I can’t pinpoint the precise date I became a Muslim because it took me a few years of dabbling in what would become the world’s largest socially-devalued religion, to know whether I wanted to make the stigma my own. The best I can come up with is late-nineties, when it was Dolly the cloned sheep who was horrifying good conservative Christian Australians, rather than their Islamo-fascist sleeper-cell neighbours posing as Afghan refugees. Since then, the world has been rocked by religiously-motivated terrorists* and the Islamification of our food supplies. I’ve also become a bit of an expert on things Muslimish, so here’s a handy guide to things you don’t need to worry about.

Muslims Lie About Lying

I’ll start with an item of twisted logic so confusing it makes Inception seem pedestrian, but I will have to throw a bit of foreign gobbldy-gook your way. In the fight against the impending Muslim take-over of Australia (and at 1.7% of the population we have a ways to go) sooner or later you will come across taqiyya. This is taken from a Koran verse (chapter 16, verse 106) giving permission for persecuted Muslims to outwardly deny their faith when threatened with death. According to anti-Jihadist web-warriors, however, it means Allah says Muslims can lie. Muslims can lie about secretly being terrorists, about having a bunch of wives hidden away in the back bedroom when Centrelink knocks on the door, and most importantly Muslims can LIE about LYING!

This does present a problem for me with the rest of this article, I’ll admit. If I disagree and point out that Prophet Muhammad warned “Lying is evildoing, and evildoing leads to hellfire” then you could accuse me of lying about lying. So, you’re going to have to choose to trust me when I say, every Muslim parent I know drums it into their kids: ‘God says lying is a no-no, a naughty, a big ‘ole you’re-gonna-lose-your-pocket-money-for-that-one’.

So when your Muslim workmate says: “I had no idea that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad”, you can be confident he’s not in possession of an Al-Qa’ida memo with details of the evil mastermind’s secret compound.

Muslims Are At War With Everyone

A lot of fear comes from the misperception that Muslims are at constant war with the Infidels (that means you, dear reader). If you really want to impress your worried Catch-the-Fire seminar attendee, just pepper your conversation with dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, which mean “House of Islam” and “House of War” respectively. Dar al-Islam is made up of those countries where Friday is part of the weekend, Dar al-Harb is everywhere else. Muhammad didn’t use these himself, they were dreamed up when medieval despotic kings were doing what medieval despotic kings do: land-grabbing and fighting off the Mongols.

Folks like Sharia4Australia’s Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon and former US President George W. Bush are rather partial to ‘us versus them’ binary divisions, but the Qur’an not so much. It describes righteous non-Muslims as good people and wags a stern metaphorical finger at hypocritical Muslims. In one of the last verses (5:5) it even says interfaith tucker is fair-dinkum and in a world without take-away, that means throwing another kebab on the barbie with your Christian mate.

Spread By The Sausage

Speaking of food, Liberal backbencher Luke Simpkins was slightly incorrect when he said Aussies unknowingly eating halal meat was a step down the path to conversion, and by slightly incorrect I mean fundamentally off-his-trolly wrong.

Believe me, us Aussie Muslims are as surprised as you are to find that major food companies like Nestlé, Sara Lee, and Steggles have started making halal products. Unfortunately it’s not due to any Islamification takeover plan on our part, we’re just not that bright or organised. This is mere ordinary market capitalism at work. There are some 340,000 Muslims in Oz, but there are squidillions out there in Asia and beyond, which means dosh for multinationals. It’s cheaper and more efficient for them to convert over to halal processing than supply special infidel food for Aussies.

Browbeaten Burqas Babes

Muslims wear funny clothes. Not all of us of course, but sadly there is the odd Fatima or Mo who thinks jeggings are flattering, or fails to recognise the fashion crime that is white socks with black pants. Some agitate for laws against the oppression that is the mullet dress, but hey--it’s still a free country.

Although there are thousands upon thousands of Muslims who go about with locks flowing freely and clean-shaven chins (some of them men) it is true that the sight of a burqa can bring traffic to a halt. Or, at least I imagine it might because I’ve never actually seen a burqa in Australia. I live in Dandenong, one of the more populous Muslim outposts in Australistan, and there’s narry a burqa to be captured in the wild. Plenty of Russian babushkas, Sikh saris and colourful African headwraps, though.

Occasionally you might glimpse a niqabi (a Muslim woman who covers her face with a veil) but the Afghan blue grills have yet to take off amongst fashionable Muslim fundamentalists in Australia.

Muslims Put the Banned in Fun

Okay this one is kind of true, all the wickedly fun stuff is prohibited, including bacon. That’s not to say there aren’t a good number of Muslims who indulge, it’s just that they’re not supposed to. It’s not hard to make the case that casual meaningless sex, alcohol, Madonna videos, gambling and crocodile meat are dangerous to society and should be banned, arguing for porcine prohibition is a little harder.

Fortunately we have fakin’ bacon, which tastes just like the real thing and as a convert who’s eaten ham on her pizza before submitting to Allah, I should know.

Islam is a religion, and as we all know, religions have to have difficult rules to prevent the riff-raff from joining and thereby gaining the benefits of eternal salvation and the best pews in the church — or in this case, spots on the carpet at the mosque. So you are doing us a favour by scarfing down pork crackling at the Christmas lunch, or throwing back a cold one in front of the cricket.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion I hope I’ve alleviated a few of the concerns that have kept The King’s Tribune readers awake at night. No need to rush off and join the Q Society, the Muslims of Australia will just carry on driving your taxis and running your postal service, and together we can face a much greater threat: Tony Abbott’s budgie smugglers.

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Rachel Woodlock is a lecturer and researcher at the Centre for Islam and the Modern World, Monash University, she is also a Muslim and can be found twittering @sufisticat

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