What Exactly it was That Drew Me to Islam By Andrew Howie July 5th, 2011 It is wrong always, everywhere, and

for anyone, to believe anything upon insuffic ient evidence.- William K. Gifford Let there be not compulsion in religion; truth stands out clearly from error. [Qur 'an 2:256] Most Christian parents of college-age students with whom I have been personally acquainted express great fear that their son or daughter will lose faith in colleg e. This fear even ranks above that of many of the more obvious temptations of co llege life, such as drug use, alcohol use, or promiscuity. Concern about the app eal of atheism and agnosticism in secular American universities is widespread in East Texas, where I was born and which I still call home. The airwaves (of Chri stian radio stations) frequently feature stories about formerly-devout Christian teens going off to major universities and having their faith debunked by Ivory To wer academics intent on luring young adults away from their roots. My family is typically East-Texan in most ways. Having become known as the smart one in the family (I say this in all humility), I was seen off to college with bo th great anticipation and great anxiety. As I progressed through college, I was closely scrutinized and frequently admonished to keep on the lookout for rogue p rofessors, lest I fall into their trap and become too smart to believe. In college, I began to question and re-examine my religious-cultural background. Where did I stand as an individual? What kind of person would I choose to be? W ould I follow that which I had always been taught, settle close to home and live the same life I had always lived? Would I become an atheist or an agnostic like my family feared I would? But why does being a rational, scientific, intellectu ally honest person mean I have to be an atheist or an agnostic? Who can use scie nce to debunk God? I want to be smart, I said to myself, and I also want to believe. So how it is that one can be too smart to believe? The answer, I found, ten thousand questions and answers later, was: you cannot. This January, I embraced Islam, a decision that was informed in equal measure by my mind and my personal religious sensibilities. It was the culmination of a gr eat emotional and intellectual battle to secure not just my faith in God but als o my integrity as a thinking person, beleaguered as I was by the false fear that true faith may come only at the expense of intellect. At Rhodes, the inimitably Southern Liberal Arts College which has become my seco nd home, I had the opportunity to meet Shaykh Yasir Qadhi, who took up a positio n there in the Religious Studies Department in the fall of 2010. In the spring h e offered a course that focused on modern Islamic political movements in which I was eager to enroll. Although the course did not cover general Islamic knowledg e, such as history and theology, from the course I learned one of the most impor tant lessons I have acquired in a classroom: the great need for Muslims to speak convincingly to non-Muslim westerners who can only see the worst of the Islamic world. Ninety percent, Sh. Qadhi said once in class, of the facts you learn in cla ssrooms you will forget. What will be important is that you learned how to think . Any informed Muslim in America knows to stay away from mainstream network news sources such as Fox or CNN, which, prioritizing ratings and revenue over the tru th, often pander to their audiences with half-factual stories reported in a loud and emotionally appealing style. But how do you talk to someone whose facts all come from sources that present an insipid and uncritical view of the Muslim wor ld? Who has been taught all their life that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is

a mysterious, complicated struggle as old and time, to which no one remembers th e cause perhaps something vague about an incompatibility of values and to which th ere never has been a solution? Who views the world in terms of an ultimate clash of civilizations, with Christianity on one side of the line and Islam on the othe r? I agree strongly with Sh. Qadhis statement, quoted in a recent New York Times art icle, that, as an American Muslim, you feel your faith. As a religious minority, y ou are forced to make choices that Muslims dont frequently have to make in Muslim -majority countries. You are forced to choose on a daily basis what are to be yo ur priorities. In post-9/11 America, you must be more informed, poised, and pers uasive on key issues than the majority you must know all of their sources better than they do as well as all of your own. Your identity is a struggle for you; a struggle that channels your strengths, keeps you diligent and prevents you from hypocrisy. A few weeks ago, Sh. Qadhi asked me over lunch what made me decide to come to Is lam. After all, bowing ones head to the ground, fasting, and studying Arabic are all activities that the majority of Americans do not engage in on a regular basi s. From the perspective of the mainstream, European and American mentality, many of the practices of our religion seem foreign, indelibly Eastern. My tongue was hel d by the immediacy of Sh. Qadhis question and by the force and number of possible replies that raced through my mind; in this deadlock I produce only a few halfconsidered thoughts. But had I had more time to think about my answer, I would h ave replied as follows. Islam became normal for me because it is normal. It is a religion of honesty, hu man dignity, and good old common sense. Its doctrines are easily intelligible, correspond with the universal inclinations of human thought, and can be expresse d through clear, unequivocal use of human language. Islam requires neither suppr ession of the intellect nor blinding of the senses to believe in; there is no co nflict between reason and faith in Islam. Islam is not a foreign culture it is e qually at home in Yemen as in Yakutsk. Islam is a system adaptable to all times and places; the timeless and inextinguishable precepts which form its message, d elivered countless times across the span of time have stirred the hearts of the greatest men to perform the most significant actions in history. World history, I told Sh. Qadhi, did not make sense to me until I began to understand Islam. But how did I come to see all of this? Perhaps I should attribute it to the qual ity of my sources. It is not hard to accept the truth of Islam what is hard is a bandoning all the problems you had before Islam. Islam stands on its own merits. Chief among these is its simplicity. All of the precepts of our religion extend from one premise: the premise that Allah (Subhan ahu WA taala), to the extent that we are capable of understanding Him, exists. Fr om the fact that Allah (Subhanahu wa taala), the Ever-Merciful, is, it proceeds t hat He would furnish some means whereby those of His creations which are endowed with free will, human beings, might be brought into the fold of that mercy thro ugh which they would be instructed in the correct way to believe and the correct way to live. Thus proceeding from His mercy, Allah sent prophets to mankind to warn them. It is natural that such a God would also furnish signs through his cr eation so that man would come to have understanding of these truths by observing and investigating the world around him. If one accepts belief in the One, All-P owerful and Ever Merciful God, this entails belief in His revelations. If one be lieves in His revelations, it is natural that one should choose to follow that w hich they teach i.e., to be a Muslim, one who submits to the will of God. Belief in this All-Powerful, All-Merciful God has always been absolutely central to my identity; it was only just before I came to college, at the age of 18 yea rs, that I began to seriously question whether or not Christianity was the true

religion of God. Now I re-examine philosophies and religions, They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents, writes American poet Walt Whitman. Naturally, any educated person professing Christianity has to come to terms with the Pauline d octrine that the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Sublime author of al l that exists, was also a human being who lived on this earth, ate, slept, and p rayed to God. The more I studied the Bible, the more I came to see that this doc trine was only indifferently supported by scripture and sometimes contradicted b y it outright. In the Gospel of Mark 12:28-32, one of the Jewish scribes asks Je sus which is the most important of all the commandments: And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; Th e Lord our God is one Lord And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. T here is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength , and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings a nd sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not f ar from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst asks him any question. ( KJV) The first commandment mentioned by Jesus in the above passage is taken from Deut eronomy 6:4: Hear, O Israel! The LORD our god, the LORD is one.

The word for one in the Hebrew scriptures (Hb. ehad) is cognate with the Arabic wo r the number one, , as in the first ayah of Suratl-Ikhlas (112:1): Say: He is Allah, the One! (Pickthal) Any Christian would nominally agree with the first half of our shahadah that ther e is no god but God. Yet the Hebrew Scriptures, like our own Quran, take this onen ess a step further to affirm the essential unity of our Creator. God is the One, and the only entity worthy of worship. How, then, can He be three?

Early Christian communities which had accepted the doctrine of the trinity strug gled to reconcile the obvious difficulties in their theology, which necessitated that three be somehow equivalent to one. The only solution was to split the def inition of God into two parts: person or substantive reality (Gk., hy o a ) d; e ence or be ng (Gk. , ousi ) on the other. Without diving into too-det iled sion of Greek philosophic l terminology, suffice the following ex mple to cl rif y the me ning of both terms. Among group of boxes of different sizes nd color s, e ch would be identified by wh t m kes it distinct from the other objects in the group its color nd size. These ch r cteristics would m ke up the unique hyp ost sis of e ch box. Its ousi would consist of its box-ness, n ture which ll three objects sh re in. In the trinit ri n formul tion, it is divine n ture th t binds its trip rtite conception of God. Succinct yet no less convoluted, the f ormul of three persons, one being bec me the cornerstone of the theology of Chris ti n Orthodoxy. Yet no m tter how you divide it, trinit ri nism mirrors polythei sm in ll but terminology; when they s y one, they still me n three. Around the

world, you will find Christi ns who pr y sometimes to Jesus, sometimes to God the F ther, nd sometimes to the Holy Spirit, often for equiv lent purposes nd with little ltern tion in liturgy. E rly Christi nity, before the scend nce of Orthodoxy, w s not, however, withou t difference of opinion. A controversi l p ss ge in the Gospel of Luke demonstr tes the diversity of opinions one might h ve encountered h d one lived in the e stern Rom n provinces during the e rly ye rs of Christi nity. In ch pter 2 verse 33, the oldest nd most uthorit tive Greek m nuscripts re d And his f ther nd mother were m zed t the things s id bout him (Jesus) (Sin iticus, V tic nus, W 032, nd others in Greek, L tin, Syri c, nd Coptic; my tr nsl tion). At some t ime during the history of copying nd recopying which the biblic l text h s expe rienced, this p rticul r verse w s subject to h rmoniz tion, in this c se referrin g to lter tion of the text by scribe with the go l of m king the text better conform to the prev iling theology of the d y. An unscrupulous Orthodox scribe w ho took issue with the f ct th t Joseph is referred to s the f ther of Jesus ch n ged the text to suit the view of Jesus s Gods liter lly begotten son. This ch ng e w s widely ccepted nd perpetu ted so th t the few m nuscripts which the Angl ic n church used to m ke its Authorized Version in 1611, undoubtedly the most in fluenti l tr nsl tion of the Bible ever written, give the less controversi l yet ltered re ding And Joseph nd his mother m rvelled t those things which were s poken of him. This is just one ex mple mong m ny of how the text of the New Test ment h s undergone consider ble ch nge t the h nds of those trying to dv nce p rticul r theologic l ngle. There re more errors in the 6000 tr nscripts of the New Test ment s there re words in the New Test ment, s biblic l schol r B rt Ehrm n s id in t lk t St nford University summ rizing the points in his bo ok titled Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Ch nged the Bible nd Why.

The more I studied the Bible, the more it c me to represent something foreign, i n some c ses well nigh un ppro ch ble. Theres so much l ngu ge nd cultur l b gg ge in the Bible th t is lost on even the well-tr ined schol rs. The text, despit e its wide re dership, c nnot even be ppro ched by the l yperson without m ss ive expl n tory pp r tus tt ched to the text (thus these d ys there re Bibles imed t p rticul r demogr phics theres C tholic Bible, n Episcop li n Bible, B ptist Bible, Bible for women, Bible for children, Bibles for conserv ti ves, for liber ls, etc.) Some books nd ch pters ( ll of the books in the deute ronomic history re pl gued with this) seem to ex lt systems of v lues nd ethics th t would be bhorrent to ny conscious, hum ne moderner: For ex mple, the bib

Isl m h s its he lthy sh re of dis greements mong different schol rs nd thinke rs, but th t, g in, is due to the imperfect knowledge of hum n beings. On the o ther h nd, the source m teri l we h ve, the Qur n, is perfect nd without dis gre ement or v ri tion, nor h s it ever ch nged. There re thous nds of different m nuscripts of the Hebrew bible, whether complete or p rti l, nd they ll h ve v ri nt re dings. The Septu gint, the e rly Greek tr nsl tion of the HB, often di s grees consider bly with the Hebrew M soretic text th t comes down to us, indic ting th t it is itself p rt of n entirely different textu l tr dition (with it s own numerous intern l v ri tions) nd so on nd so forth with the Coptic, Syri c, nd L tin tr ditions. To re lly underst nd ll th t the Bible is, in n inclus ive sense with its m ny tr ditions nd v ri tions, one must be fluent in t le s t six l ngu ges! The Qur n, on the other h nd, is only one text in one l ngu ge nd its du l preserv tion s text both or l nd written is check g inst ny who would unscrupulously try to dd to it or subtr ct from it.

The notion of dis greement within religious text is itself problem tic. How c n something written by the h nds of hundreds (including the scribes who intentio n lly or unintention lly dded to or subtr cted from the text, thous nds) of dif ferent hum n beings living in different times nd pl ces be the word of God? The re son why the Bible dis grees with itself on so m ny fund ment l points is th t hum n beings dis gree, bec use we h ve imperfect knowledge.

The Qur ns te chings re hum ne, consistent, nd of singul r, divine uthorship. I ts l ngu ge is unriv led by ny other work in Ar bic or ny other l ngu ge. The gre test truths in our universe re evident to nyone who stops nd thinks; the be uty round us is but reflection of the be uty of the Cre tor. I m not believer in the notion th t the truth is esoteric, th t it must be so ught out through secret or obscure me ns, nor th t it is the reserve of select few. As I w s questioning my beliefs while studying religions other th n Christ i nity, I w s guided by the w reness th t the truth must be cle r nd e sily c cessible. It is sign of the true Gods Mercy th t He sends proofs th t re cle r . If m nkind t l rge is truly to be held ccount ble for recognizing nd follow ing truth nd le ving behind error, the truth must be right in front of our f ce s. And so it w s. For better or worse, never before h ve people in the West been more preoccupied with the Isl mic question. And the religion yet rem ins so poorl y understood by the m sses. If the religious conserv tives in our own country we re not so misdirected by prejudiced politics, they too would see how close Isl m is to their own feelings of ntip thy in this time nd pl ce which seems so imm ersed in the myths of secul rism nd so dist nt from the etern l principles whic h ll of Gods prophets h ve est blished on e rth in their times nd pl ces. Source: muslimm tters.org URL: http://www.new geisl m.com/NewAgeIsl mIsl mAndSpiritu lism_1. spx?ArticleID =5017

lic l comm nd be sts euteronomy tion, wh t

ndment th t the Isr elites should kill ll the men, women, children, of the field everything th t bre thes nd possess the l nd of C n n (D 20:16). Even if such p ss ges were men ble to llegoric l interpret ex ctly would they s y?