Catholic Muslim

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BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Space tourist in Earth touchdown

However, the first female Muslim space tourist insisted that 'this 10 days has been magnificent for me'.

I don't know Anousheh Ansari, but it seems to me that she's about as much a muslim as I am a catholic. While seemingly sufficient for some people, that my grandmother was a catholic, that I was baptized and had my first communion as a kid, and that I was raised around catholics in a mostly catholic country isn't remotely enough to make me a catholic.

Pasting Ansari with the label of "muslim" stands out because, if anything, she seems to avoid the subject. Not that I looked all that hard, but the closest thing I've seen to any sort of self-characterization by her with respect to religion was a USA Today article containing an aside that Ansari calls herself a "liberal Muslim".

Whatever the meaning of "liberal muslim", the label seems safe enough. In the present context, though, "liberal Muslim" and "Muslim" probably mean two entirely different things.

I think Anousheh Ansari is a thoroughly modern, fully secular human being who thinks she's got to tread lightly. In her shoes I, too, might leave people to their illusions.