This is the latest post from a former business acquaintance, HijabMan.
Now, I should preface by saying that I don't know much about HM's views on Islam and I have a sense that I don't agree with him on a lot of things, but he raises a good point which has been anecdotally looming for some time and appears to be manifesting itself in various respects across the Western Muslim world, particularly in the States.
Some of his take-home points are that marriageable men are in the minority and that options are receding for women. This is his anecdotal evidence, of course, because different communities and social circles may manifest opposite contentions, I think. Drawing from mostly female acquaintances, he also cites that female opinion is that most men are either, to paraphrase, religious but total losers, or non-practicing but socially functional.
I don't have much to offer in the regard of a how and a why, but I think, controversially perhaps, that our generation* has been misled into thinking or being socialized that if we do good in school, everything will be okay, and/or that if we just be religious, everything will be okay.
There is a lot wrong with this statement, of course, which is why it's a generalization.
First, to address the asterisk, *, it is almost incorrect to start out talking about "our" generation without a qualification. Our generation is much wider, in reality, than we think about when we deign to speak on behalf of it. So, let's just call this an academically and/or financially elite immigrant offspring generation issue. Indigenous blacks and converts are generally excluded from this discussion because they don't have the immigrant baggage nor nearly the same socialization as this above-defined "us." This is not to say that they experience much ease in getting married. On the contrary, they're typically left to themselves by the "greater" Muslim community.
In any case, I think a lot of people are quick to blame parents, including, sometimes, me. But I don't think we can entirely fault our parents - it's simply the destiny of our generation. Our folks came to make a better life for themselves, for the most part, and that was mostly it. Often for education or jobs, the parental generation never intended, for the most part, to make the States their home, which is why many, if not most, have to "come to terms" with calling the States their home (on account of the unforeseen but retrospectively obviously predictable reality of having children in the course of their lives). I don't know that most have come to terms with it, though, and many are in denial and continue to build pseudo-enclaves of cultural imitation hoping to bring their flavors here to take root in their children in some way.
Bottom line: they came for perfectly acceptable reasons, not, usually, expecting to stay. As the hadith famous says, "their hijrah is to that for which they traveled."
That said, it makes much more sense why our generation is floundering in many ways. Parents came for non-reprehensible but generally worldly reasons, had kids, and never saw themselves in the position of institution and community building.
I think maybe as this realization hardened and children got older, a sociocultural "fight or flight" mechanism came into play with different camps employing alternate tactics:
Some isolated and went totally religio-academic, others focused mostly on academics and worldly savvy. In the end, though, both groups, generally, still need to get married and nobody has really dealt with this in any way, shape, or form as a community.
And so you have non-practicing socially normal guys and religious tools.
That's my [poor] quasi-analysis. I mostly don't think this is a complete blog post at all, but at least I posted over a year later, eh?
A simple solution, by the way, is marrying for character and religion and personality compatibility with an honest assessment of self preceding all of those. I feel, when I hear comments like those that HM drops from his female acquaintances, ("it's like talking to a brick wall") that maybe people fancy themselves to be a "great catch" more often than they actually are and quickly write off an otherwise decent person.Labels: HijabMan, marriage crisis, muslim
