Nurashikin Salim

If you haven’t read part 1 yet, click here. This piece contains some of the most messed-up content on this site. Reader discretion is advised.

Singaporean Muslimah Nurashikin Salim, who is July 2015’s Muslim of the Month, is a relic of a long-gone era. Her views are so backward it is difficult to accept her writings as anything other than satire. Unfortunately, she’s quite real and quite serious. This week, I’m going to cover her views on women’s liberation, education, and rape.

When a group of British Muslims (of mixed genders – gasp) made a video of themselves dancing to Pharrell’s “Happy,” Salim felt the need to remind them of all the ways they were betraying their beloved fairytale. “Firstly, (I’m sorry but I’m not being sexist towards my own gender) there are ladies dancing around and the whole world is watching at them!” Salim began, slightly more foamer-esque than normal. “Aren’t we supposed to hijab (cover) ourselves from our non-mahram brothers? Come on, there are other ladies out there that are trying their best to represent Islam in it’s most pure form, and just by that 4 minutes video, the whole world now thinks that Muslimah around the world are supposed to dress and behave that way. For what? As a form of liberation and free from oppression?” Actually, yes. Women can dress how they want. That’s exactly what liberation and freedom from oppression are.

Forbidding a person from doing something because it might trigger a reaction in the opposite sex is sexist in two ways. One, all people should be afforded the same rights regardless of gender, including the ability to dress how they choose without consequence. Second, the soft bigotry of low expectations rears its ugly head, in this case, the assumption that men will be unable to control themselves upon seeing an uncovered woman.

Salim continued, “Our perspectives on liberation and free from oppression are so influenced by the West! However so, it is also not right for guys to jump around to prove to the whole world that they are happy! What type of Khilafah are we trying to build here? You mean you can still give your utmost respect to your Ustaz/Ustazah [Islamic scholar] if you see him/her dancing and jumping around in that video?” Uhh, how does dancing to a popular song diminish a person’s credibility? It’s harmless! Intent on telling the world how mentally warped she is, Salim then explained what she would do if one of her future offspring were to be instructed by someone guilty of dancing: “If my future son gonna show me that kind of video with his teacher in it, I will not think a second to get him out from that class. Or… I will not hesitate to be a typical Singaporean mum and complain to the school about that particular teacher.”

So she’d rather have her child indoctr- err, educated by humorless regressives than more lively teachers. I feel really bad for the children she’s going to have.

Salim also had some thoughts on dating with regard to women’s liberation. “You can be a Queen Bee, but if all the guys have a taste of you, what will you be left to save your dignity?” she asked, not realizing that a woman’s choice to be sexually active has no impact on her dignity. “How are you going to face your future husband?” Uhh, if a dude doesn’t want you because you enjoyed yourself, chances are he’s an austere control-freak and should promptly be dumped.

“Make Rasulullah SAW [Muhammad, pigs be upon him] your only ‘boyfriend.'” Necrophilia much? “He will teach you everything that you need to live in this life and please keep yearning to meet him in heaven. When you see all your friends succumbing their lives to trends, feel liberated because you’re free from this evil system of life.” What can Muhammad teach? How to behead the infidel? How to preach hatred against Jews and gays? How to molest children? As for secular life being an “evil system,” I’ll juxtapose it against Islam. We grant LGBT couples equal rights. Muslims throw them off of buildings.

Salim also shared her thoughts on how women should base their professional lives around their religion.

“Of [course] it is not wrong for women to pursue their career, but if it is at the expense of her first responsibility – her household – then she should recheck her actions,” Salim said, spitting in the face of everyone who fought and sacrificed for women to be free from the expectation of being a homemaker. Of course, she cited a Hadith, which states that “A man is the guardian of his family and he is responsible for them. A woman is the guardian of her husband’s home and his children and she is responsible for them.” Tell me again, liberals, how Islam isn’t sexist?

Salim believes there are numerous consequences to losing one’s virginity outside of marriage, including “turning into a gay/lesbian.” She cites friends who previously dated men now dating women as proof of this, not acknowledging the possibility they were bisexual all along. She claims loss of virginity leads to women focusing on their careers instead of trying to start families, which can cause them to fall into sin. “A lady travelling alone without her mahram may fall under the hukum of haram,” she wrote. So? That’s her choice! Women shouldn’t be shamed or made to feel guilty for valuing their autonomy.

One of the methods Salim suggests to be the “best Muslimah” is to “give up freedom.” As if Islam affords women many freedoms to give up in the first place. “When you give up the freedom of this life, you’ll taste an even higher level of freedom; and that’s the freedom from our nafs (desire),” she wrote. Here’s the thing: many desires are biological, as Salim is well aware. Suppressing them leads to unhappiness, not greater freedom.

This next part is one of the most screwed up things to ever appear on Your Daily Muslim. I’m going to put a red bar around the content some folks may not want to read.

Salim is a rape apologist. That is to say, she blames women for being raped if they aren’t strictly-practicing Muslimahs. Instead of laying all the blame on, oh I don’t know, the man who commits an act of violence, Salim blames the following groups: women who enter into relationships before marriage, women who aren’t completely covered, and women who are friendly toward men. If being friendly toward a man causes your religion to even partially blame you for being raped, that is not a religion that should be tolerated. (This piece on her site is the source of these screenshots.)

If you thought it wasn’t going to get worse, you were mistaken.

Yep, she really said that men should only be jailed for rape if the woman didn’t somehow invite it. Newsflash: it’s a traumatic sexual assault. No one is asking for it. It’s truly sad that Salim’s friend K, who was raped by her boyfriend, blames herself because she dated him. She is not at fault for his actions, regardless of what their religion says about the nature of their relationship.

When a commenter criticized Salim’s rape apologism, she cited the Qur’an verse she referenced earlier as justification for her horrible views:

No. No. It doesn’t matter if the woman agreed to go with him to a park at night. It doesn’t matter if their relationship was “haram.” Rape is never the victim’s fault.

I was going to write more, but I think that’s enough for now. The Nurashikin Salim saga will continue next week.