Re: Given all the negative portrayal and understaning
It really does end up being hard when there is an obvious bad seed among your midst.
I had a member of our MSA who was like that in college. He was very passionate about Islam which was wonderful but so misguided in his approach that he always came off as threatening to non-muslims. Actually, I felt threatened by him too...he was so militant...its the only word I can think of.
He would get all the boys in the MSA to go to the gym every night in case they had to go for Jihad and needed to be physically strong, openly rude to non-muslims, would never give the girls a straight answer (meaning he always mocked us like we had no place there), etc.
One day during Jumah we had this reporter come by from the school newspaper to do a piece on our Jumah prayer. I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to get some good exposure and was really excited about it.
The girls talked to her, welcomed her and gave her an idea of the agenda. She was really sweet, took off her shoes and took a seat towards the side of the room along the wall. She was behind the men and in front of the women but off to the side. She was not in anyone's way.
Right before he starts the Khutbah (lets call him Shan), Shan gets in front of the mic and says loud and clear: Will the non-muslim female please seat herself with the rest of the women in the back of the room? This is a prayer! And the way he said it was SO rude! It was so quiet in that room for a full 5 seconds you could hear a pin drop.
Why should she? Is she Muslim? Is she bound by our rules? NO. She was respectful, courteous and even wore a scarf to the prayer - what else did he want? And why must he be so rude about it? We were so angry with him for that (no article in the paper either) we had him removed from office.
There is such a negative image of us...we dont need to add to it. That girl must have gone and told at least 5 people how she was treated. Someone who didnt have an opinion about us now had a negative one.