Hi, good readers! Thank Allah for giving us a bunch of pleasure as always. In this section, I want to tell you guys an interesting story about my conversation with Nhai, she is a good girl and so smart! I am lucky to meet her. On the third night in Thailand, we went to the night market with other members. It was our first time hanging out together.
When we were on the way, Nhai started to ask me about Indonesia. “Is Indonesia an Islamic country?” Of course, I answered ‘no’, as we know that the majority of people in Indonesia are muslim, but not an Islamic country. Nhai told me that in Vietnam a little hard to find Muslim, so many atheists there.
I have always wanted to experience being among a Muslim minority to learn how meaningful the beliefs I believe in are. Recently, I watched some videos from Dr. Sabeel Ahmed. He invites non-Muslim Americans to show about Islam and the Muslim community there do the open house in the mosque. I am amazed the way He answers the questions about Islam, it seems like, He is an Islamic encyclopedia. So, I interested to learn how to answer the question about Islam from non-muslim.
When I asked her about the existing the halal food in Vietnam, She was confused, what is halal food? Halal food is a friendly food for muslim; no pork and alcohol. So, yeah She accepted the explanation well. As we know that pigs are animals that are clearly prohibited for consumption. Apart from carrion, blood, and animals slaughtered in the name of someone other than Allah, pigs are among the animals that are forbidden to eat. This is as mentioned in the Al Quran Surah An-Nahl verse 115 below.
Also about hijab, why do Muslim women wear the hijab? What time we can open the hijab? I illustrated with students. Every school has roles, right? Especially about the uniform. So, If a student violates the dress code at school, he will be reprimanded or even punished.
There are other topics that we discussed, and very interesting, like how in Islam there are two Muslim groups, namely between Sunni and Shiah, then why is there conflict? Actually, It was related to my book which I read recently. It has a long explanation, and I was a little confused to explain. I just gave her the answer that it is about politics, over in Islam, our prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) didn’t teach us to make a conflict, because Islam is a peaceful religion.
Why have Muslims always said ‘peace be upon him’ for our prophet Muhammad? For the simple explanation is, when we call the older or even the president, we couldn’t call his/her just with their name, right? atleast, with their tittle. So, we do to our propeth as well, to show how much we appreciate him.
After arrived at the market, we were looking for some food. Some of my friends decided to eat pork and there was seafood. But, I was not sure that the seafood was cooked in different places with pork, so I couldn’t eat the seafood. I just drank the coconut. It was okay for me, I had just been careful. Lucky me, the Vietnam girls were very understanding me, so they helped me to find some food with a halal logo. It was lovely!
Alhamdulillah it was a good experience for me. With my limited knowledge, I was trying to explain as best as I could. I prayed to Allah that my explanation was not wrong and be easy to understand her. Actually, the experience was one of my dreams; to explain Islam to non-Muslims in English haha, Maybe for some people it was an annoying thing, but for me, it was very meaningful.
Back to the title of this section; Does Islam have many consequences for the believers? I totally say NO. The role of Islam is the way Allah covers and protects us. I am with pleasure having strictly like that. I believe everything that Allah forbids for us is the best for Muslims. The Islamic role is the part of our deen, is the part of our belief. It is not a consequence, it’s a part of our rights as Muslims to be protected by our God. InshaAllah.
