A short story.

Morals vs religious moralities

In the past, there were periods wherein I had grown an esteemed dislike for Jewish people. And being a conscious feminist, it is indeed very easy to conjure up extremely logical reasoning for my claims. But my latter experiences have made me accept that disliking any group of people, regardless of their actions, only creates turmoil in my own well-being. 

I developed reasoning to help the Palestinians, sublimely, without exactly condemning archaic Jewish actions, only constructively criticizing the present decisions. And this brought about the concept of morality and how we are all justifying our actions and simultaneously entitled to our own actions. Then, I realized that the theory of religious morality does not actually justify the adjoined parties actions. The Jews, the Palestinians and neither my own point of view were confirmed under the pretense of religious morality. Religion does not prescribe oppression, only mutual affection.

So I decided to further compare these viewpoints.

In actuality, the youth of the 21st century seem to thoroughly confuse morals and religious morals. They do go hand in hand because can one soul be of strict moral code without religion? 
Yes, to a certain extent, they are closely linked but it also depends on what individuals determine as "morals" and what you determine as "religious".

For me, morals are kindness, unconditional love, forgiveness, saving the planet from oppression – Jihaade-Akhbar. And religion is the anatomy of social meetings between Allah (s.w.a) and yourself. Huqu-Qullah. 
I do not confuse them. Just like how Islam itself is very charmingly black and white, to me, so is morality and religious morality. Huququl-Ibaad  

Some say morals are remembering where you come from. But I disagree. Religious morality is remembering that you came straight from Allah (s.w.a). And that doesn't suggest that you shouldn't be thankful to your parents, for all of their input, conceiving, birthing and nurturing. It means that you should be a double helping of thankful to Allah (s.w.a). 

Another amusing immorality is the act of assuredly determining what you establish as immoral. And yes, we are not exactly upright in our own morality in this very topic. Simply because we are a nation of mistakes, in actions and understandings.
But that, in itself, is impeccable reasoning to not make a verbal observation of others immoralities. Tautology. 
Getting carried away with pseudo and self-proclaimed morality is, indeed what results in grand gestures of self-elevation.

The counter-reaction to receiving an immoral ridicule is where most humans fall short, in that we are only ever in control of our reactions.  Wise women of modern day Islam suggest that the initial lip that we often shoot back, wittingly, is the actual ingenuity of our era. Think about those harsh words you throw about during driving, as someone cuts you off. 

Another alarming misconduct is using religious morality to verify patriarchal males. The way a male treats and should respect a women stems from the morals that he has, however religious morality exists only from interpretation of the Quran. The interpreter could be patriarchal. In this way, interpretations could suggest a few unquestionable conducts that females should abide to. It is important to note that the most accurate translation suggests mutual respect between spouses, first and foremost. Still, this does not give males the assistance to use religious morality as a reason to be predominantly governing in the life of the females around him.

Allow me to illustrate a cute example; I took up smoking cigarettes a while back and an institution I worked at did not appreciate the image of a female smoking. Men, in and around the area, could smoke at leisure, but it was ‘wrong’ for me to smoke. My father noted how he didn’t feel hardly as disheartened when his nephews began smoking, like when I did. There is systemic expectations and standards that do not stem from moralities- they stem from religious moralities and religious moralities that adopt grand double standards. And therein lies the issue.  

- Sauda Haffejee