Salman Al-Farsi
19-12-06, 01:10 PM
Internet Dangers
In spite of our best efforts to make our service as secure as possible there remain many dangers involved in other matrimonial contact facilities on the internet. These dangers are primarily aimed as sisters by unscrupulous individuals and perverts (many of them non-muslims) who seek to satisfy their sick desires by posing as other sisters or practicing brothers. We encourage all our members to read the following and to be on guard in their usage of these websites. We would also like to stress to the new Muslims that they in particular may be targeted by individuals seeking to exploit their lack of knowledge and newness in the religion.
The following is a description of the known forms these individuals take and advice on how to recognize and protect yourself from them.
FAKE HIJAABIS
Do not be fooled by a profile with a professional looking picture of a sister with hijaab or niqaab, these are library pictures and many of these fake hijaabi's use them. Be vigilant, they are easily recognisable. We advise members to use real pictures of themselves or no picture at all. These fake hijaabi's pretend to be Muslim women and they try to get sisters to write things or send photographs that they would never knowingly share with a man. They also create a Yahoo! or AOL id with a Muslim woman's name and then "troll" various e-mail groups, message boards, and chat rooms looking for Muslim women to talk to about veiling.
They are known for pretending to be a new Muslim woman who needs "help" learning how to pin the hijab. They try to find sisters who have web-cams and ask them to turn the camera on and do a step by step demonstration of how to put the hijab on so "she" can learn.
Another group of people are far more extreme and much more insidious. The things that they say and engage in online could be extremely damaging to an unsuspecting Muslimah's heart and mind. This group includes several individuals who pretend that they are "extremely conservative" Muslim women. They set up web pages and Yahoo! groups about ‘Extreme Conservative Veiling,’ ‘Silent Niqaabi's,’ and so on. Not all members of these groups are Muslims, nor do they claim to be. For example, some claim to be ‘conservative Christians,’ while others are just ‘secular conservatives’ who are into veiling for social reasons.’ These people then join authentic Muslim women's groups, troll for very conservative and / or fully veiled women, and invite them to join their groups. Unfortunately, a number of sincere and innocent Muslimahs have joined these groups.
These fake hijaabi's, who are both men and women, get some sort of sick sexual fulfilment out of pretending to be Muslim women and encouraging Muslim women to talk about veiling, their relations with their husbands, and other unislamic practices. All of their conversations and posts focus solely on veiling and the overwhelming sexual power of women's bodies and voices, and how it must be contained through extreme measures.
The easiest way to recognize these people is to realize that beneath the rhetoric about ‘good conservative’ Muslim women being ‘silent and feminine,’ these individuals exhibit absolute ignorance about Islam, its teachings, its beliefs, and so on. Nor is any of the content of their posts or websites Islamic in nature. One can also peruse the member's lists of these groups and see that most members have IDs that contain words and implications of a sexual nature.
THE ABANDONED MUSLIMAHH
Another common scam is the "Abandoned Muslimah." Regrettably, it is fairly difficult to tell the bogus from the person who genuinely needs help. The Abandoned Muslimah is a woman, almost always claming to be a convert, who says that she has been abandoned by her husband, usually with a child or two (or three or four or five...). She almost always says that her husband has abused her in some way. Abandoned Muslimah simply can not get a job; she alleges that absolutely no Muslim in her community, whether it is at the masjid, or just fellow community members, will help her. Usually a claim that they made fun of her or made racist comments about her is tossed in. Abandoned Muslimah will spend several weeks, months or longer bombarding members of various Muslim e-mail groups with her tales of woe and hardship.
After Abandoned Muslimah has warmed up her audience, she will make a "reluctant" plea for members of the group to send her money. Offers of jobs or other types of assistance (such as directing her to social service agencies) will always be rejected for various reasons.
Abandoned Muslimah is looking for cold hard cash (or money orders). After she has received money from well meaning members, she will disappear. Some Abandoned Muslimahs have started to target Muslim marriage websites, but only the ones where they are able to send messages to others for free.
So how do we tell Abandoned Muslimah apart from the real sisters? Most of the time, you simply can't. You just need to be vigilant and know that in all of these cases these people know almost nothing about basic Islamic knowledge.
THE LONELY BROTHER
The Lonely Brother is a Muslim man who is looking for a little ‘haram’ (forbidden) interaction online. He may also be seeking some ‘extra marital fun’ in real life. He always targets convert women, especially new sisters. His scam is pretty straightforward. He is a Muslim man who says that he is looking for marriage. He claims to be very, very lonely. After only one or two e-mails or Instant Message conversations, he finds himself "deeply in love" with the sister. What he does after this depends on his level of depravity.
Some Lonely Brothers try to encourage the woman to engage in cyber-sex or phone sex, claiming that it is ‘halal’ (permissible) because they are online and ‘it isn't real.’ Or they may try to appeal to her sense of pity and guilt by playing the ‘but we're in love and I can't wait, it's too difficult’ card.
Other Lonely Brothers will convince the sister to meet them in person. They will first suggest a public place, such as a museum, park, or shopping centre. He will take her around, be semi-charming, and pay for her lunch. He will then almost always, somehow, ‘awkwardly’ suggest that they begin to have sex. He will claim that it is permissible because they are ‘engaged’ and ‘really in love.’ Or he will tell her that Islam allows a sort of ‘temporary marriage,’ or muta'h that will allow them to ‘marry in secret’ (i.e., without witnesses or even an imam to officiate) and engage in sexual relations. After the sister does what he wants, he simply disappears, or he gives her the excuse that ‘he's not ready to marry after all,’ or that his family won't let him marry a convert, and then takes off.
Unfortunately, there are enough new Muslimahs out there who don't know enough about Islam, who are confused and who are lonely themselves that they fall for this stuff.
Sisters! No sincere, good Muslim man is going to ask you to engage in cyber or phone sex, or ask you out on a date, or ask you to engage in "temporary marriage," which is NOT permissible. Lonely Brother, more often than not, is actually married to a Muslim woman already and has become bored of her so he is just seeking excitement and fornication.
THE FRESHIE
Freshie’s are generally male Muslims from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Most of them are sincere in their search for marriage and they specifically target sisters from the west…especially reverts. However, their intentions are just to gain a passport to the ‘land of milk and honey’ and once they have that passport many of them become brutal tyrants in the home or they just disappear and leave the sister high and dry.
The other type of Freshie has no desire to marry or seek a passport, he is just out for a good time and will feign offers of friendship to sisters to conceal his evil intentions. They are usually married and tend to respond to sisters profiles with heartfelt wishes of good fortune in finding a spouse but they are just bored individuals seeking sport and entertainment from this activity.
These Freshies almost never pay for membership and on existing marriage websites plague those who display their pictures for all to see.
http://www.thepmms.com/index-9.html
In spite of our best efforts to make our service as secure as possible there remain many dangers involved in other matrimonial contact facilities on the internet. These dangers are primarily aimed as sisters by unscrupulous individuals and perverts (many of them non-muslims) who seek to satisfy their sick desires by posing as other sisters or practicing brothers. We encourage all our members to read the following and to be on guard in their usage of these websites. We would also like to stress to the new Muslims that they in particular may be targeted by individuals seeking to exploit their lack of knowledge and newness in the religion.
The following is a description of the known forms these individuals take and advice on how to recognize and protect yourself from them.
FAKE HIJAABIS
Do not be fooled by a profile with a professional looking picture of a sister with hijaab or niqaab, these are library pictures and many of these fake hijaabi's use them. Be vigilant, they are easily recognisable. We advise members to use real pictures of themselves or no picture at all. These fake hijaabi's pretend to be Muslim women and they try to get sisters to write things or send photographs that they would never knowingly share with a man. They also create a Yahoo! or AOL id with a Muslim woman's name and then "troll" various e-mail groups, message boards, and chat rooms looking for Muslim women to talk to about veiling.
They are known for pretending to be a new Muslim woman who needs "help" learning how to pin the hijab. They try to find sisters who have web-cams and ask them to turn the camera on and do a step by step demonstration of how to put the hijab on so "she" can learn.
Another group of people are far more extreme and much more insidious. The things that they say and engage in online could be extremely damaging to an unsuspecting Muslimah's heart and mind. This group includes several individuals who pretend that they are "extremely conservative" Muslim women. They set up web pages and Yahoo! groups about ‘Extreme Conservative Veiling,’ ‘Silent Niqaabi's,’ and so on. Not all members of these groups are Muslims, nor do they claim to be. For example, some claim to be ‘conservative Christians,’ while others are just ‘secular conservatives’ who are into veiling for social reasons.’ These people then join authentic Muslim women's groups, troll for very conservative and / or fully veiled women, and invite them to join their groups. Unfortunately, a number of sincere and innocent Muslimahs have joined these groups.
These fake hijaabi's, who are both men and women, get some sort of sick sexual fulfilment out of pretending to be Muslim women and encouraging Muslim women to talk about veiling, their relations with their husbands, and other unislamic practices. All of their conversations and posts focus solely on veiling and the overwhelming sexual power of women's bodies and voices, and how it must be contained through extreme measures.
The easiest way to recognize these people is to realize that beneath the rhetoric about ‘good conservative’ Muslim women being ‘silent and feminine,’ these individuals exhibit absolute ignorance about Islam, its teachings, its beliefs, and so on. Nor is any of the content of their posts or websites Islamic in nature. One can also peruse the member's lists of these groups and see that most members have IDs that contain words and implications of a sexual nature.
THE ABANDONED MUSLIMAHH
Another common scam is the "Abandoned Muslimah." Regrettably, it is fairly difficult to tell the bogus from the person who genuinely needs help. The Abandoned Muslimah is a woman, almost always claming to be a convert, who says that she has been abandoned by her husband, usually with a child or two (or three or four or five...). She almost always says that her husband has abused her in some way. Abandoned Muslimah simply can not get a job; she alleges that absolutely no Muslim in her community, whether it is at the masjid, or just fellow community members, will help her. Usually a claim that they made fun of her or made racist comments about her is tossed in. Abandoned Muslimah will spend several weeks, months or longer bombarding members of various Muslim e-mail groups with her tales of woe and hardship.
After Abandoned Muslimah has warmed up her audience, she will make a "reluctant" plea for members of the group to send her money. Offers of jobs or other types of assistance (such as directing her to social service agencies) will always be rejected for various reasons.
Abandoned Muslimah is looking for cold hard cash (or money orders). After she has received money from well meaning members, she will disappear. Some Abandoned Muslimahs have started to target Muslim marriage websites, but only the ones where they are able to send messages to others for free.
So how do we tell Abandoned Muslimah apart from the real sisters? Most of the time, you simply can't. You just need to be vigilant and know that in all of these cases these people know almost nothing about basic Islamic knowledge.
THE LONELY BROTHER
The Lonely Brother is a Muslim man who is looking for a little ‘haram’ (forbidden) interaction online. He may also be seeking some ‘extra marital fun’ in real life. He always targets convert women, especially new sisters. His scam is pretty straightforward. He is a Muslim man who says that he is looking for marriage. He claims to be very, very lonely. After only one or two e-mails or Instant Message conversations, he finds himself "deeply in love" with the sister. What he does after this depends on his level of depravity.
Some Lonely Brothers try to encourage the woman to engage in cyber-sex or phone sex, claiming that it is ‘halal’ (permissible) because they are online and ‘it isn't real.’ Or they may try to appeal to her sense of pity and guilt by playing the ‘but we're in love and I can't wait, it's too difficult’ card.
Other Lonely Brothers will convince the sister to meet them in person. They will first suggest a public place, such as a museum, park, or shopping centre. He will take her around, be semi-charming, and pay for her lunch. He will then almost always, somehow, ‘awkwardly’ suggest that they begin to have sex. He will claim that it is permissible because they are ‘engaged’ and ‘really in love.’ Or he will tell her that Islam allows a sort of ‘temporary marriage,’ or muta'h that will allow them to ‘marry in secret’ (i.e., without witnesses or even an imam to officiate) and engage in sexual relations. After the sister does what he wants, he simply disappears, or he gives her the excuse that ‘he's not ready to marry after all,’ or that his family won't let him marry a convert, and then takes off.
Unfortunately, there are enough new Muslimahs out there who don't know enough about Islam, who are confused and who are lonely themselves that they fall for this stuff.
Sisters! No sincere, good Muslim man is going to ask you to engage in cyber or phone sex, or ask you out on a date, or ask you to engage in "temporary marriage," which is NOT permissible. Lonely Brother, more often than not, is actually married to a Muslim woman already and has become bored of her so he is just seeking excitement and fornication.
THE FRESHIE
Freshie’s are generally male Muslims from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Most of them are sincere in their search for marriage and they specifically target sisters from the west…especially reverts. However, their intentions are just to gain a passport to the ‘land of milk and honey’ and once they have that passport many of them become brutal tyrants in the home or they just disappear and leave the sister high and dry.
The other type of Freshie has no desire to marry or seek a passport, he is just out for a good time and will feign offers of friendship to sisters to conceal his evil intentions. They are usually married and tend to respond to sisters profiles with heartfelt wishes of good fortune in finding a spouse but they are just bored individuals seeking sport and entertainment from this activity.
These Freshies almost never pay for membership and on existing marriage websites plague those who display their pictures for all to see.
http://www.thepmms.com/index-9.html