(Editor’s Note: You will find conflicting views below, and it is upto you to decide.)

The Muslim blog-o-sphere seems to have turned attention to self-reflection.

Some of that boils down to- everybody in Ummah is bad except me; and if I have anything wrong, that’s because of their company.

Good news is, most of it is serious self-reflection. About me and you. In fact, more about me than you.

So here goes:

Charles at The Great Theft:

Muslims aren’t writing and fighting among each other or the non-Muslims to reach unity! We are waging war among and against ourselves for autonomy, for the right to speak for Islam and all Muslims whether those spoken for like it or not. This is a fact not even the Bush administration has acknowledged. All of these groups whether physically driven or ideologically driven, want to retain power among theirselves. Let me ask the reader a question: If the US “leaves Muslims and the Middle East alone” who comes to power? Here is another question: If the US seriously promotes democratic reform in the Middle East which groups benefit? I am not going to tell you the answers. It is for you to seriously ponder over. Am I suggesting that US foreign policy is the best thing since baked bread? By no means, but I am boldly stating that a vacuum exists without any outside influence and it cannot be denied.

Umm Zaid is much disturbed:

A very, mash’Allah, tall and big woman stood on my foot while the imam recited a very long ‘Asr prayer (apparently it was all of Surat al Baqara … at least, it felt like it), oblivious to the tears of pain rolling down my cheeks. When it was over, I made some du’a by myself, and after that, was surrounded by a group of women wearing niqabs who berated me for making du’a after ‘asr (they said it was haram), wiping over my face (”Don’t bring that cultural nonsense into our masjid”), and who picked apart the prayers of one another (”Your hands were as such, Sister So and So, and your prayer is not going to be accepted” and so on). May God Guide these women and all of us.

But no one said anything to her about the fact that she caused me (and likely the person on her other side) pain. This is because she was making Shaytan didn’t get through any gaps, even if she had to break my bones to do it. She was enacting the Sunnah on my foot. This was one of the first times I went to a masjid. From this I learned that Muslims pay attention to each other during prayer, and that one must be hyper-aware of what is going on next to one. No matter what all of our books say about khushu’ and minding one’s own p’s & q’s.

Ginny finds much parallel between being a Muslim and being blind:

Before becoming a Muslim, I had to deal with being “different” and having that difference instantly noticeable the minute I walked into a room, or the moment anyone saw me. Even if I didn’t have a cane with me, the fact that my eyes didn’t focus properly, or because I had to hold onto someone’s arm when I went into an unfamiliar place, made me instantly recognizable as blind and thus “different”.

[...]

And yes, this does tie into being a Muslim, and more particularly a Muslim woman. Because as a Muslim woman, you have the same sorts of ignorance, the same sorts of stereotypes, the same sorts of pity. For a convert, you have the astonishment from non-Muslims that you’d actively choose this “lifestyle”, because “how would anyone want to subjugate themselves like that”. You have the pity because of the stereotype of the “oppressed Muslim woman”.

Amy, too, is disconcerted:

The masjid here just opened a new portion of the building, including a musallah on the second floor especially for sisters (henceforth known as the fake musallah.) According to some people (men and women alike unfortunately) this means that women can’t or shouldn’t pray in the real musallah, the main one on the first floor. I tick these people off when I refuse to go upstairs to the fake musallah, and instead choose to pray behind the men. They usually let me know, as if I’m some poor stupid lass who can’t figure out how to use stairs.

[...]

the sisters seem to have a problem observing basic congregational prayer etiquette. Like straighting the lines. And filling in the gaps. And starting the row in the center behind the imam. It isn’t difficult to tell where the imam is downstairs, although it is not possible to actually see him. But still sisters insist on lining up starting sideways or in a corner instead of in the center. So tonight for example, the sisters somehow decided to line up in the front left corner of the fake musallah (against all logic) and as usual failed to fill in the gaps, and as usual could not manage to keep the line straight, despite having clear rows on the carpet!