My (earnest, irate) thoughts

An interfaith attempt to trace the footsteps of the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, from Turkey to Jordan and Israel. Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the man who prayed for decades to have a child — oh, how he must have laughed upon hearing Sarah was pregnant at age 90 — but offered to sacrifice his son to God. He is the man who built the first temple to God. He is tenderly regarded as a Jew, Christian or Muslim by believers in each of the Abrahamic faiths. From his sons Isaac and Ishmael stemmed two semitic peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, like two streams flowing from a headwater. He was a man of faith.

Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith was referred to in a wonderful post by Sunni Sister about the dark night of the soul. Religious scholars say the ‘dark night’ is the moments or even years when our faith leaves us despite ourselves. For all our intellectual posturing in the reasonableness, the rationality of believing in the Creator, faith is indeed a gift from God, a gift that can be taken away—even amidst our best efforts to keep it. Hearing of someone who has left the Muslim faith always brings me such sadness; and such gratitude that though tortured-tense-and-absurd, I am still here finding a measure of peace in Islam, and though imperfect-shy-and-rebellious, I am still here finding a measure of humility in Islam. I am still here, elhamdulillah.