Faith and Fables

I will be honest. I have been rather putting off writing this blog entry.

What we did, among other things, was go and chat to a lovely, open Islamic man about the Islamic faith, its relationship with Christianity and its relationship, or lack thereof, with extremist groups calling themselves Islamic.

The reason I  am putting it off is because to try to write about it is full of pitfalls. My own faith, as a Christian, remained unchanged by the end of the conversation and the man was not doing the hard sell, he was taking the time to talk with us and to answer our questions. But I don't want to get into why, having left with such high regard and admiration for Islam and for those who follow it, I did not therefore become convinced that it was the only true faith and convert immediately, because to try to explain that would entail somehow, by default, seeming to criticise or debunk some aspect of Islam. And that's not what I am out to do here. And besides it's highly likely that my decision to be Christian as opposed to Islamic or Buddhist, was strongly influenced by the culture I grew up in.

On the other hand, if I simply try to report all the wealth of information about the Islamic faith that we were given through the course of what was a very enjoyable and interesting two hour conversation, there is a high chance I will misremember, clumsily report or twist things another way without actually meaning to. 

I am a wuss.

So I have decided, instead, to simply report on the things that really struck me. They may still be a little iffy or slightly wrongly remembered but I am pretty sure I have the gist because they stuck with me.

And the reason they stuck with me is because I was surprised. Now I like to think I am reasonably realistic. I am not liable to lump the Islamic faith in with the actions of terrorist extremists. I did not expect him to tell me that the prophet Mohammed taught his followers to set off bombs. But there were some things he said, some of Mohammed's teachings which didn't chime so closely with my own impressions. My impressions were based on almost no information at all. My knowledge of Islam was shamefully based on media coverage, and an attempt to doggedly pick through that, refusing to be duped into believing that Islamic teaching is synonymous with terrorist activity. But I was still in that particularly lethal place of having a tiny bit of knowledge and zero context.

So I guess all I want to do here, is tell you these things which, for me undid years worth of half baked assumptions - and which in the end revealed as much about me and about the Western lazy associations with Islam, than it did about Islam itself.

Firstly, the basics of the Islamic faith are that there were a series of prophets sent by God (known as Allah), of which Jesus was an important one, albeit not the Son of God, except in a metaphysical or symbolic sense. This, and the resurrection of Jesus (believed in by Christianity but not in Islam) are where the teaching departs most drastically from Christianity. Mohammed, therefore, was the last prophet, sent after Jesus by God to help clarify the teachings given so far. Mohammed 'wrote' the Qur'an through divine inspiration and it, along with his teachings and records of his sermons, formed the legacy he would leave for God's followers.

Mohammed was preaching to a world in which men were habitually taking many wives, and neglecting them. He did not, contrary to my understanding, encourage men to take more than one wife. The teaching was that it was best to stop taking multiple wives and take one only. However, if a man really felt the need for more than one wife he should first ask himself whether he can do right, deal justly and look after adequately another wife without failing to do this for the first. And if men did insist on continuing to acquire wives, they must, in all cases, stop at four, thus introducing limitations on polygamy which was already happening. (There appears to be some controversy over whether Mohammed's own life mirrored these teachings, but for me in this instance, this isn't my point. I'm interested in the principles rather than the man.)

Women are considered equal to men. Mohammed taught that the wisest and greatest Muslim men were those who were kindest and gentlest to their wives, and that women were the 'twin halves' to men.

Allah is a God of forgiveness. Anyone who requests forgiveness will receive it immediately from Allah. Similarly a good deed can undo a bad, especially with a truly repentant soul.

Muslims and Christians are not enemies. On the contrary Mohammed drew up a covenant with the Christians, vowing to fight alongside them and telling his followers that they must not harm, impede or abuse a Christian for carrying out his or her faith.

Islam is a religion of peace. The verse used to support wars in the name of Islam relates to an extreme situation in which it is necessary to fight non believers. But even then, if your enemy requests peace you are honour bound to extend the hand of peace and convey him safely back to his home.

Now this does not cover everything we discussed and there may be errors, for which I apologise. Also I am conscious that we spoke with one person and I have based this on that conversation and an information booklet I took away with me. There will be other interpretations. There will be other versus in the Qur'an or quotes from Mohammed which seem to state otherwise. This is the way of many religions. We are a species stumbling around in the dark. When someone shines a light for us for a period of time it is possible that we don't always remember what that briefly illuminated world looked like with exact precision afterwards.

But these were the things which stood out at me because we hear so much in terms of behaviour and extreme systems which would suggest Islam to be founded on very different principles. But when will we learn, especially those of us who have their own faith, the difference between the original principle, and the actions of the human beings who profess to follow it.

Islam is peaceful. Christianity is non judgemental. Buddhism is vegetarian. 

What some of its followers do or don't do is really quite another matter.