Taking stock â and a break
This time last year I had got quite interested in blogs. I was also seriously thinking about Islam. I’m not sure whether one of these things caused the other, or how it all happened, but I remember going through a phase of almost obsessively seeking out new blogs written by Muslims. One blog leads to many others through blogrolls and comments, and so I traversed the blogosphere looking for… looking for what? I suppose I was looking for role models.
I had been assimilating information about Islam for years, but somehow I began to seriously think about it on a personal level. And I used blogs to vicariously “taste” Islam through other people’s writing. It took me a long time to find bloggers whose approach to religion I really resonated with, and who were also open to discussing religion with me. It was worth the wait. Some are Muslim, some are/were just investigating it like me, but all are thoughtful and honest and have inspired me. I am so grateful to them for sharing their thoughts and giving me a chance to do the same, however much of a headache my questions must have given them. I doubt I would have come this far towards religion without them.
It wasn’t enough, though, to find religious role models and simply copy them. It felt intellectually dishonest to be picking and choosing which kind of Muslim I thought I might want to be. Ultimately I have had to investigate the religion, in as unbiased a way as I can, and work out what I thought it was really all about. As I have done this, the picture of Islam that has emerged is actually surprisingly different from the “textbook Islam” impression I had at the start. I’ve found reason to believe that what Islam is is something quite beautiful.
I must have always thought it was beautiful, or I wouldn’t have investigated it so much. Interestingly I think the “rules” were one of the things that pulled me in initially, along with the easy and natural spirituality that seemed to be at the core of a Muslim’s life. The rules and rituals seemed so helpful and sensible. But when people take them to rigid extremes and nit-pick over them, they lose a lot of their appeal. It turns out I don’t think they are even a core part of the religion for the most part, but a traditional practice, that is nevertheless useful and worthwhile. This is a subtle but significant distinction.
I know this puts me outside of the mainstream, and so far it’s non-Muslims that have needed this explaining more often. Who’d have thought I’d have non-Muslims telling me what Islam is? Since I never believed Muslims on what Islam is, and had to investigate it myself, I’m certainly not going to believe non-Muslims.
Anyway, so where has it brought me? There are always more issues to investigate, more questions to find answers to, and this is increasingly pushing me to research areas in which I am not qualified to do the job properly. I just cannot dig that deep. Where does it end? Is this even worthwhile past a certain point? Am I looking for definitive proof? Is that available? Probably not.
When and how will convictions turn into confident commitment? When and how will I be convinced to put my eggs in a basket and place a bet for my afterlife?
It is just my nature to be full of fear and doubt. And maybe what I’ve learnt about conquering other fears is relevant here. When you are afraid of flying, the wrong way to try to get rid of the fear is by trying to convince yourself that the plane is not going to crash. You look for reassurance, going deeper and deeper into flight mechanics and safety regulations, and there is no reassurance to be had, because there are just no guarantees that your plane is not going to crash. The right way to overcome the fear is to become comfortable with the UNCERTAINTY. You take sensible precautions like only booking with reputable airlines and paying attention to the safety instructions, and leave it at that. Relax and enjoy your flight and focus on the purpose of your travel.
My worrying over making a wrong choice has reached almost pathological levels. It’s funny how I can look at religious people and feel sure they’ve got nothing to worry about. To the person who’s afraid of flying, when someone else is taking a flight, it seems perfectly safe.
So I’m going to stop worrying and concentrate on the purpose of my travel – the kind of person I want to become. I will trust God to guide me, and get comfortable with doubt and uncertainty and not wish them away.
And I’ve noticed that my blog has become primarily a place for me to indulge my worries, so I need to take a little break from it. I think I will try to stay away for the whole month of December. Long enough to break the habit. I will miss it terribly, I’m sure! But a break seems to be the best thing.
So a Merry Christmas when the time comes, to those who celebrate… and I’ll see you in the New Year inshaAllah đ
How detailed is the truth?
There are many different religious beliefs, and practices, and communities, and “paths”. Yet I think everyone would agree there can only be one truth. Contradictory things cannot be true simultaneously.
The only way we differ is in how sharply we define that truth.
You could believe there are many paths to God and all are of equal value. Then you would have to take the contents of each religion with a big pinch of salt, because most religions claim only they are the right path. You would have to take a fairly detached, philosophical perspective on it all.
Or you could believe the details matter and therefore there is only one right path. You would have to be convinced on that religion being right on all points where it differs with other religions.
I am a bit schizophrenic about this. On one hand, I can’t bring myself to say only one belief system is right and the rest are doomed. But on the other, I am engrossed in picking over the details of religions to see whether they make sense and if they could be inspired by God. With the implication being that I don’t want to join a religion unless I think it is “of God”.
I suppose the split is caused by believing that we can all come to know the truth naturally (we are born muslim, we have fitrah, or in Christian terms, the law is written on our hearts) – but at the same time, believing that God sends explicit guidance. And of course I’d rather belong to a religion that consists of well-preserved guidance from God than one based on mere human intuition.
I met a woman at a Sufi workshop who had tried a number of different spiritual practices before she “found” Sufism. It just agreed with her personality, the dancing and everything, and she felt she had found her spiritual home. At the time I was gobsmacked that someone would make a decision like that based on a feeling. But now I realise that it is really a matter of confidence – confidence in oneself not to need any particular detailed guidance, and so not needing to seriously investigate religious beliefs. I’m putting words in her mouth, but I’d say she probably believes that there is no important information in any religion beyond those things that are common to all spiritual paths. So no need to worry.
I kind of wish I could be sure of that too. It would save me a lot of headaches.
Worship â rituals and feelings
From Chapter 2 of “Struggling to Surrender” by Jeffrey Lang:
“After the first euphoria of conversion, there comes a stage where the rituals become routine and burdensome. As I said earlier, new believers will report that they find them to be a powerful test and strengthener of will. Later, they will say, the rituals become less of a discipline and more of an experience of peace, and this becomes their primary motivator in praying, fasting, and observing other aspects. At a further stage, and this is in conjunction with their persistent daily striving to better themselves, they will say that the rituals, especially the prayers, have become a very powerful emotional and spritual encounter – a time during which they are acutely alert to God’s presence, wherein the ritual is more an act of love, a divine embrace, and it is that love that comes to dominate their lives. For Muslims, the rituals are a door to a breath of life, a life more real and meaningful than anything here on earth, and eventually this thirst for divine life and love conquers them.”
I don’t often see people discussing their experience of worship. It is much more common to focus on discussing external matters such as rules and morals.
So I thought I’d open up that door with this encouraging quote. Do you agree with it? Have you ever struggled with the feelings side of worship, and with motivation? How do you deal?
Personally it took me a little while to take on the salaah ritual and really use it as a medium to express myself. It was a bit of a “culture shock” at first. Then I started to get into it. Having had a different tradition in the past, it’s interesting to compare. I miss singing as part of worship, in a way. But then I see nothing wrong with singing to God as the Sufis do, so I think I could do that as a Muslim if I wanted. Also I could learn proper tajweed (recitation) which is quite melodic. Something that is new for me is the movements – bowing and prostrating. And I love that. I really didn’t realise physical movements and postures could be so powerful.
I like the refreshing feeling of wudu (ablution) but honestly it can be annoying when the weather is cold and I’m all bundled up in winter clothes. I can never do it without getting part of my clothing wet. I think as well that there is a deeper spiritual significance to it that I haven’t grasped emotionally. I just do it without being very mindful of what I’m doing or why.
It was when I had started to pray with so much force and khushoo that it all went down the tube for me and I was in a panic of doubt all of a sudden. Some would say this was shaytan, and I don’t know what to think. Questions came thick and fast and I felt unsure of religion, and hence, unsure of God. Praying has been more of a struggle since then.
I think convictions are important and when we have them, we should hold onto them, because feelings are fickle things that are just inclined to make us unstable. I am still forming my convictions, looking for them in amongst the mess of history and tradition. That takes as long as it takes. But I feel so vulnerable, and I am trying to hold onto God. I just pray God holds onto me.
So we force ourselves to be sensible and rational, and not get sidetracked by petty issues just because they make us feel anxious. Over time and with worship rituals we train our emotions to support what we believe. We reinforce our beliefs and we challenge our hearts, nudging them five times a day towards consciousness of God. That’s what I think it is about.
Prayer times
The calculation of prayer and fasting times based on the movement of the sun does not work universally. Even where I am in the UK, based on using an angle of depression of 15 degrees, Fajr and Isha disappear in the middle of summer. I don’t know how they calculate the times in those periods. It’s a mystery. I have tried to discover how it’s done and I have failed.
Right now, the prayer times are so close together that it’s quite difficult to get them all done on time, especially if you have appointments in the afternoon.
The prayer times are not made explicit in the Quran but they are alluded to in terms of the sun’s position. And of course it’s expressed in those terms. It could not have said “pray at 6 o’clock in the morning” because there was no such thing. There weren’t clocks! There was the sun.
That method works in that region. In extending the practice to other regions, there are two intuitive ways to go. You can keep the method the same, or you can keep the clock times calculated using the method the same (with a simple translation based on longitude). The former doesn’t work universally. I think the latter is a better way to go. It results in using the same prayer times, fasting durations etc. that the prophet and his followers used. Tried, tested and approved.
But who am I, right? I mean, I could choose to use Saudi Arabia’s times for prayer and fasting all year round, but I’d be considered a heretic. And Muslim unity would certainly be compromised if everyone just followed what they thought was best. It’s a shame though. Fasting doesn’t even feel like fasting at this time of year. And I go weak at the knees at the thought of Ramadan falling in the summer.
Jesus in the Quran
My intention in this post is to give some Quranic verses and commentary from Muhammad Asad about Jesus. My intention is not to present my own views about Jesus. I would prefer not to get into any debates about the divinity of Jesus or other headaches like that.
The reason I want to post these is that they give what I think is a very reasonable account of Jesus within the context of the Islamic picture. (Whether it’s reasonable generally, I’m not going to say.) The interpretation differs from some Islamic concepts I’ve heard about Jesus, but I had difficulty assimilating those concepts into Islam, so I was interested by what I read here.
Firstly, the Quran seems to use Christian language – words that could be translated as “holy spirit” and so on – but seems to mean different things by it than what Christians mean, as explained. I’ve noticed this in other passages; it seems to reproduce previous scripture while narrowing and refining the definitions.
2:87 For, indeed, We vouchsafed unto Moses the divine writ and caused apostle after apostle to follow him; and We vouchsafed unto Jesus, the son of Mary, all evidence of the truth, and strengthened him with holy inspiration.*
* This rendering of ruh al-qudus (lit., “the spirit of holiness”) is based on the recurring use in the Qur’an of the term ruh in the sense of “divine inspiration”. It is also recorded that the Prophet invoked the blessing of the ruh al-qudus on his Companion, the poet Hassan ibn Thabit (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dd’ud and Tirmidhi): just as the Qur’an (58: 22) speaks of all believers as being “strengthened by inspiration (ruh) from Him”.
Here we see Jesus referred to as God’s word, but meaning really just the fulfilment of God’s promise:
4:171 O FOLLOWERS of the Gospel! Do not overstep the bounds [of truth] in your religious beliefs,* and do not say of God anything but the truth. The Christ Jesus, son of Mary, was but God’s Apostle – [the fulfilment of] His promise which He had conveyed unto Mary – and a soul created by Him.** Believe, then, in God and His apostles, and do not say, “[God is] a trinity”. Desist [from this assertion] for your own good. God is but One God; utterly remote is He, in His glory, from having a son: unto Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth; and none is as worthy of trust as God.
* I.e., by raising Jesus to the rank of divinity. Since here the Christians are addressed specifically, I render the term kitab as “Gospel”.
** Lit., “His word which He conveyed unto Mary and a soul from Him”. According to Tabari, the “word” (kalimah) was “the announcement (risalah) which God bade the angels to convey to Mary, and God’s glad tiding to her” (a reference to 3: 45) – which justifies the rendering of kalimatuhu as “[the fulfilment of] His promise”. (See also note on 3: 39.) As regards the expression, “a soul from Him” or “created by Him”, it is to be noted that among the various meanings which the word ruh bears in the Qurâan (e.g., “inspiration” in 2: 87 and 253), it is also used in its primary significance of “breath of life”, “soul”, or “spirit”: thus, for instance, in 32: 9, where the ever-recurring evolution of the human embryo is spoken of: “and then He forms him [i.e., man] and breathes into him of His spirit” – that is, endows him with a conscious soul which represents God’s supreme gift to man and is, therefore, described as “a breath of His spirit”. In the verse under discussion, which stresses the purely human nature of Jesus and refutes the belief in his divinity, the Qurâan points out that Jesus, like all other human beings, was “a soul created by Him”.
The virgin birth was something I could not understand in an Islamic context. Somehow I managed to completely miss the footnotes the first time around, but I already started to notice that the Quran doesn’t explicitly say Jesus was born to a virgin. It turns out on closer inspection that Muhammad Asad concurs with this.
19:19 [The angel] answered: âI am but a messenger of thy Sustainer, [who says,] âI shall bestow upon thee the gift of a son endowed with purity.â â 19:20 Said she: âHow can I have a son when no man has ever touched me? – for, never have I been a loose woman!â 19:21 [The angel] answered: âThus it is; [but! thy Sustainer says, âThis is easy for me*; and [thou shalt have a son,] so that We might make him a symbol unto mankind and an act of grace from Us.â â And it was a thing decreed [by God]: 19:22 and in time she conceived him, and then she withdrew with him to a far-off place.
* Cf. the identical phrase in verse 9 above, relating to the announcement of Johnâs birth to Zachariah. In both these cases, the implication is that God can and does bring about events, which may be utterly unexpected or even inconceivable before they materialize. In connection with the announcement of a son to Mary, the Quran states in 3:47 that ââwhen He wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, âBeâ – and it isââ: but since neither the Quran nor any authentic Tradition tells us anything about the chain of causes and effects (asbab) which Godâs decree âBeââ was to bring into being, all speculation as to the âhowâ of this event must remain beyond the scope of a Quran-commentary. (But see also note on 21:91.)
It says to see 21:91, so here that is too. This is a verse that could easily be misconstrued as supporting the virgin birth if it was read with that in mind as a preconception:
21:91 AND [remember] her who guarded her chastity, whereupon We breathed into her of Our spirit*
and caused her, together with her son, to become a symbol [of Our grace] unto all people.* This allegorical expression, used here with reference to Maryâs conception of Jesus, has been widely – and erroneously – interpreted as relating specifically to his birth. As a matter of fact, the Quran uses the same expression in three other places with reference to the creation of man in general – namely in 15:29 and 38:72, âwhen I have formed him⌠and breathed into him of My spiritâ and in 32:9, âand thereupon He forms [lit., âformedâ] him fully and breathes [lit., âbreathedââ] into him of His spiritâ. In particular, the passage of which the last-quoted phrase is a part (i.e., 32:7-9) makes it abundantly and explicitly clear that God âbreathes of His spiritâ into every human being. Commenting on the verse under consideration, Zamakhshari states that âthe breathing of the spirit [of God] into a body signifies the endowing it with lifeââ: an explanation with, which Razi concurs. (In this connection, see also note on 4:171.) As for the description of Mary as allati ahsanat farjaha, idiomatically denoting ââone who guarded her chastityâ (lit., âher private partsâ) it is to be borne in mind that the term ihsan – lit., ââ[oneâs] being fortified [against any danger or evil]â – has the tropical meaning of âabstinence from what is unlawful or reprehenÂsibleââ (Taj al-Arus), and especially from illicit sexual intercourse, and is applied to a man as well as a woman: thus, for instance, the terms muhsan and muhsanah are used elsewhere in the Quran to describe, respectively, a man or a woman who is âfortified [by marriage] against unchastityâ. Hence, the expression allati ahsanat farjaha, occurring in the above verse as well as in 66:12 with reference to Mary, is but meant to stress her outstanding chastity and complete abstinence, in thought as well as in deed, from anything unlawful or morally reprehensible: in other words, a rejection of the calumny (referred to in 4:156 and obliquely alluded to in 19:27-28) that the birth of Jesus was the result of an âillicit unionâ.
OK, so potentially no virgin birth… what about death? I’m sure we’ve all heard the Islamic concept that Jesus did not die, but take a look at this.
3:55 Lo! God said: “O Jesus! Verily, I shall cause thee to die, and shall exalt thee unto Me, and cleanse thee of [the presence of] those who are bent on denying the truth; and I shall place those who follow thee [far] above those who are bent on denying the truth, unto the Day of Resurrection. In the end, unto Me you all must return, and I shall judge between you with regard to all on which you were wont to differ.
It’s pretty clear, isn’t it? But then in the following verse the Quran appears to deny the crucifixion. At a Sufi workshop I was told that this verse had, in the past, been understood to mean that Jesus went willingly to the cross (and so nobody forcibly killed him). The interpretation by Muhammad Asad, on the other hand, is that the crucifixion did not happen at all and was a legend, and so the means of Jesus’ death is left unspecified.
4:157 and their boast, “Behold, we have slain the Christ Jesus, son of Mary, [who claimed to be] an apostle of God!” However, they did not slay him, and neither did they crucify him, but it only seemed to them [as if it had been] so;* and, verily, those who hold conflictÂing views thereon are indeed confused, having no [real] knowledge thereof, and following mere conÂjecture. For, of a certainty, they did not slay him: 4:158 nay, God exalted him unto Himself** – and God is indeed almighty, wise.
* Thus, the Qurâan categorically denies the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. There exist, among Muslims, many fanciful legends telling us that at the last moment God substituted for Jesus a person closely resembling him (according to some accounts, that person was Judas), who was subsequently crucified in his place. However, none of these legends finds the slightest support in the Qurâan or in authentic Traditions, and the stories produced in this connection by the classical commentators must be summarily rejected. They represent no more than confused attempts at “harmonizing” the Qurâanic statement that Jesus was not crucified with the graphic description, in the Gospels, of his crucifixion. The story of the crucifixion as such has been succinctly explained in the Qurâanic phrase wa-lakin shubbiha lahum, which I render as “but it only appeared to them as if it had been so” – implying that in the course of time, long after the time of Jesus, a legend had somehow grown up (possibly under the then-powerful influence of Mithraistic beliefs) to the effect that he had died on the cross in order to atone for the “original sin” with which mankind is allegedly burdened; and this legend became so firmly established among the latter-day followers of Jesus that even his enemies, the Jews, began to believe it – albeit in a derogatory sense (for crucifixion was, in those times, a heinous form of death-penalty reserved for the lowest of criminals). This, to my mind, is the only satisfactory explanation of the phrase wa-lakin shubbiha lahum, the more so as the expression shubbiha li is idiomatically synonymous with khuyyila 1i, “[a thing] became a fancied image to me”, i.e., “in my mind” – in other words, “[it] seemed to me” (see Qamus, art. khayala, as well as Lane II, 833, and IV, 1500).
** Cf. 3: 55, where God says to Jesus, “Verily, I shall cause thee to die, and shall exalt thee unto Me.” The verb rafa ahu (lit., “he raised him” or “elevated him”) has always, whenever the act of rafâ (“elevating”) of a human being is attributed to God, the meaning of “honouring” or “exalting”. Nowhere in the Qurâan is there any warrant for the popular belief that God has “taken up” Jesus bodily, in his lifetime, into heaven. The expression “God exalted him unto Himself” in the above verse denotes the elevation of Jesus to the realm of God’s special grace – a blessing in which all prophets partake, as is evident from 19: 57, where the verb rafa nahu (“We exalted him”) is used with regard to the Prophet Idris. (See also Muhammad âAbduh in Manar III, 316 f., and VI, 20f.) The “nay” (bal) at the beginning of the sentence is meant to stress the contrast between the belief of the Jews that they had put Jesus to a shameful death on the cross and the fact of God’s having “exalted him unto Himself”.
Again, I don’t want to discuss whether or not this is plausible. I just wanted to show what the Quran says and how this might be interpreted. My main point is that what Asad calls “fanciful legends” about Jesus within the Islamic tradition find no basis in the Quran. Another concept which is absent from the Quran is the idea of the second coming of Christ. I would guess that comes from hadiths, whether strong or not I don’t know.
Doubt
Do you ever have days where you don’t know if you believe in God?
Perhaps I am an emotional decision-maker after all, because when doubts come knocking, intellectual convictions aren’t enough to prop me up. Or maybe I am just suffering severe anxiety and the clouding of the rational mind that comes with that.
I am beginning to worry that questioning and digging deeper only destroys religious belief. I’ve already knocked out one faith through questioning and applying reason. Maybe there just isn’t a faith out there that can prove itself beyond all reasonable doubt to be just what it says on the tin.
But I can’t turn my back on my convictions, nothing makes sense otherwise. And part of my convictions is that religions are the result of God communicating with us and showing himself. So maybe I will just have to swallow the bitter pill of uncertainty.
Worry
“Great article. I found the tips on how to manage worry to be quite helpful. My favorite is letting go of needing to know and learn to be comfortable with uncertainty.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-we-worry
There are many things I could worry about. But it’s always religion that gets it.
This just seems to happen episodically. It happened about 3 weeks ago, and I see that it happened a month before that too.
When it happens, I feel as if I am about to have to abandon all my beliefs, however rational and deep the convictions, over a little issue that throws it all into question. Like now it’s Muhammad’s marriage to Zainab, and last month it was the fact that the Quran appears mostly addressed to men. I forget what it was the month before that.
These little issues just cast an enormous shadow of doubt over everything else that I’ve become convinced about, and send me into a spiral of anxiety. Maybe this is a totally inordinate response. Maybe I need to learn to let go of needing to know everything, and be comfortable with the uncertainty.
I want to go and buy that issue of SciAm Mind so I can find out what causes this. Either it means something is seriously wrong with my approach to religion, or this is a personal trait of mine (or perhaps a particular way that I respond to the general uncertainty in my life). I don’t think I ever doubted this severely in the past, but then, back at age 18-21 I was a lot more courageous and flexible and not so worried about a lot of things.
Maybe what this means is that I still haven’t established an emotional conclusion about the question of religion. The emotions only come in when I worry and doubt, and I can’t calm them with the experience of better emotions. I am not getting an emotional conviction, just an intellectual one.
The negative emotions pass and then the urgency to seek an answer to the question dissolves as well. Because when I break out of the spiral and calm down, it doesn’t seem such a threatening thing. It would be easier to force myself out of the spiral if I had previously arrived at a conclusion that I was determined to hold onto. But I am still in a mentality of making my mind up. I don’t want to cast any questions out of my mind. I think all questions are valid. I even question whether there is ever a reason to feel sure of anything, or to commit to a belief or a way of thinking.
Wrestling With Religion 