Jah Child, Your observations are testimony to the importance of experiencing and getting to know people and cultures firsthand as opposed to simply relying upon published/broadcast information which is almost invariably compromised by an agenda. My experiences with Muslims (especially Muslim women) and Islamic communities are nothing like what you would think they would be based upon many of the prevailing views and publications about Islam in the USA. As you can tell from my posts, my experiences with Muslims have been exceptionally positive.
Most of the sweeping disparagement of Islam comes from people with an agenda to serve and/or people who have had virtually no close and extended contact with people of the Muslim faith. Having spent a lot of time in a number of countries where Muslims constitute significant proportions of their populations, other than Israel, i can think of none where Muslims and people of other faiths don't generally coexist in harmony. In Israel, there is a lot of effort made by people with agendas to foment strain between populations of Jews and Muslim. Even in the former Palestine, the overwhelming majorities of Muslims and Jews coexisted in harmony (e.g., caring for each their children) for centuries. The devil had to invest a lot of capital there to foment the divisions & create the hostility that exists today. Even still, you'll find in Israel that most Jews and Muslims don't have problems with each other as people;instead they have problems with the politics of the Israeli & Palestinian political leadership.
Finally, it appears to me that you appreciate that women dressing and behaving modestly is not necessarily oppression, but often a choice they've made to signify respect for themselves and to place themselves above being viewed as "stock on the shelf" by the society around them. A woman honoring her faith and herself by choosing modesty is not always oppression as it is almost invariably portrayed as being in the West.
May JAH Bless you
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