Response to Fishtroller

The following is a response I wrote to an atheist who calls himself "Fishtroller01" over at Daily Kos. This guy is one of your militant atheists. Personally, after reading many of his comments on a number of religious diaries at DKos, I have a rather low opinion of this guy. Still, I decided to respond to one of his comments tonight, and am reproducing it here as it touches on a number of topics that this blog addresses.

So you based your life's perspective on one book?

I've based my moral and religious guidelines upon the Qur'an, yes. Believe it or not, I was once an atheist like you, but I realized the errors of my ways and changed directions. I put in four years of due diligence on the Qur'an after countless years of exploring (raised Catholic, read numerous Buddhist texts), but I've never regretted my decision to become a Muslim. That was my best decision ever.

Do you follow EVERY teaching in that book, or do you just pick and choose the ones that fit your modern conception of the world?

I'm not a "cafeteria Muslim," no. I follow everything in the Qur'an that applies to me to the best of my abilities.

If you do follow all the "guidance" written in that book, you have a problem because many of the teachings are immoral and/or contradict one another.

Now you see, this is where your incredible ignorance of the Qur'an and Islam begins to show. It's very obvious you've read little, if any, of the Qur'an; not that I'm surprised.

I won't go into the numerous times that this book promises hellfire and torture for unbelievers like me...

Yeah? So? His universe, His rules, His rewards and punishments. What makes you worthy of heaven? Your good looks? The minimum requirements, according to the Qur'an, are a belief in Him, a belief in the Day of Judgment, and good works. All three, not just one or two of three. Ignoring the third, how do you qualify? How have you earned the right to go to heaven? This is either/or, not multiple choice. There's no special dispensation simply because you object.

...but it also says that those who believe in the trinity are cursed to hell.

Actually, the Qur'an says nothing of the sort; in fact, several verses (2:62, 5:69) say the exact opposite. Islam is not one of those religions that says only "we" are saved. There's no guarantee a Muslim will be saved either. You have to earn heaven, remember?

Do you agree that women are possessions of men and that men are "a step above" women?

Women as "possessions of men" is the Orientalist view, not the Islamic view. Men a step above women? No, not part of Islam either. The Qur'an does says in part: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means..." (4:34). But that doesn't mean men are a step above. Men and women in Islam have equal responsibilities. If anything many Muslim men think that Muslim women have it easier than they do.

Do you agree that homosexuality is unnatural and to be condemned?

The underlying theme in the Qur'an is that life is most important. This is not explicitly stated in the text, but can be deduced from the Qur'an's positions regarding various issues regarding life, death and health. Thus, to preserve life and promote healthy lifestyles, sex is forbidden in all cases except between married couples. Thus, premarital sex is haram, adultery is haram, fornication between any non-married person, regardless of gender, is haram. Likewise, all anal sex, even between husband and wife, is haram as well. In Islam, two men or two women may love each other, but the relationship must be platonic. To take the opposite position is unIslamic and promotes unhealthy lifestyles. A lot of people don't like to hear that, but that's their problem and, once again, they'll have to answer for it on the Day of Judgment.

Why didn't Jesus or Mohammed condemn slavery?

I won't speak for Jesus (pbuh), but I will say that while the Qur'an did not expressly prohibit slavery, it did encourage slave owners not only to free their slaves if the latter asked for it, but to pitch in money to the slave so as to make it easier for them. If you knew the history of Muhammad (pbuh) and his companions, you would know that they freed many of the slaves in that time. Try reading the story about Bilal for a good example.

Which in my view renders the texts increasingly useless and invalid.

Your loss. Good luck on the Day of Judgment.

Conversions Unveiled

An interesting article from Wednesday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS) Online about the new book, Becoming Muslim: Western Women's Conversions to Islam, by Anna Mansson McGinty. Amazon's book description reads, "While Islam has become a controversial topic in the West, a growing number of Westerners find powerful meaning in Islam. Becoming Muslim is an ethnographic study based on in-depth interviews with Swedish and American women who have converted to Islam. Proceeding from the women’s life-stories, the author explores the appeal of Islam to some Western women and the personal meaning assigned to the religion. While conversion is often perceived as entailing a dramatic change in worldview, the women’s experiences point to an equally important continuity. Notably, the conversion is triggered by particular personal ideas and quests, and within Islam the women can further explore already salient thoughts. The work appeals to students in the fields of anthropology, religious studies, psychology, and women’s studies, interested in identity, conversion, and gender."

In the 1990s, when she first set out to interview women about their conversions to Islam, Anna Mansson McGinty expected to meet the wives of devout Muslims, women whose religion had come from their husbands.

But a more complex picture emerged as McGinty, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, began delving into the women's stories for her 2006 book, "Becoming Muslim: Western Women's Conversions to Islam."

McGinty, 35, interviewed women in her native Sweden and in the United States, and found no typical Muslim convert. Nor did she find conversions that could be reduced to a single act.

"The book's main aim," she said, "is to show that conversion is not, as many scholars have described it, a one-time event. It's a constant process. It's never-ending."

Among the nine women profiled in the book was Mariam, an American-born graduate student in anthropology who went to do field work in an oasis in northern Africa, and while in the field converted to Islam at age 25. Years later, she married a man who also was a Muslim convert.

There was Fatimah, a former Catholic who had abandoned religion in college, then, as a married mother of two, watched a documentary on nuclear holocaust that led her to embark on a spiritual quest. In the course of this quest, she would divorce her husband, convert to Islam and later marry a Muslim man.

"Becoming Muslim" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, $65) sheds light on how women in Islam are perceived, an issue that reflects the rift between the Muslim world and the West.

Yvonne Haddad, a professor who teaches the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University, said a fundamental misconception about Islamic women stems from an old colonialist notion.

"There is a whole history of European colonialism," she said, "that justified the occupation of Muslim lands by saying, 'We have to save Muslim women.' "

Early Crusaders saw Muslim women in their veils and imagined they were abused by their men, hidden under cover, Haddad said.

Today the idea persists, though it is balanced by a view from the opposite side of the cultural divide.

"Muslims look at Western women as being abused by their husbands because they allow strange men to talk and flirt with the women," Haddad explained.

Negative ideas about the treatment of Islamic women, however, are not without some grains of truth.

There have been forced marriages and "honor killings" of women in certain Muslim cultures, said Marcia Hermansen, director of the Islamic World Studies program at Loyola University of Chicago, but such practices are not part of most Muslims' "everyday reality. It's not sanctioned by the religion." [Note: Honor killings are not solely a "Muslim phenomenon," but have been done by members of other religions, including Christians.]

"Under the Taliban, certainly women were hideously oppressed," said Leila Ahmed, a professor at Harvard Divinity School.

At the same time, Ahmed said, "nobody has ever asked me to explain why there have been women heads of state in Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. How many European and American women heads of state have there been? [Note: To my knowledge, only two, the UK (Margaret Thatcher) and Germany (Chancellor Angela Merkel).]

"The extraordinary achievements and freedoms of Muslim women are simply invisible."

Hermansen pointed out that some of these heads of state were the wives or daughters of leaders, evidence in her view that "family identity trumps gender distinctions for the most part."

...

McGinty's interviews with the nine women were never intended to be a scientific survey. Instead, they offer a window into the journey toward conversion and the consequences of that decision.

One of the Swedish women told McGinty that the decision to wear the veil changed the way fellow Swedes viewed her. The woman said that strangers assumed she was an immigrant and would speak slowly, asking, "Do . . . you . . . speak . . . Swedish?"

The veil has become a powerful symbol of the complexity of Islamic conversion.

McGinty found that converts were eager to wear the veil to identify themselves as Muslim, yet also saw it as something "intimately linked to the stereotypes of Muslim women."

Some women, McGinty said, remove the veil before entering their workplaces.

Women also told McGinty that, since their conversions, people seemed to view them as boring or serious, almost discounting the possibility that they might have a sense of humor.

All of the women, McGinty said, found something in Islam that aligned to a core part of their personality.

Some found that zakat, or alms giving to the poor, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, fit a belief in social justice.

Others found in Islam a faith that spoke to their sense of religious yearning or spiritual quest.

Some of the women, she said, found that Islam allowed them to try out a new kind of femininity, one that emphasized modesty and placed value on who a woman is rather than what she looks like.

"Conversion triggers profound questions to the self," McGinty wrote in her book. "It heightens the awareness and prompts reflections of who one is, who one was, and where one is heading."