Ramadan reflections on day 3
Day 3, around 2 hours until iftar (breaking the fast).
I think the novelty has worn off and I realise that I don’t feel very good. Maybe part of it is that I’m sleeping very late in the morning, and that I’m not really going out much or “stretching my legs”. I planned to take this week off work, but now I’m wondering if going out to work might help distract me from the fasting and make me feel a bit better physically. The tendency to sleep is overwhelming – I feel like I can’t get up in the morning; I get sleepy in the late afternoon, and then again after eating! Then again, maybe I’m just making up for the sleep I lost last week due to (i) my work pace picking up, which made it hard for me to “switch off” and (ii) my nervousness/excitement about the coming of Ramadan.
Maybe I should go out to work. I was worried that the exertion of walking would cause my blood sugar level to drop, as this unfortunately happens quite often in normal life (reactive hypoglycaemia)… but refraining from high-G.I. foods lately has consistently stopped this from happening, and so far, I haven’t had a “hypo” while fasting either. Getting up earlier and going to work may make the fasting more difficult, but since tomorrow is day 4, it should be getting easier anyway.
After congratulating myself for getting through two consecutive days, which is more than I’ve ever done and was by no means a foregone conclusion to me, I guess it’s now starting to dawn on me that there’s a bigger challenge here than merely getting through an individual day or two: getting through a whole month. That challenge has only just begun. Being in it for the long haul is always difficult for me. I guess I’m just weak like that.
Today I’m hungrier than ever. I can see myself getting very tired of feeling this way, and also, of waking at 3am to pack more food and water into my bloated belly. Actually it’s strange to experience these two extremes of satiety, each night and day. It is like summer and winter, each one impossible to imagine while in the midst of the other; yet experiencing them both within each 24 hour period.
At least I know that soon I will have what I ache for, at any given time, whether it’s the comfort of food, a slick of thirst-quenching water, or relief from an over-full stomach. And so maybe the trick is to take each day at a time, looking forward only to the next phase of this daily cycle between extremes. Maybe this is the key to the “long haul” approach I need to develop towards so many challenges in life. Perhaps fasting Ramadan will teach me this and more.
My Ramadan aims, modest in comparison to many bloggers I’ve seen, are (i) to fast and (ii) to read my way through the monstrously big and heavy Muhammad Asad translation of the Quran (which is difficult even to sit and hold when weak with fasting!) I am on target with this so far, but again, looking at its size overwhelms me to the task. I find myself wanting to run ahead of schedule with it, to get to a point where it doesn’t daunt me so much, but realistically there’s a limit to how much I can read and understand in a day.
I am taking notes, including noting down things that challenge me; such as the idea that we are tested by God for patience in adversity, and the radical non-materialism demanded of us. Overall I am finding these long heavy surahs in the beginning quite hard because they are not like one continuous story. Also confusing is that it seems to end passages with things like “Verily, God is [X], [Y]” which don’t seem obviously connected to the passage. Maybe it is too deep for a superficial read. The other thing that is repeated a lot is the notion of rewards for belief and good deeds, and of punishment for lack thereof. All religions seem to require belief in God in order to obtain God’s favour, and this is something I’ve always had difficulty understanding. If God wants us to believe in Him, has He given all of us the means to believe? The Quran talks of clear proof and evidence through the ages, through prophets and scriptures and miracles, so I suppose its answer is “yes”. I still don’t know how one can read a scripture and know it’s from God just based on the content. Maybe time will tell.
Is it a mystery how one comes to believe in God, and is not determined through logic? And what are the consequences, anyway? Is it only really possible to be righteous through believing in God? Are our actions always done for the pleasure of someone else, whether it’s another person or God? This is something I got from one part that I read today. If it’s true, then perhaps the fact that God sees everything we do and every thought and intention we have is what prompts us to be truly righteous… maybe that’s what it means? Maybe it reflects a cynical view of human nature whereby we need to turn ourselves towards a merciful God in order to become good.
Some things for me to think about! (I’m not addressing all these questions to readers, by the way, although feel free to share your view if you like!)
Less than an hour till iftar now 😀
Two types of believer
I’ve noticed that some people would not dare to question traditional or mainstream religious interpretations, believing that they are God’s way of telling us exactly what is acceptable to God. Their way to please God is to follow those interpretations as strictly as possible.
Others would not dare to give those interpretations an authority which is ultimately God’s. They find it to be almost a form of shirk (idolatry) to blindly rely on human transmission and understanding of God’s will. They would rather trust their reason and rely on their intentions in order to please God.
The difference is in how we think we can know God.
How does a person arrive at the first type of belief? By some sort of arbitrary subjective process, like an accident of birth, no? Or at best they can try to be objective and use reason to get there. But reason has more in common with the second type of belief. So at some point the reason has to stop and the blind acceptance has to begin. When, and why, should that happen?
And what happens if, once you stop using your reason, new rules are learnt and taken on board which actually would have been rejected if you were still using your reason? Isn’t that kind of dangerous?
Rules and rituals can be attractive, maybe because of the security and guidance they provide. But in the extreme they can be quite confining and unreasonable. But then the alternative – not having any certainty – can be too scary or difficult or impossible to contemplate.
If I’m pushed, I have to sit on the fence: I think traditional understandings of religion, combined with reason and faith, can be helpful to us. Faith is not certainty; it is not about blindly and uncritically accepting anything; there is no grounds for a pretence of certainty, in my view. I read recently that zeal is an expression of being troubled by doubt, and I wasn’t sure if I agreed, but in this context perhaps it is true.
Honestly, sometimes I would love to be the first type of believer, because it seems like plain sailing. I am troubled by doubt. I have tried to be that type of zealous believer and not been able to. I have flirted with the idea of trying again, and not been able to. And I worry that it is the only way to please God after all, because sometimes it seems that that’s what religions teach. And plus I’m so frickin’ lonely out here on the outside, seemingly losing readers because I am not able to be a zealous believer and people don’t like it.
Oh well, on with the struggle.
“How to Read the Bible”
I have finished reading “How to Read the Bible” by Richard Holloway, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has given me lots of scholarly insights that I didn’t know, as well as some of the author’s own interesting thoughts. His writing style is very readable – it’s as formal as it needs to be, with the freshness of well-placed informalities lifting the tone. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the Bible – it’s very short and easy to read. And don’t be put off by him questioning the existence of God quite early on – it’s not written with an atheist agenda. 🙂
There are 5 “topics” that have come out of it for me and I think I’ll squeeze them all into one post:
- Idolatry
- Suffering in God’s cause
- Writing theology into history
- Morality in religion
- Psychology of Paul
1. Idolatry
“Jerusalem… became God’s greatest rival [for the affection of the Jews].” This brings back memories. Loving God’s gifts more than God himself is a danger that I was taught to be concerned about. In my church, worship just meant adoration, and so anyone or anything that we had a strong liking for became a potential idol. I put away a Lauryn Hill CD for the 40 days of Lent, for this reason. It seems like there could be other definitions of worship, though. I would love to hear yours, readers (if I still have any!)
The book describes Jesus as preaching a strict monotheism, which is a defining feature of Judaism and Islam (and arguably Christianity too). In Islam it is known as tawheed. I am interested in what violates it – to Christians, the Trinity (a 3-persons-in-1 view of God) does not, but to Muslims, it does. I think there is a difference between saying that Jesus was a human incarnation of God, and saying that there is more than one God. Even polytheism can bear some resemblance to monotheism when, like in Hinduism, there is one ultimate overarching reality known as God above all lesser deities. But all of these are categorically wrong from the points of view of Judaism and Islam, where God is utterly transcendent and nothing may be compared to him. I suppose what it boils down to in Islam and Judaism is that the worship of created things – nature, people, blessings, heaven, human creations – instead of the Creator offends God greatly. But again, it begs the question of what worship actually is.
2. Suffering in God’s cause
The book discusses the problem suffering poses to all faiths, which is beyond the scope of this post. I just wanted to note that it occurred to me lately that one of the huge obstacles to my submission to God, namely, fear that it will require me to suffer in some way beyond what I can deal with, makes a lot of sense in the face of a belief that even God’s own perfect son had to die for the sins of the world. Muslims say that God does not test us beyond what we can bear, but I don’t think I dare believe that. I know my own weakness too well.
3. Writing theology into history
The book discusses the aim or thesis of each of the gospel writers, and how this influenced their story-telling at the expense of historical accuracy in some cases. Christian theology as we know it today didn’t emerge until Paul converted, and it was then worked into the gospel stories retrospectively when they came to be written down. This sounds very dishonest, but I don’t get the impression from this book or from Idris Tawfiq the other day that it was intentional. It makes me wonder how easy it is to be faithful to history when we have a well-developed retrospective understanding of it. What might this say about hadiths for example?
4. Morality in religion
The link between God and goodness happened around the 8th century BCE. It was not always obvious that God cared about ethics. Previously people just made animal sacrifices to win the favour of God. But eventually an ethic of compassion emerged, which Holloway says Jesus later emphasised as the “universal human ethic”. In other words, our selfish side is bad and our altruistic side is good.
“Though he probably wasn’t a Marxist, God was certainly a socialist who wanted more mutuality and less competition in society.”
I think this is worth some more thought. Another post maybe.
The message of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, Holloway says, is not some naive platitude but a subversive reversal of the existing brutal order of things. Jesus congratulates and values the destitute, the utterly powerless, those outside the “system”, and proclaims that they are innocent precisely because they are not implicated in a system of power which victimises people. They can turn the other cheek and so on because they have no need to react as those who have something to protect. That is still a hugely subversive message today, and something of an antidote to the Darwinian capitalistic mindset that has pervaded our societies.
In regard to religious moral codes and law, Jesus has a “general but not unconditional acceptance” of the temple cult. He is not a letter-of-the-law type. He is criticised for his relaxed approach to observing the Sabbath, for example. Holloway clearly approves:
“It is true that we need moral and religious systems to protect us from the chaos of our passions; but if we give them transcendent and unchanging authority they become a greater danger to us than the unfettered passions they are supposed to curb. An unalterable code can close us against ordinary pity for our fellows, and cause us to treat them not as humans, but as abstractions, as things.”
5. Psychology of Paul
A complex psychology lay behind Paul’s dramatic conversion to Christianity. What interested me was the idea that, as a zealous Jew with a strong and tortured sense of his own weakness and failure to live perfectly by the religious law that he so revered, he projected his self-hatred onto those who didn’t even try to live up to the letter of the law – i.e. the followers of Jesus. I can actually see something of myself in that. Paul could not be moderate about anything, and was clearly a perfectionist, which are tendencies I can relate to. I can also relate to the frustrated sense of failure and weakness, and so I can understand the projection of that self-loathing onto others who have similar failings or even worse, yet don’t seem to care.
Of course Paul then converted, and arrived at a solution for his angst in the idea that Jesus had fulfilled the law for him, something he could not do for himself. In taking Christianity outside of Judaism, Paul divorced the ritual from the moral, leaving the ritual behind, so that the “law” for Christians consists of moral exhortations only. This goes some way towards explaining why Christians regard themselves as “not under law” but at the same time make huge efforts to live up to a moral standard.
This 5-posts-in-1 has become pretty long, so I’ll stop there! I may repost this on my other blog at some point, so for anyone that reads that, apologies in advance for cross-posting.
Evangelism: mosque and church
It has been interesting to observe the differences between the evangelism activities of the mosque and those of the church.
Firstly, both concentrate on presenting information, but only the church includes an invitation to participate.
The church’s structured evangelism campaigns always include open services, maybe to encourage non-believers to join in and hopefully find meaning in it, but also I think to “show off” what it’s like. The mosque exhibition includes a demonstration of prayer so I suppose that is a similar thing, but without the invitation to join in. I think inviting people to participate in both situations could make some people pretty uncomfortable, but more so for the mosque.
Which brings me on to the second point. The expected attitude of non-believers seems to be quite different between the two, and accurately so. In church, the emphasis was on combating the idea that Christianity is boring, irrelevant, and old-fashioned. Hence all the technicolour, modern music, and testimonies of joy. In the mosque, on the other hand, they seem to be keenly aware of the possibility of hostility.
In a talk I attended on women’s issues, I expected a defiant celebration of women’s rights and roles in Islam, but I found the presentation much more apologetic towards modern “equality” culture. It was almost reluctantly that the speaker mentioned, for example, that women can actually value the protection of men in some situations. The poor lady got some quite aggressive questions from non-Muslim men, the anticipation of which had clearly motivated the apologetic stance in the first place. I found myself longing for someone to stand up and sing the praises of hijab or something, but no-one took up the speaker’s invitation to chime in. I was so disconcerted I actually stuck my own hand up and asked her to comment on the fact that the majority of converts to Islam in the west are female. She then asked for input from any of the converts in the room: one woman said that she was not comfortable to comment in front of the audience but would be happy to talk one-to-one; no-one else had anything to say besides the speaker, who spoke of the appeal of Islam in general rather than anything specific to women.
In the talk on Jesus which I mentioned in my last post, the speaker took the first 15 minutes or so just to regale us with anecdotes from meetings he’d had with religious leaders of different faiths throughout the world, which were entertaining and set a relaxed tone, but more importantly, strongly underlined his initial statement that he had no axe to grind about the Church or any other religion and had a friendly attitude to all. When he finished the talk and the floor was opened for questions, he mentioned that he was not feeling well and requested that we “be nice to him”. Once again, this proved an apt expectation of hostility.
From all this I am realising that it is very difficult to speak boldly and positively about Islam here, because there are people that come along just to criticise and condemn, and I see that this mosque is actually doing quite a remarkable thing opening its doors in the face of that.
Reason and passion revisited
I am attending a few talks at a mosque, which are held in the main prayer hall while men come and go to offer prayers in the other side of the hall, their audible invocations occasionally echoing across the high-ceilinged room. It’s a remarkably inviting atmosphere.
The one I’ve been particularly waiting for, about Jesus, was delivered by British Catholic-priest-turned-Muslim, Idris Tawfiq. What an opportunity!
I found him to be a skilled speaker and a warm, likeable person. He started by stressing that he had no axe to grind about the Church, but intended merely to reflect on his own journey towards Muslim belief. He went on to describe Islam as being not a religion founded by a historical figure called Muhammad, but a natural state of submission to God which has found expression in a variety of ways over the ages. This is one of my favourite things about Islam – so beautiful. In fact if I was sure that was all Islam was, I would embrace it right now. Later, in response to a question about the status of faiths outside the Abrahamic traditions, he was more generous than I’ve heard many people of the Abrahamic faiths be. He said that while belief in more than one God is wrong, he feels that God does speak to people and any goodness in their traditions has to be from God.
Regarding Jesus, he discussed how the Biblical account of what transpired in Eden differs from the Quranic account in that God did not forgive Adam and Eve, and so people have been trying to atone for their sins ever since. This culminated in the belief in a superhuman act of salvation. That was interesting but I’m not sure the difference is so stark, in practice. He then delved into the history of Christianity and of gospel-writing, which he dealt with very diplomatically and generously, but ultimately concluded that the belief in the divinity of Jesus arose out of an exaggerated love for him by his followers and not out of the teachings of Jesus himself. This mirrors what I happened to read last night in “How to Read the Bible” by Richard Holloway (which someone lent me and so far, is a great read, a sort of review of Biblical scholarship).
This sort of continues my prior questioning on how relevant history is. I was veering towards the notion that we can discern truth and falsehood without recourse to history. But history is also convincing. One of the slightly aggressive Christian questioners in the audience (there were a few) asserted that faith and the Holy Spirit are what verify Christian belief. This reliance on feeling cannot be argued with, which is precisely what the speaker said in response. But clearly, feeling leads different people to different conclusions. So perhaps history and reason has to constrain feeling, to some extent. Truth may be found in the tension between reason and passion.
My enchantment with the idea of a primordial belief and way of being is a result of my reason and my feeling. And what is primordial to me from my early memory is a belief in God and a belief that God and goodness are linked. A belief that praying to God makes you a better person. That is all I have to hold onto. Whether I choose to express it in terms of redemption through faith, or in terms of returning to the Source, almost doesn’t make any difference.
Lately I have been wondering whether I should primarily regard this intrinsic belief as my religion, rather than focusing my efforts on picking a religion from a range of pre-set options. Perhaps I should even identify myself as Muslim on the basis that true Islam (in the generic sense) describes what I believe in pretty well, and practical Islam (the religion) along with other faiths are an attempt to realise true Islam. There is no need to choose between Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, because elements have been preserved from all revelations and it is all good. Reason and feeling together show us what is good in amongst what is artificial or distorted by history.
Does this mean I am actually starting to trust myself?? 😀
Some thoughts on religious knowledge
Islam places great emphasis on knowledge, which I’ve always found comforting and satisfying in comparison with Christianity’s emphasis on the more subjective “voice” of God. Islamic theology is simple and holds up well in an argument, which is probably why Christians revert to the subjective to verify their theology every time.
In most religions, a degree of knowledge at least is necessary. You can’t believe in a religion if you don’t know about it. But how do we authenticate our knowledge?
I was thinking last night about how completely different religious knowledge is from scientific knowledge, because there is no broad consensus. In science, there is enormous consensus on matters that are well established, because enough observations have been made to prove them beyond reasonable doubt. Religion is not like that. Religious claims cannot be verified by running more experiments or gathering more data.
In the absence of a living prophet, the source of knowledge about a religion is always in historical texts. (In fact for most of us, our knowledge is second-hand because we are not able to go directly to the historical texts.) And so the gathering of knowledge in religion – did this really happen, was this really said – is more akin to the discipline of history than that of science.
(Of course there is more to deciding about the truth of religion than just establishing what is historically authentic. A decision about truth in terms of divine inspiration goes beyond knowledge. But knowledge is what I am concentrating on here.)
The religious texts are so old that historical research methodologies are naturally going to struggle to bring about consensus. For example, Christians believe that the gospel documents authentically demonstrate that Jesus fulfilled Jewish messianic prophecies. But if that were proveable beyond reasonable doubt, there would be no Jews today who reject Jesus as messiah. How can a lay person possibly decide?
And this is where I start to wonder… if God wanted the world to know things, why is it so difficult? Why would God tie necessary knowledge to history, whereby the fallible human processes of transmission and replication make it impossible to be sure of it, and whereby lay people are rendered utterly dependent on fallible scholars to extract the truth? What of people like my mother-in-law who is illiterate – where is she to get knowledge from? What of people living in remote parts of the world with no connection to any prophetic tradition? Are we meant to ensure that everyone gets access to truth by equipping everyone to read and analyse the sources of knowledge? Even if that were achieved… does truth stand out clearly from error?
Maybe there is another type of knowledge that is written in our hearts… an understanding of right and wrong… a natural cause-and-effect where that which is bad leads us to ruin, and that which is good brings us contentment and peace.
In that case, did God really need to send prophets and messengers? If God did, is the message detailed and specific, or is it simple and general? I feel that I have to go with simple and general, complementary to our natural knowledge. The details, which differ from one religious tradition to another, are difficult to choose between in a rational way. Perhaps they just existed to make people feel secure. Perhaps they were never meant to be universal.
I find it hard to believe that my mother-in-law’s prayer would be greatly enhanced by a detailed knowledge of the fiqh of prayer.
Where does that leave me… I guess, looking for inspiration in scriptures. Looking for truth beyond knowledge.
Fasting
I am going to try and fast Ramadan this year. I’ll take a bit of time off work to make it a little easier and allow me to get more reading done.
I am looking forward to the challenge, but also knowing that there is a high chance I will fail at some point. I have fasted whole days in the past, but never more than one day in a row. I think I have to be realistic about the fact that my willpower might give out, and resolve to not get downhearted if it happens, but pick myself up and try again the next day.
When I joined the pentecostal church at 19, and I got to hear about fasting, it was so new and radical to me. I remember being in a conversation about fasting, and being brave enough to ask the “why” question – at which point an uncomfortable silence fell as their faces clocked the realisation that there was an impostor in the ranks! It had just never been a part of my prior Church of Scotland experience. Traditional church gives people a really easy ride.
I enjoyed fasting with the church. I experienced it as stepping out of my comfort zone to reach out to God. I learnt to fast off my own bat when I felt the need, too. Unfortunately my fast was always part of a supplication for something specific. I had learnt that fasting was a tool in badgering God for what I wanted, which sowed seeds of disappointment. Is fasting for the hope of a reward in the afterlife any better? I suppose it is better, but the best motivation would be just to please God and grow more conscious of God, I think.
So now, I simply intend on breaking my enslavement to satiety; experiencing in a renewed way my fragility and utter dependence on sustenance; rediscovering gratitude for the simple fulfilment of a simple need. God knows I take so much for granted.
I want to choose the path of hope and enlightenment. I don’t want to be told I can’t do it by anyone, not even the voice in my head.
I want to choose the path of hope and enlightenment. I tried, I had setbacks, I get bogged down with worries over the details of religion… but I’m still trying.
Wrestling With Religion 