You Got Mail!

Author: 
Alveena Salim

SweetGyal says… Phew, he's gone, dat was close-lol

Romeo007 says… Wat happnd?

SweetGyal says… My old man came in, so i had to close the window.

Romeo007 says… Lol-wat did he want?

SweetGyal says… He wanted to no why I was on the comp at 2.30am. i told him i was workin on an important college project due in 2moro.

Romeo007 says… LOL

SweetGyal says… Trust me, ma folks don't no jack, dey wouldn't no the diff between Microsoft Word and MSN Messenger.

SweetGyal says… Phew, he’s gone, dat was close-lol

Romeo007 says… Wat happnd?

SweetGyal says… My old man came in, so i had to close the window.

Romeo007 says… Lol-wat did he want?

SweetGyal says… He wanted to no why I was on the comp at 2.30am. i told him i was workin on an important college project due in 2moro.

Romeo007 says… LOL

SweetGyal says… Trust me, ma folks don’t no jack, dey wouldn’t no the diff between Microsoft Word and MSN Messenger.

Romeo007 says… My old man is well chuffed dat i spend up to 4hours a day “studying” on the net.

SweetGyal says… So r mine, but dey don’t understand why i’m failing most of my classes.

Romeo007 says… So u still wanna meet up 2moro…?

SweetGyal can not reply at the moment because she is set to busy

Romeo007 says… Hey wer did u go?

SweetGyal says… Soz about dat, i was being pranked by the weirdo i gave ma number to on chat, i wish i never gave him ma num, the guy never told me he’s married with 4 kids!!!!!!!!

SweetGyal says… So wer do u wanna meet up 2moro……?

Way too many teenagers spend hours locked away in their bedroom, late at night, telling their parents that they are “studying hard” whilst in actual fact they are secretly in an intimate conversation with some stranger in one of thousands of chatrooms available on the Net.

Of course, it’s much easier to keep your online relationship hidden from your parents, however the internet brings a whole new set of problems that we need to be aware of.

When chatting online people reveal a lot more about themselves than they normally would in real life. They lack inhibition and become more open and intimate a lot quicker. MSN/Yahoo Messenger and Chatrooms have supposedly made it “ safer and more permissible” to speak with members of the opposite sex while sitting in the safety of our home.

Chatting to members of the opposite sex about non-business related matters in privacy is WRONG. In Islam, anything that leads to Haraam is Haraam.

So, even if you’re quick to “minimize” or close any windows on your computer as soon as your parents or older siblings walk in the room, you need to know that Allah is watching you at ALL times.

The Qur’an says:

“It is Allah(swt) Who gives life and death and Allah sees EVERYTHING that you do.” (3:156).

He(swt) knows how you’re feeling and can see what you’re doing so be conscious of Him(swt) at all times. There’s no way you can hide your online rendezvous from Him(swt).

We're Only Chatting! What's the big deal?

Many people who chat to members of the opposite sex online do so in private, if they really and truly believed that what they were doing is legit, they wouldn’t go out of their way to hide their convo’s from their family.

Nowadays, many “cyber- boy/girlfriends” arrange to meet each other at train stations, town centres, libraries and cinemas etc. The Net has made it possible to meet all sorts of weirdo’s on a scale that was unimaginable in the past, not only is this wrong but it’s incredibly dangerous.

Every year, chat users get lured into the trap of an adult posing as a teenager in order to meet young teenagers whom they abuse and occasionally these traps lead to murder. The papers are full of such incidents.

Last October, Patrick Green, 33, a divorced exports clerk from Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire, was sentenced to a five-year jail term for abusing a 13-year-old girl. He had met her in a chat room called Younger Girls for Older Men and exchanged messages with her for two months before meeting her.

He was arrested in Cumbria on his way to meet another 14-year-old girl he had met online and arranged to spend a weekend with.1 Bradley Webb a 42-year-old Welsh man, who posed as a girl on the internet to persuade a child to talk about sexual acts, was jailed for seven years.2

Mehdi Boudjedra, 31, of Shepherds Bush, west London was charged with child abduction and sexual grooming over the internet following the disappearance of 15-year-old schoolgirl Hannah Rodrigues3.

Lee Costi, 21, from Surrey, was caught through an international police website as he tried to groom his third schoolgirl victim and was jailed for nine years.

Costi, a media student, had already enticed and had sex with two girls aged 13 and 14. He was arrested after arranging to meet his third victim, a 14-year-old, at Nottingham railway station for sex. 4

There are currently 300 men serving prison sentences for sexual offences where the initial contact was made over the internet.5

Also when chatting online, it’s even possible for people online to brainwash and make you do stuff that you would never have considered before.

Subia Gaur, 18, from Plaistow, East London, and Ashwani Gupta, 21, from India, chatted online for 3 years. Subia’s parents opposed their relationship, so the teenager secretly caught a flight to Delhi and abandoned her Islamic upbringing to become a wife in Ghaziabad.

Her mother was devastated and said “ We could do nothing to protect out daughter from the evil of the internet.

While we slept this evil came into our home and has led to our daughter running away and marrying a Hindu boy.” 6

One of the main problems with chatting to people online is that you can’t see them; Research has revealed that people are more likely to lie about their sex, age and marital status online. So they can be laughing at you, they could be convicted murderers, compulsive liars or even married with grandchildren and you would never know!

A skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

“Mom called herself Sweet Juliette and I called myself The Prince of Pleasure, and unfortunately, neither one of us had any idea who the other was,” said flabbergasted Daniel. 7

Even you could fall into this trap if you don’t follow the rules. How many times were you told as a kid, not to talk to or accept sweets from strangers?

The internet is not any different, its full of weirdo’s from all over the world who say what you want to hear, simply and only so that they can get you where they want. So play it safe, don’t mess your dunia (wordly life) and akhirah (hereafter) over some weirdo on the net that you don’t even know.

The Do's and Don'ts of chatting online (With Members of the Opposite Sex):

  1. DON’T give personal details such as your telephone number and home/school address to people you chat to online. You don’t know what kind of weirdo’s are out there, so unless you want to be pranked and stalked, keep personal information to yourself.
  2. DON’T agree to meet strangers online. You have no idea who they are, where they’re from or if they have a criminal record.
  3. DON’T give out pictures of yourself. Pictures are not necessary. The written word is more than enough. You don’t want members of the opposite sex checking you out saying, “you’re well fit”. Also, DON’T describe the way you look, this is haraam as well as dangerous.
  4. DON’T waffle. If you’re chatting to members of the opposite sex regarding work or school, stick to the topic and do not get side tracked. There is no need to tell them your life story.
  5. DON’T flirt. There’s no need to flatter or have flirtatious user names, it makes you seem up for it and gives you a bad reputation.
  6. DO be vigilant. Don’t be so naïve and trusting. Research shows that when chatting online people are more likely to lie about their age, sex and marital status, so don’t believe everything you hear.
  7. Lastly, DON’T let your guard down. Behave with members of the opposite sex the way you would in real life in front of your elders and religious members of the community. So even when you’re typing away in the privacy of your own room when everyone else is asleep always remember that Allah (swt) can see what you’re typing and what you’re thinking.

REFERENCES

Comments

Jazakallah Khair for the reminder.

Lets reunite the ummah under one flag LA ILAHA IL ALLAH MUHAMMADUR RASULULLAH