Please read and respond. if you want to.

[zakirs]

I have a friend that just got back to the states after attending Manipal University! She said i have to visit Goa, it's beautiful!

You should.. I'll be happy to host a IB brother

 

[Iris]

Wow all those are like revelations for me Italianguy. And yeah like the other members pointed out, we have a lot of the similar traditions in Islam...the modesty, treating women(especially one's mother) with a lot of respect, no pork etc. The arranged marriage thing was truly surprising! Though as a Muslim you can marry practically anyone in the world as long as he/she is a Muslim. For the men, they can marry women who are non-Muslims(but only the ones who follow Holy Books,i.e. Christians and Jews)

And yeah I agree, the 2nd and 3rd gen american Italians seem the exact opposite of what you described.
Do keep on sharing more about your culture and tradition. You're Protestant right, I had a friend once, a nurse in a hospital once, she was a protestant and from what I understand you guys are more orthodox in the religious approach.
This nurse told me she gives 1/10th of her salary each month as charity(as opposed to our obligatory charity in islam(zakaat) which is given as 2.5% of all our assets at the end of the year. She told me many nice things about protestants. She also liked Islam a lot but was afraid that while protestants have a nice loving image of God, The Muslim peoples' view is more of a scary God who showers his wrath on people all the time. Whereas in fact it's the opposite, the main attributes by which we call on God every single day and night, are those regarding his Mercy...'in the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful', with these words, we start our every activity.

Sorry for the long reply.

 

[zakirs]

Whereas in fact it's the opposite, the main attributes by which we call on God every single day and night, are those regarding his Mercy...'in the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful', with these words, we start our every activity.

Indeed you only need to be scared of god when you sin.I love Allah but only when i do sin or forego my duty so i fear him and pray for his mercy.

 

[Italianguy]

My current wife and my deceased wife are/were Native Americans. Current wife is Cheyenne deceased wife was Cherokee. Both were previously married and with both their previous husband was Italian. Although I never met either of the previous husbands I can vouch they did treat my wives with very high respect during their marriages to them The attitude Italian men have towards women is very commendable..

Well thank you!

 

[Italianguy]

Wow all those are like revelations for me Italianguy. And yeah like the other members pointed out, we have a lot of the similar traditions in Islam...the modesty, treating women(especially one's mother) with a lot of respect, no pork etc. The arranged marriage thing was truly surprising! Though as a Muslim you can marry practically anyone in the world as long as he/she is a Muslim. For the men, they can marry women who are non-Muslims(but only the ones who follow Holy Books,i.e. Christians and Jews)

And yeah I agree, the 2nd and 3rd gen american Italians seem the exact opposite of what you described.
Do keep on sharing more about your culture and tradition. You're Protestant right, I had a friend once, a nurse in a hospital once, she was a protestant and from what I understand you guys are more orthodox in the religious approach.
This nurse told me she gives 1/10th of her salary each month as charity(as opposed to our obligatory charity in islam(zakaat) which is given as 2.5% of all our assets at the end of the year. She told me many nice things about protestants. She also liked Islam a lot but was afraid that while protestants have a nice loving image of God, The Muslim peoples' view is more of a scary God who showers his wrath on people all the time. Whereas in fact it's the opposite, the main attributes by which we call on God every single day and night, are those regarding his Mercy...'in the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful', with these words, we start our every activity.

Sorry for the long reply.

Don't appologise, i appreciate long reply's. i personaly tithe(give to the church) 18% of all my income. You give as much as you can afford without putting yourself in finacial trouble. Well not all Christians think they will go to hell, just because they believe Jesus is thier (our) saviour. I think it takes more than that , but also i think Christians have become lazy, they don't research any other or understand any other faiths. And thanks for replying.
God bless!

 

[Italianguy]

I find myself often having to defend myself (in a nonviolent manor) against those who would insult my family because of our culture. We, or i should say they, are all Roman Catholic, whereas i am Protestant. To this day as well as in the past i would sometimes bring home friends for dinner or just to hang out and what i thought was normal was what they said "completely wrong!" outdated and downright scary! Let me give you examples

1. Women in our home(s) would always take care of household duties.
2. Dinner was always served in 5 to 6 courses usually lasting 4 hours (remember Italian)
3. Mothers, auntie’s (yes we say aunty and uncle to, or at least some of us) always ate after the men, even us kids, if the kids were not at a separate table from the adults
4. Arranged marriages (you didn't know Italians did that did you) forget falling in love with your high school sweetheart, and you had better have went to her father before she even new you were interested!!! And she or he Better be Italian or Believe it or not (my family loves Arabs and Indians) Asian NO WHITE do not take offense (don't call an Italian man anything but Mediterranean, just some advice unless they are from the north)
5. Our women were the most loved in the family and were always modestly dressed! My grandmother was very traditional she never left the house with her head or for that fact any skin exposed! Especially in church, or at mass.
6. Women only spoke when spoken to, or unless they were speaking to the children!
7. The men were to treat there women with the utmost respect!, and love them unconditionally( on occasion, extremely rare once or twice I saw my parents or grandparents give each other a hug, or even more a peck on the cheek!)
8. Absolutely under no circumstances, were you to participate in any forms of PDA (public displays of affection) I once saw my Nonna (grandmother) smack my uncle so hard, a tough 40 year old Italian guy cried in public because he kissed my aunt in front of another Catholic! I cried because it was so loud I felt it (and I was scared) lol.
9. I don’t know if it’s just Italian guy’s but I swear my father and grandfather had hands made of concrete( especially when the spanked you) A friend of mine once asked what was the longest time I was in “time out” I laughed so hard, and said after Nonno hit me I was out for about 5 minutes.lol
10. Emigrants have never heard of time out! Muslim or Christian!
11. Americans or as Nonno said Amed’ ee ‘kans have no culture they take everybody else’s and tear it apart (he said this every time he turned the TV on) so did aunty!
12. My wife is Indian, from Tamil Nadu to be exact! Revert back to #4
13. My brother’s wife is Saudi Arabian! Revert back to #4
13. I only learned Italian because none in my family wanted to learn English. (to them it is a corrupt and ugly language)
14. My wife’s family is amazed we call auntie’s and uncles,…… auntie’s and uncles, no names that’s disrespectful and who could remember all of them anyway I have 14 (of each!)
15. Again no PDA
16. If I talked to a woman there better be one of her male family members there!
17. Men wear pants and long-sleeved shirts; I usually wear button downs and jeans.
18. Be covered and clothed even in your home! (You never know when an aunty is coming by) lol
19. I keep my Bible on the highest shelf in the house, never lowered below the waist, and I am clean when I read it. No wrinkled pages, no markings in it! (I think Muslims treat the Quran the same way?)
20. I have a copy of the Quran. Yes I do!
21. I will remind you I am a Christian.
22. Oh yeah, I am 30 but anyone in the first generation of my family live to an average age of 90 to 100! Nonna was almost 101 when she passed. Her parents that never left Italy always made it to at least 102 to 103! They said before they passed, “ I fear because of the plight of this dark country you won’t make it as far as us in age”
23. Respect your Women!!!!!!!
24. Men always made the money to support his family, never bring home the bacon(we don't eat it either, it is in the Bible)

Can you relate to any of this? Or is it just Italians, or just my family? Do you think this is to extreme? Respond with replies additions or comments!

No disrespect! god bless

In number 23 i meant that my Nonna was talking about the US.

 

[al Iskander]

Oh good, i speak little Italian and understand some Sardo another dielect of italian spoke in Sardinia. I don't think its from Islamic influence in the past? but i will look into it, interesting.

Hello Friend .

The Arabs never settled down durably in Sardinia but Sicily was Muslem during 250 years .
It is not surprising that this neighborhood influenced the Italian character wich was already strict .
I met many Italian converted to Islam , that does not seem to them a religion foreign to their mentality .
Ma cio , é un'altra storia . :statisfie

Friendly .

 

[Woodrow]

Hello Friend .

The Arabs never settled down durably in Sardinia but Sicily was Muslem during 250 years .
It is not surprising that this neighborhood influenced the Italian character wich was already strict .
I met many Italian converted to Islam , that does not seem to them a religion foreign to their mentality .
Ma cio , é un'altra storia . :statisfie

Friendly .

You can also add that there is a strong Catholic influence in Italy and that many Christian reverts to Islam are Catholic. It seems to be a very short step for Catholics to accept Islam. Being a former Catholic myself I found nothing in Islam to be difficult. It seemed to me to be a corrected form of Catholicism.

 

[al Iskander]

You can also add that there is a strong Catholic influence in Italy and that many Christian reverts to Islam are Catholic. It seems to be a very short step for Catholics to accept Islam. Being a former Catholic myself I found nothing in Islam to be difficult. It seemed to me to be a corrected form of Catholicism.

It is completely true . Almost all my family is Catholic , excepted an aunt converted to the Protestantism .

The step to be crossed is not big but is needed an opportunity to make it . Maybe an invitation . May be a meeting .

 

[Woodrow]

It is completely true . Almost all my family is Catholic , excepted an aunt converted to the Protestantism .

The step to be crossed is not big but is needed an opportunity to make it . Maybe an invitation . May be a meeting .

I suspect your aunt who converted to a Protestant denomination has more difficulty with the family, than you have. Especially if your family is sill following the "Old Catholic" (pre-1950) strict Catholicism.

I also agree that for a Catholic to revert all that is needed is the opportunity to. Muslims are generally seen as being very pious people by Catholics and many have a desire to reach that level of piety.

Some things in Islam that Catholics already have a basic understanding of:

Hajj---Catholics also have a strong desire for pilgrimage. But simply have not seen the true pilgrimage is to Makkah and not Fatima, Lourdes, Rome or Jerusalem

Praying in Arabic--The older Catholics believe prayer should be in the original language. However, they see it as being Latin, older Catholics see the Latin Vulgate as being the only true bible. Until the 1950s all prayers in the church were in Latin.

5 daily prayers-- Catholics also see that but disagree with us about the prayer times, although Catholic prayer times come very close to ours and often some will be at the same time. Typically Catholic will pray at awakening, before each of the 3 meals and at bed time

Prostration and bowing in prayer--Catholics do this in a modified form and do know that in the old masses full prostration was a part of the prayer and it is still done at some special masses such as an ordination.

Dhiker Beads--Catholic Rosary Beads

 

[al Iskander]

I suspect your aunt who converted to a Protestant denomination has more difficulty with the family, than you have. Especially if your family is sill following the "Old Catholic" (pre-1950) strict Catholicism.

It is not the case because she converted in the Languedoc , where live some Protestant .

This is me who had difficulty when I converted to Islam .:hiding:

But that's all right now , al hamduLillah .

 

[Supreme]

You can also add that there is a strong Catholic influence in Italy and that many Christian reverts to Islam are Catholic. It seems to be a very short step for Catholics to accept Islam. Being a former Catholic myself I found nothing in Islam to be difficult. It seemed to me to be a corrected form of Catholicism.

I must say, I wholeheartedly agree. Catholicism and Islam share a great deal of similarities. They're both conservative faiths first and foremost, which is why for someone with my liberal views, embracing either Catholicism or Islam would be very hard.

Very interesting thread!