How I Became Interested in Islam

How I Became Interested in Islam

1992 1-2 January-February 17-20 How I Became Interested in Islam (1511) I trace the beginning of my interest in Islam when as a child of ten, while attending a reform Jewish Sunday School; I became fascinated in the historical relationship between the Jews and the Arabs. From my Jewish textbooks I learned Abraham was the father of the Arabs as well as the Jews. In these same books I read how centuries later when in medieval Europe, Christian persecution made their lives intolerable, the Jews were welcomed in Muslim Spain, and that it was this same Arabic-Islamic civilization which stimulated Hebrew culture to reach its highest peak of achievement. At that time, completely unaware of the true nature of Zionism, I naively thought the Jews were returning to Palestine to strengthen their close ties of kinship in religion and culture with their Semitic cousins. Together, I believed, the Jews and the Arabs would co-operate and achieve another Golden Age of culture in the Middle East.

Despite my fascination with the study of Jewish history, I was extremely unhappy at the Sunday School. At this time I identified myself strongly with the Jewish people and their horrible fate under the Nazis and I was shocked and pained that none of my fellow classmates took their religion seriously. For instance, during religious services at the synagogue the children would read comic strips hidden in their prayer books and make fun of the rituals. The children were so noisy and disorderly that the teachers found it almost impossible to conduct the classes. Meanwhile I delved into the stories of Jesus in the New Testament and was puzzled why so great a prophet who led such a beautiful and noble life had been rejected by his own people. Perhaps my classmates’ complete lack of respect for their teachers was justified. I found them narrow-minded and bigoted, emphasizing their hatred and fear of Christians far more than their love for Judaism.

At home the atmosphere for religious observance was scarcely more congenial. On the Jewish High Holy Days instead of attending synagogue I felt it blasphemous that my sister and I were taken out of school to go out on picnics and parties. When I told my parents how miserable I was at the reform Jewish Sunday School, they joined an agnostic humanistic organization known as the Ethical Culture Movement.

The Ethical Culture Movement was founded in the late 19th century by Felix Adler. While studying for the rabbinate, Felix Adler became convinced that devotion to ethical values as relative and man-made regarding any supernaturalism or theology as irrelevant, constituted the only religion fit for the modern world. I attended the Ethical Culture School for five years. Here I grew into complete accord with the ideas of the movement and looked upon all traditional organized religions with scorn.

Throughout my adolescence I remained under the influence of humanistic philosophy until after graduation from secondary school, when I chose to study at the university a course entitled “Judaism in Islam.” My professor was a Rabbi who tried to convince his students – all Jews – that Islam was derived from Judaism. Our textbook took each verse from the Qur’an, painstakingly tracing it to its allegedly Jewish sources. His lectures were liberally illustrated with films and coloured slides in praise of Zionism and the State of Israel. Although his real aim was to prove to his students the superiority of Judaism over Islam, he convinced me of just the opposite. As I plunged deeper and deeper into the study of Old Testament and the Qur’an, the contrast between the two scriptures became increasingly evident. In a sense the Old Testament could almost be considered a history of the Jews as God’s special chosen people. Although the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic to an Arab Prophet, its message is a universal one directed to the entire human race.

When my professor explained that the divine right of the Jews to Palestine has always been a central theme of Judaism, I was instantly repelled by such a narrow-minded conception of God. Does not the Qur’an say that “to God belongs the East and the West; Wherever ye turn there is His face?” Did not the Prophet Muhammad say that the whole earth is a mosque? Zionism preaches that only in Palestine can the Jew feel at home and elsewhere he is living in exile. The claim of my professor that only in Palestine could the Jews make their contribution to human civilization seemed baseless when I pondered over the fact that Moses received his revelation in Egypt, the most important parts of the Talmud were written in what is now Iraq, and some of the most beautiful Hebrew poetry was composed in Muslim Spain. The rigid exclusiveness of Judaism I felt had a great deal of connection with the persecutions the Jews have suffered throughout their history. Perhaps this would never have happened if the Jews had competed vigorously with the other faiths for converts. Zionism is a combination of the racist tribalistic aspects of Judaism with modern secular nationalism. Zionism was further discredited in my eyes when I discovered that Israeli leaders such as David Ben-Gurion are not observant Jews and that perhaps nowhere in the world is orthodox Judaism regarded with such contempt as in Israel! The Zionists have made the worst aspects of Western materialistic philosophy their very own. Only a complete rejection of all moral and spiritual values could account for such a systematic uprooting of an entire people from their homeland and an utter disregard of any sense of justice. When I found that nearly all important Jewish leaders supported Zionism and felt not the slightest twinge of conscience for the terrible wrong inflicted on the Arabs, I could no longer consider myself a Jew at heart.

At the same time my professor convinced me that ethical values had a divine origin and were the absolute eternal truth. I could not understand how people like my parents could cherish moral and spiritual values and then consider their theological foundations irrelevant. If morals were purely man-made, they could be changed at will according to whim, convenience or circumstance. Belief in the hereafter I came to feel as essential not merely because it was comforting. If ethical and spiritual values are of divine origin, we are directly responsible to God for developing our highest potentialities. Each one of us will be called upon to render an account of our life on earth and be rewarded or punished accordingly. Therefore one who has a firm faith in the hereafter is willing to sacrifice transitory pleasures and endure hardships to attain lasting good.

As I studied the beliefs of all the major faiths, I came to the conclusion that originally all the great religions were one, but as time passed they became corrupted. Idol worship, the idea of reincarnation, and the caste system began to permeate Hinduism, passivity became characteristic of Buddhism, ancestor worship of Confucianism, the doctrine of original sin, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus resulting in an anthropomorphic conception of God and the atonement by the death on the cross, of Christianity and the exclusive chosen people idea of Judaism. All these ideas which so repelled me were not to be found in Islam. Increasingly I began to feel that Islam was the original religion that alone had retained its purity. Other religions were only partially true. Only Islam contained the whole truth. Above all, Islam provided its adherents with a complete, comprehensive way of life in which the relation to the spiritual were balanced into a perfect harmony.

Although I wanted to become a Muslim, my family managed to argue me out of it. I was warned that Islam would complicate my life since the faith is not part of the American scene. I was told that Islam would alienate me from my family and isolate me from the community. At that time my faith was not sufficiently strong to withstand these pressures. I became so ill that I had to discontinue college. For a long time I remained at home under private medical care, steadily growing worse. In desperation my parents had me confined to a hospital, where I stayed for more than two years. While in the hospital I vowed that if I recovered I would become a Muslim.

After I was finally allowed to go home, discharged, I investigated all the opportunities for meeting Muslims in New York City and making friendships, and it was my pleasure to make the acquaintance of some of the finest people that anyone could ever hope to meet. I also began to write articles for Muslim magazines and to carry on an extensive correspondence with Muslim leaders all over the world.

As Ramadan approached my desire to embrace Islam grew so strong that I began to practise the five daily prayers, and am now undertaking the fast for the first time. I am doing this with a firm belief that nothing but good can result in living according to my deepest convictions.

Islam Versus the West by Maryam Jameelah