Criticism v. A Teaching Moment

A person who wished to remain anonymous posted the following on my posting about Islam needing both a Reformation and an Enlightenment:
You are very ignorant--why don't you go to a mosque near you---it is Ramadan and you might get a free dinner---as well as be able to talk to actual Muslims---and see how the understand their religion. (The Saudi's are not the only Muslims on the planet---you know---in fact the Middle East has only 15% of the global Muslim population---it in no way "represents" Islam)
I am not offended by such a posting. In fact, it actually gives me what I call a “teaching moment.”
This person calls me “ignorant” and they have every right to do so. I will not deny them that right. I would disagree, and here are my reasons:
A. The person assumes that I have a very limited knowledge of Islam. I would contend that assumption is incorrect. I have, for instance, read much of the Quran, the Islamic faith’s equivalent of the Christian Bible. I also have read many other writings on the history of Islam, the history of the Arabian Peninsula, the history of South Asia. All this has given me part of my perspective on the religion, which I hold is not necessarily “evil” or “bad”, no more than any other religion is. It does, however, have some what I call “disturbing” tenets which call for violence against non-believers.
B. The person seems to be laboring under the impression that I have never sat down with some of the Islamic religion and had a discussion about the differences from the Judeo-Christian background I was raised in (my grandfather that I knew and lived with and gave me my first Bible was a Congregationalist minister and missionary). Again, an incorrect assumption. I had the pleasure of having lengthy discussions with a man my parents were assisting in his studies at a private college in California. This gentleman, and he truly was a gentle man, was – according to his story – the minister of secondary education in Afghanistan and a tutor to the king’s son at that time. He taught me a little about his language and about Arabic, the language of Islam, as well as about Afghanistan and sparked my interest later to spend a considerable time studying the history of South Asia in college. But fast forward almost 30 years; I was in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for more than half a year in 1990-1991. Granted, I was in the service of the United States Army, but I was not off on some isolated desert base. No, I was living and working among Muslims, representing many different countries. They will tell I was a curious American. I was always asking them if they could find me a good English version of the Quran (none did, although I finally was able to download one off the Internet) and I would take every opportunity to engage them in conversations that involved their religion, their customs and culture. I spent many hours in conversation with the Saudi Bedouin prayer leader at a business I visited weekly for three months while I waited for projects I was overseeing to be completed. I also shared green tea and conversation with the Lebanese businessman who owned the printing press where the newspaper I was editor of for the US Army was printed. I learned a lot from these encounters. Then, while I was in Kuwait for two weeks, I again had many encounters with local people with whom I had interesting discussions.
So, I don’t consider myself fluent in all the facets of Islam, I am conversant enough to hold what I feel are valid opinions on the subject. I also would point out that the Saudis, as the custodians of The Two Holy Mosques, do play a major role in Islam.
Now, the teaching moment: It is not wise to assume when you don’t know. This person, who did not identify their self, leaves me wondering whether or not they are a Muslim? I have no way of knowing. I have no way of knowing really what country they are from.
I do have a first impression of this person: They are not very polite. I would not call him ignorant. I have no way of knowing whether he has the knowledge base to be able to qualify him to not be ignorant, but I am not going to call ignorant, because I don’t know. However, I do know that being rude is not one of the tenets of Islam.
That is one of the problems we have in the world: People making assumptions. Assumptions, more often than not, turn out to be wrong.
A second problem is that we tend to make things personal. Rather than point out where I have erred, rather than take the time to show me why this person’s perception of the world is more accurate than mine, the person merely tells me I am ignorant. Wrong answer.
Now, I have pointed out many times in my posts that I happen to believe that people are not monolithic. That just because a person is (A), then all people are (A). That I think would be a very silly position to take.
I do think that most people do share a desire to survive and live a more comfortable life, if possible. I also believe most people would rather do it with less effort rather than more. Note that I said “most people”. When you are dealing with people, all are unique individuals (except maybe identical twins, but even then their life experiences are different and unique), and therefore you are not dealing with absolutes.
Now, I agree that probably the majority of those who profess to be Muslims are basically like most other people in their desires and don’t really give a rat’s behind about what other people think or believe. It doesn’t affect them.
However, there seems to be a substantial subset that does not have a willingness to be tolerant of the peculiarities of others who may happen to believe differently than they do. We see this when we see riots across the Muslim world when some obscure Christian minister of a small church in Florida announces he plans to burn the Quran as part of his worship service. Now, that was not limited to the Arabian peninsula or North Africa or even just South Asia.
Then there was the riots set off by the publication in a Danish periodical of caricatures of Mohammad, the Islamic prophet who plays the same role for Muslims as Jesus plays for Christians. Those weren’t just limited to Saudi Arabia or some Arab country.
The Muslim author Salmun Rushdie faces a death sentence because he wrote a book that was a satire about some of the parts of the Islamic religion.
We see this when Muslims all over the place react violently when some soldiers disposing of paper materials on an Afghan base burn some Qurans.
I can not visit Mecca or Medina, but Muslims can visit Jerusalem or Rome or London or just about any city in the U.S.
And now the Saudi government seems intent on making insulting the faith a criminal offense.
These things distress me, not because ALL Muslims believe that way, but with more than a billion adherents, even if it is just .01 percent who believe absolutely that infidels should die, then that would make up a very large body of people.
Granted, the Christian church has its extremists as well, and I believe these “cults” should be denounced and treated with disdain, but that does not excuse the need for Islam to come to an accommodation that lets it adherents accept without malice those who believe in a different view of God.
Enough rambling. Via Con Dios and Enshallah..