My (earnest, irate) thoughts

I spend at least an hour every day reading about Islam. Because I use the Internet and speak English, I am regularly flooded with vile, disgusting lies about my religion, prophet and book. Which of course hurts me personally, and leads me to search even more obsessively for positive, helpful information. It must be said: I never did this much reading about Christianity when I was a Christian.

Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t bombarded with anti-Christian rhetoric at every turn. The struggle of the Christian living in the West is more a struggle against materialism and secularism, so I didn’t feel the need to “prove” Christianity to myself every day. My faith wasn’t a battered, fragile thing; it was hardly tested at all. Whereas the struggle of the Muslim living in the West is a struggle against materialism and secularism, too, that is small compared to the struggle to defend myself against a virulent, shrill hatred of Muslims and all things Islamic; a struggle to defend my choice to people who have read only secondary sources and are basically embarrassingly ignorant; a struggle to continue to practice Islam when every single aspect of my society says, ‘You are an idiot.’

My husband, Yusuf, and I talk about it sometimes — the struggle to remain true to a faith that has the worst press ever. Imagine if someone called Jesus a “demon-possessed pedophile” or compared the Bible to “Mein Kampf” or said Christianity is a “cancer that destroys the body it infects” or that all Christians are “donkeys” or “knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century.” Read it here: Islamophobia and Arabophobia: Laying the Groundwork — Us vs. Them

Who cares, right? But imagine if 150 people said it, over and over, and they all had microphones and reporters or bloggers mass-producing their every statement. Imagine an Orwellian world where lies were truth. Imagine if people, lots of people, actually believed the lies. Imagine if you were the only Christian in your neighborhood, the only Christian at your job, and that your spouse was the only other Christian you saw for weeks or months at a time. You could start to feel strange, out of sorts. You could start to feel sad, or angry. And you would fight the anger rising up like bile, and you would choke it down, because you know your religion requires you to turn the other cheek, even though no one admits that it does. You desire to be good and to show them good things, but at the same time a tiny voice inside says, “It won’t make one shred of difference.”

Sometimes I try to step back and look at me from outside myself, and imagine how people must see me. Do they think I have a hidden agenda? Do they think I want to use democracy to destroy democracy? Do they think I am blind, stupid, oppressed? Or am I a tiny, flickering flame in a very black room? Do my co-workers distrust me, or do they grudgingly admire how I work hard and avoid gossiping with them? Do they read this vitriol? Do they think I must be hiding my true nature, or how I am not like what they read?

It’s a bit different for Yusuf. As he began to learn English five years ago, the pervasive anti-Muslim rhetoric in American media startled him, shocked him; but he has always remained intact. Probably because the existence halfway around the world of 80 million Turks gives him a feeling of solidarity, takes away the possibility of feeling alone and crazy. He knows thousands of Muslims who are shining examples of what humanity can attain in a lifetime of prayer, fasting and charity. Empirically, he knows he’s not nuts because they’re there; he knows that there can be non-Western ways of thinking and knowing.

One time he said something so good, I sat silently for a full five minutes afterward, taking it in. He said, Look at what they say about Islam. And look how Americans and Europeans are becoming Muslim. How can people convert if it is not truth? Islam is like the sun. They can kick dirt on it, but people still see its brightness underneath.