Author: klbarlow

From the selected readings for this week I found Hadith 31 to be particularly interesting. It reads as follows:

“Khansā’ reported,

Her father gave her away in marriage, and she was a thayyib, and she did not like it. So she came to the Messenger of Allāh, peace and blessings of Allāh be on him, and he annulled her marriage.”

This was intriguing to be due to the fact that most ancient cultures would have been perfectly fine with a father giving away his daughter for marriage . In fact, as we learned earlier in the semester, that was the norm in some cultures. For the readings about Muhammad himself to argue that this ideology would in-fact be wrong was thought provoking for me. It seems as you go further back into history the rights for women diminish further and further but many instances in the Hadith argued for the opposite of that.

I decided to expand further upon my earlier post about the influence that Islamic law can have on athletes and sports fans. I read further about this topic and found the story of Jawahir Roble, a former Somali refugee who eventually became England’s first female Muslim football referee. I am a journalism major who loves sharing stories, so I wanted to share Jawahir’s inspiring story while commenting on the topic. Her story was featured in The Gaurdian, a British publication, last June during the 2019 Women’s World Cup.

If you read the piece it talks about her struggle that began when she was playing soccer with potatoes to old newspapers against a backdrop of gunshots in her home country. Not only did she have to overcome her worn-torn Somalian home she also broke through barriers rooted in Islamic culture. Many Muslim women have been prevented or not able to participate in sports and Robles family wanted her to focus on her studies instead of soccer.

Roble has overcome so much in her life. Her story is an inspiring one that I feel like is relevant during our current crisis. If she can overcome all that she has been through then I am certain the COVID-19 crisis is an obstacle that all of us can get through.

One of my biggest passions is watching and following sports so I decided to see what kind of relationship Islam has with sports. I found out through reading online that there has been a wide debate over whether Muslims should be allowed to play sports in the eyes of Islamic law. The way that some sports fans, like myself, obsess over teams and athletes can be a conflicting concept for strict Muslims according to uhmmasports.net. The site says that be a sports fanatic could be “distracting to what should be one’s purpose of submitting to the will of Allah” and that “many sports fans become so obsessive that it distracts their focus and brings out the worst in them.” Although I view sports as a deep escape from daily life, this idea does seem to make a lot of sense. Athletes are often seen as “god-like” and that could take away from the “true purpose” that is described in the Quran.

But that also conflicts with the idea that Allah wants people to have sound bodies to go with sound minds and sound morals. The site says that a Muslim who is in shape is better equipped to perform the duties of Islam.” From what I’ve read these to ideas have clashed and led to widespread debate.

One interesting idea that we brought up in class this week was the fact that people say “all music from China sounds the same”. This idea was particularly interesting for me because I’ve heard this idea be discussed about different types of music in America as well. Many people have said that Country music all sounds the same, or at least has the same topic. I feel like this idea could also translate to many other types of music here. In some cases, I feel like musicians and artists mimic each other because a certain type of music is what people want to listen to. As one musician finds something that works, it can be easy to put your own spin on the other persons take. Indeed, different Chinese music could seemingly be very similar to an American who has never been exposed to Chinese music and culture. The couple songs that were played in class definitely sounded very similar to each other when we listened the first time.

I decided to listen to some Chinese music to see if I could find some key characteristics from each song that I listened to. I found a playlist of popular music in China on Youtube and listened to it while I was studying one day at the Library. I decided that an initial exposure to the music would be best before I took a deeper dive into each song later in the day. Initially, not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to find any true differences, but I found it somewhat refreshing to listen to a different type of music while I was studying. Chinese music is so much more different than the music that I normally listen to so I found it to be a nice change of pace. As a journalism major, my ears are not trained to find distinct characteristics in music. I found this idea to be true even when I listened to the songs more closely. Other than the melody, I wasn’t truly able to find distinct characteristics, but I still feel like this was a rewarding experience.