The Sincere Practicing Muslims
This Muslim is exhilarated by the fact that you have accepted Islam. They will do everything they can to make you feel comfortable and may make feeling you welcomed into the community, and learning the deen, a top priority for them and their families and I have known many Muslims like this. To them you have not joined some kind of a club; rather you have accepted the kalima and found the correct path of Allah. They view you as someone who is more enlightened than the masses and as someone with courage and accept you as a brother or sister even if they may make you feel uncomfortable at times or if there is a social and cultural divide at times.
The Muslim Activist
The Muslim activist is also happy to see you become Muslim but the activist is not like the first group and more likely than not will not sit around and teach you al-Fatihah or small Suras. The activist is thinking about how to recruit you before someone else does and how to get you involved. If you have a particular talent, or degree of education, then the activist will covet you even more and as soon as you took shahadah was thinking about how your face would look on camera.
The Simple Muslim
(yes, I'm guilty as charged)The simple Muslim cannot quote the Tafseer of Ibn Kathir from heart and does not have the fatatwa of Sheikh-ul-Islam Ibn Taymiya memorized (and maybe has never heard of him) but is pure of heart and is not corrupted by all of the false modern ism’s and knows that you have done a good thing by embracing Islam. Chances are the simple Muslim is busy with work and family and does not have the time to actually encourage you; but you can expect a warm greeting and smile when they see you.
The Self-Hating Muslim
The self-hating Muslim cannot escape their identity and background; but is miserable that they were born to Muslim parents. However, this Muslim is too lazy to make-up a new religion like the progressive Muslims and too afraid of their families to outright leave Islam, so they are stuck in a state of self-hatred and they look at you as pathetic for accepting the religion they wish they had no association with. They want to tell you that you should be going to the clubs they wish they had friends to take them to and having sex with the white girls they are at home jerking off to the thoughts of and think you are crazy for not fully indulging in every ill of this society.
The Modernist Muslim
The modernist Muslims may accept you; that is if you wear a suit, shave your beard, don’t study hadith, and are bringing in a six-figure income. If not they have no need for you and if you happen to have a beard and a love for the sunnah then they will see you as just one more dangerous fanatic and they curse the day you embraced Islam.
The Leftist/ Progressive Muslim
This Muslim, who is close to the modernist Muslim, is basically a bobo Muslim. That is they are educated, often urban, secular liberals. Since they have no actual belief in Islam, and are just maintaining the appearance of being Muslim out of some cultural sense of pride, then they look at you with a suspect eye for believing in something they do not and wanting to pick-up the faith of their backwards grandparents. If you do not accept their idols; the modern thinkers of the West, then you are an apostate. The Leftist Muslims, who more than likely do not practice the deen, look at you as fools for kicking Marx and Engeles to the curb and the passing over the bored suburban white kids movements of Anarchism and environmental extremism for the deen. They also may look at you as not real or authentic Muslims, even though they do not pray and may have little or no knowledge of the deen, and they may also think that you are engaging in cultural slumming and trying to be an Arab of Pakistani (which is ridiculous, given the fact that there are many, like myself, who for the most part hate modern Arabic culture). The bottom line is that they look at you with contempt; but would love you if you were an expert of modern art or a socialist activist.
Having read that, I wonder which of these you all categorize under?
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