The "other" misconceptions about Muslims

"Hey Ali" my non-Muslim friend said to me. "You're the Ramadan religion, right"? I replied by saying "Um.. yes". My non-Muslim friend then said "There's a really good looking Ramadan girl in my class. I want to ask her out." To which I replied "Don't you know us Ramadanians (Ramadanees?) don't date or marry non-Muslims?" My non-Muslim friend said "Yeah yeah I know. But she's totally westernized cuz she doesn't have a male constantly watching her and she doesn't wear that hoojab headscarf thing."

You can go around and find on online dating forums and stuff which show there's many people like my non-muslim friend above. It doesn't just apply to Muslim girls, it applies to Muslim guys too. I read a paragraph by a woman who said she wanted to go on a date with a Muslim guy. She ended up fighting with other users on the forum that he's not the Taliban/Saudi type of guy because he doesn't have a beard, meaning he's totally cool with alcohol and sex outside marriage. Apparently, not having a beard distinguishes us Muslims from being suicide bombing, anti-education crazy tribal people.

These types of misconceptions about Muslims are not talked about that much. We certainly don't want to be viewed as misogynistic, uncivilized, intolerant, violent people. But at the same time we don't want to be in any way associated with sex, drugs, alcohol, dating, and tight/revealing clothes. There's many non-muslims who do hold the view that we aren't bad people, and that our religion isn't bad either, but within that category there are people who think we're fine with the western lifestyles. I myself am a Muslim living in the west, so by western life styles, I again refer to the sex, drugs, alcohol, dating, and improper clothing. I think one time I was watching a Youtube video about famous Muslim women, and the top rated comment was something like "Not all Muslims are traditional and conservative, many want to date and live like how we want to" or something along those lines. The problem is, just because we don't dress (hijbab/burka/beards) like the Muslims in our countries DOESN'T MEAN we have ditched Islam or its core teachings. This goes out to the Muslims who live in Muslim countries as well, as many of them think just because we live here we're automatically acting like those Hollywood models and actors.