I Don’t Invite You to Islam

Last updated on: April 24, 2015 at 9:20 pm by Nancy Qualls-Shehata

I Don’t Invite You to Islam 2015-04-24T21:20:38-04:00 Nancy Qualls-Shehata

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I don’t invite you to Islam. I don’t invite you to Islam because most of the “Muslim” countries are led by dictators and despots, or by no one at all.

I don’t invite you to Islam because the rights Allah granted to Muslim women 1400 years ago are routinely trampled upon today. From domestic abuse to honor killings to female genital mutilation, the status of women is so far from the ideal that you can’t even see it from here.

I don’t invite you to Islam because the level of knowledge among the common Muslims is on the wane, to put it mildly. Ancient cultural practices, no matter how ridiculous, superstitious, misogynistic, or downright stupid, are promoted as gospel truth and imposed even on those who fight against them. Falsehood stands truth on its head in a Middle Eastern version of “1984”.

I don’t invite you to Islam because you’ll become an instant target of hatred. Family members will disown you, your job will fire you, your landlord will find a way to evict you, random strangers will scream at you or threaten you, and your own government may turn against you. You’ll be pulled aside for special screening at the airport and someone will report you because you look suspicious carrying a backpack.

I don’t invite you to Islam because you’ll suffer ongoing mental stress as you try to balance the requirements of your faith with the constant onslaught of your own memories and old habits, old holidays, old friends, old foods, old drinks, old ways. The Muslim holidays will be like an ill-fitting garment that you shrug into, trying to get comfortable despite the unfamiliar cut of the fabric.

I don’t invite you to Islam because you’ll be constantly critiqued and judged by other Muslims. The opacity of your dress, the length of your pants, the density of your beard, an old tattoo, a pet dog, non-halaal fast food, marshmallows, your viewing of a YouTube video by that scholar.

I don’t invite you to Islam because of all that. I invite you to Islam because I have to share with you what I have learned over twenty-some years of being Muslim:

There is No God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah

It all boils down to this sentence. I invite you to Islam because I truly believe that Islam is the truth, and that there is a God, One God, and that God created and sustains the universe, and that God revealed the Torah to Moses, the Gospel to Jesus, and the Qur’an to Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon them all. I invite you to Islam because I believe it is the truth and the best way for mankind to live in this challenging world. I invite you, not to a cultural Islam or a militant Islam or to an anti-feminist Islam, but to the pure Islam as it was revealed over 1400 years ago.

I invite you to a faith that taught that all men were created equal, that one man was not superior to a another except by piety and good action. I invite you to a faith that freed mankind from superstition. I invite you to a faith that said women are blessed creations of Allah, and they can’t be married off against their will, and they can work and own property, and they get to keep everything they earn and no man can misuse it. I invite you to a faith that takes natural sexual urges and gives them the proper honorable channel of marriage, while closing the door to all forms of indecency. I invite you to a faith that encourages the care of orphans and requires you to honor your parents and gives the mothers a higher place in a child’s regard than the fathers have.

I invite you to Islam. Not the Islam of Fox News or the detritus of Iraq and Syria or the debris of the Arab Spring. Not the Islam of the board of directors in the masjid that has the vapors at the thought of a woman being elected. Not the Islam of harshness and ignorance. Not that Islam, or I should say non-Islam, the anti-Islam that sadly makes up so much of what passes for religion today.

I invite you to the Islam that I found over twenty years ago. The Islam that I found, not in a book or in a lecture hall, but in my own heart. The Islam of love and sisterhood and brotherhood, the Islam of making dinner for a sister who just had a miscarriage, the Islam of visiting people in the hospital, the Islam of working at a soup kitchen on Christmas so the non-Muslim staff can spend their holiday with their families, the Islam of heartrending Qur’an recitations, the Islam of humorous but truthful lectures by Sheikhs whose heads have not swollen so much due to arrogance that their turbans explode, the Islam of welcoming the newcomer to the community, the Islam of supporting local Muslims in business, the Islam of hugging kids and teaching them to love to pray, the Islam of offering free dental care to the poor, the Islam of let’s have a bake sale to raise money for someone’s operation. True Islam, the Islam that was revealed in an exotic eastern land but is totally relevant to a forty-something SUV-driving soccer mom in an American suburb. That’s the Islam I invite you to.

If you can get past all the dreck, I salute you and honor you. If you can allow yourself to suspend what you think you know about Islam and really learn about the faith, I will help you. If you stumble along your path of learning, know that I have stumbled as well but I got back up and kept learning, kept believing. Open your heart and study with an open mind. I can’t ask for more than that.

I invite you to Islam.

Islam

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