Also, I have a stupid question, is it socially acceptable to film the call to prayer?
I'm not trying to clutch pearls. I'm genuinely curious. It seems like it would be bad etiquette, especially when you're supposed to be… uh… getting ready to go pray, which Muslims take really seriously.
I guess if I have to ask if it's socially acceptable for Chantal to do what she's doing, I should just assume no, it's not.
The call to prayer is literally just a call. It's like an alarm clock. It's not the actual prayers. It just sounds like that to Westerners because it's sung in Arabic and it's very different to our closest equivalent-- church bells chiming the hour.
Muslims are a lot chiller about day to day things than they get a rep for. Like, we all know their rep, but they're also just people living day to day. Most of them probably miss at least some of the prayers. A lot of them aren't actually that observant. Ramadan would be the exception to their normal routines.
As an example, a long time ago in the Kelly Lenza thread, people called her out for reposting a meme of a cat on a prayer rug. But that was a meme from actual Arab tik tok, where lots of Muslims were posting their cats on prayer rugs. Muslims like cats (they were Muhammad's favorite), they're allowed into mosques, there's tons of videos of Muslims letting their cats play with prayer beads etc. The Sister Minnie channel says "she's doing wudu (ritual cleansing before prayer)" when her cat is washing her face, and that is cute as heck. She also calls her cat Iblis (satan) when she's naughty. It's not sacrilege, Christians do the exact same thing. I was calling my cats handsome little devils long before I left the church.
But your instinct is correct. If Chantal allowed Julia to play with prayer beads, it would feel uncomfortable, because Chantal is not a Muslim and does not love cats and does not take care of Julia. Nothing she does is a genuine human expression of anything. Even if she was JUST a tourist who happened to record the call to prayer outside a pretty mosque, like a billion tourists before her have, it would feel exploitative and gross because it would be.
Every time Chantal does anything besides stuff her face and rage, she's trying to fool somebody. Like a psychopath practicing a smile in a mirror. Except dumber and fatter.
ETA another thought on her using "between God and me" as an excuse for anything. She can't even get the zealousness of a new convert right. If someone grows up in a religion, they can slack on it and still call themselves part of that faith. Especially big old faiths. It is entirely possible to be raised Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim, end up a complete hedonist atheist, but still belong to those groups because of your culture and family. You go to Easter vigil with your mom, or celebrate certain holidays, or some issues are very important to you because they hit close to home. Maybe you don't wear a hijab if you're a woman, but you're never quite comfortable showing much skin in public. Maybe you're staunchly pro-choice for others, but know that you could never go through with an abortion yourself. Stuff stays with you.
But I've never seen a new convert flaunt everything so fast and easy and make such little effort at whatever their version of catechism is. New converts are usually all-in and hold themselves to a high standard. Otherwise, why convert? It's a huge decision. It's the fate of your fucking soul. You wouldn't do it unless you truly believed.
Actually I do know one person. Another trashy white Canadian Catholic. She converted to Judaism to marry a guy. Made a half assed effort. The marriage lasted maybe two years. It's funny because there's plenty of extremely liberal branches of Judaism that would be okay with a superficial level of commitment for the sake of marriage. And Salah himself was happy with that superficial commitment. He even told her she could wear Western clothes. But that was literally the only appealling thing to her, covering her ugliness and shielding herself from all criticism.
The Poopman tricked me again
