You Know Your Muslim When…

1. You have an endless supply of dates, prayer beads, and prayer rugs.
2. You arrive one or two hours late to an event and think it’s normal.
3. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone’s house.
4. When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover you’re talking to a distant cousin.
5. Your mother has a minor disagreement with her (or your dad’s) sister and doesn’t talk to her for ten years.
6. Your parents want every detail from you about where you’re going before you leave the house.
7. You have a curfew no matter how old you are.
8. You minimize your MSN conversation when a family member walks past.
9. Your mother does everything for you if you are male.
10. You can spot a Muslim a mile away, and they spot you too—you can tell from the way the keep turning around and staring.
11. Your relatives alone could populate a small city.
12. Everyone is a family friend.
13. Your middle name is your father’s first name.
14. You have a difficult Arabic name so you come up with a cheesy Westernized version of it like “Sam,” “Mike,” or “Fred.”
15. You have fifteen cousins named Mohammed.
16. You still came back home to live with your parents after graduating.
17. You know no one who has studied music.
18. If you are a female in college, you are studying to be a teacher or doctor. If you are a male, you are studying engineering or business. If you deviate from either these careers, your family prays that you “come back to the right track.”
19. You know someone who got married at the age of 16.
20. Your parents are panicking if you aren’t married when you turn 25.
21. You propose marriage for someone, and you are asked:
    * do you have a green card?
    * how much money do you earn?
    * what village in your home country do you come from?
22. You either really like Muslims of the opposite sex or you can’t stand them.
23. The highlight of the social scene is either a wedding or a funeral.
24. Your parents push the concept of an arranged marriage on you and try and demonstrate how well it works whenever they’re not fighting.
25. You order food at your ethnic restaurant in your own language to impress the American people you’re with, but the waiters don’t understand you.
26. You know someone who looks like ObL.
27. You get really excited and call the whole family into the living room when there is a special on Muslims on TV.
28. You always get randomly frisked at the airport.
29. You get up from your seat on the airplane to use the restroom, and the guys seated next to you get that really worried look on their faces.
30. You walk out of customs with your trolley at the airport and you see all twenty-five members of your family who have come to pick you up.
31. You go back to your parents’ country and people treat you like a member of…the royal family.
32. You have cousins you have never met, whose names you don’t know, but who insist they’re related to you, even though they bear no resemblance to anyone YOU know.
33. There’s one person in you family whom you are not allowed to talk about, because they did something “wrong.”
34. You call everyone older than you uncle or aunt, even if you have never met him or her before.
35. You read the Qur’an before taking on any major task, like exams, or asking the boss for a raise.
36. You notice that whenever you go to another Muslim’s house, your parents always talk about religion and politics.
37. Every few months, your parents say they’re moving back to the home country.
38. You hug people you hate after the Eid prayer.
39. You visit a Muslim land and everybody thinks you are rich.
40. Your mother cannot have company over without cooking a banquet.
41. You talk on your cell-phone more than you talk face-to-face.
42. You hug and kiss people you have never seen before in your life.
43. You order a Fillet ‘O Fish at McDonald’s.
44. You’re proud to be Muslim - and you pass these jokes on to all your Muslim friends!