Melbourne’s Age newspaper runs a series of interviews of women who work in the “sex industry”. One is a Muslim girl “Julie”, who gives us a brief autobiographical sketch.
The piece and Julie’s account in particular are thought provoking in several ways. These are mine in no particular order
1. When one migrates to a society, one becomes part of it. One’s sensibilities, tastes, fashions come to reflect the wider community in which one lives and not of one’s ancestral home. Australian Muslims will develop the same dysfunctional habits as the rest of society . There is little evidence or precedent (although there is some), to suggest otherwise. It is also pointless now to blame society’s ills on the the wider populus, and believe that Islamic faith alone (like a Blockbuster Video card in one’s back pocket) is a talisman against society’s ills. Muslims should therefore join the organized effort against these things rather than indulge in magical thinking. Over time the rate of drug use, abortion and prostitution amongst Muslims will mirror the wider community, unless one is prepared to address it directly and thoughtfully.
2. Praxis in not enough. In the Hadith of Jibril (as), Islam as defined by outward action is merely the starting point on the path to faith. (Absurdly Julie wore her Hijab on her first night as a prostitute). One cannot live as a Muslim in the West through ritual alone: the first generation of migrants has tried it and failed. Therefore teaching Arabic as a living language is essential to allow Muslims a direct relationship with the Quran and Sunnah; Merely repeating platitudes to one’s offspring is insufficient to transmit religious knowledge
3. There is a reason that Muslims are ordered by Allah via the practice of his Prophet (pbuh) not to reveal secrets. Julie’s separation from her family comes after her husband and father humiliate her in public to the “community elders” who rival one another as mendacious gossips. One can understand why her only option is to flee from her community rather than to endure the public scorn of her choices.
4. Estrangement from family in the West inevitably means from one’s faith as well. This has been my experience of Muslims here and in England. When Muslim patriarchs make overly emotional and hysterical statements disowning family members, it often leads down the path to kufr (disbelief). Even if a child marries against one’s wishes or commits a major sin it is essential not to break the ties of family, even though this maybe painful to endure. Better to swallow the mortification and show some sobriety.
5. Liberal society often sketch prostitutes as having a unique nobility within the context of their amoral world of suburban sex. I think that this piece explodes that myth, women who rent their bodies for sex do so for the most banal reasons. Everything from the latest chav bling, to a new Jasper Conran fireplace and Jimmy Choo shoes all cost money, as does crystal meth.
6.The psychic pain of sex with a stranger cannot be intellectualized into happiness through the money it brings. Prostitution and drug use are always found together.
7. Using the apparently neutral term “sex worker” was coined in an effort to avoid using the disparaging term “prostitute” is good up to the point when the reader realizes that a sex worker is a prostitute, a human being who rents their body to a stranger so that stranger can relieve a bodily function. Why not call them “personal relaxation consultant”(everyone is a consultant these days)?
8. Muslims must accept that in a hyper-sexualised society many more Muslims will be guilty of committing sexual sins, community leaders should be more understanding and sympathetic in these circumstances. One does not need to condone an act to be sympathetic to the individual. Tariq Nelson draws our attention to this.
9. Estrangement from faith for a Muslim is rarely as a result on a rational process, more often it is an absurdly irrational and emotional one. It can also be a loss of Islamic praxis; whilst it is essential to understand Islam intellectually and spiritually in oder to become a Muslim, it is equally necessary to practice Islam to remain one.
Muslims must understand this in order to give dawah to their community and to the wider society. Dawah is not an intellectual exercise, or winning an online argument, nor is it sloganism, infantile behavior, it is sincerity in word and in deed.
Without this, Julie is coming to a family near you.
19 comments ↓
It takes two to tango, though, doesn’t it? What are your thoughts about men who use prostitutes?
wow subhanallah that was an eye opener.
Julie’s story is saddening. I feel sorry for the girl. May Allah guide her.
“All the children of Adam are sinners and the best of the sinners are the repenters”.
That is just another problem of the elder Shaikhs that were born and raised overseas clashing with the Muslim youth in this country. Not to mention this woman had a point not wanting to bring a child into a loveless marriage that she was forced into.
Laura also makes a good point. Some of the boys I knew once upon a time looked down on males that would stoop so low as to go to a prostitute. It is sickening.
Not simply the fact that people out there actually do this, but the fact there are so many customers out there.
Well, I have a friend who is a prostitute, albeit a very very high bracket one, and I’m not quite as far down the ‘horror, horror’ path as yourselves. She’s not a drug addict and nor is she shallow; she’s saving money for completing her University education. I would say that there is something not quite right about her, though that may just be projection as I myself could never depersonalize sex to the extent she has (and I am a man–though I have to say I think I am well to the extreme among men for how personal sex is to me). But often she is quite proud of herself for having sex with lonely old widowers, etc, because it made them feel so much better. Is that so peculiar?
Sometimes a person simply needs sex. This is why there always have been and always will be prostitutes. For the most part this it is an extremely nasty business, prostitution, but it is nastier in some countries than in others, and this in turn has a lot to do with the amount of legal protection and recognition that prostitutes receive. And that in turn has a lot to do with the extent that society sees prostitutes as wicked women (and boys) who deserve to suffer.
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Laura, My thoughts are that both are involved in a deeply corrupting situation, on many levels.
Shadow, I think that the issue of marriage is the next that we should discuss, since it is central to the majority of questions about sexual behaviour
AqT (pardon the abbreviation), I have no personal view of prostitutes beyond what I read in the papers. I do think however we should get away from the hypocritical self-righteous moralising that many religious Muslims have inherited and try and sort this out thoughtfully and compassionately. But It can never include an acceptance of prostitution.
It is simply something that is so wrong that even if widespread, must be opposed. Here in Australia, prostitutes can advertise on billboards and TV, they get a minimum wage and are looked after by the govt, despite this Australia has rampant imported sex slavery, drug use and violence associated with selling sex.
I think Antiquated Tory is right that prostitution is more or less a given because it is driven by demand. That is, as long as there are men who want sex, there will be women willing or desperate enough to offer it for money. The extent to which a society is ‘conservative’ probably only determines the extent to which the problem is visible. Nobody should think, for example, that there are no prostitutes in conservative Muslim countries; it’s just that they can’t be seen unless one actively goes looking for them.
Wow, that was a great find, thanks for posting it.
This is the type of thing we should be attempting to do at the community and wider community level. There will always be people who work in this area simply because they want to, but I am sure there are plenty who do it because they feel that they have no other choice, some even forced in to it. We have to help make choices available, and to solve the problems which can lead to this, or happen during this situation.
The Muslim example above typifies the stereotype I have in my head, which is quite sad really. I am not sure what is worse – staying in a loveless (and possibly abusive) marriage, with all that entails (how is the sex there any different to prostitution?), or the other options available if they leave or divorce etc.
All in all, it is pretty bleak.
Laura you are so right… it does take two to tango. i just found out a friend of mine’s husband was sleeping with a prostitute. very sad indeed. she told me when she found out he started to buy her jewelry which in their 10 years of marriage he never did. i told her yeah this is what they do when they know they are guilty of committing this atrocious sin. she is a very sweet person too. may allah heal her pain and guide he to do whats right.ameen.
it gets methat people think the woman is the only sinner here. everyone likes to blame the woman but it’s about time that people realize that the only reason there are prostitutes are because men dont want to go home to their wives to have sex with her in the halal way that allah has given him. or some men just like filth and like the sleeping around and no responsiblity afterwards. may allah guide us all. ameen.
[...] I recently recieved an email on a muslim prostitute. Please read it before you start getting annoyed or saying oh goodness what the heck is wrong with this woman? Seriously people I wrote an article when I first started the blog on pornography . These next set of articles deal with sex and lust in the muslim world. You may be wondering why I am posting these articles but I just want to say that this is something that is affecting many muslims here and all over the world. Read this blog and this article. I got the link from his blog. Excellent post. I had actually posted the same article on sex in the muslim world when I first started the blog. I just want to say that when a person decides to view pornography or sleep with prostitutes then don’t go around blaming your wives. You, yourself should be ashamed of yourself. Repent to Allah and stay away from such a disgusting sin. I was talking to my sister about this and we both agree that when men do this kind of stuff they are being selfish and they don’t care about the cosequences of their actions and what affects it might have on them or their families. So if your wife divorces you then you have no one to blame over breaking up the family except yourself. Your the one that chose to sin over worshipping your Lord. Funny how some men blame their wives for turning to that stuff. Most men don’t realize that women too feel neglected but you don’t find most women running off and sleeping with the neighbor or having online sex discussions. Or having online realtionships period. Any decent muslim would never do that. We all sin yes but if you can’t stop yourself from falling into the pits of hell in this life imagine where you’ll be in the next life? Subhanallah i read a hadeeth the other day that said at the time your committing a major sin you’re a kafir(a disbeliever). Can you people really want this for yourselves? Can you imagine being in hell forver because you followed your desires or let them get the best of you. May Allah protect us and out families from this. Ameen. Sorry but this saddens me because so many of my close friends have been affected by things of this nature. I feel for them. Just keep these sisters and brothers in your duas. [...]
“I do think however we should get away from the hypocritical self-righteous moralising that many religious Muslims have inherited and try and sort this out thoughtfully and compassionately.” Baybers
These are words of gold. Many Muslims who have grown up protected from such major sins do not understand how difficult it is for a person to pull themselves out of such a hole.
And the self righteous moralizing of some Muslims does not help one iota. And only works in pushing them away.
That is why at the beginning of my initial post I put up the hadeeth from Qudsi. Allah also tells us in the Quran that if we (as a people) were to stop sinning that He would remove us and replace us with a people that would sin and turn to Him for forgiveness.
I am going to take everyone here to task.
I write a labour of love about Uncle Abe and Joshua Chamberlain and not one comment, but a piece about a prostitute and everyone’s got a view
http://austrolabe.com/2006/12/...../#more-203
OK, here’s a question.
We have Muslim prostitutes who have sex for money and we have many more Muslims who hang out in clubs and try to pick up women (and men).
Does the fact that no money changes hands between these men and the women make the men:
1) On a higher moral plane to the common prostitute because she does it only for money but he does it for pleasure;
2) On a lower moral plane to the common prostitute because, unlike her, he does it for lust whereas she does it for economic reasons;
3) On the same moral plane as a prostitute.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/nat.....28632.html
for AqT
What caught my eye was the fact that she showed up in full hijab, which goes to show that just by wearing the hijab does not mean that there is modesty or piety within the person.
I’m not trying to judge ‘Julie’ but just pointing out that even a prostitute can wear hijab.
In fact I’m told that in some Muslim countries the prostitutes are the ones in full niqab – they signal to prospective customers by winking at them.
Dunia Stranger, I see your point, but I can actually understand why wearing the hijab as a prostitute may not have seemed so absurd to Julie. Most Muslim women marry strangers, so they are having sex with strangers. There is really no intimacy and it is very impersonal. To a desperate Muslim woman, being a prostitute may not be a bad way to earn some money because she is already use to sleeping with a stranger who she did not marry for love. Women can easily become desensitized after such marriages because we are encouraged to be happy and content and wait and marry for the sake of Allah. If we are from a non religious background and marry a stranger out of custom and not for the sake of Allah and in fact we were raised with no taqwah, well the result can be “Julie”….
Baybers I did not read that article.
Amir: I see no difference, though the prostitute could be considered smarter. At least she gets more then a few drinks and a one night stand.
Zina is zina, whether money is changing hands or not.
UmmAdam makes a good point. Julie does not seem to have been shown much compassion at that period of time in her life, other then from her “friend” who introduced her to the business. It is quite easier to be misled when you feel isolated and alone by someone that shows you compassion.
Baybers,
Sexual slavery is another issue. Note that it invoves the transborder movement of women, who do not know their rights in the country and probably do not speak the language. In addition, their ‘owners’ confiscate their passports and often repeatedly rape and brutalize them to break their will. It is a filthy business. Here in the Czech Republic girls (and sometimes teenaged boys, we produce very pretty ones) are not infrequently suckered into the ‘job in Germany’ that turns out to be in a brothel. Often it is acquaintances of theirs, who get a nice commission from said Germans/Belgians/etc, who introduce them to this great opportunity. Thankfully I think the incidence of this is decreasing, as even small town girls are getting sharper than they used to be and as we are now in the EU.
However, whether or not prostitution is legal, human trafficking is definitely illegal. Rape is illegal. Assault is illegal. Fraud is illegal. I don’t see how stricter laws against prostitution, locking up the girls themselves and reducing their rights under the law, is supposed to help. The sad truth is that the victims of trafficking are foreign and there is a lot of money involved–a combination of these two factors, along with international law enforcement issues, means that the laws against trafficking tend not to be as strongly enforced as we might hope. Those of you who have had the pleasure of being resident foreigners dealing with local police may know part of what I mean.
The country I live in is the center of a massive sex trade, both in prostitution and pornography. For a long time after the fall of Communism, prostitution simply didn’t ‘exist’ legally. That is, the Communist era laws were overturned but there were no new laws. So prostitution was neither a crime nor a legal trade. You can imagine the abuses that led to. Now prostitution is legal but pimping is illegal; still, innumerable brothels operate legally somehow.
The conditions vary depending on what end of the market you’re at, which is probably more extreme for prostitution than for anything else people do for money. I have a friend who is a masseur and who every morning at 6 goes to a very expensive, Austrian owned brothel to give the girls their after work massages. Those girls are well paid and well treated.
But most girls are Russian or Ukranian, either trafficked or from some place so poor and screwed up that whoring in the Czech Republic is an improvement. You see them in glass fronted brothels all along the roads at border crossings. Then there are Czech women from border towns with collapsed industries, renting themselves out on street corners or at truck stops. Someone in the family has to make some money, and their husbands are no prizes. Thirty minutes with a truck driver is a week’s wages.
Then there are the Gypsies, mothers out pimping their teenaged daughters to keep their husbands (the ones not in jail) in beer money, rent boys, random women along the road, and most darkly, families pimping their small children to pedophiles. It was pressure from the German side that cut back on the latter; the attitude of local police tends to be “They’re Gypsies, so what can you expect? They have too many children anyway.”
Hmmm, that went on rather longer than I had intended.
I have a Muslim friend who was in a life and death situation and turned to “temporary prostitution” against everything she stood for and believed in to pay for her medicine. She doesn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, go to clubs, or any other of the activities that are so common in today’s society.
She is 1 of 3 people who takes this experimental medicine in Canada, because she is allergic to every other medicine available. Government or insurance will not cover it because it is still in experimental stages.
With her condition after 8 hrs. without meds she begins to shake uncontrollably,becomes dillusinal, dizzy, doesn’t know her name, where she is, where she lives, and will fall in seizure anywhere. After 24 hours without her meds she will die. I have been with her on 1 of the 3 brushes with her death when it happened. Doctor’s say it is a miracle that she lived that her faith in Islam, and me, are the only things that saved her. It was like nothing I have ever seen in my life. That day I realized my love for her when she almost left my life.
She is like no other women I have ever known in my life, I love her more than anyone in the world, even myself, but I have told her that I cannot marry her because she “gave away her diamond” in order to live.
I’ve been seriously thinking that this is Haram to have told her like this. She is the most chaste women I have ever met for her chastity comes from the heart; and since I have known her she has so to speak, signed her love on both our hearts with her blood.
I was at her condo one night when she asked me if I trusted her, respected her, and believed in her, because she did not think that I did. I was caught, and she had me by the arms and wouldn’t let go saying that the truth catches up with us in the end so now was the time to come clean and be honest with her. She said she was not judging me but she “Just had to know the truth or she would never be able to sleep again as she had not for 1 year. She kept her word. She did not judge me or criticize me. I told her no I didn’t trust her, or believe in her. She asked me why of course. I told her because she gave her “diamond” away. She began to cry and asked me why I had not told her the truth before? I told her that I did not have the heart to break her heart. She is the purest soul I have ever known. My “first love” from Jordan had now left me to marry another. I remember before I left to Jordan she asked me if I was going to be married. I had told her about this first love from the beginnning. I told her the truth and said I was going to ask her. She wished me the best from her heart although she was crying and clearly dying inside because she loved me, and told me one last thing.
She said, “You like expensive things but you do not know how to take care of them. Be careful or you will lose the real diamonds of your life. Allah sees everything…It was almost like she knew… somehow…After I got to jordan I found out that the girl who was my first love had left me to marry another man. I was in awe, for I had left my friend in Canada and tried to go on like I never knew her. It didn’t work though. She was in my heart every step of the way. I never told her that but she knows. I tell you she knows things that no other person knows… It’s scary…
My family they all know her and love her, and my Dad he knows her whole history, but he knows that she is a gift from Allah, so he accepts her for all that she is and her tragedies from her past.
Pure love my friend says means not just being there whenever it is convenient for yourself.
She told me if I loved her I had to leave her tragic past in the past and move toward the future, and never allow the past mine or hers, to control our hearts.
She said there is no wanting her forever but wanting her never. That she could not accept my disrespect of her, for so many times I had been cruel with her. She said I have been there for you when you were very wrong and when you were very right but had no one to back up your soul. I need the same from you.
So she waits I think to see what I will do. I feel though that time is running out to keep her halo in my life.
She continues to give me all the space that I need to see clearly. Can you believe that she asked me if I wouldn’t marry her because I felt it would not complete the other half of my deen in Islam. I told her no that was not it, but after 2 days she said that when I told her that was not it I had contradicted everything that I had told her prior to that.
She said I see everything about you, and I see me, and I see you running from me and kneeling as a slave to your pride…
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