An encounter with a God-fearing Christian

Saudi Gazette
Tariq A. Al-Maeena

I spent a pleasant afternoon on a warm sunny day in southern California in the company of a God-fearing Christian who was concerned about what he perceived to be the evils of Islamic ideology. It was evident that he considered the religious movement as one that would threaten his world and existence.

That is hardly unusual as there are perhaps many with similar sentiments. In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001 with the bombings of the World Trade Center towers in New York, many could have been forgiven for considering that such a threat was indeed credible.

Such sentiments were cemented when the President of the United States, at the time, George W. Bush declared a crusade against the perpetrators, invoking a disturbing scenario of an impending clash of civilizations. In creating the "good versus evil" and "you’re with us or against us" doctrine, Mr. Bush further solidified his stance when he used the term "Islamic fascists".

My companion that afternoon had done his research. He had read many books on the Hadith and Fiqh, and translations of the Holy Qur'an. His argument was that Islam is inherently violent and on a collision course with other religions. He quoted examples of verses or incidents in religious scripture to back his suspicions.

Eight years of Mr. Bush spouting in the same vein and a highly unpopular war in Iraq did not help foster closer understanding. Just the opposite was true. Muslims were quickly portrayed to be the bad guys in the Western media, who had sinister intentions against a peace-loving Western world. Every act of terrorism committed by some nut calling himself a soldier of Allah or a jihadist was considered a well-planned and deeply covert operation sanctioned by the more than 1.3 billion Muslims on the planet.

I tried to explain to him that the West faces no threat from Islam. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world, and not by force but by acceptance of its values and message, and it really is a religion of peace. Islam forbids forced conversions. More significantly, it is a religion that focuses on the individual and his salvation.

It is also a universal religion that ignores nationality, race, rank and color. To become a Muslim, one must believe in one God, acknowledge Muhammad as his Prophet, recognize the Holy Qur'an as the word of God, pray five times a day, provide for the poor through the payment of zakat and, if possible, make a journey once in a lifetime to Makkah to perform the grand pilgrimage or Haj. The God Muslims worship is the same God Christians and Jews worship.

Islam’s tolerance toward other faiths has been well documented. The oldest Christian communities in the world are all in Muslim countries. There have always been Christian and Jewish communities in the Muslim world. The disputes the West considers as clashes of ideologies in today’s Middle East are not religious; they are actually about secular matters, with the principle element being the unresolved Israeli occupation of Arab lands.

Why then were there not voices of opposition to the acts of terrorism, no public condemnation or outrage, my companion demanded? If the truth be told, there have been countless such acts of censure by various religious or government figures across the Muslim world. Media personnel across the Middle East have been relentlessly attacking such cowardly acts as well. Unfortunately, such words of condemnation do not grab the headlines. The demonization of Muslims is good for business. It sells a lot of print. There has to be a bad guy, with a multitude of other evil plotters lurking in the shadowy background.

I would not deny that terrorism exists. But it exists among Muslims, Christians and Jews. For the guilty Muslims, it is their 15-minute moment of fame as they hold their heads high proclaiming themselves to be jihadists and the Western media loves it. Their twisted and immoral acts dominate prime time TV or print space. But they do not and will not be representative of the billion plus peace-loving Muslims living in many countries of the world.

I suggested to my companion that the way to better understand Muslims and Islam is to reach out to them and not necessarily just in the United States. Go visit some of the Islamic countries, I said. The way to combat the fanaticism and improve inter-faith understanding is to extend the hand of friendship to ordinary Muslims. He would find that their primary concern is with their existence and making a living just as anyone else in other parts of the world. They are not spending their free moments engrossed in grand designs to destroy the West or other cultures and faiths. To slander and libel Muslims and Islam as such is grave injustice. It smacks of bigotry.

And to make up one’s mind on the basis of information garnered through translated versions of religious transcripts leaves one often at the mercy of the interpretation which can be deceptive.

It is best for one to witness with his eyes and mind what the other part of the world sees in him. Over a cup of coffee, that is what I recommended to my companion as a first step toward better understanding.

HIS JOURNEY INTO ISLAM

I received this email about two months ago from Troy, a 26 year old American man. He wants to share his story on how he became a Muslim and his journey into the Islamic faith. A really interesting read. Thank you so much Troy for sharing your story with the world.....
Hello, I am a 26 year old American named Troy (the world doesn't need to know my full name lol). I formally accepted

 Islam in 2009 when I was still 22. I was raised Catholic although not from a very religious background. I enjoyed reading and learning about the Biblical stories as a kid. The teachings from the Bible were quite simple and straightforward to me as the Prophets all instructed people to worship/obey one God and be a good person. I also enjoyed acting in the Christmas plays. I always played a shepherd in them, and later on in life I would learn about actual Palestinian shepherds. I just found Catholicism confusing by how Jesus, Mary and Saints were given such special status like they were almost god-like. In my mind there could only be one God who had absolute authority and power. And this I remember feeling as a kid. I didn't really understand much about the Catholic rituals such communion and confession for example either. I saw them more to be symbolic, but literally "eating the body of Jesus" and a priest being able to forgive you for your bad deeds was hard for me to grasp. Why would I have to eat a wafer and confess to a priest to be forgiven? Why couldn't I just simply ask God to forgive me? Anyways as I got older as a teenager I lost interest in religion. I didn't enjoy going to Church really. I found it boring and tedious to go a lot, but it was okay to do as a family activity on holidays. I didn't really think too much of it honestly. I was also exposed to other types of Christianity (Baptist/Evangelical) from friends but their type of Christianity seemed a lot different from Catholicism and did not appeal to me really at all. I did not understand why they put so much focus on Jesus alone. It was like they threw God and all the other Prophets to the back and worshipped Jesus instead. I just could not really understand this sort of theology. I later studied other religions when I started college. It was cool to learn about the Dharmic religions, but they were hard for me to understand. I found Hinduism to be complex and Buddhism to be abstract. I though Sikhism was pretty straightforward but seemed like a localized Punjabi religion. I also saw Taoism, Confusionism and Shinto to be abstract and a bit localized (China/Japan). I really did not understand Jainism much, it also seemed very localized (India). I was of course familiar with Judaism as it followed the Old Testament. I find Judaism to be a simple, straightforward religion too but I didn't understand why it completely disregarded Jesus. Although I was familiar with Arabic culture as I lived in Michigan as a kid, I did not really know much about Islam other than they prayed in a Mosque. I used to see Islam as a bit localized as well (Middle East/Pakistan), but I did find it interesting too how Judaism and Christianity started in the Middle East but spread West into Europe and the Americas. One thing I did find ironic is how Christianity came off as being very "Eurocentric" despite it's origins coming from Palestine/Syria/Egypt. Later I understood that it drew influence from Roman culture as it spread into places like Greece, Italy and Spain. Anyways I never had any bad feelings towards Arabs/Muslims as a whole or anything. I understood the 1st Gulf War as a political conflict between Iraq and Kuwait, nothing religious at all. I also saw the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to be more over land/politics/ethnicity/nationalism. I did not really see things from a "religious" perspective. I also vaguely remember the 1st Afghan War (1980s) as a political conflict between Communists and local guerrillas as seen on the film "Rambo 3". The complex Balkans wars also happened when I was a kid. Again I didn't really know about the religious aspect of the horrible conflicts, but I did see them as ethnic/nationalist conflicts between Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians and Albanians. Even after 9/11 I still didn't see "Islam as a whole" as responsible for the attack. I saw it as an attack done by a terrorist organization who was mad over US foreign policy. We can get into conspiracy theories and other political stuff later, but yes I am a rational thinker. With Islam always on the news I thought to myself I should really start to learn more about what it really is. At this point I was not really interested in learning about it from a theological or "religious" standpoint, but from rather a historical, political and cultural standpoint. I thought it was really cool how Muslims from various places like Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, former Soviet Union, etc. all did the same basic religious practices despite them being from very different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I found Christianity to be quite segregated and very different based on ethnicity and nationality, hence all the numerous sects and Churches. After studying Islam and various political issues in the Muslim world on my own I wondered to myself if I could ever get to be a part of this whole spectrum. I continued to study the history and cultures of the Islamic world on my own. I later took an Islamic History class where I actually got to read the Quran and learn the history of the Muslim world from the time span of pre-Islamic Arabia to the formation of the modern state of Saudi Arabia. The class was really fun and I learned about all the various Islamic empires and civilizations ranging from the 1st Caliphates, Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, etc. I also met a bunch of Muslim students in the class. I was able to learn more about Islam from a theological perspective from them. I learned that Islam really did not differ much at all from my previous simple beliefs as a kid: prophets teaching monotheism and good morals. Islam's view on Jesus made far more rational sense than Christianity's point of view. Due to Islam's simple and rational theology, I proudly accepted it. However things were not so smooth at first. First off all I had to learn how to perform Salah and recite Quran in Arabic which is a completely foreign language to me. Of course I had to deal with my family's reaction to my decision. Some of my family did not mind much that I converted, others were skeptical, upset and disagreed with my decision. It was difficult and frustrating for me to deal with, but I can understand that they care for me and want to make sure that I am making my own decisions and not simply following other people's influences blindly. Another major issue I had was obviously still not being very educated in Hadith and Fiqh. This can be quite a challenge for new converts. Sadly some new Muslims fall into extremism because of this. And of course Muslims have to face a lot of bigotry here in the West. Fortunately I was able to continue educating myself about Islam. I also took more religion/historical/political classes in college. I continue to learn more about Islam and religion in general each day, although I am very much into politics, history and culture. Although it can be very rough at times, I am very happy I accepted Islam and hope I never forsake it. I think education is the most important key to being a strong Muslim. I also hope to visit the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia in my lifetime...

 

British Actress Inspired by Prophet (SAW)'s Life

Myriam Francois-Cerrah Embraces Islam

This is her story

I embraced Islam after graduating from Cambridge. Prior to that I was a skeptical Catholic; a believer in God but with a mistrust of organized religion.

The Qur’an was pivotal for me. I first tried to approach it in anger, as part of an attempt to prove my Muslim friend wrong. Later I began reading it with a more open mind.

The opening of Al Fatiha, with its address to the whole of mankind, psychologically stopped me in my tracks. It spoke of previous scriptures in a way which I both recognized, but also differed. It clarified many of the doubts I had about Christianity. It made me an adult as I suddenly realized that my destiny and my actions had consequences for which I alone would now be held responsible.

In a world governed by relativism, it outlined objective moral truths and the foundation of morality. As someone who’d always had a keen interest in philosophy, the Qur’an felt like the culmination of all of this philosophical cogitation. It combined Kant, Hume, Sartre and Aristotle. It somehow managed to address and answer the deep philosophical questions posed over centuries of human existence and answer its most fundamental one, ‘why are we here?’

In the Prophet Muhammad, I recognized a man who was tasked with a momentous mission, like his predecessors, Moses, Jesus and Abraham. I had to pick apart much of the Orientalist libel surrounding him in order to obtain accurate information, since the historical relativism which people apply to some degree when studying other historical figures, is often completely absent, in what is a clear attempt to disparage his person.

I think many of my close friends thought I was going through another phase and would emerge from the other side unscathed, not realizing that the change was much more profound. Some of my closest friends did their best to support me and understand my decisions. I have remained very close to some of my childhood friends and through them I recognize the universality of the Divine message, as God’s values shine through in the good deeds any human does, Muslim or not.

I have never seen my conversion as a ‘reaction’ against, or an opposition to my culture. In contrast, it was a validation of what I’ve always thought was praiseworthy, whilst being a guidance for areas in need of improvement. I also found many mosques not particularly welcoming and found the rules and protocol confusing and stressful. I did not immediately identify with the Muslim community. I found many things odd and many attitudes perplexing. The attention given to the outward over the inward continues to trouble me deeply.

There is a need for a confident, articulate British Muslim identity which can contribute to the discussions of our time. Islam is not meant to be an alien religion, we shouldn’t feel like we’ve lost all trace of ourselves. Islam is a validation of the good in us and a means to rectify the bad. Islam is about always having balance and I think the Prophet's (peace be upon him) message was fundamentally about having balance and equilibrium in all that we do.

The Prophet's message was always that you repel bad with good that you always respond to evil with good and always remember that God loves justice so even when people are committing serious injustices against you, you have a moral responsibility and a moral obligation in front of God to always uphold justice and never yourself transgress those limits.

Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) said: 'Forgive him who wrongs you. Join him who cuts you off. Do good to him who does evil to you and speak the truth even if it be against yourself.'

Islam's beauty really becomes to its own when it becomes manifest and it becomes manifest when you make it into a tool for the betterment of society, human kind and the world.

The ideal from an Islamic perspective is for ethics to become lived ethics, to become an applied body of values and not remain unfortunately as it often is cloistered in the mosque of somewhere which is some more divorced from reality.

Myriam Francois-Cerrah became popular when she was a child for acting in the 90's hit film 'Sense and Sensibility.' Now she is gaining more popularity for being one of a growing number of educated middle class female converts to Islam in Britain.

She has recently contributed to a series of videos on Islam produced in the UK titled (Inspired by Muhammad saw).