Mall Talk

This post is dedicated to the woman that my family and I met at the mall this weekend. Friendly enough, she approached us with "your children are gorgeous!" (the bait) and 60 seconds later was asking "why are so many Islamics across the world so angry?" (reel 'em in!)

Well, that is not a question I'm willing to get into here. I'm not even sure I could answer it comprehensively if I tried. And honestly, I almost always hate talking about politics, unless I know everyone in the room is going to agree with me, lol. Neither do I wish to acknowledge the personal questions she lobbed at us, like why I wasn't wearing a hijab. But what I can address is something that did - for me - hinder our attempt at a respectful discourse: terms, what they mean and how they are pronounced.

If you are interested, let me start with a little 101.

Religion name: Islam

People who follow the religion of Islam are called: Muslims. Can be used as either a noun ("he is a Muslim") or as an adjective ("he is Muslim").

The word "Islamic" may be used as an adjective, to describe elements of Islam. Like the phrase "Islamic guidelines" used below. When referring to a person, please use "Muslim".

Food prepared in accordance to Islamic guidelines: halaal. (our equivalent to kosher)

Islamic place of worship: mosque.

Holy Book of Islam: the Koran, sometimes spelled Qur'an.

Language of the Quran: written in Arabic.

Arabic refers to the language.
Arab refers to a person or state.
(but not all Arabs are Muslim. not all Muslims are Arab.)

Still with me? :)

Next onto pronunciation.

Let's start with an easy example first. Two english words. You are going to have to say it out loud to really hear the difference. So close your office door or whatever. ;)

His / Hiss

You hear the difference obviously - the first "s" is more of a "z" sound, slow and lazzzy. The second double "s" is sharper, hiss-like. Keep those in mind as you follow along with these words as I've written them phonetically:

Islam:
most often pronounced: Izz-lam
more properly pronounced: Iss-lam

Muslim:
most often pronounced: Muzz-lim
more properly pronounced: Muss-lim

You know, it's not that these things really make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things; nothing in this world is going to be made or broken because of inadvertent mispronunciation, I know that. Believe me when I say I'm not offended by things like this in the least, under usual circumstances. Her mistakes bothered me because I felt like our new friend was acting as if she knew me. But she doesn't. Every person is more complex than the labels we use: Muslim, Christian, Republican, Democrat. Aren't you a little conservative about some issues, and a little liberal about others? Is every Christian the same? Is every Muslim? Aren't we all a little more than what we appear to be in a mall?

I was pretty speechless though, as I tend to be when caught off guard, so I didn't say any of those things. Ozayr handled all her questions with an amazing amount of grace, I thought. And he was so patient, standing there holding our dinner tray, trying to make it look natural to be carrying it while discussing religion and politics, while 2 grubby children circled in and around his legs. It was the girls that eventually broke us free from our talk, and I heard her say as we walked away, "the next time we run into each other we can sit down and talk RELIGION!"