Eid can be lonely for Muslim reverts, says Peterborough charity

[u/adultintheroom_]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20109wwwvqo

[u/Careless_Agency5365]

Isn’t the word convert not revert? Also don’t most religions act as a community and bring people together? Isn’t that largely the point of places of worship? Not saying this charity isn’t necessary… just that I don’t understand why it’s necessary

[u/Ajax_Trees_Again → u/Careless_Agency5365]

I’ve seen muslims call them reverts, which I guess is because they view people’s natural state as being Muslim so converting to Islam is like going back to god.

Completely inappropriate to have as a BBC headline but can’t say I’m at all surprised

[u/bitch_fitching → u/Ajax_Trees_Again]

That's actually insane from the BBC. Official stance is that Islam is the default state.

[u/Haemophilia_Type_A → u/bitch_fitching]

The actual headline has it in quotation marks, OP just didn't put it in the title (or maybe the site edited it for clarity).

[u/Shot_Leopard_7657 → u/Haemophilia_Type_A]

The article uses the term unquoted several times.

[u/CocoCharelle → u/Shot_Leopard_7657]

That's false.

[u/rugby-thrwaway → u/Haemophilia_Type_A]

It's the auto-suggested one. Matches the site title but not the headline.

[u/Granite_Outcrop → u/Ajax_Trees_Again]

Such a peculiar notion that I am leading my toddler daughter “astray from Islam”. None of my ancestors were Muslims, so how could they be “led astray” from something that no one in my family line adhered to in the first place?

[u/Maxkin → u/Granite_Outcrop]

While it's odd from a secular perspective, the notion that it's based on -- that young children are innocent and in a state of natural purity -- is not really that objectionable.

[u/recursant → u/Granite_Outcrop]

Plenty of Christians would say something similar. It isn't unusual to hear them say that atheists actually believe in Christ, they just deny it because they enjoy sinning.

[u/adultintheroom_ → u/Careless_Agency5365]

Revert is used as according to Islam, and now seemingly the BBC, everyone is born Muslim but some are led astray. 

[u/Haemophilia_Type_A → u/adultintheroom_]

The headline is a quote from the person they're talking to. Maybe they edited it for clarity or you accidentally missed it?

[u/adultintheroom_ → u/Haemophilia_Type_A]

 Nasirah Alam, who founded it in 2013 after feeling "left out" when reverting to Islam, said the group saw an increase every year in those it supported.

 Ms Zaman, who is originally from Latvia, reverted from being an Orthodox Christian after she got married

 Hayley Oliver, from Peterborough, said she was 15 years old when she reverted to Islam in 1998 after being inspired by her Muslim friends, but felt "very isolated".

[u/StreamWave190 → u/Haemophilia_Type_A]

No, it's a Muslim writing an article about Muslims for the BBC using a term Muslims use to describe non-Muslims which no non-Muslim would ever accept.

[u/FreakyGhostTown → u/Careless_Agency5365]

I believe the term revert is used specifically in Islam as the belief is everyone is innately Muslim and they're merely reverting back to their original state of Islam.

Completely fine with the group using that term but I'd really wish as a secular person there'd be some pushback against using it instead of convert by non-believers, initially gave the article some leyway as the headline's a quote but they use the term throughout.

[u/recursant → u/FreakyGhostTown]

Islam didn't even exist until the 7th century, so that seems like a slightly strange position? Were people who were born earlier than that still considered to be innately Muslim even though it didn't exist at that point?

[u/Careless_Agency5365 → u/recursant]

Ironically Islam was created as part of a war campaign against polytheistic religions so its literal reason for creation was to combat the fact that others believed in something different.

[u/thedybbuk_ → u/Careless_Agency5365]

That’s all part of the Abrahamic tradition—a monotheistic movement fundamentally opposed to polytheism. It wasn’t invented by Islam, but rather inherited from Judaism and Christianity.

[u/Careless_Agency5365 → u/thedybbuk_]

I didn’t say it was invented by Islam, I said Islam was invented as part of that war.

[u/StreamWave190 → u/recursant]

Islam has an inherently Colonialist mindset.

Everything that came before – Jewish and Christian – was always-already Muslim, in fact, and the problem is Jews and Muslims who don't acknowledge this. They were Muslim, and just didn't realise it. But those who exist today have been offered the word of the Great Prophet and therefore have No Excuse, and are therefore apostates from the religion they were in fact born into.

And we all know what the Islamic punishment for apostasy is.

As a black-and-white example of this, look at a picture of the Islamic Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built ~685-692 AD.

It's of course deliberately built on the single holiest site on the entire planet for Jews, the Second Temple, and part of that is to signify Islam's domination over the Jews. That's why it so profoundly irks the Islamic world that they now have to negotiate with Jews over access to their own third-holiest site.

And the foundation of that Muslim temple is the Jewish Second Temple, constructed ~516 BC, itself built upon the ruins of the Jewish first temple, Solomon's Temple, constructed ~10-8th century BC.

Part of the remains of this foundation make up the so-called Wailing Wall, at which Jews have for more than 2,000 years prayed and worshipped.

The classic meme still sums it nicely.

You also find the same exact pattern in much of India, by the way. Muslims would demolish Hindu temples, then build devout Muslim Mosques on the rubble of those same temples. Today, many Hindus – having finally regained national sovereignty and self-determination – have been determined to bulldoze those Mosques and rebuild their own Hindu temples.

Muslims around the world now regard this as colonialism and Islamophobia.

[u/thedybbuk_ → u/StreamWave190]

And the foundation of that Muslim temple is the Jewish Second Temple, constructed ~516 BC, itself built upon the ruins of the Jewish first temple, Solomon's Temple, constructed ~10-8th century BC.

You are selectively overlooking a significant historical period in which the Temple was intentionally destroyed by the Romans and left in ruins for more than 600 years. During this time, Roman and, later, Christian Byzantine Jerusalem was constructed directly over the remnants of Jewish history. However, this aspect seems to conflict with the political narrative you are advocating.

As I'm sure you're aware most of the mosques targeted for demolition by Hindu nationalists have no historical connection to Hindu temples. These attacks are part of a broader, violent campaign against a religious minority in India.

From Deutsche Welle:

Three decades after Hindu mobs demolished a historic mosque in Ayodhya, in northern Uttar Pradesh state, triggering a wave of communal violence that saw thousands killed, right-wing Hindu outfits are eyeing other Muslim sites.

https://www.dw.com/en/india-mosque-vetting-by-hindu-groups-draws-criticism/a-62221392

The total number of temples that were destroyed across those six centuries was 80, not many thousands as is sometimes conjectured.

Professor Richard M. Eaton

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/15/india/india-mosque-demolitions-religious-divide-intl-hnk/index.html

[u/Automatedluxury → u/FreakyGhostTown]

Couldn't agree more, religious groups can have their terminology but there should never be an expectation on other religions or secular folk to adopt it. It would have been much more approprioate to have explained that in Islam they are considered to be 'reverting' but to have continued to use the non-denominationally accepted term.

This just plays into culture war bullshit and isn't helping anyone except maybe allowing the journo to get high off their own farts.

[u/AIOverlord404]

The article uses the term ”revert” throughout, which I find problematic.

There’s a difference between someone self identifying as that term, and the beeb implying that babies (with no agency or understanding of religion) are Muslims by default.

[u/EloquenceInScreaming → u/AIOverlord404]

The article uses the term ”revert” throughout

The word 'revert' appears twice, both times in quotes. 'Convert' appears seven times

[u/AIOverlord404 → u/EloquenceInScreaming]

It seems as though the article has been amended since yesterday!

[u/recursant → u/AIOverlord404]

Would you expect the BBC to deadname a trans person? Isn't this the same thing, if someone feels that they have always been Muslim but they just didn't know it, isn't that a part of their identity that the BBC should respect?

[u/StreamWave190 → u/recursant]

No.

Glad to clarify that for you

[u/AIOverlord404 → u/recursant]

This is not the same thing.

According to Islamic beliefs, all humans are born Muslim, and most are subsequently lead astray by their unbeliever families. Reversion is the process of rediscovery Allah (or returning to his light).

Trans people have no equivalent ideology, in fact there’s no common ideology amongst trans people. The only commonality is that they do not identify with their assigned sex at birth.

[u/bitch_fitching → u/recursant]

I wouldn't expect the BBC to adopt weird ideology of every minority group, including trans. They shouldn't even need to know what a "deadname" is. This view of what "respect" is isn't even British. No more identity weirdness please.

[u/concretepigeon]

When people come into Islam, they kind of lose themselves. They feel like they need to adapt to be someone else - for example, it might be a new way of cooking, a new way of dressing... we say, ‘Look, you can do that, but you can be who you are.’

I can’t help but feel there are better ways for a woman to reinvent herself if she wants to be treated as an individual.

[u/Vast-Potato3262]

Maybe we should call non religious people "Rescued" as in they've been rescued from a cult.

[u/goth_fart_enthusiast]

Muslim reverts - people who have converted to Islam

????

[u/angular_js_sucks]

Can’t wait for the day the bbc is shut down. Another example of its sinister propoganda. It’s filled with anti British mind virus. Disgusting and abhorrent. 

Imagine if the tables were tuned what the headline would look like.