Salam, Bengu.

I hope this finds you well. Thank you for you interest in being well informed and knowing the culture you want to work with on its own terms. That shows a great deal of professionalism, sincerity, and transparency.

Dealing With Stereotypes

With regard to your question, with all due humility, I would like to first share some lessons I learned from my end with regard to dealing with stereotypes, as they may have indirect yet still significant connections to your interest in dealing with what Muslims do for fun. 

The first lesson is acknowledging that not just Westerners, but all peoples do have biases and stereotypical labels and distorted images of other peoples. Muslims themselves are no exception.

It is a condition that is rooted in self-importance and geocentricism, which all cultures and communities have and have to deal with.

I believe that digging out the reasons for such attitudes is imperative for your quest. The reasons can be simply a fear of the unknown other, a sense of superiority, or the other's unintentional provocation of certain insecurities.

After realizing these reasons, it is important to contextualize all between the two cultural entities you are dealing with, as well as understand the particularities of the encounter between them. This is important to understanding the cause of any investigation and its correlation with how to study it.  

Seeing Muslims Between Two Extremes

For example, although I do realize and appreciate your sincerity and truth-seeking, let's say there are two people who want to study what Muslims do for fun, but one is biased for Muslims and one is biased against them.

For better or worse, under the current world situation, Islam and Muslims are subjected to scrutiny for many known reasons.

In this light, the first person could try to show that all Muslims are so into fun that they are the most fun-loving, trivial people and Islam does not put any guidelines for any type of fun.

The second person could try to show that all Muslims are aggressive if they do not do the same things for fun that people from that person's culture do.    

Both perspectives are wrong and exaggerated. Muslims are neither.

Like Any Other People

The truth is that Muslims are just like any other people. They have their own ways of having fun and even ways to compromise between that and their beliefs.

Not only that, their ways of having fun do not always conform to their religion, they even vary across the many cultures, languages, regions, and even races of Muslim people.    

In Islam, having fun is acceptable as long as it's not done excessively or to the exclusion of duties, and does not violate any religious or ethical code.

On the collective level, Muslims do the same things that all other people do for fun: attend social gatherings, especially for weddings, births, and other special occasions; play indoor and outdoor games; go out to cafés, restaurants, Internet cafés, movies, and malls; play sports (especially football [soccer], which is really popular in the Arab world where I am from); and watch television, and so on.

Of course, many of the practices are also different among cultures. For example, alcohol and other recreational drugs are forbidden in Islam, so these are not usually present in social gatherings.

Another example is what men do for fun here in Egypt (where I am from): They go hang out in cafés (which are the equivalent of pubs in the West) and chat and play backgammon.

I give you these examples to share with you the complexity of Muslim life and the fact that what applies to the world applies to Muslims — although going to a café per se is valid Islamically, playing backgammon is frowned upon because playing with dice is blameworthy as it puts emphasis on chance. Still, for better or worse, this is what the majority of Muslim men in a Muslim country like Egypt do.

As for the example of belly dancing you mentioned, although in public situations (all situations that include anyone other than a woman's husband) because of its eroticism, it is Islamically invalid, but still it is done. By the way, it is not widespread in Saudi Arabia. It is found more in Turkey and Egypt.

The Interaction of Islam and Culture

I guess the backdrop of all of this is how Islam and indigenous cultures and personal interests interact.

I would like to share with you this insightful paper "Islam and the Cultural Imperative" about the interaction between Islam and different cultures, and as a case study, American cultures, which is closer to your Western background.

Also, a unique case— which I believe is worth mentioning here — is the work of an American comedian who is also a knowledgeable, practicing Muslim, Azhar Usman. You can check his website (www.Azhar.com).

I hope this answers your question. Have fun and good luck with your project! And keep in touch.

Salam.

Useful Links         

Fun and Celebrations in Islam
Recognizing True Joy in Life
The Joy of Life
Distinguishing Culture From Religion