@Neverdul, you could also have included pix of Orthodox Jews. And, somewhat less well known, it is customary among some very conservative Fundie-gelical Christians for women and girls to wear head coverings (as well as longer skirts and dresses, but not pants).
I thought I did. It doesn't look like it posted for some reason:
Story behind the pic:
https://onlysimchas.com/jewish-news/inspirational/photo-of-hasidic-couple-sitting-next-to-muslim-woman-on-train-goes-viral/I worked with and shared an office with a woman who was a very conservative fundamentalist Christian. Very nice lady BTW. She only wore dresses and skirts, all on the long side, well below the knee but not quite to the ankle, and never pants, sensible shoes, never heels and always ¾ to full length sleeves, tops always high necked, blouses buttoned to the very top button. She was very active in her church, taught Sunday School and VBS and I assumed this was her choice, and to some extent it was perhaps.
But when our company offered employees a very steep discount at the athletic club next door, she expressed an interest in joining but told me the next day her husband told her absolutely “NO!†as is was a “mixed†gym and told me her husband didn’t want her to be working out in her “gym†clothes, no matter how modest and covered up she was, among men who might get “certain ideas†about her, that moving while exercising and sweating would make her appear “slutty†to them and they would not be able to control themselves nor would she. He didn’t want her to join a gym at all but let her join “Curves†because it was all female.
That’s when I learned from her that he had to approve all the clothes she bought and wore and even her hair style and checked each morning to make sure she leaving the house in an “appropriate†manner and wasn’t wearing any make up.
It wasn’t too long after this that I learned she had separated from her husband, not because of his clothing and gym dictates, but because while he was laid off from his job, and with evidently nothing better to do, he was banging the church secretary, in her their own home, in their martial bed. It was her second marriage, her first husband, also a fundamentalist was a closet drinker who had beat her and had molested their daughter. She remained strong in her Christian faith despite it all, even after her church threw her (but not her husband but yes, the secretary) out for separating from her husband. It was all her fault somehow.
Years earlier I worked at a pharmaceutical company. There was a young woman who was an ultra-orthodox Jew who worked in the IT department. She also dressed very modestly in long dresses and skirts and heavy hosiery/tights so that very little skin was showing. She also wore a wig as is customary among married orthodox women but also wore a head scarf. I didn’t know her well but she did help me with some IT issues a couple of times. She was quiet and shy, reserved but very good at her job.
On 9/11 I was working as Payroll/Accounts Payable Manager at this same pharmaceutical company in Baltimore. Our department had recently hired a couple of recent college grads for the finance department, one of which was a lovely young woman who I was training to be my backup for payroll. I don’t recall her name but it wasn’t a typical “American†name, whatever that is since my name is one rarely heard outside of Germany. Her name might have been “Nasreenâ€, close enough, so that is how I will refer to her and she was of Iranian descent. I don’t know if she was born here or came here at a very young age but she dressed, wore her hair and spoke, liked the same music, movies, TV shows, carried herself just like any other American gal of that age group, dare I say better than many in that she was very hard working and polite.
Anyway, after we learned of the 1st plane going into the WTC and then the 2nd, the attack on the Pentagon, many of us were trying to get the most up to date news of what was happening and my boss had at small TV in his office. By then we all knew it was a terrorist attack and already of Islamic origin. A lot of people were leaving to go home early, many of them parents because schools were closing, one person in our department, her mother in law worked at the Pentagon and no one had been able to reach her. I was desperately trying to get payroll finished but having problems with the funding, the wire transfer to ADP as it normally went through a bank in lower Manhattan which was impossible and had to be re-routed through several banks.
Nasreen came to my office so I could show her this part of the payroll process but she just couldn’t function, tears were streaming from her eyes sobbing uncontrollably, saying over and over, “horrible, horribleâ€, oh God, I can’t believe this†and something that always stuck with me – she said to me while sobbing, “why would those people do this to usâ€. Yes – “those people†to “us†and “I hate these Islamists scum – they drove my family from their home in Iran, they killed so many and oppress everyone. They claim to do it for God. But they don’t know Godâ€. I told her to go home and be with her family. She hugged me so hard and for a long time and said, still crying, “You too, please be safe and don’t stay here too long.†And she hugged me again.
While I assumed, I didn’t know for sure if Nasreen’s family were Muslim or not as she didn’t impress me as being “religiousâ€, but about 6 months after 9/11, her mother was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and died only 2 short months later. Nasreen was very close to her mother, her father too and she was devastated. I and a couple of other co-workers including my boss who was Jewish, went to the memorial service held at the Mosque the family attended. But quite a few people made excuses for not going and I overheard one saying he wasn’t going to set foot in any “G-D Mosque†after what “they†did to us, as if Nasreen and her mother had anything at all to do with 9/11.
I went and it was fine and a lot like any other memorial service I’ve been to at Churches of all flavors or Synagogues, some prayers and songs, some religious and some secular but also a lot of people speaking to what a kind and wonderful women Nasreen’s mother was, about her life and how she touched so many others’ lives – she had been a social worker and there were a lot of people of many faiths and backgrounds attending her memorial. Yes, they requested women cover their heads while inside the Mosque and you know what? I didn’t have a problem with that as the Traditionalist Roman Catholic Church that my parents attended made the same request of all women inside the chapel for my own mother’s funeral service. Nothing said or displayed there made me at all uncomfortable and in fact I felt very welcomed by Nasreen’s father and her other family members who thanked me and my Jewish boss for coming and offered their blessings on us.
And FWIW, my husband and I attended a service at a rather orthodox Synagogue for a former boss’s mother’s funeral where not only was I requested to cover my hair and my husband don a kipper, but men and women sat in separate aisles. We conformed and did this as a sign of respect and of common decency.
Over my 59 years I’ve known lots of people, people of many different races, of just about every religion, ethnicities, nationalities, and yes, sexual orientations, etc. and know based on my life experiences that bad people come in sorts all flavors as do good people.
As the oft quoted quote goes – (people) should not be judged by the color of their skin (or religion) but by the content of their character.
Yes, the Islamic terrorists are a plague that need to be wiped out, but they are a plague on all of us, a plague on all of mankind, and there are many Muslims who feel the same. But websites like BareNakedIslam is never going to tell you about them are they. Why? Because it would harsh their narrative that all Muslims by their very nature, religion and place of their or their ancestors birth, are all terrorists or potential terrorists down to every single last one.
I will have none of it.
When we paint all Muslims indiscriminately with the same broad brush, we demonize and dehumanize them much like the Nazi’s did with the Jews. And to be honest, if I had been born into the Muslim faith and immigrated from a predominately Muslim country, whether or not I adhered to it and like Nasreen, was not particularly religious myself and very culturally Westernized, if I heard over and over, again and again how “evil†I was, how I didn’t belong here and that I needed to go back home, how every one of needs to be killed, I can see how this in and of its self can lead some to radicalization.
