You have one new message.
Saturday 10am. I’ve just put down my cereal bowl and my inbox starts flashing.
“Hi Anisa1977 I liked your profile and photo. I’m Ersan, a Turkish guy based in Madrid looking for friends, and likeminded souls – please check out my profile. PS I’m online now if you want to chat.”
Handsome, interesting, never married, liberal but with a deep love of his faith, a good education and an excellent command of English. Why not? I thought.
Let me enlighten you: this was my first venture into Muslim Chat – it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to open the settings for the chat window.
- “Got webcam?” Ping came the first question.
I wasn’t expecting that…
“It’s Saturday morning, I’m shy and untidy today. Hahhaha…” I replied. In truth, I felt a little uneasy with the idea. “…You’ve done this before, haven’t you – I’m a newbie” - I confessed.
- “Ok. No problem. How are you today? Are you in Barcelona?”
“Yes, I’ve been here for 7 years, but I’m originally Russian. How’s Madrid, and how are you?”
- “Russian girls are usually very beautiful. Good, long week at work. Just been to the gym. What did you think of my profile?”
He could type a lot more quickly than I could, and still somehow spell everything correctly. I have to say, that alone impressed me!
“Poetic…” I typed, truthfully. “…I like the fact you read, travel and spend a lot of time soul searching. And you have honest looking eyes.” (I added a smiley face to that one.)
And so the conversation went on, and on, and on… before I knew it, it was 3pm and I was chatting to Ersan like I’d known him my whole life. We had a great deal in common and our religious and ethical views were well aligned, although we had diverging opinions on guacamole…
I asked him a lot about his experiences on the site – he’d been active for 18 months and met all kinds of people, guys and girls included, some of whom he believed, others whom he didn’t – he told me. “You gotta be smart.” he concluded. We made a cyber date for the following afternoon. (with webcam and a note to self, to try and fix lighting in office to show good angles and not imperfections!) I have to say, I did get butterflies in my stomach thinking about it.
Real or Imaginary?
I certainly wore my hat at a jaunty angle for most of Saturday afternoon. I re-read my chat with Ersan a couple of times – once to remind myself of what he’d said and the second to check I hadn’t said anything inopportune or downright stupid. Being from a liberal family and living in a secular society where I feel my faith is an internal issue, I was as honest as I could be with Ersan. Nevertheless, my gratitude for the backspace and erase keys on my computer was immense. If only it were possible to apply these buttons to three-dimensional conversations – it would solve a lot of the world’s problems.
Or would it?
Herein lies my internal debate with cyber chat: It’s great for those like me, and many, many others who feel more comfortable expressing themselves in writing than face to face, but there is something irreplaceable in face-to-face meeting, beyond the interface and even the webcam - watching someone laugh, hearing them blink, seeing how their hands move…
I scanned Ersan’s conversation for a third and final time.
- “I try to make friends within Spain or at least Europe so there is at least a chance we can meet in real life”
Now that makes perfect sense.
- “Although some people can’t ever meet, that’s why they’re here - to connect, to find someone out there who can understand, a secret friend, a confidente…”
So does that.
If the Prophet had, had the Internet
The debate on chat and Islam is a deep and multi-faceted one. Of course, there are those who believe it to be highly immoral, addictive and dangerous. Others, particularly young Muslims like myself who were born into the digital era, feel it’s fun, harmless, and merely requires a bit of savvy, discretion and discernment.
I’ve read a wide gamma of online articles by conservative scholars and Islamic organizations that feel fathers should watch out for what their offspring do when they disappear to their rooms after dinner. I’ve also read the testimonies of young Muslims of both genders who feel that chatting to likeminded peers all over the world is a way of embracing and connecting more profoundly with their faith and broadening their perspectives. There’s even a Facebook page dedicated to the topic!
It seems that in the end there is no one answer, - but many answers, as many as there are diverging opinions on what is right and wrong. And for every viewpoint, there is a perfect match, somewhere out there.
I think it’s important to see the many sides of the argument whether to chat or not to chat. There’s an interesting article on Islamonline, in which a writer asks: “There are now a large number of chat sites and there are many people who participate in them. What advice can you give to those who visit chat rooms, whether to read or to join in?”
Sheikh M. S. Al-Munajjid, a prominent Saudi Muslim lecturer and author, responds. His answer has a clear Sunni leaning, and whilst I find much of the response a little too traditional to fit my personal views, the following did resonate:
- The person who enters chat rooms has to realize that he is dealing with a large number of unknown persons and that the margin of trust when dealing with people who are not using their real names is very thin indeed.
- The ordinary person who is not a specialist has to choose sites that are sound and useful.
- Be sincere towards Allah. Every person will die and what he writes during his lifetime will remain.
- It is important for sheikhs, writers and well-known people to take part in these groups.
- Adhere to the etiquette dictated by Islam and restrain the tongue (and the pen or writing is regarded as one of the two tongues)…
Sunday afternoon, 4pm and I log in to my chosen chat site at the designated cyber-liaison hour, freshly washed, primped, preened and with my webcam poised.
I never heard from Ersan again. His profile remains on the site, with its 5 stars glowing and perhaps he’ll respond one day, or perhaps he won’t. I didn’t write to him either - I figure he can find me if he wants to, and I won’t take it personally. (Something that he, my first ever cyber buddy warned me against our first and only conversation.) I have had plenty of other responses from girls and guys, and now have a handful of friends from other far-flung corners of the planet that I would probably have never met otherwise.
“Truth and oil always come to the surface.” Old Muslim Proverb