Sister Islam

Right after the 9-11 disaster, I frequently heard the question asked, “Why do they hate us?” Since then, we have turned our attention from trying to understand to striking back. Now we're embroiled in the so called War on Terror. In the process the question has been driven underground. It may be time to explore “Why do they hate us?” again.

We were all looking for a crash course in Islam hoping, no doubt, that we might understand our way out of the crushing dilemmas we face. So, where does one start looking for a way through the maze posed by 9-11? Two books beam like a searchlight out of the Islamic world, offering vivid views of its seething cultural oppression, as well as its quirks.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s biographical work, Infidel, reads like fast paced fiction. Seeking refuge around the Arab world, and finally in the West, Ail hopscotched in and out of Muslim and westernized societies. In a brutal series of life experiences, she leaves the reader asking how this woman kept her wits about her. The second half of the book details her settlement in Holland where she was elected to serve in the Dutch parliament. In the aftermath of the murder of her filmmaking partner, Theo Van Gogh, she fled to the United States seeking refuge from the always present threat of violence from coreligionists.

A second read is The Trouble With Islam Today. It is an intellectual/biographical work. In it we watch Canadian Irshad Manji wrestle with her unique place with one foot in an Islamic world and another immersed in Canadian society. Manji is dogged in her pursuit of a meeting place between the two worlds. She is most helpful for the descriptions of the sorts of dynamics she pushes against in the conforming and closed system of the religion of her childhood. Mainstream American readers will recognize the pitfalls presented in the book as the tendencies of the dark underbelly of our own nation’s co-religionists.

These women offer some some important themes to their readers on the question, "Why do they hate us?" I'm not sure they hate us as much as they like they way things are set up.

First, is the matter of gender roles. They are a hidden, but potent source of religious culture, both in the Muslim and the Christian worlds. They also tend to “take over.” One need only refer to the frantic discussions about women’s roles and/or GLBT marriages to see gender hard at work. When religious systems surrender to gender based hierarchies, there is faith trouble. Believe it or not, faith is not primarily about sex! Yet, gender controversy and gender rules seem to subvert even the best constructed faith systems. And when they are given a central role, they ultimately create oppression.

Second, in the matter of Holy Scripture. It matters a lot what you assume as you study holy writing. The brittle and brutal face of Islam begins in dogma about a particular way of treating the Qu’ran. (Manji calls this foundamentalism. It is the attitude that occasionally surfaces in the bumper strip “God said it, I believe it, That settles it.) These are closed end systems that seek control over others, rather than truth. Isn’t this the way we in the west treat the Bible when we are at our worst? When Bible or Qu’ran are used chiefly to regulate, they lose their heart, their adventure. Holy texts, well used, can spark creativity, understanding and vision to build a world alive to God alive in it. I am never happier than when I meet a person who has the skill to use sacred texts as they were intended, as a stimulus to creative living.

The battle of world religions is not between Muslims and Christians. It is about a division within each religion. Those who treat their faith as a medium of control, of domination, populate one side of the divide. Those whose faith empowers, encourages and urges us creative living, reside on another. It is rare when looking at faith "from the outside" can give such a penetrating view into our own. Our Islamic sisters have a message for both religious communities.