Americans pride themselves as a nation having the best educational
system in the world. The fact
that in some years they get the highest number of Nobel Prize
winners partially substantiates that claim. They also believe that
they possess the most advanced technological developments in higher
education. Again, the existence
of educational support systems, including sophisticated computer
packages partially
substantiates that. 'What is NOT mentioned frequently is that at
times truth is not taught the way it should be. Our Christian
friends have not yet taught other religions with neutrality and
impartiality.
It is the purpose of
this writing to show to my good Christian friends that Islam is NOT
your enemy. It is indeed an enhancement of your faith, moral and
ethical values, coupled with kindness, peace, compassion, justice
and destruction of poverty. By this writing, the goal is to help the
reader to get out of his/her potential prejudice, and see as a
neutral observer for himself or herself that the fundamental
elements of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are really the same and
identical. If we accept the premise that all these three predominant
religions of the world have Abrahamic roots, and appear to the
"reason" that they are all coming from the same Creator and
Cherisher above all of us, they can be in line with each other in
their essential teachings with lots of commonalities. Thus as
educators we should be promoting understanding beyond prejudice and
shortsightedness for the good of humanity and for the pleasure of
our same good Lord, God Almighty. We should give our audience a good
exposure and let them choose. Our entire educational spectrum
(covering school, churches, and colleges) suffers gravely from
misunderstandings, lack of proper understanding, biases, prejudices,
and myopic shortsightedness. The author's brothers and sisters would
at least have the same amount of respect for Islam in their heart as
he/she does for Christianity and Judaism.
"There will not be peace in our world until there is peace
among the religions. And there will not
be peace among the
religions until the adherents come to understand one another. The
beginning point is to
emphasize the similarities, the likenesses, the agreements - not the
differences. The expressed purpose
of each religion is peace, unity,
harmony. It is interesting to speculate what might be accomplished
if the religions could
cooperate to achieve these expressed goals." Says Dr. Malcolm
Stewart, a retired college professor who had been teaching
logic and religion, after a whole life of instruction. He wrote this
to
Paul Findley, to be
quoted below, in a personal letter after Mr. Findley wrote in an
article: "My plea is not for Islam but for understanding. Christian
and Jews should get acquainted with Islam and see Muslims as human
beings, not in ugly, false stereotypes." [1]
Paul Findley writes
further that:
"Every religious movement has radical elements — but the Muslims
with whom I have dealt are kind, respectful, hospitable, and
considerate of others. I have chanced upon Muslims at prayer in
offices, on farms and, of course, in mosques. Islam calls them to
prayer five times daily. Not all Muslims live up to Islam's
standards, of course, nor do Christians and Jews always behave as
they should." [2] "The Quran sets for the proposition that all are
born innocent, pure, true, free, and disposed towards worshiping God
and doing good." This is an honest, reasonable, and rational
judgment or evaluation of a good Christian who looked at The Holy
Quran with an appeal to "reason" and "neutrality." [3] His aim was
not a conversion to Islam; he only wanted to develop an
understanding of Islam for himself.
Findley mentions in his book that most Americans do NOT deliberately
harbor hostile opinions of Muslims or their religious customs or practices. However, their
perceptions of Islam arise mostly from
negative or false images
portrayed by the media especially news accounts, television dramas,
movies and talk shows on
radio and television. As a loving, compassionate (and I might add,
peaceful) Muslim, I feel we are all in the same boat
together: we should all promote better inter-religious understanding
and cooperation, thus strengthening bounds of humanity, if we are to
live together with dignity, respect, and peaceful coexistence.
The book written by
former Congressman Paul Findley came to the best seller status
because of his honest and neutral appraisal of Islam. This is a
"must reading" for any Christian of good conscience, and I highly
recommend it. After a few quotes from Mr. Paul Findley, the basic
source of my quotations would be The Holy Quran, The Book of Muslims
which just like the Law of Moses (Torah) and the
Gospel of Jesus (Engeel) have
lights and guidance for humanity.
My choice of quotes from The Quran is deliberate and I want
my Christian friends to realize that they are NOT my words, but
God's words, the words of our Creator, the words of our same God,
not mine or yours quoted to them! Let me also add
parenthetically that the
experience and exposure of the Honorable Findley to Islam is
unfortunately "very common" in America and Europe: "At the
age of six, my introduction to Islam got off to a bad start. While
attending Presbyterian Sunday School in Jacksonville, Illinois, I
was misled about Muslims and their religion and I harbored the
misinformation until middle age. Our teacher, a kindly volunteer who
served faithfully for years told us that uneducated, primitive,
violent people lived in desert areas of The Holy Land and worshiped
a "strange God." In one of my earliest childhood recollections, I
remember that she called them
Muhammadans and kept repeating, "they aren't like us." As she
talked, we played in a large sandbox moving into different
positions miniature likenesses of palm trees, tents, camels, and
nomadic people." [4]
"Her comments stuck in
my memory. For most of my life I held a vision of Muhammadan as
alien, ignorant, threatening people. Like many Americans today, my
teacher innocently repeated misinformation she had acquired form
other poorly informed people. She recited to our class what she
believed to be the truth,
including the misnomer "Muhammadan." I do not believe she intended
to instill misinformation or defame Islam. She simply lacked
the facts, as did other teachers and the ordained minister who led
our congregation."
[5]
"Calling
themselves Christians, the crusaders ignored their religion's
commitment to tolerance, compassion, and justice. They acted instead like vengeful, bloodthirsty
savages... In contrast, on the three separate occasions when
Muslims took control of Jerusalem, no blood was shed."
[6]
"Despite their
impressive contributions to American society, widely held
stereotypes grossly distorted
public perceptions of Muslims and left their great potential for
public service unrecognized and scarcely tapped."
[7]
"Looking back, I realized that Aden
[8]
was my first stop on a long exciting and instructive journey
of exploration into the Islamic
world. At subsequent stops, my eyes would be opened to a culture
based on honor, dignity, and value of every human being, as
well as tolerance, and the quest for learning – standards that I
learned later are deeply engrained in the Islamic religion."
[9]
"I am not an evangelist,
trying to convert non-believers to the Islamic faith. Nor am I an
authority on Islam. I seek only to advance the correct understanding
of the religion...
" [10]
"At subsequent milestones of my journey, I would learn
that Islam, like my own Christian faith and the faith of
the Jews, is rooted in peace, harmony, family responsibility,
interfaith respect, humility
and equal justice for, all
humankind under one God. Islam is a universal, multi-cultural, and
multiracial religion. It proclaims the brotherhood and
equality of all people, regardless of race, nationality, or
religious faith." [11]
* Dr Parsa is an active member of IEC community.
He is is a retired full professor of Troy University and
Professor Emeritus.
