Scorpion from Mortal Kombat?

Nurashikin Salim will be gracing this site weekly for the next several weeks. There’s quite a bit of material on her.

Most bloggers write about their life experiences, take Instagrammed photos of their failed attempts to be Julia Child, and share odd personal anecdotes. Singaporean Muslimah Nurashikin Salim is not one of those bloggers. A prolific writer rivaling yours truly, Salim enjoys typing out books’ worth of seventh-century idiocy for her followers to skim through for a quick laugh at her expense.

Not that she doesn’t deserve all the ridicule in the world, because she totally does. Her ideas about women’s liberation, LGBT rights, relationships, Israel, selfies, and everything else under the sun are completely at odds with what a civilized person believes.

In a post titled Dear my Muslim LGBTQ Brothers and Sisters…, Salim explains to them why they deserve to be killed in the eyes of many Muslims. Justifying hatred is more important to Salim than fighting it. “We, straight Muslims, do not hate you [LGBTQ Muslims]. In fact, we have never hated you. True, we may seem aggressive with our acts of eradicating LGBTQ from the society but it’s not because we hate you. You are our brothers and sisters and we love you for the sake of Allah SWT. We love you and we don’t want you to get punished for your act.”

To summarize, Salim just said “We don’t hate you, we’re not killing you and trying to wipe out every trace of your existence because we hate you. We’re doing it because we CARE! Our imaginary sky-demon told us so! We don’t want you to potentially face a punishment after death that hasn’t been proven to exist, so we’re going to stone you to death now.” I don’t think she understands what it means to love or care about somebody. You don’t oppress or kill those you love even if some ancient fairytale commands it of you.

Salim then went on to remind LGBT Muslims to continue to feel guilty for being born the way they are. She continued by discussing the ancient city of Pompeii, accusing it of having been a “city of sex” full of gays. Of course, no natural disaster is just that; it’s always the wrath of Allah. “A nearby volcano erupted so violently, its lava destroyed the whole community yet Allah SWT preserved their body so perfectly so that we could learn from their mistakes,” the Muslimah wrote. “These are signs of Allah SWT’s anger.” No, it’s called tectonic plate movement.

To ensure she didn’t leave any LGBT groups out, Salim targeted transpeople next. “Allah SWT even forbids us from cross-dressing,” she began. “Even if a guy wears the headscarf just for sake of fun, it is haram. SubhanAllah [Glory be to Allah].” As if anyone would want to wear the ridiculous Islamic Ringwraith costume anyway.

“Again my homosexual brothers and sisters, we’re not against you,” Salim lied. “It may be hurtful going through the process of purification.” Purification? I mean, gay men do a form of “purification” before and after sex, but I doubt that’s what she’s referring to.

“No doubt, it will be very very hard to contain those urges and desires. But just think of your parents, if not for them, you’ll not see the world. You need both mother’s and father’s love and attention. You know both of them play very different roles. Can you imagine yourself being brought up by same sex parents?” Let me get this straight (no pun intended) – you’d rather people grow up without loving adoptive parents in stable families just because the parents are gay? That’s heartless.

Many Muslims’ view of the LGBT community consists of the hatred their imams preach and the murderous homophobia in their sacred texts. I suspect Salim’s views are equally unrefined based on this next passage. If you haven’t cringed yet, prepare to. “Allah is great. He wants to protect us. Have we not read of the statistic that proportionally, more homosexuals are infected by HIV than heterosexuals? Can’t you see how much Allah SWT, the One who created you, loves you? He knows you more than you know yourself. He forbids homosexuality as He knows how much detrimental effects it will bring to you, to the community.”

Let me see if I have this right – she’s saying that Allah forbids homosexuality because of HIV? HIV has been around less than a century. While she didn’t come out and explicitly say it, there is a small implication that HIV is a punishment from Allah in that passage. Plus, if omnipotent Allah wanted to protect his creations from HIV, he wouldn’t have allowed HIV to exist. And allowing people to get HIV as some sort of twisted “consequence” for being gay, the way he made them, makes no sense. Needless to say, Salim needs gay friends – at the very least, they’d remedy her abysmal fashion sense.

The comments on the post were delightful. Salim received numerous messages from repressed LGBT Muslims whose opinions ranged from unwavering support to stern criticism. Here’s one that shows the true nature of Islam very clearly:

Hellfire and genocide… religion of peace. Makes perfect sense!

In the comments, Salim spewed more homophobia: “Yeap, it’s true that this lifestyle has been here for ages, but only now that they’re getting serious in propagating their lifestyle into our society. It’s a detriment to our society. We must stop this at once even if there are a lot of barriers.” Barriers? You mean like dental dams? I have to ask because Salim is likely a closeted lesbian/bisexual. I’m not just saying that because her dream job is to be a PE teacher, either:

If you were tempted to be with a girl, hate to break it to you, but you’re not straight. Also, you don’t have to marry a man, no matter what your religion asks of you.

In another piece, Salim admits she views homosexuality as a choice despite more or less coming out. The self-described former “tomboy” discussed a female love interest from her later teen years. “I didn’t give LGBT much thoughts till I was in pre-university,” she wrote. She prefaced the story by saying she was trying to “[create] a better Ummah.” How? By encouraging (her fellow) LGBT people to suffer in silence.

“If she knows being a lesbian is haram, why did she still become one?” I’d love to see Bill Maher or Jon Stewart’s reaction to that prime example of 7th-century idiocy. You don’t become a lesbian. People are born that way, as I’m sure Salim is painfully aware. Also, to sane people, accepting themselves is more important than feeling welcome by a religion that opposes their very being.

Salim’s lesbian almost-love story continued:

Apparently crazy runs in the family. Getting struck by lightning for holding another woman’s hand? That kind of insanity is a bit much, even by Qur’an standards.

The Muslimah elaborated upon the numerous friendships she formed with lesbians, many of whom identified as Muslim. They were wracked with feelings of guilt thanks to the teachings of Islam. Of course, Salim didn’t show them sympathy or call her religion out for the homophobic bullshit it is. Instead, she wrote this:

Her theory as to why people turn gay is almost as laughable as her mother’s lightning hypothesis. “[S]ometimes there are certain factors that stopped us from getting the love that we need. Sometimes our physical appearance hinders us from attracting the opposite attention. But how??? We are still human! We need to feel loved! Well, that’s when we start resorting to turning our nature self. The devil’s whispers win over you and you start to believe that you’re actually born that way.” Yep, she believes that being ugly turns people gay.

…she has clearly never seen a gay porno or Orange is the New Black.

Or maybe bisexuals see the positive attributes in both genders and there’s no dislike of anyone involved? Maybe it’s just how they are and there are no weird complexes involved?

Salim attempted to conclude: “I believe there are many other reasons for someone to turn into a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual. But for sure, whatever Lady Gaga said about being ‘born this way’ is nothing but just propaganda. Do you believe in Lady Gaga or do you believe in Allah SWT more?”

Gaga. Always Gaga. She’s the only real one of the two.

The ninja accused LGBT people of being selfish for being honest about who they are. This is completely heartless and reveals how deep Salim’s brainwashing goes:

I’m going to break this down sentence by sentence.

1) You have no obligation to anyone to continue your lineage. There’s this thing called bodily autonomy – your parents can’t dictate how you use your body.

2) Traveling to a country that accepts you isn’t selfish; it’s exactly what you should do. People should be able to live free of judgment and hatred for their orientation. You shouldn’t be forced to stay with your family or faith community your entire life. It’s your life. You’re in charge – not your family, not your imam, not an ancient child-porn fairytale called the Qur’an.

3) That’s the problem of those who are homophobic. What others think of you for being LGBT is their problem. Salim is arguing LGBT people should hide in the closet forever because others might not like it. It’s selfish for you to ask others to deny who they are because of your beliefs. LGBT people are the ones who are constantly harassed, often violently, and even flogged, jailed, and executed in Islamic countries, yet you are blaming them for the various forms of backlash against them and their families. Victim-blaming is not OK.

4 and 5) Again, others’ homophobia is their problem and shouldn’t dictate how you live. And as I said earlier, wouldn’t you rather see a child raised in a supportive, loving home than thrown around in the foster care system forever?

6) What “betterment of others?” It’s asinine to think anyone’s life is made better when a significant portion of the population is forced to live a lie to appease the intolerance of the rest. Know how to really work for the betterment of others? Fight for LGBT equality, including marriage and adoption equality. Of course, Salim won’t do that because she thinks society is made better when people are oppressed.

I’ll leave you with this hypocritical gem from this self-unaware Muslimah. “We’re not stereotyping anyone. We’re not teaching people to label anyone. We’re not oppressing or belittling anyone.” Not stereotyping? What was that about HIV earlier? Not oppressing anyone? What about that whole “eradicating LGBTQ from society” bit?

On the next installment of the Nurashikin Salim series, learn her views about women’s liberation. You don’t want to miss this.