As the discussion on Cat Stevens has unfolded, I am aware of some
anti-Islamic sentiment being expressed, some quite vehemently.
I am not by any means Islamic. I know Islam mainly through the
political actions of the most extreme and fundamentalist groups of
Islam. I know that Islam is as diverse as Christianity in its
expressions. For those of us with limited knowledge of Islam, speaking
as outsiders, I think we should consider that maybe we shouldn't be
judging so.
Judging the whole and worth of Christianity by Jerry Farwell and the
right-wing tv evangelists - I wouldn't want that..
Judging Judaism by Dr Laura Schlesinger and militant Orthodox
politicians in Israel - I wouldn't want that.
Judging Islam by the Ayatollah and the Taliban and other excesses - I
wouldn't want that and I warn against it.
It is easy to castigate Islam because it is so "other" than us. Maybe
it is our ignorance of the fullness of Islamic thought that makes them
so "other"
Christians, St. Paul tells us, are grafted onto the family of faith,
which is the children of Abraham. But Ishmael (whose very name means
"God hears") was also the child of Abraham. The treatment of Hagar,
his mother, and Ishmael was despicable (Genesis 21). Despite - or
because of - the disgraceful treatment of Hagar and Ishmael, God blessed
Ishmael, as God has earlier promised would be done (Genesis 17).
Genesis 21.20: "God was with the boy." The people of Islam trace their
ancestry from Abraham through Ishmael.
So let us be aware that the family of faith includes Ishmael and his
descendants, and maybe as Cain and Able fought, as Jacob and Esau
contended, as the mothers of Isaac and Ishmael were set against each
other, that fights within families are the most bitter and we understand
least the people most like us since we fail to see ourselves in them.
Since we don't understand Islam well enough, since we know it only
through its political extremes and fundamentalist factions which is not
by any means the whole of Islam, since we are connected to Islam by a
far greater degree than we realize, since from the beginning the people
of Judeo-Christian heritage have not treated the people of Islam well...
(what were the Crusades except slaughtering people of Islamic faith
because they were "infidels" and why should they like us, and do we want
Christianity to be judged on that or do we turn a blind eye to our evil
and point out the wrongs of Islam as we have seen it in Ayatollah and
Taliban)
...please lets not bash Islam.
(the Rev) Vince, a faithful Christian who believes that God has come to
us in Christ, but does not believe that God has limited the love and
presence and knowledge of God to only the people who believe like Rev
Vince does; I do not put limits on the reevaluations of God to others
simply because they don't match my received revelations
PS Please lets not bash Islam
