The Meanest Nice People in the World.

I get a lot of heat from my family and friends over my political views, especially from friends I've reconnected with after a period of being out of touch. It varies from indulgent disapproval (hi, mom) to vitriolic name-calling. That would be my older brother. He's bald and bitter. My friends and I share a mutual befuddlement; them over "how conservative I've become," and me over how they managed to get lead poisoning. Kidding. It's more likely mercury from the fluorescent lights. I feel like the guy in the Joe Walsh song: "Everybody's so different/ I haven't changed."

And I really think I haven't changed. I've always thought that we were each in charge of our individual destiny, that women and men are complimentary equals -- as in, not the exact same, thank God, that race doesn't matter; like love, stupid sees no color. I also think the strong should show consideration for the weak, and that the weak have an obligation to become stronger so they can shoulder their responsibility for themselves. My favorite freedom, though, the one I really miss, is -- as W.S. Burroughs put it -- the freedom to mind my own damn business. I never really thought of these as conservative views. I always kind of saw them as the way things were supposed to work.

And once upon a time my friends felt the same way. Some still think they do. But they see the world in childish, comic book terms, where the "Neo-Cons" are the Forces of E-vil and the "Progressives" are the superhero class, like the X-men. All war is bad, unless neither side is white, and then we're not touching that one. That doesn't happen. No person is illegal, unless they are more wealthy than you. Everyone has a right to earn a living, unless it's in oil production or whaling, in which case those damn Eskimos can starve. Women are always better than men. No religion and all religions are better, more virtuous than Christianity, the dominant religion of Western Civilization. Because we're too big, too wealthy, our citizens deserve to be attacked and we don't deserve to defend ourselves. We had it coming.

I'm telling you that to tell you this: If we lay back and allow things to progress the way they are there will come a group of people who aim to take us over for real, people whose lines of reasoning and life philosophies are foreign to ours in every sense of the term:

Is it obligatory for the husband to provide medical treatment for
his wife?
Q: If the wife becomes temporarily or chronically ill, does the husband have to pay for her treatment? If she for example, wants to have children but suffers from problems preventing her from having children,
does her husband have to seek treatment for her and pay for it? If it is not compulsory on the husband to do so, then what shall the wife do if she becomes ill while she does not have money and her husband doesn’t give her money to save?

A: Praise be to Allaah.
According to the majority of fuqaha’ from the four madhhabs, the husband is not obliged to pay for medical treatment for his wife. Some of them gave the reason for that as being that it is not one of the essential needs, rather it is something extraneous. Imam al-Shaafa’i (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in al-Umm (8/337): The man is not obliged to offer a sacrifice on behalf of his wife or to pay the fee of a doctor or cupper for her. End quote.
It says in Sharh Muntaha al-Iraadaat (3/227): He is not obliged to provide medicine or pay the fee of a doctor if she falls sick, because these are not essential needs, rather they are incident and are not obligatory. End quote

See: Haashiyat Ibn ‘Aabideen (3/575); Sharh al-Kharashi ‘ala Mukhtasar Khaleel (4/178).

This is the website that quote came from. To be fair, it ultimately says that it would be a nice thing to do to pay for your wife's medical bills. Do check out the home page, and notice it's in English, among several other European languages.

I don't know how it is that my close circle seems to think that just because the guy down at the corner store is nice that I'm a sheet-wearing racist for implying that maybe Islam is not as benign as they think. I can't understand other women I know who rail and cry over how unfair our society is to them, and I don't understand how anyone who claims to believe in personal liberty could be sanguine with a society that demands you pray to their god five times a day, that bans pet dogs, literature and music, that punishes homosexuality with death, the same way it punishes teaching little girls to read.

I wish there was a way to make them see, before we all have to learn by example.