Honouring Islam

Fear brings out the worst in us. A ladybug lands on my hand. “How cute” I think to myself and gently blow it on its way. But if a harmless spider crawls on my arm I freak. I not only flick it off but stomp on it as well. My irrational panic causes a violent, hate- filled reaction.

I’m riding on the bus and a young Arabic gentlemen sits down in the seat across from mine. He’s bearded, wearing a crocheted cap and carrying a small back pack. My immediate, irrational and fear inspired reaction is “terrorist!”. Even in Aotearoa (NZ) we have been conditioned – mostly by the media – to view people from the middle east as potential threats.

This ill informed attitude is unfortunately reinforced in too many Christian churches where Islam is portrayed as evil and Muslims as the spiritual and political enemy. They present Islam and Christianity locked in an irreconcilable battle for souls. They know almost nothing about Islam but still condemn it out of ignorance and prejudice, reacting to the extreme rhetoric and actions of a tiny minority.

Lets try for a moment to put aside our fears and misconceptions and take an honest look at Islam.

It’s one of the biggest faiths in the world with about 1.5 billion adherents – second only to Christianity which has approximately 2.5 billion. (Hinduism comes in third with 900 million or so.) Islam is growing fast, particularly in the USA, so obviously has a lot to offer a lot of people.

Islam is the closest religion to Christianity. Both have their roots in Judaism. All three faiths follow the one, creator God. Allah is simply the arabic word for God, just as Yahweh is one of the Judaic names. Islam accepts large chunks of the Bible as holy scripture including the Pentateuch, the psalms and the gospels. Islam honors Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, Moses and Jesus as great prophets – peace be upon them.

Jesus has a special place in Islam. There are 25 references to Jesus in the Qur’an which refers to him as al-Masih ‘Isa ibn Maryam – the messiah Jesus son of Mary. Islam teaches that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, performed miracles and rather than being crucified was taken alive up into Heaven from where he will return to defeat the anti-christ, restoring peace and justice to our world.

Islam is strongly monotheistic. In the Islamic view Allah is the one true God. For Muslims the idea of a triune God – God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – is blasphemous. And of course for Muslims, Mohammad is the last and greatest of the prophets.

While Islam honors Jesus as a worthy and blessed messenger of God, most Christians know next to nothing about Mohammad and give this exceptional leader and reformer no respect. Much more is known about the life of Mohammad than that of Jesus, probably because he was born nearly 600 years later. I’m not going to attempt to offer a potted biography of Mohammad now but whatever our beliefs, we should know something about the life of this hugely influential historical figure.

We should also be accurately informed about the faith that Mohammad championed. Islam is claimed as a religion of peace and submission to the will of Allah. The five pillars of Islam are testimony, prayer, charity, fasting and pilgrimage – all of which are admirable. Portraying Islam as a religion of violence, terrorism and jihad is a gross distortion. Muslim scholars would argue that the very term Muslim terrorism is an oxymoron… a contradiction in terms.

However let’s be realistic. With Islam, Christianity and probably most other religions there is a large gap between the principle and the practice, between the ideals that are taught and the way we weak, fallible humans fail to live them out. How many Christians do you know who are fully living out the teachings of Jesus or even coming close?

The vast majority of Christians and Muslims are not fanatics. We’re ordinary people living our lives, raising our families, doing our best, making mistakes, often falling short but trying. We want to live in peace with a reasonable level of comfort and security.

But both these huge religions cover a whole spectrum of beliefs and practices. Within Christianity we have liberals and conservatives, mystics and dogmatists, activists and contemplatives, cultists, clowns and crazies. We have everything from Amish and Eastern Orthodox through to televangelists and rock stars. We have inspirational saints and peacemakers but we also have prominent figures spitting hate and prejudice in the name of Jesus… like the American pastor who described Mohammad as a devil-filled, pedophile.

Similarly Islam encompasses a wealth of different opinions and approaches from the Sufi mystics and liberal Muslim scholars through to the ultra conservative Mullahs who teach a harsh, reactionary version of Islam to their largely poor and uneducated followers. Within Islam there is the major schism between Sunni and Shi’ite which has caused strife similar to the Catholic – Protestant division. And within Islam there are gracious, generous wonderful people; angry, violent, hate filled people and every shade in between.

When you consider how the West has treated the Islamic nations throughout history it’s not at all surprising that many Muslims are resentful, disillusioned and regard the USA in particular as “the great Satan.”

I grew up with the impression that the crusades were brave expeditions by noble Christian knights fighting to save the Holy Lands from the heathens. It wasn’t till much later I learned that the crusaders were barbaric bully boys who crashed into a land where the Jews and Muslims were living peacefully, where the vibrant culture and learning was way more advanced and sophisticated than Europe at the time. The crusaders stole land, looted, set up their own little kingdoms and were finally ejected like football hooligans. One bunch of crusaders smashed up Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Christianity and destroyed the greatest library in the world at that time.

It was largely thanks to Muslim scholars, doctors, architects, engineers, philosophers, scientists and poets preserving and extending knowledge and culture that Europe experienced the Renaissance.

Leaping forward into modern history, the record of Western nations in the Middle East* has been woeful. Our greed for oil has completely overwhelmed our sense of justice (just look at the US involvement in Iran for example) and remember that injustice will always cause outrage and violence whether it’s Palestinians fighting for what remains of their homeland or militants in Northern Ireland trying to remove the English from theirs.

Many Muslims look at the West and see little more than greed, decadence and immorality. They see powerful, aggressive nations which constantly threaten, dominate and occasionally attack. Far too often they experience our uniformed prejudice, our distrust and our derision rather than our understanding and respect… our clenched fist rather than our open hand. They heard the jingoistic rhetoric of George Bush who labeled the war on terrorism as a crusade, experienced the terrorism of the USA and its allies, heard of innocent Muslims being imprisoned and tortured without trial or evidence. Is it any wonder they burn the American flag? Is it any wonder they listen to Obama’s speeches with skepticism? Is it any wonder they view the war against terror as a war against Islam?

Christians and Muslims inhabit the same world and worship the same God. We can choose to treat each other with understanding and respect, living in peace and mutual support or we can react to each other’s anger and prejudice as I react to spiders… in which case the future is grim for us all.

Next time I see that young man on the bus I’ll greet him “salaam alaykum” and maybe we can actually talk, share something of our lives, our faiths our common experiences.

My plea to my more conservative brothers and sisters is this – don’t perpetuate a simplistic black and white, us and them, goodies and baddies attitude. Look for what is good in Islam rather than concentrating on what you think is wrong with it. Treat Muslims with the same respect that the Qur’an extends to our faith and who knows… little by little we may be able to defuse the anger and mistrust, celebrating what we believe in common rather than fighting over our differences. Salaam alaykum… peace to us all.

* Just a quick footnote. In this article I have tended to equate Islam with the Middle East but in fact the majority of Muslims do not live in the Middle East but are spread around areas such as North Africa, Indonesia and most other countries around the world.