The other day as I entered the coffee room in the hospital clinics area during a break, my colleagues and a couple of staff nurses started giggling & whispering.
'wat's up?' I kind of ignored.

'You must be feeling offended Henna?' One of them said.
'wat for?' I enquired while switching the kettle on & getting a tea bag.

'Look!' A senior colleague pointed towards the notice board. I followed his point of direction and found a calender with a picture of 3 piglets on it.

'so?' I carried on with my tea biz.

'Well we thought Muslims hate pigs.' Said a senior staff nurse, smiling.

'umhmm..wrong. We don't eat pigs thats all!' I picked my tea mug and went closer to the calender looking for the next 'clinical governance' meeting date.

This was not it. Only a day before that as I offered some food to my son's ex-school teacher who was visiting, she said ' Oh no thanks Henna. I am really full. Have eaten like a pig today.' And then she immediately covered her mouth, ' oops! sorry. shouldn't have said that word in a Muslims' house.'

'why!' I exclaimed.
'Well we have been receiving condemning messages from students' parents about the 'Three little piglets' story we told children in primary section; that Muslim children are not allowed to utter or listen to this word?'

Now come to the most interesting part of this story!! As I listened to the Fri sermon, the Imam/Clergyman went" ...so whenever we see a p-i-g and when we hear about a p- i- g- (he was pronouncing the letters 'p' , 'i' and 'g' sepearately, not saying the word- at first I thought he was trying to say the urdu word 'py'a jee' 'py'a jee' (that my husband's brother's wife uses to call her husband :) but then I realized that the respected Imam was telling something about pigs and was trying not to say the word 'pig'..... why?? where does this come from? What sources of knowledge of Islam do we base these directives on?

Another brother of our's who is not a practicing Muslim and also happens to be a chain cigarette smoker, said 'astaghfirullah! That child is wearing 'Hush puppies' shoes? haram hara'm. This leather is made up of dogs' and pigs' skins....

Is this not kind of attitude which promotes further misunderstandings and un-necessary gaps amongst us and other communities we live with.

It's not that simple. The chaos happening in the world in the name of religion is heated up with such ignorant acts. We must try and learn the Truth about all matters before prononcing them as'hukum' and 'shariah/law'. Otherwise we are likely to see more destruction in outr generations than ever before(may God protect all everywhere)