Peace Catalyst likes to get people together and Ramadan is a great time to do that. Our Muslim friends are already gathering many evenings throughout Ramadan to break their fasts together. Sometimes they invite us into their space to share this meal with them. But sometimes, too, my Christian friends push back and resist accepting the invitation.
In this video Imam Iqbal tells us that everyone passes over the fires of hell in a final judgement. The conversation shifted to how we are all dependent on God’s mercy. The imam explained that hell should be seen as purifying fires and a sort of “jail time” for the evil deeds done while alive but that God in His mercy can shorten the time spent in/over hell’s fire.
I found this chart on the Washington Post last year. I keep coming back to it to help people see the diversity within Islam. If you enlarge the chart to where you can actually read it, fascinating details emerge; the percentages of Shia and Sunni, subsets of each group and about how many are represented in each subset. You will also learn from what subsets the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS come. It looks a little like a tree to me. Perhaps a tree that needs some pruning. Some will dispute the overall 1.6 billion number of Muslims. I’ve heard numbers between 1.2 billion and 1.6 billion, but clearly this large number resists uniformity. We desperately need a more nuanced conversation when we speak about what “Muslims believe.”
When I first started building relationships with Muslims, a few of my friends talked about the unity of Islam, the single umma (or community) of Islam. This was presented as a proof of God’s blessing on Islam and as a stark contrast to the divisions within Christianity.
In time, I found that there was great diversity within Islam. So much so that it is very difficult to say Muslims uniformly believe anything. I have even heard the five pillars of Islam explained differently and the shahadah (confession of faith) explained differently.
With so many schools of thought and theology within Islam, it is important to see our Muslim friends as individuals and ask their individual perspectives on things. God has us all on a journey. Is this journey getting us closer to God or moving us further away?
Just as in numerous Christian circles we have different perspectives on how to interpret the Bible and live our faith, our Muslim friends also have different opinions about how to interpret the Qur’an and live out their faith. Christians would not all want to be lumped in with the belief systems of a Jim Wallis, an Al Mohler or Pat Robertson, much less so the systems of Jim Jones or Westboro Baptist.
As we describe the faith journeys of others, we need to keep the “Golden Rule” in mind. A nuanced description of others is useful because it helps clarify our thought process and challenges our assumptions. This is respectful and honoring. On the other hand, generalizations can be marginalizing, dismissive and condescending. This is offensive. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Labels are the tools of antagonists’ and politicians to manipulate an uninformed populace. They are the lazy man’s way of categorizing others and not dealing with the nuance required to resolve most conflicts.
It is inappropriate and dangerous to make sweeping generalizations based on what one fraction of the whole professes to believe. Would Christians want to be dismissed as racists because the Ku Klux Klan wear crosses on their robes and twist the Bible to support their claims to superiority over the races?
As I looked at the chart above, it reminded me of a tree. If a limb of a tree becomes diseased, it may need to be pruned. Islam currently has the attention of the world, and people are arguing over who gets to hold the pruning shears and where and how to make the cuts. It seems clear that there is some pruning that needs to be done for the sake of peace and mutual thriving. Some who claim to be Muslims don’t seem to think they can live in peace with the rest of the world. It may be a twig or it may be a branch. Some non-Muslims want to see the entire tree cut down, but not only is that not possible, its not smart to try.
Our Muslim friends also want to see this blight of Daesh eliminated. We can and must work effectively together to do so. It will be an ideological battle that defines Islam and makes space for freedom of religion for all. It will be a psychological battle for the individual hearts and minds of people on all sides. It will be a sociological battle as our society struggles together to overcome the challenges of this era but not also destroy or marginilize our neighbors. It will be a battle of international law and human rights and it may be a military battle as well as misguided souls, created in the image of God, are restrained from hurting others.
1 John 4:18 Perfect love casts out fear. As long as we are fearful, we are not loving perfectly.
With people’s heads getting sawed off with knives, it is easy to become fearful and/or angry. That is what the terrorists want. I’ve watched the news reports calling for war. Now, on this 13th anniversary of 9/11, the President vows to “destroy” the militants known as ISIS. Seems like we have been here before. Trying to bomb our way to peace seems misguided without a longer-range plan or asking ourselves, “How did we get here in the first place?”
Following the collective “we,” the masses, the majority, frequently get us into trouble. As Brian Zahnd recently wrote in his book, A Farewell to Mars, “the crowd is nearly always wrong,” or at least suspect. The crowd wanted to return to Egypt. The crowd wanted to crucify Jesus. The crowd has elected and followed some terrible leaders throughout history.