Now having said that, do you know where SEVERE arabization is happening? In the US.
Pakistani families have either become super liberal or Arab-mimics. Go to any masjid and you will see Pakistani girls in Abayas - this is NOT our cultural dress. Burqa yes, from like 2-3 generations ago (Seriously now, its 2015!), but Abaya has NOTHING to do with Pakistan. Never did. You’ll see them in hijabs (head coverings only) with western clothing - also NOT a Pakistani cultural thing.
Think about your parents or grandparents generation and look at the media from these times and dramas. The concept of hijab was totally foreign. Either you wore a burqa and you were thought to be super backwards, or you wore a shalwaar kameez, with a dupatta, maximum, over your head. Your face showed. Some tufts of hair showed. You had make up on your face. And your kameez showed a little bit of curve. Even among more conservative circles, this is how people dressed and it was considered “conservative” at that time.
Now these same people are sitting here and saying that this kind of dressing is HARAAM, and women need to cover their faces, and they need to wear an abaya or they’re just not muslim.
Really the Arabization is not in the language. It’s in the dress code. It’s in the constant talking about Islam at dinner tables now where everyone has become a frikkin armchair scholar. It’s European story books being replaced by misinformed and horribly written “Islamic” knowledge books and essays, which are littered with inaccuracies, misogyny, and propaganda. These things are HAVING INFLUENCE on the masses.
Young educated guys now, instead of focusing on their degrees and figuring out how to do good in the world are now joining terrorist organizations and becoming their masterminds. Not all, but enough that it’s a serious worry. It only takes a few crazies to bomb hundreds and thousands of people.
So, yeah, I’m sorry, extremism is on the rise amongst Pakistanis and it’s polarizing Pakistani people. A lot of people feel they can’t relate to the burqa/abaya/beard thumpers and so people are now moving away from the masjids, and from spending time with other muslims. As a result, they are becoming increasingly less muslim in their ideas and behaviors.
You know this is coming from the Devil. You know it’s coming from the Devil because it’s resulting in nothing but destruction and polarization of our community.
There is NO PLACE in Islam for such dress restrictions. General guidelines are there, but you don’t have to pick specifically an Abaya to qualify as a muslim woman. But that’s how muslim women are being made to feel when they go to masjids, or in social gatherings. Nowhere is there a rule in Islam that you have to grow a beard. Nowhere. You can qualify as a heaven-going muslim and never have grown a beard your whole life. It’s simply not in the Quran. It’s not a deal breaker. It’s a simple thing that Muhammad (SAW) did to bind his people together in a unity. Similar to the effect of a uniform. Where you feel like you’re part of a team. You might as have every muslim borrow the same cap with an Islam logo on it, and it has the same psychological effect. It doesn’t have to have a beard, but the CONCEPT is that muslims need to stick together.
Which they’re not right now, because the dresses are polarizing people.
When people make you feel like you need to wear an abaya or a hijab to be muslim or you must grow a beard to be part of the Masjid team, it’s no different than cult mentality. It is no longer about being part of a spiritual religion. It’s about being in a cult.