Mahreen Munawar – Micro Activity #14

Mahreen Munawar 

ENG 1121

October 21, 2020 

Word count: 830

Al Ghurabi Lur . “So Many Rules to Break: On the Struggles of a Modern Muslim.” Literary Hub, 2 Apr. 2019, 

lithub.com/so-many-rules-to-break-on-the-struggles-of-a-modern-muslim/ 

Summary and quotes:

Lur Alghurabi is a Muslim woman and in her article, “So Many Rules to Break: On the Struggles of a Modern Woman” she states how as a Muslim she was expected to act a certain way. Lur also makes reference to sins in the Islamic religion, how they can justify committing any sin but eating pork is the one that almost all Muslims never commit. “Muslim kids committing every sin under the sun except eating pork. We’ll do it all: we’ll break our fast, we’ll have the sex, we’ll do the drugs, we’ll eat that steak, we’ll go to the club and we’ll drink the beer and we’ll smoke that cigarette and that weed, but don’t you get that pork anywhere near us. Do you want us to go to hell?” (Alghurabi 2019). So Muslim teenagers end up trying to hide their religion from their friends to get acceptance and validity, they will commit certain actions that are acceptable for their friends to do but sinful in the Muslim religion. They realize that it’s easier to push away the lives they are expected to live and keep the life they want to live separate from the life that is filled with expectations. This keeps Muslim girls from discovering who they truly are as they are caught between two worlds and don’t know which version of themselves is the true one. When they try to fit into this foreign culture and do things that are normal to people around them like go on a date and have their first kiss with someone who isn’t their husband and they seem to enjoy that kind of life, their subconscious that is trained to think the opposite will always be there making them feel like what they’re doing is sinful. 

Reflection:

I completely agree with the text and what the author is trying to convey through her article. One thing I would like to say to the author is that I really like the addition of the poem within her article it brings a lot of perspective that people can relate to. This document tells me why a lot of muslim girls feel like an outcast and really helps me understand things from their point of view instead of my own. Even though I am a muslim girl and I aslo come from an immigrant family and I did have my fair share of difficulties fitting in and grasping the concept of culture here but this article helped me understand wha it’s like for others. 

Sherman, beth. “Leading a Double Life Is More Common Than Many Suspect : Psychology: Who Harbors the Mysteries of a Secret Self? It Could Be Just about Anyone, the Experts Believe. Even You.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 29 Nov. 1992, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-29-vw-2591-story.html.

  To escape the expectations from everyone around them Muslim teens begin to separate their lives, creating psychological burdens. An article by Beth Sherman, Leading a Double Life Is More Common Than Many Suspect : Psychology: Who Harbors the Mysteries of a Secret Self? It Could Be Just about Anyone, the Experts Believe. Even You, states how it isn’t easy to get away with living a double life. Sherman shares that it is not uncommon for people to live double lives and how it is hard to manage and very difficult to keep the two separate. A method shared by Sherman is where people create public and private lives, to allow themselves to act out and do things that are frowned upon but never have to face consequences as that isn’t a part of their public life. Being a respectable person around your family and friends and acting out when alone seems manageable to some, but what if you have to manage a third life as well. This is what Muslim teens from certain cultures have to do to escape the eyes of their judging family and friends. Sherman states, “The double life unravels when the person is caught and the secret revealed. Some actions may be an unconscious cry for help…” (Sherman 1992). If you aren’t caught you continue to lift your double life as you distance yourself from the truth, you don’t recognize the person you have become and spiral into a pattern of burying down the secret. What starts out as a coping mechanism to escape the expectations from everyone around them, Muslim girls end up in situations where they aren’t at peace with themselves.

Reflection: 

I agree with everything the author is saying in this article. She uses scientific evidence to back up her claims which makes it reliable and trustworthy. She uses different scenarios to explain the psychology of human nature better. This document helped me analyze my hypothesis in many different angles.