Re: Culture and Religon
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Culture breaks down into ethnic-culture and religious-culture.
Religious-culture (religious-rituals, values, morals, beliefs) should be the same for Muslims world over but when it comes to ethnic-culture i.e. secular 'cosmetic' things such as language, food, dress, art and architecture there is no standard 'Islamic culture' and all that is required is to bring ones ethnic-culture into the guidelines set by Islaam (e.g. replace the bacon in your English breakfast with goose-breast and get a longer blouse for that sari). I can't see anyone getting more punya/thawab for wearing a kaftan as opposed to shalwar-kamiz or eating musaq'ah instead of saalan or building a Mosque in the mughlo-rajasthani style instead of the victorian/gothic style. Everywhere Islam went the locals maintained their ethnicity and brought the associated culture within Islamic guidelines, our Muslim/Hui brethren in China build Mosques in the traditional Chinese style....
Allaah Ta'aala Himself says in the Noble Koran that He created us into ethnicities, tribes/families etc. that we may get to know (recognise) each other...
Despite our various ethnicities we should be one Nation (political unit) because for us nationality should be based on religion and not ethnicity like with other people of the world...
It is quite beautiful our Muslim Nation, we the Muslims are a 'cosmopolitan' Nation, encompassing all different cultures, it's quite grand..
What is forbidden is to be so proud of ones ethnicity to such an extent that it causes you to look down on fellow Muslims of other ethnicities and it's discouraged to narrow-mindedly stuck with ones own ethnic-traditions because Islaam encourages cultural exchange as is inevitable with all cosmopolitan socities so one day we'd share so many traditions that the only ethnicity-marker will be language..