Down the wrong road
September 12th, 2007
There is a pervasive emptiness to everything lately. Attempting to ward off the devils of insecurity and doubt eating at my soul, I finished reading a book, Believing as Ourselves by J. Lynn Jones, for the third time… and as always, I was amazed at how succinctly she describes it.
“It” is the American convert to Islam, who looks more Arabic than the Arabs, and is so eager to please and so desperate to fit in that she sacrifices her authentic self — the questioning, subversive self that propelled her to Islam in the first place — and is left with a hollow soul, unsatisfying prayers, and relationships that smack of superficiality. Lately, that’s me to a T.
Reading this book, I cried so hard that I wondered how it was possible to be in that much pain without an apocalyptic event beforehand. But recognizing the emptiness of my life — because I keep going away from God and back to other people to fill my void — brought me shame. The validation of others is so intoxicating, so powerful… like a drug. Even when I think I’m recovered from the addiction, there it is, calling me. And the holy month of Ramadan begins tomorrow. I hated myself. And I shook with sobs, because there is no worse hatred than the hatred of one’s own self.
Jones’ book is such a gift. Unlike most of the other books out there, that go on and on and on about all the glories of Islam and the shining wonders of being Muslim until you barf, she is honest and real. I am incredibly grateful to the friend who recommended it to me. Otherwise I might have ended up one of these jerky ex-Muslims I find sometimes on the Internet, who know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to shed any light on anything.
Speaking of darkness… yesterday, the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies, meant newspapers filled with waving American flags, rhetoric about security and safety, and as always, plenty of stories about “Islamic militants.” So many stories about these terrorists with guns and religious zeal that it would give pause even to a lifelong Muslim, not to mention me, still toddling along in my baby steps to God. I forced myself to read articles, briefs and letters to the editor — no one’s going to say I’m turning a blind eye for my faith, I thought perversely — and by the end of it, I was shrinking into myself, eyes welling with tears, and wondering why my co-workers haven’t plotted my death for the greater good.
My (Turkish) husband is fairly convinced about the zionist bent of American media. Having grown up in a country that contains both secular media and religious media, he has trained himself to look for the agenda behind every article. But for me, his theory of the global domination of media outlets and the international banking system by rich Jewish people and Masons who hate Islam, is not enough to explain why. I like conspiracy theories — I thrive on them, actually — but they’re too simple to explain what has to be a more complex truth.
Yes, western media continually confuse 20th-century political conflicts — why are Palestinians routinely called “suicide bombers” instead of “freedom fighters” anyway? — with a 1,400-year-old religion that preaches peace, and only allows war in self-defense. But that could be genuine ignorance. Or bewilderment at the amount of history, politics and religion one would have to know to be truly “fair” in an article. Or, perhaps, at the top, the slants could be attempts by the West to justify many centuries’ worth of unjustifiable actions in the resource-rich Middle East since the Crusades.
Here’s a thought: Why is it that, even now, the word Arab brings to mind fierce deserts and fiercer tempers, curved Saracen blades, and adjectives like swarthy, brooding and bloodthirsty? But the British Empire and its progeny, the American Empire, have in just a few centuries spilled more blood than all the Islamic empires combined. Not to mention destroyed countless native religions, cultures and languages, raped countless women and mutilated countless babies. And yet, the word Brit brings to mind tea parties, and adjectives like wan, reserved and timid. It’s absurd. I wish I could change our collective consciousness, and make Brit call to mind adjectives like sadistic and diabolical, just for the sake of equal time.
Anyway, J. Lynn Jones is my hero. She describes the inabilities, flaws and sins of Muslims and their relationship to Islam as being a bit like students in a geometry class who fail to apply its principles correctly. Their inaptitude may make them fail a test, or the whole class, but does not in any way tarnish geometry itself. Reading those words turned on a light bulb… there are evil and ignorant people in this world, and some of them are, or think they are, Muslim. They do incomprehensible things. This does not change Islam.
So back to my ongoing quest to be an authentic human being. Here are the things in my life that seem artificial, contrived and “byzantine” — thanks Rusty — the things I would like to change. Like the Sufi proverb says, “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, come back.”
• My daily namaz, the ritual prayer, is sorely lacking. Sometimes I forget where I am in the prayer, and despite myself the long string of holy recitations in Arabic becomes a long string of meaningless sounds. My mind wanders. I worry God is looking down at me and my pathetic prayers with increasing disdain.
• My wearing of hijab, though I doubt it’s ever easy for anyone, is becoming increasingly difficult. Twice in recent weeks, strangers have harassed me. Both times, it was hoodlums wearing wife-beaters in pick-up trucks. They drive right up on my bumper, then peel around it, incensed that I had the audacity to drive only 5 mph above the speed limit. They look at me as they pass, and I feel their shock that I’m wearing a headscarf. Their middle fingers raised high, they yell things I’m glad I don’t understand, mocking me because I “hate freedom and the American way of life.” These guys would be jerks even if I were as naked as other women. But man, does it bug me, that they insult my religion to my face. I have slowly become a scared version of myself, an agoraphobe. I am afraid of new places and meeting new people, wondering how the scarf on my head will affect the situation. Lately all I can think about are the things I never did — scuba diving, rock climbing, backpacking through Europe — things I probably never would have done, but now I feel incredibly bothered at having the choice ripped away. My husband thinks that I really am this sedentary, unadventurous person, and cannot fathom why I suddenly want to go hiking in the mountains, or why wearing a scarf cannot possibly be part of it.
• Though I do remember how every single Christmas since I was 14 years old had always made me wonder: What do presents stuffed under a fir tree have to do with baby Jesus?… I miss Christmas carols. I miss belting out O Holy Night and accompanying myself on the piano. I miss wine, too. I miss many things about the life of a nominal Christian, of being a part of the rampant commercialism, as nonsensical and theologically unsound as it all was. I guess because some of my new holidays — Ramadan, the 30 days of daylong fasts, for example — necessarily lack some of the, let’s say, sparkle.
• The burdensome reminders of hadiths and sunna practices of the Prophet Muhammad. Even right now in my rebellion I don’t want to write “peace and blessings upon him” because it all just feels like missing the forest for the trees. I worry there’s a hadith, a saying of the Prophet, or a sunna, a behavior of the Prophet, for every possible human situation. Early Muslims were meticulous in jotting this stuff down. But it’s starting to make me crazy. Entering the bathroom with my left foot, drinking with my right hand, saying elhamdulillah every time I sneeze… my husband’s chidings sometimes makes me want to stab him in the neck with my pencil. I remember one time early on when I was reading the Qur’an, just for fun. Yusuf saw me and said, “Do you have abdest?” Abdest is the ritual washing Muslims do before they pray, or evidently, read the Qur’an. I quietly placed the book back on the shelf, and never picked it up voluntarily again.
I don’t even know where to begin to get back on my right path. I figured the first step was getting this down, in the hopes that somewhere, someone might have useful, hard-earned wisdom to share.
September 12th, 2007 at 19:00
I love this article. It is real, honest, and describes real feelings that I am sure we all share. I am so impressed by how well it was put together.
“is so eager to please and so desperate to fit in that she sacrifices her authentic self — the questioning, subversive self that propelled her to Islam in the first place — and is left with a hollow soul, unsatisfying prayers, and relationships that smack of superficiality.” I wish I had a dime for every time that I have felt this way in the past year and a half.
We all, or at least many of us, are imperfect people who “keep going away from God and back to other people to fill my void — brought me shame. The validation of others is so intoxicating, so powerful… like a drug.”
“there is no worse hatred than the hatred of one’s own self.” I keep forgetting this again and again.
This is the really amazing section: “Speaking of darkness… yesterday, the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies, meant newspapers filled with waving American flags, rhetoric about security and safety, and as always, plenty of stories about “Islamic militants.” So many stories about these terrorists with guns and religious zeal that it would give pause even to a lifelong Muslim, not to mention me, still toddling along in my baby steps to God.”
This is the soooo real feeling I know that serious Muslims are feeling.
“I was shrinking into myself, eyes welling with tears, and wondering why my co-workers haven’t plotted my death for the greater good.”
I too, would like to know why are Palestinians routinely called “suicide bombers” instead of “freedom fighters.” I wish I could change our collective consciousness. I cannot stand how we picture people with a word.
This is the best description: “the inabilities, flaws and sins of Muslims and their relationship to Islam as being a bit like students in a geometry class who fail to apply its principles correctly. Their inaptitude may make them fail a test, or the whole class, but does not in any way tarnish geometry itself. Reading those words turned on a light bulb… there are evil and ignorant people in this world, and some of them are, or think they are, Muslim. They do incomprehensible things. This does not change Islam.”
“No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, come back.” This needs to be a daily mantra for me. I seriously doubt that God ever looks at our prayers with disdain….probably pity….He knows our weaknesses. Thankfully He is compassionate and merciful and all knowing.
It really bugs me when anyone insults anyone’s religion. If there is just one thing I know about America…it is that we are free to practice the religion that we wish. Hopefully, we can all do it in our own way and at our own pace. I can see that you are already on your way up after reading this.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:33
This isn’t just you, and it isn’t just Islam. One of the challenges of any religion or system of ethics is figuring out what truly resonates with you and what is external to you. As an example, would I have become vegan if there had never been someone who was a vegan? I feel pretty confident that I would have rejected animal flesh, eggs, and milk on my own and in my own time, but honey? That might not have even occurred to me. Wool? Sometimes even I forget why I don’t use wool from moment to moment. I’m passionate about a set of internal beliefs, and I’m genuinely excited to find others who shared almost all of my beliefs. To what extent, though, have I absorbed other people’s beliefs that were never mine? And is that a particularly bad thing?
It’s questioning like this that’s vital to the whole business of truly improving yourself. Sometimes I feel like religion is nothing more than a system of questions that we are asking ourselves. Pondering those questions — not necessarily answering them, mind you — is what truly causes us to progress toward something better and larger than ourselves.
Lately, I’m focussed on this. As I’ve said to you in the past, I’m essentially a mystic. I seek God/Truth/Awareness in a solitary fashion. I seek to find God in the choices that he puts in front of me every day. I’ve been asking myself where I’ve taken on external beliefs that aren’t my own and I’m challenging them when I find them. Those that are useful and good will continue to be part of my mindful choices of who I want to be. Those that are mere convention will have to be attachments that I practice letting go of.
Personally, I would blame convention. It’s all too easy to just copy what came before you. “Suicide bombers” is a trope of our media. Just like “militant feminist” (are there many feminist militias? really?) or “evangelical Christian” (everyone seems to have a different definition for this one. it’s use in a news article is therefore dubious).
Be wary. Often when we are close to leaving behind our self, logical structures like language can seem meaningless. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. God/Truth is beyond human language. When we catch glimpses of that, we’re often making progress.
So why not celebrate Christmas? As you note, Christmas in America has increasingly less to with infant Jesus and camels and far more to do with buying things for people you love and giving those things to them. Forgive my theological ignorance, but does your religion prohibit you from celebrating the holidays of others?
September 13th, 2007 at 10:14
Thanks, Mom. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my babyish toddling or my feelings about it.
And thanks, Rusty, for all your connections. And to answer your question, Yusuf and I would be happy to attend any Christmas gatherings we’re invited to, including religious ones. It’s not against Islam. It’s more that I lament my loss of ignorance — despite knowing that Christmas had been commandeered by commercialism, I guess (before) I thought its origins were sound. Now I have discovered even that isn’t true — there is simply no theological basis for Christmas. And so it makes me sad that people, like my grandmother who I love dearly, think this is all religion is or can be. Christmas last year was difficult for me. I was unable to ignore how empty even the family gathering part felt… tainted as it was by my grandmother’s worry about my loss of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and my brother’s near-total disinterest in any of us. To please my grandmother, I could probably even play “O Holy Night.” I think, other than wine, I could do any of it and still be “properly” Muslim. But I don’t know how to shake this feeling of sadness for those who would think they’re pleasing God by worshipping a prophet who directed people to worship God. Or sadness for people who throw themselves heartily into the commercialism and don’t bother wondering how to please God at all. And while I pity them, I am simultaneously jealous that their lives are so “easy.” See, the problem isn’t Christmas. The problem is me.
September 13th, 2007 at 13:02
In their religion, they are pleasing God to the best of their understanding. For Christians, Jesus is one of the three parts of God.
I know that you know that, dude. After all, you was all up in da Christian, yo. I’m just bringing in a larger point in a roundabout way.
Each of us is on a path toward a larger divinity, a truth larger than any of us and beyond the understanding of human structures like language and logic. Due our human dependence on language, the ineffable sits squarely outside of our ability to logically comprehend. Knowledge of such divinity tends to be wordless and experiential. No one’s path is exactly the same because none of our experiences are exactly the same.
Positive action often precedes spiritual changes. The laws that you follow in your religion prepare your heart to receive blessing of truth and understanding. Even those Christians who participate in the commercial side of Christmas are still giving to others. This positive action prepares their heart for the next step in their spiritual journey.
September 14th, 2007 at 15:12
Very true, very true. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve got to stop worrying about things that simply aren’t my problem. I have a more relevant problem to deal with — me.
Two questions. One, do you really believe in an absolute truth, a divinity that is beyond us, or outside our individual human paths? Because I will swear there is, to my dying day. Yusuf made the mistake of thinking Christians ‘don’t really experience’ God, and I’m forever arguing with him that actually, yes I very much did and do and my change in religion was not the recognition of a new God, but rather a more (for me) pleasing way to worship God.
And two: Even as a Christian I had a hard time with the concept of Trinity; I couldn’t comfortably reconcile it with the first commandment. I asked a Catholic friend about it, and she said the Trinity was like an apple — “God is the skin, Jesus is the flesh, and the Holy Spirit is the core” were her words. (I would rather God was the core, but I digress.) I know this is a very elementary-school explanation, but what are *your* thoughts on the Holy Trinity, and how it is, or is not, polytheistic?
September 15th, 2007 at 22:58
I apologize in advance for the long response. I hope and pray that my faltering words will reveal a path toward the truth.
I absolutely believe in an absolute truth/understanding/divinity/universal consciousness that exists outside of logical human comprehension. Language completely breaks down in any attempt to describe that entity/state. God is extra-linguistic, in part, because He/She/It is outside the universe. Linger on this thought for a moment because, I assure you, this is a complete mindfuck. We don’t even know or understand the tiniest sliver of the universe we live in. This is something outside of that. How the hell could you ever understand something like that?
And yet, as a Christian, as a Buddhist, as a Rusty, I believe that an experiential knowledge of such a thing is possible. The key in my experience lies in letting go of yourself and opening yourself to the shared existence we live in. Existence doesn’t, in fact, exist. Co-existence is the true nature of reality. Buddha taught about a “no-self”, a complete egolessness. Jesus taught as one of his most basic teachings that we should love our neighbor as ourself. Imagine an extra space in that sentence: “Jesus taught as one of his most basic teachings that we should love our neighbor as our self.” I have an infinite responsibility to you and to every other person I meet for our own co-existence. Your troubles are my troubles. Your joys are my joys.
As I’ve continued on my own journey, I have had many personal and private moments of revelation, moments when I see the structure of things in the most wordless and basic terms. Based on these experiences, I stumble along my journey trying to reconcile these glimpses at something infinite with my own finite life. This is why I’m vegan. This is why I can’t not give money to a homeless person on the street. I have come to believe in a sort of universal salvation. I don’t believe that I can be “saved” in any meaningful sense until everyone is saved. I cannot attain enlightenment until all have attained enlightenment. Jesus declared that we serve him when we serve the least of these, and I understand that now in a way that I never understood it before. I have never experienced love unless I have experienced the universal love that is infinite and therefore the same in all directions, without friend or enemy, without angel or devil, without black or white. God is the love itself.
I don’t know how much of this makes sense, again, because such concepts resist even being concepts. Words betray truth here. My God is your Allah. My elightenment is my father’s Christ resurrected from the dead. Truth can only be truth when it is both immutable and ineffable. No man can look on God’s face and live, but when we pray, when we we meditate, we can catch glimpses of his glory through a glass darkly.
My answer must necessarily be somewhat esoteric because my understanding is that of a poet and not that of a scholar.
God permeates our entire reality. Please read Psalm 104 when you get the chance because the psalmist captured the truth in his poetry. All of reality positively sings a greater glory, a greater truth, a grand signified in the space between every signifier and sign. That spark of the divine in each of our souls, that connection to this larger truth that the symbols themselves cannot fail to point to, that is the Holy Spirit within us. Ponder your breath. Center yourself on that unconscious act of drawing in the same air that others have breathed out. The word for “spirit” here literally means breath. God is in the shared and essential nature of our very breath. The Holy Spirit connects us all to God through our service to and love for each other.
In terms of the apple, the Holy Spirit is the shared co-existence and connection between each individual cell of that apple.
Jesus is a prophet. Jesus is a redeemer with a message of salvation through service. Jesus is a true Zen master and the consummate buddha. Jesus saw this truth and was connected to this infinite truth, even as he was connected to each of us through the Holy Spirit or spark of a connection to the true God. Jesus is the example that shows us that a true intimate connection with a universal God is possible and necessary, the light that leads out of the wilderness. I believe Jesus to be the Christ, but my faith is unchanged if he was not. His ministry wasn’t single faceted.
Jesus is the slice of the apple that we can taste and comprehend even though we couldn’t make our own apple. Trying to eat the whole apple all at once wouldn’t work very well.
To say that God is merely the rind of the apple is to misunderstand the nature of the apple itself. God is the entire apple. He is also the non-existant world outside our hypothetical apple universe. The apple declares its apple nature with perfection and, in doing so, reveals the nature of God, the truth that makes the apple into an apple. Everything you see around you is a fundamental part of God insomuch as the entire universe is a manifestation of God’s presence. Furthermore, everything you couldn’t possibly imagine is also God. To be infinite, God encompasses infinite steps beyond even infinity itself. Again with the mindfuck.
We are the result of the universe attempting to understand itself, the result of God manifesting Himself. We are the illusions in God’s own dream and the fragments of his own nature that he always wanted to meet.
September 19th, 2007 at 20:59
Jen–
I’m definitely seeing where you’re coming from. Today was one of those days that I almost regretted donning the headscarf. Mind you, I’ve only worn this 1 week now…but I’m dealing with a coworker who I thought was my friend…and now she refuses to even acknowledge me.
I think we have to keep focusing on Allah and fear him to keep us on the right path. I think we have to remember we’re working to please Him and reach jannah.
I’m always…always…always here to talk and you know how to reach me.
*hugs and selams*
September 20th, 2007 at 11:56
Hugs and selams right back. I’m sorry about your ‘friend’ — it’s her loss, truly. Proverbs 1:7 says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Thank you for the reminder… remembering death and the possibility of heaven is always a good idea.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:17
Salaam. Thank you for your kind words about my book. Actually, you are my hero…you made my day, and a fasting day at that! No small feat.
Ahh. The part about putting the Qur’an back on the shelf. So sad. Really Really. I understand, and if only others know the damage they do to our faith and joy in Islam when they “instruct” us harshly. I don’t know if there is a way to teach others how to point out important “details” of practice without killing our iman. Sigh…
By the way, you are a beautiful writer. I hope to read more from you, Inshallah.
Take care my SISTER.
September 26th, 2007 at 16:20
To J. Lynn Jones: Aleykum selam! This is truly thrilling for me!! Thank YOU for your kind words, for writing your book, for understanding me. May God bless you and your prayers and your fasting, my sister.
November 20th, 2007 at 23:53
Salaam waleykum!
Don’t get bogged down in the rules & regulations, or you’ll miss the whole picture. Does Allah (swt) care if you go into the bathroom with your left foot or does Allah care how you treat others? It’s what’s in your heart and behind your deeds that really counts.
And remember that the ahadith are there to guide you, not dictate you.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:49
Aleykum selam, Zeynab. Thank you for your kind words. Sometimes I feel like a bad example in Jesus’ (pbuh) parable of the seeds. Some seeds fell where thorns and thistles grow, choked before they could grow. Some seeds fell in shallow earth and sprang up quickly, but withered under the sun’s glare. And some seeds fell in deep earth, where they grew slowly but with strength. That’s why, when I converted to Islam, everyone said, “slowly, slowly” about implementing the practices. It’s too difficult otherwise.