EXPLORING ISLAM? LESSONS FROM A MUSLIM ‘ALPHA COURSE’

8 min. read on what I used to think about Islam and on a strange mix of things I’ve learnt going to a mosque in England.

I struggle with Islam. I started with the rather fundamental idea of ‘if Christianity is true, Islam must be a lie; if it’s a lie, nothing can be good about it; if there are any good or truthful elements, they are there only to lure people into it’.

Mustafa Akyol, Shabir Ally, Edip Yüksel (a strange mind, but making some points), along with a few well-informed and open-minded Muslims I was lucky to listen to or to speak with, opened my heart to a well-informed and open-minded Islam. One not afraid of historical criticism, textual studies, and reading in historical contexts, from which we (they!) should be trying to translate into our times the universal principles behind often obscure rules. The first time I read the Quran, I was looking for scandals and discrepancies; I was looking for the same when first reading about Islam and interacting with Muslims. Now I want to appreciate the truth and beauty, appreciate and understand the struggle of understanding and interpreting the texts, doctrines, rituals… I’m attending classes at the local mosque and I’m afraid I may get disappointed: It seems legalistic again, flat and sad, even if done with impressive faithfulness. The nuance I was hoping for revolves around properly pronouncing sounds in Arabic prayers (replace MuHammad with some of his titles if you can’t pronounce the glottal H) or pointing your toes here and there while praying. Everything seems to be done with the afterlife in perspective, every good deed performed with hope of being rewarded. They preach faith to me, but who do they really care about? God? Me? Themselves? Out of the three, it is the last I seem to hear about the most. ‘What we do, we do in humility. If we do something with pride, there is no reward for it in the afterlife.’ Sort of nice, sort of not.

Disclaimer: I’m describing my own experience of attending ‘beginner’ classes at a local mosque in south-west England. Even if what I describe stands for currently mainstream Islam in many places, I do not try to claim it is all Islam is.

Today I learnt many nice things. I learnt that we can repent numerous times, but as long as we repent with honesty in heart, all our sins will be forgiven, as we’ve never committed them (though if we resist the sin in the first place, we will be additionally rewarded). God is merciful. I learnt that sinful thoughts happen to everyone, and having them will not be counted against us. I learnt, that having a direct sinful intention is already sinful, even if the sin is not committed. I learnt, that there is a life after life, and before the hereafter there’s a life in the grave. The grave life is pleasant for believers, when they are joyfully expecting their reward, but not so for unbelievers. There are angels sent to torture them. One hits them in the back of their heads with a hammer. The hammer is heavy, and the strikes are powerful – if a mountain was hit, it would immediately turn into dust. Unbelievers scream unbelievably in their agony, but we are protected from hearing their screams – if we weren’t, it would be so disturbing we would stop burring our deceased. Our respectable teacher said all these things, one after another, with the same voice and manner and without much blinking.

There is a Hadith, one I like, in which the Prophet says that some people can pray the whole night and gain nothing but sleepiness, and some can fast for the whole week and gain nothing but hunger. There are many wise ways to think about it. Today I learnt that some Muslims pray five times a day, they however use the wrong ‘h’ sound when reciting Arabic verses, and it makes their prayers invalid. They will be greatly surprised on Judgement Day when it comes. God is merciful, but apparently can also be a wee bit petty. God is merciful when it comes to sins, but not so when it comes down to pronunciation of our praises.

‘Are you considering becoming a Muslim? Think about it this way: Islam is the only religion where the Creator and creation are absolutely distinct and not similar to each other. Only Islam offers it.’ told me a really nice guy who came all the way from Birmingham to give a lecture at the mosque. He answered a few of my questions before that, a few he couldn’t answer, but he humbly explained that in the face of all the other proof some things have to be taken by faith. God is not loving in terms of emotions, but he acts lovingly and mercifully. St Anselm thought similarly. The Islamic law is indeed logical and based of principles beneficial for us, not just on arbitrary decisions of God. Yes, we understand the point of some laws straight away, some may be unclear, but it is right to believe all of them make practical points. God is just and merciful and good – these attributes do not change, and God could not be otherwise. Well, my interlocutor humbly said we shouldn’t say God couldn’t do or be something – it’s rather the question that doesn’t make sense to ask, like the one about God being or not being able to make square circles, or stones He couldn’t lift. Anyway, it turns out that (at least according to our conversation) the God of Islam is not the fussy, capricious deity some of Christian apologist would like him to be. Still, he doesn’t love with emotions. Us existing or not existing, going to hell or not going there, worshipping him or not doing that, all of it doesn’t change anything a bit for him. Why then does he care and why does he dump people into eternal fire for not believing right things about him? There was no answer. That was the ‘by faith’ bit. Same was the answer to the question about how a just God can eternally and infinitely punish beings with finite understanding for finite actions and decisions. God can be obeyed but not known. He is too different to be known. God can and should be loved, but will not love back, though he may reward. There is no space for relationship, besides a somehow glorified slave – master relationship. ‘Look, if someone let me live in his house and to use all the things, and only expected me to follow a few rules while staying there, it would be perfectly normal to do that, right?’. That’s it: we live at a house owned by God and follow the rules, but we live there without him.

While there is some simplistic appeal in the clean, clear and radically monotheistic doctrine, I appreciate Jesus and Christianity more and more, with its space for interpreting the Scripture, and interpreting what it means for a text to be inspired. With its theology that no honest Christian lives without struggling with: the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Cross… With all my doubts, questions, and expanding agnosticism on many related points, I am loved and I love; I know enough; and even better, one day I will know as I am known, then, when everything irrelevant and incomplete will pass, but love will remain.