re: Prom

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re: Prom
Moe
10/10/00 at 20:57:10
The reason i asked about the prom was because a muslim sister asked me to go with her.
she didnt ask me to go personaly she told one of my freinds that she wants to go with me.
Re: re: Prom
Arsalan
10/10/00 at 20:44:55
wait a minute ... i thought the guy was supposed to ask the girl out in proms!!??  :)

Ok.  Time to get serious.

Moe, brother, listen to me.  You see that signature that you have below your posts ... read it carefully. Do you think, seriously, you'll be able to indulge in the remembrance of Allah during the prom with this sister?  If not, then ... well, the fish is out of the water!

Wassalamu alaikum.
Re: re: Prom
Saleema
10/11/00 at 00:47:32
Assalamoalykum,

Brother Moe,

Arsalan is very right. If you go, with the girl or without a date, then the fish will be out of the water. I know that it is very flattering when someone asks you out on a date, its just natural to feel like that. But you don't have to give in to those feelings because you are a Muslim, and a Muslims is the best among the people.

From what I have noticed through your posts, you seem like a very good brother. Keep that reputation. I will admire you for it and so will everyone else, and you know what? Most of all, more than anyone else, Allah wil love you for it and inshallah will reward you with a wonderful wife someday, (or maybe something else that you would like bettter.) :)

It is only natural to feel flattered when anyone asks you out on a date, but supress those desires. Even if you mean to just "go as friends." That is not Islamic.

This is Dawah oppertunity for you. Yes, even Muslims need Dawah sometimes. Earn some reward! Tell that girl, if you do it yoursefl, face to face, even better, that you are a Muslim boy and you don't go on dates or to dances because it is not in our religion. She will respect you for it. And tell her that she shouldn't either because she is a Muslimah. Tell her that you are telling her this because as you care about her as a felow Muslim. (Stirctly as a fellow Muslim  :)  )

If you don't wat to tell her this to her face, write her a letter. Or last of all, ( and I would recomend this as the least),tell someone else to tell her. (You will get to her better the other two ways better-psychology.  :)  )

So anyway, you know in your heart what is the right thing to do and got along with that.

Remember, a Muslim is supposed to forbid evil and enjoin good.  If just in case you are wondering, no I don't think of you as a bad person at all. Just someone who is a human and prone to fall into the trap of shyatan sometimes as the rest of us. May Allah guide you to that which is right always. Ameen.

wasslam
The Prom: Not Just One Night of Haram
bhaloo
10/11/00 at 01:03:07
slm


The Prom: Not Just One Night of Haram
by Samana Siddiqui


”On the dance floor, this Muslim brother came up to me and said ‘Whoa, [my name] I didn’t know you danced!’ And then he danced off.”

-an anonymous Muslim sister’s Prom
Night experience, from the Salam
newsletter, Montreal, Canada, Summer 1995


“It’s a night when you don’t remember Allah,” says Amber Rehman, 20, about Prom night. “As a Muslim, that’s very hurting and corrosive for the soul.”

The Prom is a yearly social event commemorating students’ completion of high school.

While this in itself may seem like a good reason to celebrate, other activities at the Prom indicate it’s not just about academic achievement.

Sex, drugs, rockn’ roll and lots of alcohol are four crucial elements of Prom night. But it doesn’t stop there. Ask Shaema Imam, 21, who attended her 1994 Prom.

“It’s not just the drinking, it’s not just the hotel room and sex part, it ‘s the whole atmosphere that’s created where alcohol, dancing and varying degrees of nudity are correlated with a good time,” says the McGill University student.

It is also big business.

“[The] Prom isn’t about North American society wanting its youth to turn into well-adjusted people via grad night,” says Imam. “In fact, this is a multimillion dollar business of selling clothes, accessories, make up, limousine services, food, alcohol, condoms. You need to realize what this is all about.”

Prom night often starts off with dinner at a hotel organized by the high school. But that’s tame compared to what happens afterwards.

Many of the students head off to clubs, where mixed dancing and plenty of alcohol and drugs are part of the scene.

“Once this clubbing starts, the true face of the Kaffir party is exposed,” says Imam “This part is the part not officially sanctioned by the high school.”

Imam says students in her graduating class rented a club called The Underground for the post-dinner part of the Prom. She says she was disgusted by the club scene and compared it to Hell, describing it as smoky, dark and unsafe.

ALCOHOL: NO PROM WITHOUT IT

“Everybody becomes so drunk,” says Shadi Sakr about the Prom.

The 22-year-old recounted how a fellow student became so drunken that when he saw Sakr the year after high school graduation, he kept insisting Sakr was in the limousine with him during Prom night.

Sakr did not even go to his Prom.

He discovered the details of the evening from his friends who went.

“Once they’re drunk your non-Muslims friends are no longer nice-people-who-happen-to-not-be-Muslims,” says Imam.

“This is the point at which you realize that there is a fundamental difference between you and them. You are a Muslim and they are willing participants in this aspect of North American culture. This is where your Fitrah really kicks in,” she says.

Alcohol was also one reason Ali Shayan, 20, did not go to his Prom.

“I didn’t go to the graduation or the prom because I had just started practicing [Islam],” he says. “The fact that there was alcohol and you had to go with a date, because of those reasons I didn’t want to go.”

But alcohol can lead to more than making a fool of yourself on the dance floor: it could lead to death.
According to the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.), in 1995, 48.7 percent of traffic fatalities that occurred during the first week of the prom were alcohol related.

SEX: PROM NIGHT IS THE NIGHT FOR IT

While dealing with the opposite sex in school should be related to learning, “Prom night is a night to kick back and relax,” says Rehman. “Islamically, you’re not supposed to kick back and relax with the opposite gender.”

“I was worried there would be fornication,” says Sakr, explaining why he did not attend his Prom.

He added youth losing their virginity on Prom night is one of the foci of the evening.

”It’s the night where you become an adult, supposedly,” he says.

Hotel rooms are rented, in most cases for this very purpose.

In particular, clubs are where students “practice all [those] ‘girl-guy’ moves,” according to Imam and the situation is even more dangerous because they are most often under the influence of alcohol.

THE BUILD UP AND LET DOWN OF PROM NIGHT

“It’s supposed to be the gala event of your life,” says Sakr of the Prom. “Non-Muslims literally worship this evening. They hype the gala event.”

“There’s a whole building of an anticipatory culture around ‘the night’,” explains Imam.

Indeed, youth are bombarded through magazines, websites, television sitcoms, advertisements, and general peer pressure to participate in this most “essential” of teenage rituals.

Even parents who are strict with their children tend to loosen up for Prom night.

“This is the pinnacle of the night for you to go out and do what you want and non-Muslim parents let their children do whatever they want [that night],” says Sakr.

“The whole year, people were getting their licenses, deciding on what clothes they wanted to wear. Reserving their appointments six months in advance for the hair salon,” he adds.

But the experience of and letdown from the Prom are much greater.

“It’s almost impossible for any experience to live up to that build-up,” says Imam.

“This whole night there’s [an] aura of high class escapism, but the day before the Prom and the day after you’re still the same, unsure teen,” she says, adding it makes it seem almost like you have nothing to look forward to anymore.

”The next morning I went home on the city bus,” she says. “It’s almost like turning back into Cinderella’s pumpkin.”

INTENSE PEER PRESSURE TO GO TO THE PROM

“When in Rome do as the Romans do and that’s very true of the high school experience,” says Imam

The peer pressure to go to the Prom is intense.

“I had to be very firm and have a very forward opinion on it,” says Rehman about telling her friends she was not going to participate. “If I let myself, I could have been persuaded.”

Peer pressure is often the deciding factor for a Muslim youth about whether to go to the Prom or not.

“It depends on how dear you hold your non-Muslim friends,” says Sakr. “I would say most guys would follow the group. “


HALFWAY MEASURES TO THE PROM

Some Muslim youth want to go to the Prom not for the sex, drugs, alcohol or rockn’roll, but simply to have a good time with their friends. They have no intention of approaching these aspects of the evening.

While on the surface, this may seem acceptable, the reality is very different.

“You’re seeing people you’ve spent the last five years [in some parts of Canada, high school is for five years] of your life with in their worst behavior, and you’re rationalizing it,” says Sakr of this kind of reasoning.

“It’s really hard to have a halfway thing,” says Imam.
“There’s no way your Muslim child can just go there and be a wallflower and not be affected,” she warns parents.

”Once you’re there, you can’t say ‘I refuse to participate in your evil kind of entertainment’,” says Imam, adding that most youth would probably feel it’s rude to leave.

“If you think that you can protect yourself, then you’re entrusting yourself to your own weakness,” says Rehman. She adds that Allah warns against even going near Zina. With the Prom, you’re not only going near that, but also near alcohol and drugs.

“You’re bearing witness to the Haram and ask yourself, if you were to die there, how would you face Allah, that this is the last time you would be with your friends?” asks Sakr.


ONE NIGHT OF JAHILIYYAH, AND NEVER AGAIN!

”Perhaps, just for one night I could pretend to be a regular Western teenage girl, dress up beautifully, make my hair and make up, dance, have fun, and then, WAllah, I promise, I swear to God, I’ll act like a Muslim forever after,?” wrote an anonymous Muslim youth in the Summer 1995 issue of the Montreal, Canada newsletter Salam, rationalizing her choice to go to her Prom.

“Many Muslim youth may be tempted to think that this night is their last foray into the Jahiliyyah culture,” says Imam.

But the result of this approach could be deadly: it could mean never coming back to Islam.

Or, judging from the statistics on traffic fatalities, not coming back alive.

“When I weigh the pros and cons of what happened, my Deen is still here and if I had had fun that night I would have forgotten easily,” says Rehman.

THE PROM NIGHT BUBBLE BURSTS

Apart from the letdown from the gigantic hype, Prom night turns out to be a bust for many.

Although Sakr says the day of the prom, he just stayed home, was bored, and “sort of regretted the fun that I could have had,” he later found out almost everyone at his Prom was drunk, there was too much craziness in the hotels, and some people got kicked out.

The Prom is a major test for Muslim youth. It represents the struggle against some of the very basic elements of what is defined as a “good time” in North American teenage culture.

Muslim parents and communities need to work together to recognize and help the youth fight against these pressures
NS
Re: re: Prom
admin
10/11/00 at 22:43:32
[Moderator's Note: I think this makes more sense in the same thread instead of having 3 different threads.]

From Moe

No Prom For ME                Date posted: 10/11/00 at 21:10:43 IP: 24.112.202.105


after reading all the comments and suggestion you guys gave me i have decided not to go!
thanks alot guys for giveing me the right advice!

the problem i have is that alot of the muslims at my school dont even know that i am muslim. When i was in grade 9 i heared they had islamic stuff going on at lunch but i didnt bother to go. so i didnt meet any
muslims realy. The only people that knew i was muslims were some of my freinds. Not all of them knew
cause there wasnt a big diffrence between me and them. Now i am in grade 12 and its the same, the sister i was talking about in a previous post was in one of my clases last year and me and her were partners in a group and i didnt know she was muslim and she didnt know i was muslim until we wtarted talking.

Remembrance of Allah is to the heart what water is to fish. What happens to a fish when it is taken out of water?
        - Ibn Taymiyyah

Re: re: Prom
Arsalan
10/12/00 at 00:08:44
Way to go bro!  May Allah reward you for your decision, and may He continue to guide you in the future to the Straight Path.  Ameen.

The fish is back in the water, swimming and breathing joyfully ... and Shaytaan is watching helplessly from the outside!

Ah ... the agony of defeat :)

Wassalamu alaikum.
Re: re: Prom
Saleema
10/12/00 at 10:01:07
Assalamoalykum,

Good for you Moe!!
:)   :)   :)   :)   :)  :)   :)   :)

wassalm
Re: re: Prom
bhaloo
10/12/00 at 10:54:33
slm

Alhumdullilah that is good to hear Moe.  And perhaps you can convince the sister not to go either, if she's planning on still going.
Re: re: Prom
Saleema
10/12/00 at 13:56:53
Assalamoalykum,

agree with bhaloo!

wassalm
Re: re: Prom
mahsou411
10/19/00 at 23:09:10
ALHUMDULILLAH!!!!!!!!!


Good triumphs over Evil:) :)  :)  :)

By the way, that article was great, I may print it out and give it to some yoth and their parents.


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