Now I’m learning something…

I’m going out on the extreme limb of my religious knowledge here, but I’d speculate that your experience with Christianity may not be representative of all Christian experiences. The lack of initiative to question the basic tenets of one’s faith seems to be more a cultural failing than particular to one religion. I imagine that there are large portions of the global Christian (and Jewish, Hindu, etc) population who have just as inflexible and unquestioning an attitude towards their faith as the Yemenis to Islam. Remember that Islam has grand and long-lived traditions of theological debate and jurisprudence.

WAHAAAA. sorry, i haven’t been blog-reading in a while. there are so many things i want to say but i don’t know where to start.

but firstly, and most importantly,

YOU WENT TO YEMEN TO LEARN ABOUT ISLAM????? baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad mistake. man even I felt alienated in yemen. i couldn’t relate to their religion at all. that’s what really frustrated me with some of the foreigners, i found that they went there and just confirmed all of their suspicions. i mean god!!! it’s yemen!!!! everything is warped in yemen!!! most especially religion.

ok. yes, muslims do often talk about piety, but ritual is not supposed to be the focus – anything is a prayer, from hugging your mum to reading the qur’an to smiling to someone. patience is mentioned in the qur’an.. lots and lots and lots. i forget how many times, exactly. but lots. it is extremely important. what is important is how you conduct yourself. how you treat others. islam is meant (and is set out to be) a religion of ease. the prophet said that moderation is key, there is no point in exertion. you do what you can, and if you can’t do it, no biggy. just be a good person. sure, many people put great emphasis on practice, on rituals. but so do many catholics (more so than muslims i believe), and hindus, and jews, and etc. there really isn’t that much we have to do.. yes, pray 5 times a day, for what, 5 minutes each? fast, but that’s just for a month, and i personally learn a whole lot from that, not from the lack of food but from the struggle itself, it’s a month of self-awareness, by the end of it your cranky and miserable and you notice all of your crappy qualities that come out. reading the qur’an, you can read it in your own language, it’s just reading a book, i mean i’m shit at keeping to reading but i’m just lazy. plus i’m having issues with religion as well (but not because i think islam is inherently faulty, although i have issues with revelation, prophets, etc. but that’s me).

yes, i find as well that there is a tendency, not everywhere, but amongst the older generations more frequently, to focus on ritual and not meaning. that isn’t part of the religion at all. seriously, one of the most important things in islam is the acquirement of KNOWLEDGE. for both men and women. men and women should not, either of them, be denied that privilege. and understanding the religion before belief is absolutely key. with christianity, i find, correct me if i’m wrong, that one believes in christ, and then one will understand. in islam, UNDERSTANDING is so important. there is no point to belief without it. i’m not sure where this is sourced, exactly, sorry.

for the question of multiplicity of god, seeing as you were asking it, we believe in one god, period, and no one can ever or should ever be equated with or related to god, muhammad was only human, and it’s a major sin to worship muhammad (or any human) in any way (although shi’ites differ signifantly in that they have saints and regularly go to pray at their shrines).

answering your other question, about criticism, there is a deep and embedded patriarchal history to that. do you know what ijtihad is? it means independent reasoning, and basically after the prophet died it was applied (by men) through the interpretation of the qur’an and it’s translation into law (shari’ah, which is NOT the qur’an but man-made). according to historical sources there were many differing viewpoints, even back then, but during the abbasid dynasty the “gates of ijtihad” were pretty much closed, a set doctrine (which differed slightly between the 4 schools of thought, hanbali, maliki, shafi’i and hanifi) was enforced, and “no one” has really been allowed to change it since. especially women!! laws were in fact changed when it came to other dealings but family laws weren’t. so women end up suffering at the hands of a dominant patriarchy that’s been in place forever, and everyone is so goddamn scared to analyze the qur’an BECAUSE it is seen as the word of god, unchanged, and therefore, infallible. well, not everyone. people are beginning to push for reinterpretation because they (and i) believe so many of the laws just cannot be applied today the way they were that long ago. and shari’ah SHOULD be fluid because it is man-made!!! it was created by people in like i dunno 1200 AD or something.

anyway. oh yeah and also, in my mum’s culture, west sumatran, pretty much all muslim, is matrilineal – women get the inheritance (wrong by the qur’an), and women are respected there a lot more than in most muslim societies. patriarchy isn’t rife, women and men just have different roles (well, i could argue about that too but that’s another topic altogether). the point is, culture is HUGE. in yemen it is HUGE. but what frustrated me the most about it is that there is only ONE WAY to god, no other way. in yemen, there is no discussion. no dialogue. no struggle for understanding, to read god. come to melbourne, meet my friends here. i have turkish, malay, anglo aussie, chinese, lebanese, paki, friends who all practice in very different ways. and because of that we can talk about it!!! 100 years ago most muslim countries didn’t really mix, there wasn’t this rampant globalisation forcing people to question the way people see the world. and of course yemen is still isolated. pakistan and india still have RIDICULOUS human rights violations. but it’s not GOD’S LAW.

you know, most of the qur’an is not about laws but about ethical issues. but of course no one focuses on that.. ritual becomes unquestionable, this is the nature of a lack of dialogue. even in indonesia, where christianity and islam and previously hinduism is all mixed up together. amongst the uneducated, there is little dialogue. but, there is certainly an emphasis on good conduct. so if differs everywhere really.

and sufism, man just google it, i could talk forever again. yes it is very very spiritual. it’s about love of god, this unquenchable love. music is important, singing, etcetc. i’m not an expert on sufism, although i am interested in it greatly. read some rumi stuff. that gives you an idea… plus it’s really really beautiful (although it isn’t god’s word, but what is god without the interpretation of him/it?)

i mean.. honestly, i was raised with, i guess a bit of a mix. my mum grew up in a village, her family weren’t well educated. she learned rituals but at the same time she also learned that you must try to be good, and i’m really lucky that she was. she is always telling me never to waste this life on earth because it is precious and god gave it to you and don’t waste a minute. many of my muslim friends, their mothers, just want them to learn, learn, learn. yes a lot of them are facing pretty tough cultural dogma, like not being able to live alone abroad, etc. but look man, look at the rest of the world, has it been so wonderful and perfect for so long????? no!! we can’t judge so quickly based on the little that we see. many of my friends are 2nd gen aussies, their families growing up in societies and times where little was questioned.

shit i’m no perfect muslim. although what the hell is that, anyway? and i have a lot of issues with muslims, MAINLY because i feel many of them are so focused on this goal of heaven that they forget that they’re alive. if you are consumed by the idea of heaven and hell then you will live in fear all your life and forget how to live. sure, heaven is eternal. but you only get one go at life.

i’ll leave it at this, even though it probably won’t really help you with ur understanding of islam, but i dunno: many muslims may disagree with my line of thinking. some disagree that i think at all. but i refuse to denounce this religion that i was born with just because some of the people that follow it irritate me. there is no weight in numbers, just because indians procreate more doesn’t mean i’ll put more weight on what they say. i know thinking and knowledge is key, for god’s sake the first passage revealed by god was the commandment to read!! REEEAAAD! but i know as well that that is it, i was born with it. i didn’t choose it. but as of yet i haven’t found a convincing enough reason to leave it for another religion (or lack thereof – i question god’s existence plenty but i dunno the idea of nothing just kind’ve depresses me). i will make god relevant to me so i can believe. hopefully i’ll find that in islam. even if i find my own way. but i’m not the only muslim struggling. so many are trying to tell the world that we are just trying to be good people. the qur’an is a heavily allegorical piece of work, and i have issues with it, but, shit man i could go on.

i can give you some readings if you like. man!!! i wish people asked me these things in yemen. although i really didn’t know much at all then. i thought my own deeds would be enough. but i think everyone just saw me as an exception, like the norm is yemen. i loved yemen but i hate that people think that when going there. please don’t tell everyone islam is yemen. they’re not the same thing, at all.

(sorry for the length)

oops, that was supposed to be “asking about it”

it’s six in the morning!!!! i should go back to bed..

Thanks Nat! Emails on the way…

Isaac