My (earnest, irate) thoughts

Bridge building between Christians and Muslims is an article written by Dr. Jamal Badawi about dialogue between Muslims and People of the Book (Jews and Christians), the meaning of Islam, Islamic monotheism, the nature of the human, the relationship between God and humankind, the role of Muhammad, accountability and salvation, and the attitude of Muslims toward non-Muslims. Here is an excerpt:

The Qur’an teaches us that the human race is given an innate pure nature called fitrah. Knowledge of Allah and innate spirituality are inherent in human existence, but this spirituality can betray us if it is not led in the right direction. To depend on a merely human feeling of the guiding Spirit is dangerous. Many groups, even cults, claim to be guided by the spirit or by God or by revelation, yet these groups hold divergent, even contradictory, beliefs. We find people behaving in contradictory ways who claim nonetheless that each is doing the will of God. “I feel,” they say, “that the spirit guides and directs me.”

This reminds me of people I met recently — Christian missionaries in southeast Asia who had some troubles with the government, which was annoyed because other Christian missionaries claiming to be “children of God” had danced in the nude and encouraged promiscuous sex as a path to enlightenment. See, the government had trouble making distinctions between which groups of white Americans were going to teach literacy and the Bible, and which groups of white Americans were members of wacky cults. Talk about delusional. Far be it from me to judge — I’ll leave that role to God — but I’m insulted on behalf of Christianity and Islam that folks would say Jesus made them behave in such a bizarre, disrespectful manner. This is why it’s so important not just to have the light of the candle (belief/right thought), but the lantern in which to protect its flame (methodology/right action).

A credible source of revelation is imperative. Throughout history Allah has selected particular individuals to convey His message, to receive His revelation and to exemplify it for mankind. For some of these prophets, holy books or scriptures were given revealing Allah’s commands and guidance. For most of you the names of these prophets found in the Qur’an will sound familiar: Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, John the Baptist, Jesus, and, finally, the last prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon them all. These prophets carried the same basic message: “Not an apostle did We send before you without this inspiration sent by Us to him: that there is no god but I; therefore worship and serve Me.” (al Anbiya 21:25)

I am annoyed with my Muslim brothers and sisters who would throw out the baby with the bathwater, and discard the holy writs of Judaism and Christianity because they have been changed. To best study the Qur’an, Muslims must be familiar with the Bible. The Qur’an tends to be poetic, not chronological, and usually hits the high points without going into meticulous historical detail. In fact, it’s my understanding that the early Muslims were devouring Jewish texts, etc. in their quest to be the best Muslims possible. For God’s sake, it was the fact that I recognized biblical stories in the Qur’an that caused me to stop, ponder and consider the incredible possibility that God had revealed and safeguarded a Final Testament for us. I think it’s high time we return to the philosophy of the early Muslims. Seek knowledge, even if it’s all the way to China, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did say.

It is to my great dismay that bridge-building is something I struggle with personally. You’d think I would know how to talk to Christians because I was one, and yet, I can only talk to Christians who a) know some history; and b) are not brainwashed. Otherwise, I feel a little bit like I’m trying to explain calculus to someone who doesn’t know how to count. I do try to talk to them anyway, but I usually just end up making them mad. I comfort myself that anger must be the default state of mind of people who maintain either of the following: a) American militarism goes hand-in-hand with Jesus; and b) Arabs and Jews are not related. It’s hard work believing stuff that ain’t true.

Hearts in Atlantis: The story of a young boy without a father, and his friendship with an old man with psychic abilities. It’s a people movie: nothing blows up and no one shows off their private bits, but somehow it seemed very adult, anyway. And it’s full of great insights from Anthony Hopkins, like “Sometimes when you’re young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you’re living in someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break in two.”

In the Valley of Elah: Precisely because it is from the perspective of a typical military family, this is a fantastic anti-war movie. The soldiers, the cops — they are so ordinary that it makes the film’s conclusion more horrifying. There is one scene where Tommy Lee Jones tells the story of David and Goliath to Charlize Theron’s son. Afterward, she says, “You know that story isn’t true.” He responds, “Of course it is.” And, almost as an afterthought, “It’s even in the Qur’an.” (Warning: there is a lot of nudity in this movie, probably because of its attempt to be accurate in detailing a soldier’s life: topless dancing, etc.)

Guns, Germs and Steel: A documentary about the world’s inequality and why it exists. Anthropologist Jared Diamond poses that it’s because of a people’s proximity or lack thereof to the three things in the title. It’s a must-watch because it kind of gently unravels this American assumption that the Western world has been successful financially because its people are smarter or more deserving than others. (There’s nudity, but it’s the National Geographic kind.)

Ally calls it something the cat threw up, and Christians call it the flesh, but in post-Qur’an Arabic the nafs is the evil-commanding aspect of the human soul that fights with the conscience and counsels us to hurt ourselves or others. Like the Hebrew nefesh, it whispers, its greed must be feared, and it must be restrained and made patient.

Doing battle with such a foe makes it seem crazy to put ourselves in a situation that opposes our internal belief structure. Why would I, a reformed drunk who believes that alcohol is poison for the human soul, go to a happy hour? What would be the point? My own nafs would taunt me in one of two ways — either encouraging me to have just one, or flattering my ego with how ‘righteous’ I am — and the nafs of most people there would whisper to them: ‘If she’s not going to drink, what is she even doing here? Probably just judging us. All religious people are so judgmental. And boring.’

Since every affair must start off as a single too-long glance, Jesus, peace upon him, counseled us not to commit adultery and told men how — don’t look at a woman with lust. The life of a Muslim is this: not just to avoid sin, but to avoid the first step on the wrong path. We’re human, i.e. anything can happen.

People I work with regard my lifestyle in one of two ways: with a bit of awe, like they can’t imagine having self-control; or with a bit of skepticism, like they can’t imagine why religion should have a say on all aspects of human existence. Christians are perhaps the most surprised. Maybe because modern-day American Christianity is a fragmented, broken thing; notsomuch a religion as a belief without a methodology. This is because the real religion of America is Western liberalism, and at the heart of that is freedom. The heart of Islam, on the other hand, is justice. Justice is seen not as mercy’s opposing force, but as the embodiment of mercy. More on that another time.

Fighting the urge to fight the urge is a short, great article about how most people have far less self-control than they realize, and that over time, the self-control ‘muscle’ can be strengthened — but exercising our self-control works best if our environment doesn’t steadily drain our willpower.

The Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, said, “Abandon desire for this world, and God will love you. Abandon desire for others’ goods, and people will love you.”

There once was a man who stomped around in the dark, complaining that each way he turned was darker and harder to see than the place he was before. Here it is so dark, the shadows are as black as night. There it is even darker, the shadows are invisible in the blackness. And so he wandered to and fro, noting and describing and lecturing on the depths of the blackness. All this, as Turkish scholar Said Nursi might say, instead of lighting a candle.

Though we are called to enlighten, often we are content to describe the darkness instead. It’s easier. It’s safer. We feel pleased with ourselves for telling the truth about the darkness.

There are those in the West who detail the atrocities going on in the Muslim world as proof that Islam is false. And there are Muslims who note Western propaganda and militarism as proof that the West conspires to portray Islam badly and destroy the religion altogether. Fingers point, accusations fly. As Hamza Yusuf Hanson put it, Americans watch CNN and Arabs watch al-Jazeera, and the stories are 180 degrees apart. Americans watch Islamist suicide bombers maim Israeli soldiers; Arabs see a Muslim baby blown to bits by zionist shells.

…like the Chinese say, “There are three truths. There’s my truth, your truth and then the truth.” If I’m unwilling to let go of my truth and you’re unwilling to let go of your truth, we cannot see objectively this truth that’s in the middle, between us. There’s good and bad in all of us, and I want to get rid of the cartoon scenario of George Bush’s world and Osama bin Laden’s world, and I want to see it nuanced. I want to see more intelligence here.

In all of us, there is an unfortunate tendency to simplify, to reduce, to make black-and-white. If only people knew how that oversimplifying is dangerous to a fledgling faith! When I first became Muslim, one or two new friends let it drop that only Muslims go to heaven. Drawn to Islam by its light, tolerance and universality, I was devastated to uncover hellfire and exclusivism. Further reading: Islam has a progressive tradition, too.

As the first Muslim in my entire extended family (Americans of Irish, German and Finnish heritage) this careless remark made me needlessly worry for the souls of all my ancestors, none of whom had been Muslim, and the souls of my living relatives, who appeared disdainful of Islam, and the souls of my friends, who seemed indifferent to my new faith.

For months, I was sick with grief. But I kept reading, kept searching. I uncovered this article, which describes the “shades” or archetypes of mankind. It’s not Muslims and non-Muslims, us and them. I should have known that the Book that promises to be a guide for all mankind would never be so black-and-white. Even more, I should have known that the tiny inkling of compassion that I feel stems from The Most Compassionate, and so it’s absurd to worry what He would decide. Anyway, there are degrees of embracement of the divine religion: submitters, believers, good-doers. Just as there are degrees of disassociation from the divine religion: hypocrites, polytheists, sectarians. Just as there are neutral groups, and this includes the People of the Book, the Jews and Christians whose religions are authentic and whose holy books were divinely inspired. As American scholar Jeffrey Lang points out, the Qur’an even includes advice and admonishment for Jews and Christians. Why would it bother, if they were all destined for hell? I could feel the truth of this: This was my Islam, this was the religion I had fasted for, given up alcohol for, covered my hair for. This was light and enlightenment.

Here is another example of the real, unhijacked Islam: the real meaning of the word kafir, a complex word that is often mistranslated as ‘unbeliever’ or ‘infidel’.

So, what is a kafir? The noun comes from an Arabic root kafara, which means ‘to cover’. So, a kafir is someone who covers truth. To hide or cover the truth, one first has to recognise it, so the term precludes ordinary non-Muslims who do not know or truly understand Islam (and that includes people whose only exposure is the “Izlam” on FauxNews). Satan, for example, is a kafir: it believes in God but constantly rejects Him.

The Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, said, “If a man says to his brother, ‘O kafir!’ Then surely one of them is such.” That’s how serious this business is: Unjustly calling someone else a truth-concealer means that you yourself become one.

The point I’m bumbling toward is this: Christ Jesus, peace upon him, said that we must remove the splinter from our eye before we can see clearly to remove the beam from our brother’s eye. As Muslims, we must first see what is wrong with ourselves before we can accurately assess the world’s problems. The Islamic world, which was a beacon of light while Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, seems to have lost its way. We must look to the innermost, purest form of truth. The early Muslims were devouring knowledge, seeking it wherever it might be. They were teaching by example, criticizing themselves harshly, and others lightly. Their words were so pure, so absent of regressive or repressive thought, that others were drawn to the religion like moths to a flame. That is how we must be. We must consciously remove all but pure love, pure beauty, pure wisdom and pure ecstasy from our hearts. We must consciously seek God always… every action, every word and every thought must be for His sake.

I love the conversation between Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction about why the former doesn’t eat pork (In sum, “I don’t eat nothin’ that ain’t got sense enough to disregard its own feces”). It’s a good point.

“Forbidden to you for food are dead meat, blood, and the flesh of the swine.” Qur’an 5:4

Both the Bible and the Qur’an prohibit the eating of pork. Muslims and orthodox Jews observe this strictly, though many Christians do not (my grandparents are seventh-day Adventists who avoid it, but they are an exception). I remember when I was reading the Bible as a teenager. I made the ambitious mistake of beginning at Genesis, so by the time I got to Leviticus I was dying of boredom. But I couldn’t help but notice the prohibition of pork which, at the time, was a fair part of my typically American diet. Distressed, I asked my father why we ate pork.

Aside: I will never understand why I considered him an expert on theology. When I learned about Muhammad’s prophecy to the Arabs in 10th-grade world history class and asked, “How do we know he’s not a prophet?” My father said, “Only Jews can be prophets, honey. They are God’s chosen people.” This is an openly racist, and sadly common, misreading of the difference between ‘family’ and ‘race’. As my husband would say, “God is a nationalist, you think so?”

Anyway, Dad’s answer was that Jesus said it is what comes out of your mouth, not what goes into it, that makes a man unclean. But knowing what I know now, about various people changing the words of the Bible for personal and political reasons, I still wouldn’t say that Jesus never said this. But the quote doesn’t change the fact that Jesus himself never ate pork. The quote also doesn’t change the physiology of pigs or humans. And the quote is certainly not advising Christians to include pork in their diet. It’s interesting that Paul was writing to the Romans (who very much dug on swine) when he, or his followers, casually removed the ancient prohibition. As I’ve written before, I maintain that Paul was a shape-shifter — someone who changed the words of the unchanging God to appeal to a broader audience. Further reading: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

“Do not eat swine. They have divided hooves, but they do not chew the cud. These are unclean animals.” Leviticus 11:7-8

The Hebrew words used to describe unclean meats (like pork) can be translated as foul, polluted and putrid. Which puts them, according to the lexicon of the Bible at least, in the same category with human feces. But why?

According to The Maker’s Diet by Jordan S. Rubin, a book that tries to pinpoint a Biblically sound diet, the pig is not clean because of its physiology. “Clean animals that chew the cud have an alimentary canal and a secondary cud receptacle. Essentially, they have three stomachs available to process their clean, vegetation-based food into “flesh” in a process that takes more than twenty-four hours in general…Pigs, on the other hand, never limit their diet to vegetation. They will eat anything they can find, including their own young and sick or dead pigs. The pig’s single-stomach arrangement is very simple in design and function and it is combined with a limited excretory system. Four hours after the pig has eaten its polluted swill and other putrid, offensive matter, man may eat the same swill secondhand off the ribs of the pig.”

Then he asks an insightful question: Did anything biologically happen to the pig since Biblical times, or did the digestive tract of man have some miraculous transformation?

Nope. But most practicing Christians, when asked why they eat pork, don’t have a better answer than Vincent: “Because bacon tastes good.” Surely, as religious people, lifelong health and protecting the body from harm should be more important than 30 seconds on the tastebuds. But even if the pig’s behavior and physiology don’t convince you to quit eating pork, here’s some information about American pig farms that should: Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces.

“Martin Luther wasn’t a model of tolerance but even he took the position that, ‘I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian.’ In this presidential campaign, we should at least aspire to be as open-minded as 16th-century Germans.” These words were shamelessly stolen from a New York Times op-ed titled Obama and the Bigots. It’s funny because it’s true, folks, it’s funny because it’s true.

The whispers about Obama, and whether he is a closet Muslim ready to implement Sharia on an unsuspecting populace or simply the Antichrist, continue. Of course it pisses me off that ‘Muslim’ is the new ‘Jew’. But then, it’s not really new, is it, for Westerners to take issue with Islam, mostly on proven falsehoods like Islam being spread by the sword, or a vague sense of superiority over the East for not sharing the West’s particular sensibilities at any given moment of history.

What I don’t get are the Christians out there who still believe their values are reflected in the ultraconservative militaristic agenda of the Right. It’s OK to use your brains, folks, God gave ‘em to you: Here we have BARACK OBAMA, who with his man-of-the-world persona would give America a needed dose of good PR, being slandered by everyone to the right of Genghis Khan. And there we have JOHN McCAIN, a madman who sings about wanting to bomb Iran, scooping up endorsements from evangelical Christians like The Rev. John Hagee, the ignorant author of Jerusalem Countdown.

And this, when the latest estimates put the Iraq War at costing $3 trillion when all is said and done, our economy is in the toilet, and it’s no fun to travel because everyone in the entire world hates us. And with John McCain, it’s going to more of the same. How can you not know that?

Further reading:
Islam was not spread by the sword any more than Christianity was spread by guns.
But why isn’t the East just like the West — are they stupid or something?
Even conservatives think John McCain is nuts.
The Rev. John Hagee is crazy, that’s why he likes McCain.
The Iraq War will cost $3 trillion, and much, much more.

Just finished Skinny Bitch in a single evening. It’s not a book for people who can’t handle the (vulgar, funny) truth. Those chicks are mean. They called me a moron, a fat slob, and other stuff I can’t repeat that made me burst out laughing.

When my husband came home from school last night — my eyes shining with new vegan fervor — I asked if we could try the 30-day menu in the book. (God bless him for tolerating my bandwagon-jumping.) You know, to try it out, see how we feel, lose weight, assure ourselves it can be done. As I was reading to him from the menu, he mentioned fish. I shook my head. “No fish?” he asked incredulously. A minute later, he mentioned yogurt. I shook my head again. “No yogurt?” he asked, even more incredulously, because yogurt = Turkishness. But he agreed to try, if only for 30 days. Yusuf mentioned he is very impressed with Rusty, a vegan for quite some time now.

Here’s a great article on how the choice to be vegetarian has always existed inside Islam. Some scholars, like freelance monotheist Karen Armstrong, say vegetarianism may be the ideal Islamic diet. Another Mystic Saint article cites the other one, and has other good references. I’m telling you, folks, this is why I love this religion: a path of moderation to God, sensible answers to every question.