Obida Arabized

starting a new journey. if you're also on this path, DMs should be open...

[islamicmasculinity]

[muslimmasculinity]

[muslimmasculinity]

[muslimmasculinity]

[muslimmasculinity]

[muslimmasculinity]

[mayonezli]

Green Mosque - Kütahya, Türkiye.

[khabeer-arabize]

There is only one God ☝🏻

[muslimmasculinity]

[muslimmasculinity]

[suitedforlife-deactivated202604]

What made you decide to wear formal clothes?

My origin story! The full version is that I'm from the UK and went to a school that had a formal uniform. I didn't wear it properly because I was obviously far too cool for that, until my maths teacher made me fasten my collar and tighten my tie. That was an awakening! Since then I have enjoyed menswear, but I was always too self-conscious to fully go for it.

I had phases in my early and twenties where I tried, but I didn't make it last. Now I have the self-confidence to wear what I want. That doesn't answer why I wanted to dress this way though.

One part is just getting a bit older - t-shirts and tracksuits look a bit tragic on a 30-something. But the real motivation for me is how I feel, how I see myself, how it shapes my behaviour, and how others see me. All of which impact each other in a positive cycle. I love the masculine shapes of menswear, enhancing our torsos' taper and accentuating our shoulder line. I love how understated classical tailoring is. It's all about the quality of the cut and fabric not flashy details. I find that version of masculinity, quietly confident and unobtrusive, deeply attractive.

Moreover, I like the associations of formal western clothing. To me a suit has always been associated with being put together, bringing your A game and being serious about something. We wear them for when we want to show we care. I associate them with a kind of restraint and self-control, the details are considered and buttoned down or tucked in place rather than everything thrusting forward in some stretch fabric. When I wear a tie it brings those associations to my mind and I'm more self-aware, but not self-conscious. I want to live up to the associations the clothes hold, associations of capable, disciplined, traditional men.

I'm a conservative guy in a some ways (well, a lot of ways really if not for the homo to bisexuality), and I like the call-backs a suit has to previous generations and maintaining their traditions. I like wearing something my great-grandfather could have worn 100 years ago and participating in that instead of trying to make my "own style," which, coincidentally for almost everyone who does it, looks very much like someone else anyway (but invariably more embarrassing to look back on than classical menswear). And I like knowing that when I interact with others, be they colleagues or neighbours or people at church, when I'm a suit with a big smile I look every inch the pleasant young gentleman. It would be a bit delusional to pretend there isn't an aspirational aspect to this too - I am British after all - and dressing this way is bluntly associated with higher class people. I have never really identified with working class culture and escaping upwards is something I have enjoyed in different spheres.

Essay over!

[obidaarabize]

I miss this man. I enjoyed our chats and felt we connected in terms of modesty and formality and conservatism despite our differing religions. I hope he comes back someday.

[khabeer-arabize]

This might sound niche but when I think about the MNWO I don’t wanna picture sissy muslimahs or enslaved white men. I want Islam to save my people. I want to see white men in thobes, shaving the mustache but keeping the beard, only kneeling on the prayer mat. I’m more interested in the slow conversion. The numbers adding up. The changes to the shop windows in our towns. Men adjusting their aesthetic taste and morality to align with a culture of arab supremacy. The slow erosion of our laws as we adapt to a sharia mindset. The little things that add up to a massive wave that will flood us. A warm swamp where following the mass feels too good.

Who else feels this way?

[muslimmasculinity]

[julaibib]

Madinah

[muslimmasculinity]

[thoughtportal]

The 1920s saw a revival in Islam among Black Americans fleeing poverty and persecution in the Jim Crow South. In Northern cities including Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark, and New York, they found strength and security in a range of Muslim organizations, from the India-based Ahmadiyya movement to the homegrown Moorish Science Temple and Nation of Islam. In this film, host Malika Bilal (Senior Presenter, Al Jazeera English) tells the story of these early Black American Muslim communities through a woman named Florence Watts, who moved to the bustling South Side of Chicago around 1910, where she found work as a cook and a maid.

Drawing on the work of Sylvia Chan-Malik, (author of Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam,) Malika discovers how Florence was drawn to the teachings of the Ahmadiyya missionary, Mufti Mohammad Sadiq. In 1923, she joined one of the first multi-racial Muslim communities in the country. That same year, Florence was featured in the Ahmadiyya magazine Moslem Sunrise, her image captured in one of the earliest known photographs of a group of Muslim women taken in the United States. Through Florence’s story, Malika discovers how these Muslim groups helped working-class Black Americans resist the confines of race in the United States and feel part of a global community of believers. They in turn helped to create a legacy of Islam that has been embraced by African Americans since.

Made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station: https://www.pbs.org/donate

[muslimmasculinity]