Your worst enemy!

People say or think “Oh she is oppressed… Oh look, she is running to get home for her husband, oh look, she stopped joking around because her family-husband-friend etc. is here”….

We should always be real and true to whom we are at ALL times! If we are bubbly and outgoing or shy and quiet we should always be the same with all people; we should always be that way around others (obviously when appropriate).

After all God sees us at all times. Either way, eventually it will get to be very exhausting to try and put up a façade of being different for different people…..but then again, this is not a Muslim women community problem only!

Even very frustrated feminist activists admit we women are our own worse enemy! It’s time to stop being so phony and fake and hard on ourselves!

It’s time to stop judging your sisters in humanity and in Islam for being, acting, or looking different than you.

It’s time to stop judging ourselves by our looks in the mirror based on fake airbrushed magazines or television shots of what beauty is. It’s time to stop judging the shy if you are outgoing and it’s time to stop judging the outgoing because you are shy.

Stop acting silly if it’s not you, stop acting quiet and shy and timid if that’s not you…I know it’s not me. As long as it’s nothing inappropriate, rude, or mean for no reason, I won’t bite my tongue. Be who you are, say what you mean but NOT at the expense of your sisters. It’s time to stop blaming men, culture, society, and religion for our behaviors! God Almighty granted women in Islam rights over fourteen hundred years ago in the Qu’ran: take them!

It is our right and responsibility to know our rights but we need to know our responsibilities as well. Let us not be like those who go to work and avoid working and expect the pay check. I want, give me, this is my personality so I can be and say what I want;….uhm NO. There is such a thing as tact.

Just because we in America have the right to “freedom of speech” doesn’t give us the right to be a donkey’s butt! Just because Islam gave us “women’s rights” doesn’t mean our house is a slob pit and work and socializing become more important than family.

Just because we have the responsibility to give Da’wah (tell others about our religion) and we can attend the religious centers and events does not mean that becomes an everyday thing to attend to before our duties, responsibilities and rights such as prayer, worship, children (if you have them), parents, cleanliness, and husbands’ (if you have one) rights over us.

I, Alhamdulilah, have been very blessed with a mouth to speak, internet access to learn and find out about things, opportunities to network and volunteer and attend events. However, my child is not neglected, my laundry is clean and for the most part the apartment is very clean these days. There are weekends where I am busy 2-3 days doing a sisters’ event, visiting, being with a friend or family member, and the mosque or a religious event.

However, there are weekends where I do absolutely none of that and just stay home in my own private worship, read to my child or go to the store or library, everything in balance.

All that said…. stop giving the excuse of being too busy, too clean, to “thick” to work out, too married to brush your hair, too tired and busy to learn your religion and see your family and sisters (either Muslim or not they have rights to time with us). Stop giving the excuse that you cannot or won’t wear make up- at home you can do whatever you want. No need to look sloppy.

Look cute, don’t let yourself go. Your family, friends, and husband have the right to see you healthy, well groomed, and clean.

Allah blessed us with our inner beauty as well as outer. Just because we are unmarried or married doesn’t mean to stop washing, and grooming and being a woman.

Onto the religious aspect. There are Du’as (prayers) for every joy and affliction. You have the right to know and benefit from these! There is the internet, books, knowledge centers…there is NO excuse not to know these things. Ask your sisters in Islam-they will teach or tell them to you. Go online! Don’t have internet? Go to the library- it’s free.

Don’t have the 10-30 dollars for a book? Fall back on the ordering pizza and Starbucks just for two weeks and you will have enough money!

Trust me, I am by no means well off! but Alhamdulilah I borrow books from my sisters in Islam, look online, and ask questions of that which I don’t know. There are free workshops online, in public, and at religious gatherings. It’s time to stop judging one another and letting ourselves go. Love yourself and remember Allah loves beauty.

Holly Garza