Things I learned about Muslims by dating one

Waiting for the comments full of atheists calling me stupid, religious prudes saying I'm going to Hell, non-Muslims calling me offensive, and Turks being mad I'm making fun of them.
I don't hate any group of people and I don't mean to stereotype or offend anyone. These are all jokes, relax. Unless you're a person saying I'm going to Hell for dating outside my religion. In that case, stay mad.

[@akashmakeschaos]

I was initially reluctant to click on this video, since I couldn’t recall the last time I heard a non-Muslim be respectful of Islam, so I was surprised while watching your video. I liked how you talked about what you noticed about *Muslims*, not Islam as a religion, and your jokes were hilarious! I loved the “long-talking” part, and where you described finishing du’a (the hand motions across the face) as acting like a raccoon or smth; those were my favorite bits. I grew up pretty sheltered and extremely lucky, considering I’m a practicing Muslim in the West. I discovered Islamophobia as a concept when I was 9, and I didn’t experience it first-hand until I was 12. Hell, I didn’t realise it was Islamophobia (and a lot of it, discrimination) until my History teacher overheard me vent about the “silly” things I’ve been told. That was a few weeks ago. I didn’t know whether to laugh about it or break down in tears. In Middle School (for reference, I’m finishing up 8th grade), I was surrounded by the attitude “being religious = bad, conservative person”, which I found upsetting because… I support gay and trans rights, I’m pro-choice, and I… I don’t try to force my religion on everyone? The bar is that low? And this isn’t from being raised in the West. Every generation of my family I’ve spoken with (and they all grew up in Bangladesh) supports gay rights and abortion rights and nearly everything along that line. And we aren’t “Muslim in name only”; My mother and great-grandfather studied the Quran, and I am trying to be the best Muslim I can be. I personally never liked it when people called Muslims in name only the “cool Muslims”. I know I’m probably just being oversensitive, but it kind of hurts. I’m a Muslim in practice, and when I’m old enough to drive, I’ll be the designated driver at parties, and my friends will never have worry about me sneaking some alcohol and putting them in danger. I can also go the longest without food and water (thanks to Ramadan) compared to my friend group of all non-Muslims. I think that’s cool. Is that really not cool? I never understood how avoiding alcohol, not eating certain types of meat, choosing to wear modest clothing, and not being interested in casual dating makes me a bad person. I really try to be the calmest, most level-headed Muslim and the best representation of Islam I can be, but I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells, and I feel like it’s too much to handle. Suicide being a sin was the main thing keeping me together in 7th grade, when this hit me the hardest. Things got better and I became more comfortable being seen as Muslim. (I’ve always loved Islam; it’s just the treatment from some non-Muslims that made me uncomfortable) I can handle hearing someone say “Islam” or “Muslim” without the overwhelming anxiety that they’d surely trash my religion and ridicule the beliefs… that’s a lie, I still get a lot of that anxiety. That’s why it took so long to click on your video (I just had to watch it; I love your videos, especially the Hetalia shipping awards), and it took even longer to comment. I did not expect this rant to be this long. I just… I really wanted to tell someone this, and I also wanted to express how much I appreciate how respectful your video is, as well as being funny, as all of your videos are. This video made me so happy… You’re really awesome, and you’re really funny. You deserve the best. Thank you, Kolkocat!

[@YusufSahin-dg7il]

A quick clarification about the whole "singing" aspect of prayer. Generally speaking the call to prayer "adhan" is meant to be more sing-song from the outset (as Muhammad s.w.t. asks for), however the more sing-song version of prayer varies from preacher to preacher and from region to region. I've been to some mosques where they speak the prayers and make the vowels exactly the length they were in the original text (which is not very long), others who speak more quickly than that, and others still who will drag out each vowel for a minute and put vibrato in their voice. We do have a type of "singing" that's closer to what you would see in a church called "Dhikr", though it's more "chanting" than it is singing. It's effectively repeating a certain exaltation of God (either a name of God or a prayer directed to him). There is some controversy around it considering certain Muslims believe Dhikr should be silent, however most of the time the chanting is done aloud and in unison (and sometime with musical instruments playing, though that's far less common). To get a better idea I'd recommend just looking up videos of it. As for when and how it's done that varies quite a bit from region to region since the practice evolved in different regions differently. And yeah the arab vs non-arab division is real, it is also very funny considering where the faith sprung up from in the first place (shockingly, not in a turkic country). The cause is mostly just hyper-nationalist nation-building in the arab and turkic worlds within the early 1900's and afterwards, especially in the central Asian turkic countries where non-Russian nationalism was heavily suppressed for most of its modern history. For Anatolian Turks in particular, the instability of the middle east has meant a great deal (especially during the 2010's) of refugees from Syria and elsewhere fled to the country, and a lot of people resent them just for being there (then again racists will be racist no matter if there's an issue or not). One final bit of input, the whole reading the Quran and praying in Arabic is not mandatory, but people do it due to the belief that it prevents the semantic shift that language produces over time. This is mostly a post-prophet initiative by people like Abu Bakr (the first caliph after the prophet) who didn't like the fact that people were starting to pronounce the words differently in parts of the caliphate. And so you have modern Arabic and Quranic Arabic nowadays, with Quranic Arabic effectively being the Islamic Church-Latin. Even people who speak modern Arabic can't really understand Quranic Arabic (kind of like an Italian trying to understand church-Latin). So the solution isn't as simple as "learning Arabic", you also have to learn not just to read and understand Quranic Arabic in particular, but also the historical/religious context behind what you're saying if you wanted to "know" what your prayers actually entailed. This is naturally not feasible for most non-Arabic or even Arabic speaking individuals since it requires a great deal of dedicated time spent learning it (usually the most accessible form is a translated copy of the Quran with context notes and popular interpretations written in as a reading aide). Wow this ended up being longer than I intended, I just wanted to comment on the "singing" aspect initially, but ended up writing a bit more than that. All in all, good video though, you touched on a lot of very real phenomena that isn't often talked about in media intended for an English-speaking audience. I've a great love for history, in particular the journey of Islam from its founding to the modern day, so I apologise for my rambling.

[@DeChan05]

The praying in Arabic ls not mandatory part is wrong. Especially when doing Ibaadah, since the Arabic words can translate to many different meanings, it should be prayed in Arabic so no meaning confusion would happen. Also I think you mentioning how this is a “post-prophet” invention is just disrespectful. Abu Bekir (R.A.) wanted to protect the Quran in its original form so it is understandable why he wanted to protect it as it came to the Prophet (S.A.V). Because if he didn’t, there might have been a similar situation to Bible where due to many translations, some verses may not have retain their original meanings (Of course since Quran is the last Holy book, Allah would protect it but it was also important for Caliphates to do their best to retain it in its original form)

[@YusufSahin-dg7il]

​@@DeChan05 Hi, I don't mean to be disrespectful towards Abu Bakir or say that what he did was bad. When I call what Abu Bakir did an "innovation" I am referring to the Islamic theological term "Bidah" which can translate roughly to "innovation" or "advancement". There is a lot of stigma in the modern day around the term "Bidah" (since it is sometimes thought of as purely heretical changes), but the compilation of the Quran into a book and many of the common Islamic practices today are a result of Islamic scholars using reasoning (Ijtihad) to make advancements that are still in line with the Quran and Sunnah. Innovations on the faith can be a good thing that we can all agree are necessary, many verses in the Quran and Sunnah support the community of faithful and the Islamic scholars using their sense of logic provided to them by Allah (s.w.t.) to expand upon the faith. With the important stipulation that these innovations must be in line with the Quran and Sunnah. For example, Imam Al-`Izz ibn `Abdus-Salam (one of the foremost and celebrated Islamic scholars of all time) noted 3 types of Bidah (innovation) that were acceptable (out of the 5 he identified). These were: 1. Obligatory innovation, such as writing down the Quran, hadith classification, and even philosophical arguments (to counter opposing worldviews). 2. Religiously recommended innovation, such as building schools, recording useful scientific knowledge, recording Islamic jurisprudence precedence, and commemorating the birth (mawlid) of the prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.). 3. Religiously permitted innovation, such as serving different dishes on one dining table, having more enjoyable food, drink, and housing than one needs, etc. For example, Caliph Umar is reported to have gathered people to perform Tarawih (The Ramadan night prayer) in congregation. This did not exist during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammed (p.b.u.h.). I'd also like to note that the term "Bidah" is never used in the Quran to refer to heretical changes to the Quran or Islam. However there is no verse in the Quran or Sunnah which explicitly states one must pray in Arabic. One can make that interpretation based on certain verses, but I've not found any of them compelling enough (both in and out of their original context) to take them to mean one must pray in Arabic. As I mentioned in my previous comment, language is ever-changing and codifying the verses in Quranic Arabic does not protect them against semantic shift. Even if everybody today spoke Arabic, we would still not be able to fully understand Quranic Arabic as we no longer live in the linguistic environment that produced it. We need context notes to be able to genuinely understand what is being said in the Quran, and trying to maintain some sense of purity by refusing to pray in anything other than Arabic can prevent people from developing a better understanding of Islam. That's not to say I disagree with the Quran being compiled or with people praying in Arabic. I don't want to pass judgement on others interpretation of the faith, and likewise I mean no disrespect to you. I simply don't think we benefit from pretending that none of the rightly guided caliphs innovated on the faith, or that the Islam we practice today has not evolved since the time of the prophet Muhammed (p.b.u.h.). I do also think it's incredible how well recorded the Quran is and how quickly it was compiled into a book by Abu Bakir, but I think we shouldn't let the weight of that achievement prevent us from classifying it as an innovation of Islam. All the best to you my brethren in faith.

[@DeChan05]

@@YusufSahin-dg7il Hi! Thank you expanding your perspective on this. It is always important to understand someone’s perspective to understand their point so thank you for doing that! :) One thing I would disagree with though is there is such thing as good Bidah. Terawih prayer is recorded to be prayed by our Prophet (S.A.V.) but he left doing it in the masjid because he was afraid that it would seen as a mandatory prayer by ummah. (Which is understandable considering now, Hanefits count Witr Salah as Wajib ibadah since our Prophet (S.A.V.) was praying it all of his life.) Hz. Umar (R.A.) only revived this tradition. Bidah is an “addition” to Islam that didn’t existed before as you said. When Quran was complied to one book, nothing was changed, it was only made it more practical for some kind of record of Qur’ān to exist without changing it, hence not a bidah. Bidah would be something like believing in bad eye or praying to tombs with incorrect intentions as these things did not exist in Islam before, but now in some cultures (in this case Turkish culture) believe these things are Islamic things so do it in the name of Islam. There is a fantastic video about this topic that you may want to check out if you want to see exactly where this perspective comes from:instagram.com/reel/CxYk9v3Swfk/ Again, thanks for keeping it respectful and giving things from the perspective you have based on. I am non-arabic speaker too and understand the point of not being able to understand. However, I think it is also important to keep the prayer in original language or else there would be multiple interpretations of an Ibadah that meant to unite Ummah. The best thing to do is do research about the meaning of prayers with closest one to its original meaning and “think” about it when praying. And of course, Allah knows best.

[@Normalaatsra]

The Turkic 'northern Islam' you describe sounds a lot like Indonesian Islam, I'd say it's about the same. It's unique in the country as it was blended with knowledge of Buddhist and Hinduism elements, and that the nation's laws saw a lot of liberal 'opening up' of the religion in the dictatorship era. In the last 15 years it saw a sudden development of people abandoning the secular interpretation we had and switching to the Arabic mainland type of Islam. Now women in the country are peer pressured to wear a hijab cause of, I kid you not, hijab privilege. Every family these days have seemingly replaced their yearly holiday trips to do the umrah which is crazy as you aren't obligated to do this all the time. And some are completely discarding the ethnic cultures they once grew up with. It's people are straight up Arabiaboos. The exposure of Wahhabism through Saudi-backed imams and the proliferation of building new mosques really contributed to this change.

[@mrteaspill]

As a Muslim, idk how to feel about this video😭

[@CYN.the.absolute.solver]

Yeah it's sooooo wrong

[@timurtheterrible4062]

@@CYN.the.absolute.solver In the ex-USSR it is very very right.

[@liamgriffin218]

"He's from one of the -Stans." I don't know why that absolutely floored me ROFL

[@thefool3389]

As a Türk and a muslim, yeah that's pretty accurate. As always, there are exceptions to everything, but you're pretty well informed rn. Good job👍

[@nimic6626]

Of the northern and southern muslim counties, i think iran is a mixture of the two sides (more in the "cool" side) although the gov tries its best to enforce the southern types of rules like enforcing hijab and etc, majority of our people are against that and would act like the "cool Muslims" which is totally understandable because iran and turkey has been influencing each other for so long and a big portion of Iranians are turks

[@DeChan05]

A little correction on Sunni-Shia part. As much as all Muslims agree on Hz. Ali (R.A.) shouldn’t have been matyred during his rule, Sunni Muslims would still say that Hz.Muhammed (S.A.V.) hasn’t left a successor and left it to his people and Allah, hence Sunni Muslims believing that the successor who came after Muhammed (S.A.V) was the right choice. (I also really appreciate showing the difference between Turkic Muslims and other Muslims, as when I moved to the US, I felt USA was a better place to live as Muslim than Turkey since term “Modern Muslim” is not as common there as it is in Turkey due to many Arab Muslims being here as well)

[@fbbluver2]

As a former Muslim living in the west... this cracked me up. There's a lot here that I can totally relate to!

[@lasagnaforbreakfast]

I'm happy that this video is respectful about Islam! Love you your VIDS!

[@aquano1972]

I appreciate your informative and comedic way of presenting your own experiences. It’s really enjoyable. A whole can of worms is what happens regarding LGBT people. I am a trans woman raised as a Muslim, and unfortunately many Muslims aren’t really okay with that, at all lol. I believe in God still and follow goodwill. But it’s hard to really practice my faith when I’m not allowed to : /

[@zaratxbki]

lolll the “long talking” is more like reciting honestly

[@Micolash-Cage-of-Nightmare]

This is hillarious, please share more of your observations.

[@groberkriegproductions2356]

Very nice Seeing a perspective from a outsider ( I dont follow any of these islam, I follow the teachings of eslaum )

[@UkraineMotherland]

Which stan??

[@neuvilletteswife_real]

hello kolko

[@marichu899]

6:14 I identify as a maxican

[@len9505]

Albania 💀 💀 💀

[@youtubeowl9544]

😭😂 Oh dear! This is terrible. But sis, keep on studying, Ok? And what's a better way to go about that than to read the Quran, the primary text of Islam. (I recommend the Clear Quran by Mustapha khattab)

[@Normalaatsra]

Not gonna slide by some. I heard a story from a Japanese person who got a sudden intrigue in Islam after watching news media about conflicts and terrorism activity, that they wanted to read the Quran, so they went to the Tokyo Camii to borrow one for research, but the Muslim staff at the site demanded that it's not a book you can treat like an academic book. It's a sacred text that needs to be cared for and those who request it are to commit to it a.k.a. practice and convert. The person did not take it at the end, so they learned from that mistake and instead pick up some knowledge of the Quran through secondary sources.

[@burnermill5241]

This video confirms what I already thought. The only way to move religion "forward" is by forcibly watering it down, which is what Ataturk and the Soviets did. I say forcibly because that progress is never achieved passively. You can look at the first settlers too. They were insane, and their influence still plagues American society in various forms.

[@moosesues8887]

Brooo 💀