S: You really think a man telling me about how I’m going to go to hell for sipping white wine will make me stop? How simple minded do these religious men think we heathens are? If words could cure the world of its ills, Taliban wouldn’t be shooting little girls in the head!
A: So you acknowledge that drinking is an ill…
S: I was being sarcastic! So I will got to for drinking, but the men who beat their wives, have multiple wives, and refuse to educate their girls will go to heaven? Yeh kia baat hui mufti sahib?
A: Look. Just because you are a good person, is not enough. You have to be more. If drinking is a vice let it go.
S: A vice for me is the way men in our society treat women and children. Vice for me is when a two year old girl is out in a hijab, effectively sexualising her.
A: I agree with you on many of these. I am not for polygamy, or girls not being educated. All I am saying is that you should be the best version of yourself. I am not comparing you to a narrow-minded mullah. I think that religion can help you be better, more compassionate, more sensitive to society and towards these same men you criticise. It’s a system…
S: It’s a system that needs to be taken apart. It’s a system that dictates and doesn’t give room for free thinking. I don’t need a man at a pulpit to tell me I am wrong.
A: Well someone has to. How else will you know?
S: You are right Ameen, but it has to be someone who is at least credible, whom I believe has something to contribute to my betterment. I don’t think the Imam of your mosque is that person.
A: People like him have vast experience in religion.
S: But religion is just one part of life. What does he know about economy, and women, and literature, and music and philosophy and truth?