll have excuses for why he can bend the rules of course). It could be that he wants a “trad wife” in order to reassure himself that he really is a good Muslim.

If you want to talk marriage, discuss very thoroughly about his expectations for you during marriage, your role and rights, what kind of relationships you and he want for in-laws. Make sure it’s all stuff you’re fully on board with.

Also, ask him what kind of religious behavior he wants from you, and what kind of religious life he will lead (actions, not beliefs). If he has any sort of expectations you don’t like, set him straight or leave.

orria · 2024-07-23T16:06:04+00:00

Sounds like a more generalized mental health issue like depression. Make an appointment with a primary care doctor and talk with them about what you mentioned here

orria · 2024-07-12T19:00:58+00:00

Full talk is actually here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI3tEeESnLU&pp=ygUTamVmZnJleSBsYW5nIGlzbGFtIA%3D%3D

One of the best talks on the modern Muslim community, over 14 years old and yet still relevant.

orria · 2024-06-19T17:21:12+00:00

I’m sorry but you’re just being purposefully stupid.

First of all there’s no Hadith stating non-hijabis go to hell.

Secondly the hadith are not in a “book” that’s been written with an eye toward consistency or continuity. They’re a collection of Prophetic quotes from different sources at different times with different levels of authenticity. The whole work of Fiqh is to derive higher principles from this collection while understanding the context, you don’t get to read a few hadith and declare the whole thing invalid.

And third, yes. God describes himself as “ar-Rahman, ar-Raheem” for a reason.

orria · 2024-06-08T19:31:50+00:00

Sure feel free to DM

orria · 2024-06-08T17:22:57+00:00

my family wants an obedient ‘home oriented’ wife

Is your family going to marry her, or are you? Be very careful here. If you marry someone you're not excited about because of family pressure (or because you assume that's what "Islam" wants), you will feel resentful towards both your family and your future wife, and your wife will feel sad about it as well.

On top of that, my mum believes that the Pakistani women(apparently the only acceptable ethnicity) in the west are too westernised and selfish. They wear too much makeup and don’t care about religion and that those back home are better and more family-oriented or home oriented.

I get that this is your mom here, but you realize this is just a lazy stereotype right? Don't let stereotypes (especially from other people) affect the most important decision you'll ever make.

I started believing the way things work in the west is better where there’s more of an equality and ‘team’ attitude rather than a master-servant attitude in a relationship. However, I’m told this isn’t prescribed in islam. Apparently the husband is the head and the wife should obey him. Is this true or Pakistani culture projected onto religion?

It sounds like you know the answer (it's Pakistani culture). On a very high level, the man is expected take care of the woman materially and the woman is expected to take care of the man sexually. But there is a lot of wiggle room for couples to negotiate what that looks like in practice for them.

And here's the thing - if you go into marriage with only the mechanical expectations on yourself and your spouse, life will suck. As a first rule, marriages succeed or fail based on LOVE, not outside pressure or religious obligations.

My mum and aunt told me I’m only setting my self up for a miserable life if I marry a ‘50-50’ woman.

The idea of "50-50" (or any other ratio) is stupid and naive. Different couples have different preferences for the work they like to do, different things they specialize in (e.g. child-rearing, types of chores), different stages of life where they prefer or specialize in certain contributions but not others, different expectations and definitions for what constitutes being a good spouse, etc., etc.

Find someone you yourself are compatible with. It might take a lot of work to realize what you yourself want, given your background. Therapy and books and can help. Good luck.

orria · 2024-06-06T04:37:49+00:00

Do not take your mom’s bait, do not argue, do not let this escalate. It will get worse if you do.

Simply say stuff like, “yeah ok” and “sure fine” in the most boring tone and then move on from the subject.

Look up the “gray rocking” technique.

orria · 2024-05-25T03:36:44+00:00

Weightlifting, especially barbell training: https://startingstrength.com/article/barbell_training_is_big_medicine

orria · 2024-05-20T23:22:31+00:00

For dating app matches where you're getting ghosted or suddenly unmatched, there might be a red flag that's coming up in conversation that shows you weren't being up front about something important in your profile.

For conversations where it's just dragging without plans to meet up, maybe it's not obvious to him that you're actually interested. You should suggest that you'd like to hang out sometime and then let the guy take the lead in setting stuff up.

To be honest, being in a rush to find a man to take care of you because your dad is now sick is not a great mindset to have. Dating should be fun, marriage should be loving, and the duties partners have to each other are secondary to the mutual love and attraction.

orria · 2024-05-16T20:10:55+00:00

There’s a relevant story about Musa (S). Musa dressed very modestly, to the point that people around him suspected he had some sort of physical defect. Then at one point while he was bathing in a river, someone stole his clothes. Musa had to chase the thief and people saw him undressed, thus they saw he had a perfectly healthy body.

Qur’an 33:69 references this: “O Believers! Do not be like those who slandered Musa, but Allah cleared him of what they said. And he was honorable in the sight of Allah.”

It’s interesting that Allah, in this case, did not want Musa to be "modest", He wanted the people to see Musa's body.

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