By Shaahima Fahim- MM Correspondent covering Sri Lanka and the GCC

The city of Dambulla in Sri Lanka, more known for its representation in tourism brochures as a registered heritage destination for culturally-inclined tourists to the island, made headlines of a less-idyllic nature on the afternoon of Friday the 20^th of April – when Buddhist monks led a 2000-strong protest against a local mosque. Intimidation in the form of marching picket-wielders, fire-bombs being hurled and emotionally-driven chants demanding the demolition of Masjidul Khaira led to the cancellation of Jumaah prayers at the masjid, the evacuation of worshipers and effective cordoning off of the premises.

Said protestors claim that the land on which the mosque is built is of reverential value and sacred to their faith, the reason for which the 'illegal structure' must go.  The Muslim community of Dambulla has countered the allegations stating that the mosque has in fact been lawfully registered and operational for the past 50 years.

Muslims in Sri Lanka make up roughly 8% of the 21.5 million-strong population, a percentage tying them in third place with their Christian counterparts, after Buddhism and Hinduism. A statistic that also has them tagged a 'minority' in the Sinhala Buddhist dominated (70% of population) nation.

Surprisingly (as is not usually the norm with these type of targeted attacks) the majority of immediate public reaction exchanged over social media and online forums was not of reactionary animosity directed towards Buddhism and the Buddhist community as an entity, but rather a collectively-acknowledged finger of disapproval pointing in the direction of another sort of minority  – the minority of radical trouble-makers representing  the very anathema of what Buddhism entails.

Aside from a negligible faction of ideological individuals out to instill and fester strained Muslim-Buddhist relations, true Buddhists embarrassed at this misrepresentation sympathized with the Muslim community, and the Muslims though understandably upset at being targeted in such a fashion, in turn acknowledged that the attacks were not definitive of general public sentiment.

All ears however were directed to the then-silent government, at the time yet to take a stand on the issue.

On Sunday the 22^nd of April, the Prime Minister's office released a statement ordering for the mosque's closure, but 'assuring ' the Muslim community that they would be provided with the necessary facilities to facilitate the relocation of Masjidul Khairah to a safer location. The decision claimed to have been collectively made with the consent of the country's Muslim leaders, but the ministers in question have denied having had any say at the time.

This portrays the Sri Lankan government in a very negative light both internally and across international waters, especially to the Muslim countries who voted in support of Sri Lanka in the recent US-backed UNHRC resolution last month.

Despite a history in the island dating as far back as the 8^th century, Sri Lankan Muslims feel they've been plated an unfair share of occasions to feel targeted, especially over the last couple of years. What with a similar incident in September 2011, and when earlier this year more than a hundred visiting Islamic preachers were asked to leave on grounds relating to flouting Sri Lanka's immigration laws – this sentiment is not without argument.

The nationalization and politicization of Buddhism as a state religion has always been a cause for concern among the religious minorities, having the potential to hinder any balanced decision making that can serve to suitably placate all parties concerned.

The ethnic minorities have however proven their mettle in tolerance (not mere complacence) in light of recent events, but the minority in question that needs to be dealt with more pressingly, is this new surge of religious radicals set out to widen the divide on peaceful co-existence.

At the point of this going to print, the repercussions of this ordered move was only just getting started with a volley of words exchanged between the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka and the so-called 'Buddhists' behind the attacks.

The Muslim community of Sri Lanka seems to have now resorted to placing greater expectancies on the well-positioned Muslim parliamentarians (a considerably large representation in the current regime) than in the government as a whole. That in exercising their rights as MPs and leaders they will be dutifully positioning the well-being of the Muslim community before personal fears of potentially risking their political footing on the boards they represent.

If there is anything productive to come out of all of this, it is the exposition of the not-so-lesser-evil of the religious extremist. For like the hate-driven Breivik murders in Norway earlier this year, the exhibitionist tendencies of these misfits in question are being broadcast (and received) for what they truly are. A pandemic not just for the governments of Asia, Europe or America to learn to quash effectively long-term, but also a pressure test for the targeted groups to come out of it better represented than when they went in.

Image Courtesy: Associated Press

Princeton University professor and political philosopher Robert P. George has recently become a target of controversy, accused by some of being anti-Muslim. The critics have cited only the report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America by Wajahat Ali which draws attention to the role of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in making grants to some vehement (and, in my view, misguided) critics of Islam and of leading Muslim organizations. George serves as one of eleven members on the Board of the Bradley Foundation. Some have inferred from this that George himself must be hostile to Islam and to Muslims. Based on this, Islamophobia Today has even gone so far as to sponsor a petition opposing the recent appointment of George to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

However, on closer examination, this inference about George is significantly mistaken. His record shows public support for respectful, informed engagement of Muslims in our society today and building partnerships with Muslims to promote public welfare on issues of shared concern. Moreover, George has, in fact, repeatedly and consistently raised his voice in defense of Islam and the rights of Muslims, and he has courageously challenged other conservatives when they have unfairly attacked the Muslim faith or its adherents.

For example, in June of 2011, when then-presidential candidate Herman Cain said that, if elected, he would permit Muslims to serve in his administration only after exacting from them a “loyalty proof” higher than that which would be required of members of other faiths, George rebuked Cain, calling his comments “wrong, foolish, and unacceptable.” They are, George said, “disrespectful of Muslims, the vast majority of whom in our country are, as Cain himself seems to acknowledge, loyal, honorable citizens; and it is incompatible with a sound understanding of religious freedom (and with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution's no-religious-tests clause).

Repeatedly, George, drawing on the teachings of Catholicism, has reminded his fellow Catholics of the official teaching of Catholicism on Islam, promulgated at the Second Vatican Council in 1965

The Church has a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God's plan, to whose faith Muslims link their own. Although not acknowledging Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet; his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly invoke. Further, they await the Day of Judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.

George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf have collaborated repeatedly, and along the way established a relationship of tremendous mutual respect and friendship. These two men of extraordinary faith and a caliber of intellect attained by few, have found in each other a peer. The two men have plainly been influenced by each other's writings, and they speak of each other in glowing terms. Twice they have conducted major public dialogues on the importance of Islamic-Christian understanding and cooperation, one at Princeton and one at Georgetown, as captured here on video. At George's invitation, Shaykh Hamza has been a featured speaker at Princeton University's annual interfaith Respect Life Sunday service. Also at George's invitation, Shaykh Hamza contributed to a Witherspoon Institute forum on the “Social Costs of Pornography” and a book by the same name.

Shaykh Hamza has written of George:

Robert George, to me, represents what is best in the conservative movement. He is a scholar who loves the Western tradition and is committed to a higher set of values than what is presented today as morality. He is also a wonderfully modest man, despite his remarkable intellect and knowledge, and represents real Catholic ethical commitment. He is genuinely dismayed by the attacks of certain segments of the conservative Christian right on Islam. As a devout Catholic, he understands how religion is threatened today by the profoundly secular mindset that has taken over. However, he also recognizes that just as the great faith of St. Augustine and St. Aquinas is today misrepresented in the press as a religion infested with pedophiles, so too, the great faith of our saints, Imam al-Ghazali and Fakhar al-Din al-Razi, is being misrepresented as a religion rooted in terror that produces violent followers thirsting after the blood of infidels.

At Princeton University George has also helped to arrange for other Muslims, such as Abdullah Saeed, Suzy Ismail, and Ed Husain, to speak on campus. In his Princeton University courses on civil liberties George has invited Muslim clergy such as Imam Hamad Chebli of the Islamic Center of Central Jersey to speak to students on the tenets of Islam.  “Many non-Muslim students have misguided notions of what Islam actually teaches about issues such as religious freedom,” George has observed.  “I want to make sure they hear the truth about Islam from persons who speak with authority from within the faith.” Earlier this year at the university George published a series of interviews with Princeton faculty, representing different traditions of faith in the campus newspaper under the title “Keeping Faith.” His first interview in the series was with the Palestinian-American Muslim scholar Dr. Amaney Jamal of Princeton's Department of Politics. George's respect for Islam and esteem for his Muslim colleague shines through.

In 2009 George supported establishment of a new Islam and Civil Society Project (of which I am the Director) at the Witherspoon Institute in order to seek greater understanding of Islam and find ways to partner with Muslims on issues of shared concern such as supporting marriage and religious freedom, and he has remained a tremendous supporter of this project since its founding. The Islam and Civil Society Project has run an annual seminar on Islam since then, with the upcoming 2012 seminar focused on, “The Quran in the Modern World,” including speakers Dr. Abdullah Saeed, Dr. Mahan Mirza, and Asma Uddin. Articles I have published in my work while Director of this Islam and Civil Society Project are available here.

As a matter of full-disclosure, and as a point of pride, I should note that as George's colleague at the Witherspoon Institute I have had the pleasure of working with him in many important causes, including the defense of the rights of Muslims. We have spoken out together against anti-Islamic opposition, to construction of mosques in American cities and against the Florida Family Association's (FFA) boycott of sponsors of the television reality show “All American Muslim.” In a letter to the President of the FFA, we wrote that the vast majority of our Muslim fellow citizens “are good people and good Americans. They share our fundamental moral values and our commitments to democratic institutions and civil and religious liberty. They do not promote hatred of Christians and Jews and have no desire to establish an Islamic theocracy. They are as appalled as we are at the rhetoric and conduct of those of their religion who do promote hatred and who seek to undermine democratic freedoms.” We went on:

It is fundamentally unjust to tar all or most Muslims with the brush of extremism; and, as Christians and Americans, we must never countenance injustice. Moreover, effectively countering the threats posed by genuine extremists requires us to welcome, as friends and allies, Muslims who share our opposition to radicalism and violence, who value their American citizenship and American freedom just as we do, and who contribute constructively to their communities and the larger society. When we treat our Muslim fellow citizens justly, and when we welcome them as partners in our efforts on behalf of life, liberty, and human dignity, we are being true both to our Christian faith and to our American heritage

The New York Times calls George “our nation's most influential conservative Christian thinker.” Another profile of George calls him a, “Conservative Heavyweight.” To be sure, the public expression of these sentiments by a figure as important as Robert George in the American conservative movement is particularly important, and even risky to George himself, at a time when the American conservative movement is, sadly, riddled with activists espousing anti-Muslim perspectives. Indeed, as a result of expressing his support for Muslims and the rights of Muslims as fellow Americans, George has come in for his share of abuse from anti-Muslim extremists. (For example, one letter he and I received from an American in response to one of our joint articles about Muslims featured a stamp on the envelope, “Mecca delenda est,” Latin for “Mecca must be destroyed,” and the letter went on from there.) In spite of all this he has stood his ground.

Yet what about George's position on the Bradley Foundation board? Is it inconsistent with his advocacy of the rights of Muslims and his work for Christian-Muslim cooperation? The Bradley Board discussions are confidential and, says George, “what I have to say about Bradley grants and grantees I will say to them and my colleagues on the Bradley board.” Frankly I am glad that he is part of the Bradley Board. He can have more influence by participating inside than by protesting from outside, and having so prominent a defender of Muslim rights, and of Islam as a faith, in such a visible place of honor and influence in the conservative movement sends a clear message to other conservatives that they need not, and should not, view Islam with contempt or regard their Muslim fellow citizens with suspicion.

Someone like Robert George who enjoys enormous prestige and influence in the conservative movement could easily remain quiet in the face of anti-Muslim hostility. He has little to gain personally by speaking out, and more than a little to lose. Liberals don't like him because of his strong support for the pro-life cause and for traditional marriage. By publicly and forcefully speaking up for the rights of Muslims, he risks alienating the friends and supporters he does have, who are mainly on the right. Having had the pleasure and honor of working with him for several years, I have seen that he runs that risk because he truly believes that as a Christian he has a duty to defend the rights of those whom he never hesitates to call his “Muslim brothers and sisters”.  His appointment to USCIRF brings to this Commission a man with deep understanding of and commitment to religious freedom, who approaches his work with a strong, principled posture of fairness and respect for all religious believers. And as his track record shows, “all” for George includes Muslims.

Jennifer S. Bryson, Ph.D., is Director of the Islam and Civil Society Project at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ.

In the early days of Islam, a few companions of the Prophet were fleeing persecution in Mecca and sought refuge in Abyssinia. The Christian ruler of the land, Ashama, demanded the companions to read aloud from their scripture and, when one of them recited from the sura of Mary, Ashama and his court were moved to tears. When they were told to make known their beliefs about Jesus, they said that Islam considers Jesus to be a messenger of God, the word of God, and the miraculously born son of the Virgin Mary. After hearing this, Ashama is said to have drawn a line in the sand and said that the differences between them were no more than that thin line. He then decreed that Muslims were allowed safe refuge in his kingdom[1].

It would be nice to think that this story could be applicable to modern Christians and Muslims, but take one look at the news and that thought disappears.

The Qur'an contains ninety-three passages in reference to Jesus and, together, they present a clear picture of what Muslims believe. Chronologically, this begins with Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Qur'an tells the story of Mary's birth and describes how God graciously accepted her, making her grow in goodness, and entrusting her to be raised by Zachariah[3][4]. God chose Mary above all other women as the most pure and sent angels to give her news that she was to give birth to a pure son[5] called Jesus, the Messiah[6]. The angels tell her that Jesus “will be held in honor in this world and the next”, he “will be one of those brought near to God”, “he will speak to people in his infancy”, and “he will be one of the righteous” [7]. Mary has an entire sura named after her, one of only eight people to have this honor, and is affirmed to have given a virginal birth and to have afterward remained a virgin[8]. It is believed that Jesus was able to speak as an infant; after Mary gives birth to Jesus and carries him back to her people, she is accosted with accusations and it is then where Jesus speaks his first words and defends her honor[9]. In these first words, Jesus declares himself as a prophet and a servant of God who will be raised up after death and return at the final judgment[10].

Throughout his life, Jesus is believed to have performed several miracles by the permission of God; he transforms a clay bird into a real one, heals the blind and the leper, and brings the dead back to life[11]. He was sent to follow in the footsteps of previous prophets and to confirm the Torah that had been sent before him[12]. The Qur'an also says that God gave Jesus the Gospel with guidance, light, and confirmation as a guide and lesson for the followers of God[13]. Jesus is believed to be a fully human prophet; he is never said to claim divinity but instead attributes all he does to the power of God. When asked by God if he ever said for people to take him as a god, Jesus replies, “I would never say what I had no right to say”[14]. The Qur'an also mentions the disciples of Jesus, although not by name. The disciples are said to follow Jesus and declare themselves as Muslims[15].

Regarding the death of Jesus, the Qur'an denies that Jesus actually died or was ever crucified[16]. Muslims believe that Jesus physically ascended into heaven and that the disbelievers claimed victory only because “it was made to appear like that to them”[17]. The Qur'an states that Jesus will return again at the end of days when everyone will be judged on their adherence to Islam[18].

In addition to the Qur'an, Muslims look to the Hadith as an authority on Jesus. Several Hadith expand upon elements of Jesus described in the Qur'an, particularly about the end of his existence on Earth and what comes after. The Hadith present an “image of Jesus as an end-of-time figure”[19]. In one Hadith, Muhammad says, “the son of Mary will come back down among you very soon as a just judge”[20] and in another he says that he has been shown that Jesus will return to defeat the Antichrist[21]. This supports the general thought that Jesus is currently awaiting the end of time when he will “descend to the earth and fight against the Antichrist, championing the cause of Islam” and “point to the primacy of Muhammad” before dying a natural death[22]. Muslims see Jesus as a precursor to Muhammad and believe that Jesus predicted Muhammad's coming in the canonical Gospel of John.

Many believers of both Islam and Christianity would be shocked at the number of similarities that lie in their sacred texts. Since the Bible was written and compiled before even the birth of Muhammad and therefore can contain no commentary on him or Islam, many Christians would be especially surprised to learn that Muslims regard Jesus as one of Islam's most important prophets. American Christians in particular have a distorted view of Islam imposed by media and therefore can be entirely unaware of what the religion actually entails. The Qur'an actually contains references to over fifty people and events that are also found in the Bible. It also repeatedly affirms the legitimacy of the Torah, the Hebrew bible, or the Old Testament as Christians call it.

Muslims agree with the biblical stories that are also present in the Qur'an but firmly refute those which contrast with their beliefs. For the stories that are present within the Bible that are not found in the Qur'an and also do not conflict with anything in Islam, Muslims are told to neither believe nor disbelieve them. In the Hadith, Muhammad tells his followers, “Don't believe what the Jews and Christians tell you, but don't call them liars either. Say 'We believe in God and in what has been revealed to us…'[23]”[24] Islam teaches that it is most important to just believe in what has been revealed by God.

People on either side often simplistically explain these similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an to affirm the legitimacy of their own religion. Secular scholars suggest that the Qur'an contains these narratives as a result of pre-existing traditions that existed even before the Bible; Christians say that the Qur'an simply borrowed their stories; and Muslims explain them as the truth that was revealed to Muhammad by God. However, when texts outside of the Bible or the Qur'an are brought to light, it leads to a far more complicated picture.

To say that Jesus didn't found Christianity would immediately anger many people. However, upon closer inspection of the phrase, it is difficult to say otherwise. The earliest book that came to be in the New Testament was written decades after Jesus' death and the Christian doctrines and creeds were created centuries later. The reality is that Christianity didn't exist until after Jesus' time and therefore couldn't have been created by him[25]. After Jesus' departure, many people took to writing down what had happened and what it meant. The first problems for Christianity arose when these writings turned out to be very different from each other. In fact, the practices and beliefs of people who called themselves Christians during the first three centuries were so varied that the differences between modern Christian sects pale in comparison[26].

During the second half of the second century, with the growing number of prophetic and perceived heretical movements among Christians, there was great need for a fixed canon[27]. Christian groups such as the Marcionites, the Ebionites, the Gnostics, and the proto-orthodox all insisted that they correctly upheld the teachings of Jesus and were all in competition to become the rightful version that would eventually be adopted by the Roman Empire[28]. The proto-orthodox, named as such because of its eventual victory, was ultimately endorsed by Constantine as the primary religion of the Roman Empire. As the proto-orthodox text “developed into the dominant religious, political, economic, social, and cultural institution of the West”[29], the other defeated texts were labeled heretical and were “rejected, scorned, maligned, attacked, burned, [and] all but forgotten”[30].

Just four gospels came to be included in the New Testament but modern archeology has rediscovered dozens of other gospels that “at one time or another, at one place or another…. were revered as sacred, inspired, [and] scriptural”[31] by different Christian groups in the first few centuries[32]. These gospels tell their own stories about who Jesus was, some in accordance with canonical gospels but many more of them different. When thinking outside the bounds of Christianity, several of these ancient texts overlap curiously with Islam and with what the Qur'an and Hadith teach of Jesus.

One such gospel is known as the Proto-Gospel of James. Other titles for the gospel have been found and include “The Birth of Mary”, “The Story of the Birth of Saint Mary, Mother of God”, and “The Birth of Mary; The Revelation of James”[33]. It is called the Proto-Gospel of James because it deals primarily with events that took place before the birth of Jesus. The author calls himself James and it is usually understood that this is James, the half-brother of Jesus who is mentioned in the New Testament. In this text he is “assumed to be Joseph's son by a previous marriage”[34]. Since this book is proved to have been already known to the church father Origen in the early third century, and most likely also to Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second century, it is believed to “have been in circulation soon after 150 CE” and was “enormously popular in the later centuries”[35]. The text describes in great detail the circumstances of Mary's birth and her upbringing until her eventual pregnancy with Jesus and it very much aligns with passages about Mary in the Qur'an.

Both texts mention the excitement of Mary's mother at discovering she would bear a child and also that she will devote her child to God. In the Qur'an she says, “Lord, I have dedicated what is growing in my womb entirely to You; so accept this from me. You are the One who hears and knows all” and, upon learning the child is female says, “I name her Mary and I commend her and her offspring to Your protection from the rejected Satan”[36]. The Proto-Gospel of James describes her as saying, “As the Lord God lives, whether my child is a boy or a girl, I will offer it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it will minister to him its entire life,” and, upon giving birth and learning the child is a girl says, “My soul is exalted today”[37]. Both texts tell of God's acceptance of Mary with “Her Lord graciously accepted her and made her grow in goodness”[38] in the Qur'an and “the Lord God cast his grace down upon her. She danced on her feet, and the entire house of Israel loved her”[39] in the Proto-Gospel of James. In both texts, Mary is raised in a temple by a man named Zachariah (Qur'an) or Zacharias (Proto-Gospel of James) and she leads a pure and chaste life[40] [41]. Although the Proto-Gospel of James does not mention the infant Jesus speaking, as the Qur'an does[42], it does tell of the infant Jesus performing a miraculous deed as he heals the burning hand of the midwife[43].

The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter is another early Christian text that corresponds to Islamic thought and teaching. Thought to have been written in the third century, it is allegedly written by Simon Peter, the disciple of Jesus[44]. The book's message is one that is stressed in numerous places throughout the Qur'an. In it, Jesus issues “dire warnings against the teaching of heretics who propagate falsehoods” and, strikingly in accordance with Qur'anic thought, it labels the heretics as “the bishops and deacons of the proto-orthodox churches, and their false teaching [that] Jesus was himself the Christ who suffered a literal death on the cross”[45]. The text maintains that the real Jesus is raised up above the cross while the people are crucifying what they think is Jesus, but is actually a substitute[46]. The author mocks the proto-orthodox view that Jesus actually died on the cross, seeing it as “laughable”[47]. The author believes that the true significance of Jesus' apparent death is much deeper than what proto-orthodox leaders believe and that, even though the people believed they crucified the flesh of Jesus, he was actually far removed from the perceived suffering[48]. The author says that those “who beheld the cross with full knowledge” should know that it was not actually Jesus on the cross but merely his outward appearance and he likens this to how “simple-minded Christians are nothing but the outward appearance of the living ones who have been fully enlightened by the spiritual truth” of the risen Jesus[49].

When aligned with Qur'anic verse, this book seems to propagate the same message concerning the false belief Christians hold about Jesus. The author's implication that “simple-minded Christians are nothing but the outward appearance of the living ones who have been fully enlightened by the spiritual truth” can be taken to correspond to Muslims' view that Christians have witnessed the same as Muslims have regarding Jesus but have essentially missed the point in assigning him divinity instead of attributing it to God. The language of this book when regarding those who believe they have killed Jesus is very similar in its mocking tone to verses in the Qur'an, “[they] said, 'We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of God.' They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition: they certainly did not kill him- No! God raised him up Himself. God is almighty and wise.” [50] Like the author of the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, in this passage the Qur'an takes an attitude of derision toward the “People of the Book,” whom Jesus will be a witness against on the Day of Resurrection[51]. Also, the insistence in the text that only those with “full knowledge”[52] will be spared from eventual suffering correlates with the Qur'anic verse, “For those of them that reject the truth we have prepared agonizing torment. But those of them who are well grounded in knowledge and have faith do believe what has been revealed to you [Muhammad], and in what was revealed before you- those who perform the prayers, pay the prescribed alms, and believe in God and the Last Day- to them We shall give a great reward”[53]. Both texts place a high importance on true knowledge as the way to be saved in the end and escape suffering.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is one of the earliest surviving accounts of Jesus as a child[54]. Allegedly written by “Thomas, the Israelite”, it remains unclear who the author intended to be perceived as. Many early Christians recognized him as Judas Thomas, Jesus' brother and therefore a reliable authority[55]. The book tells stories of the young Jesus beginning at age five and relates a number of miraculous incidents in his childhood. These anecdotes portray a mischievous streak[56] in the young Jesus and relate encounters with other children, his teachers, and his father. The first known quotation from the text is by Irenaeus of Lyon, in 185 CE[57], which establishes a latest possible date of composition. The earliest possible date is thought to be around 80 CE because of the author's evident knowledge of twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple from the Gospel of Luke[58]. However, it is generally agreed upon by scholars that the text began to circulate during the first half of the second century[59].

The book begins with the author's explanation that he “[made] this report to all of you, my brothers among the Gentiles, so that you may know the magnificent childhood activities” of Jesus[60]. It contains eighteen anecdotes of varying length, the first being the story of the Jesus and the clay sparrows. It begins with a five-year-old Jesus playing by the ford of a stream, collecting water and making it pure. “He then made some soft mud and fashioned twelve sparrows from it.” Several other children were playing near by and “a certain Jew” ran away to report to Joseph, “Look, your child at the stream has taken mud and formed twelve sparrows. He has profaned the Sabbath!” Joseph came over and cried out, “Why are you doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath?” But Jesus simply “clapped his hands and cried to the sparrows, 'Be gone!' And the sparrows took flight and went off, chirping.” When all of the other Jews saw this, they were amazed and dispersed to go tell their leaders what they had seen Jesus do[61].

This same story can be seen referenced twice in the Qur'an; first in the third sura, The Family of 'Imran. In this sura, Mary is learning about Jesus, the son she will bear, and then Jesus speaks and tells of the miracles he will complete in the future, by the power of God. He begins with a reference to the story in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, “I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I will make the shape of a bird for you out of clay, then breathe into it and, with God's permission, it will become a real bird…” [62] The story is referenced again in the fifth sura, The Feast, where God is reminding Jesus of all He has done for him and for Mary. God says, “Jesus, son of Mary! Remember My favor to you and to your mother: how I strengthened you with the holy spirit, so that you spoke to people in your infancy and as a grown man; how I taught you the Scripture and wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel; how, by My leave, you fashioned the shape of a bird out of clay, breathed into it, and it became, by My leave, a bird; how, by My leave, you healed the blind person and the leper; how, by My leave, you brought the dead back to life; how I restrained the children of Israel from harming you when you brought them clear signs, and those of them who disbelieved said, 'This is nothing but sorcery'; and how I inspired the disciples to believe in Me and My messengers- they said, 'We believe and bear witness that we devote ourselves to God.'”[63] In these verses God reminds Jesus of the fact that everything he has been allowed to do has been by the power and will of God.

According to these two suras, the story of the clay birds is significant in Jesus' life as one of the major testaments to the power of God working through Jesus. The story in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas does not specifically attribute the deed to either the power of God or the divinity of Jesus but, in the context of other Christian works, it would be assumed to refer to the latter[64]. The two suras make sure to emphasize that Jesus was only able to accomplish this act with God's permission.

This alludes to the greater issue present between Islam and Christianity. Upon reviewing their fundamentally accepted occurrences having to do with Jesus, it is clear that they should agree for the most part. They both believe that Jesus was born to Mary, a virgin, and performed many miraculous deeds and preached the word of God. They both believe that, although he was thought by the crucifiers to have perished on the cross, he rose into heaven and will come again at the time of judgment. These facts are not so much a point of contention as is the interpretation of them. The difference lies in the focus, the lens through which both religions view these actions of Jesus. Christians focus on these miracles of Jesus as being indicative of his divine nature and hold this central in their faith. For Christians, other prophets such as Moses were able to perform miracles but, like his splitting of the Red Sea, it was all made possible by the power of God[65]. Jesus is the only one whose miracles are attributed to his own divine power. Here is where Muslims explain the discrepancies between the two religions as a result that Christians have missed the point of Jesus. Muslims see Jesus, as the Qur'an says, in a succession of prophets who are fully human and not divine and culminate with Muhammad.[66] Muslims believe that, if Christians accepted this view, all would be explained. Christians on the other hand take the approach that Muslims created a false and unnecessary new religion and believe that any similarities between the sacred texts are a result of Muslims borrowing from the Christian tradition[67].

Attempts have also been made by secular scholars to explain these consistencies between the two religions as the result of pre-existing historical trends even before the time of Jesus. There are many examples of similar narrative structures that have been found in texts dating back hundreds and even thousands of years that are present within the Bible[68]. Western scholars have also seen these trends as related to the rapid expansion of Islam in its early period[69]. They believe that unrest and civil war during the rise of Islam led to the widespread expectations of Muslims that the end of the world was near and, some scholars believe, the Qur'anic descriptions of Jesus as an end of time figure would have been “a reassurance to Muslims that their cause was not in vain” and that they “had recognized the side of righteousness in a confusing world of socio-political currents.”[70]

The Jesus of Islam is arguably the same as the Jesus of Christianity and can clearly be seen within Christian sources of all kinds but these sources are scattered and disputed amongst the Christians. The confusion arises because of the inconsistencies of Christian sources, both canonical and non-canonical, and is largely the result of the early Christians leaders who assembled faulty compilations and allowed for politics or their own agendas to play too much into the construction of the canon[71]. It is an indisputable fact that although the Bible is the Christian sacred text, it contains numerous significant contradictions. Just in the seemingly simple Genesis flood story there are three separate versions with different accounts of fundamental aspects of how the flood occurred[72]. Muhammad and his contemporaries like Abu Bakr had the foresight to record and compile the Qur'an right away so as to ensure purity of content. Just the same as Christianity, there were undoubtedly Muslims or other hopefuls who attempted to author false sacred texts but the manner in which the Qur'an was compiled did not allow for it. Even the Hadith can for the most part trace all its sayings back directly to the prophet.

However, no amount of criticism over the compilation of ancient works will change what happened and both Muslims and Christians are guilty of wasting too much ink over attempts to disprove the other. Scholars of both religions have for centuries tried to point out the opposite sacred text's references to Jesus in a way to affirm their own faith when instead they should be focusing on commonalities and ways to move forward. It is ironic that Muhammad spoke so well of Jesus while Christian writings have always been harshly critical of Muhammad[73]. Andalusia was a perfect example of what can come of harmonious interaction between religions[74]. Spain under Muslim rule was the epitome of intellectual and cultural exchange, with Christians, Muslims, and Jews all coexisting and creating positive outcomes[75]. However, just because such harmony was possible in Andalusia at that time, doesn't mean that is necessarily possible or the answer today.

These “lost” early Christian doctrines are often dismissed today, especially by church leaders, for the sole reason of being non-canonical and, therefore heretical. What many do not stop to consider is the fact that, at one point, all of these books were considered legitimate to a certain group. The significance of the victory of proto-orthodox Christianity is “almost impossible to exaggerate” and it left a number of marks on the history of Western civilization, “none of which has proved more significant than the formation of the New Testament as a canon of scripture”.[76] When faced with the question of why the other Christianities were defeated by Paul's proto-orthodox version, church leaders and other believers will often attribute it to the will of God. Many do not question whether the “right” version won out. Many Christians do not realize that “Christian Scriptures did not descend from heaven a few years after Jesus died” and either do not know or do not want to know that the books that eventually came to be collected into the sacred canon were written by a variety of authors over a period of sixty or seventy years, in different places and for different audiences[77]. This is honest historical fact. When considering this process, it is simply not enough to affirm that “decisions made about the canon, like the books themselves, were divinely inspired” and in order to get a proper understanding, it is necessary to consider the actual history of the process and to “ponder the long, drawn-out arguments over which books to include and which to reject.”[78] The process took centuries, and even then there was not unanimity[79]. The fact that the real process behind these decisions was political allows for entertainment of the thought of what Christianity and our world would be like if another version had won; the early Christian texts that correspond to Islamic teaching might not be heretical but could have been canonical. It is just not right or thorough to dismiss these similarities between the texts without proper consideration.

What all of the overlaps of texts such as the Proto-Gospel of James, the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas allude to is that there is more to the concordance between Islam and Christianity than is commonly thought. The collections of texts within the two religions hint at the existence of a shared historical narrative waiting to be further revealed. Many of the most influential and important ancient texts have been discovered in the last few generations and, aside from the fact that scholars have not finished understanding them yet, there are undoubtedly more discoveries to follow. All it takes is one text to shake the foundations and create new perspectives; the recent discovery of the Gospel of Judas presented an entirely opposite view of Judas from traditional Christianity[80]. Only just translated in 2006, the Gospel of Judas shows how even in a world where we think we have everything already figured out, there is no assurance that we won't have to revaluate at any time. There is still much work to be done in the study of these ancient texts. The current connections between early Christian books and the Qur'an paint only part of the picture and there is still much more to learn about the real historical narrative of Jesus' life. As for the question of whose books and whose ideas should be considered “correct”, only God can say.

In 2007 an Episcopalian priest was defrocked when, after deep thought, she considered herself both a Muslim and a Christian. People labeled her as idiotic and irrational, because such a thing is surely impossible. Isn't it?

She called on good Americans (read: non-Muslims) everywhere to take a stand against the halal turkeys (which may, after all, be stuffed with sharia instead of gizzards.)

Boycott Butterball, she wrote, because:

Turkeys that are halal certified — who wants that, especially on a day on which we are giving thanks to G-d for our freedom?

Oh the ironies that riddle her blog post!

Irony #1: Although Geller uses “G-d,” the traditional Jewish way of spelling the name of the Almighty, she seems unaware of how similar kosher, the traditional Jewish way of preparing food, is to halal. She protests what she calls the cruelty of halal slaughter:

Halal slaughter involves cutting the trachea, the esophagus, and the jugular vein, and letting the blood drain out…

From a description of kosher slaughter:

The procedure consists of a rapid and expert transverse incision with an instrument of surgical sharpness (a chalaf), which severs the major structures and vessels at the neck. See here for more details.

Irony #2: She calls Thanksgiving a great holiday celebrating our freedom and asserts that the way turkeys are slaughtered matters:

Halal turkey, slaughtered according to the rules of Islamic law, is just the opposite of what Thanksgiving represents: freedom and inclusiveness, neither of which are allowed for under that same Islamic law.

So Geller is using the Thanksgiving turkey as a symbol of what she perceives as a free and inclusive America.  There  are generations of native Americans stretching back to the first Thanksgiving who might have a different perspective.  The turkey they shared with the pilgrims was, unlike the halal Butterball, symbolic of values that actually did destroy a civilization.

Irony #3: The halal certification that prompted her rant may not actually reflect Islamically correct slaughter.  I confirmed with a Butterball consumer affairs representative (as did one of Geller's readers) that their “whole turkeys are halal.”  I pursued the issue by asking if that meant their turkeys are slaughtered individually following Islamic guidelines, beginning with saying Bismillah over them.

I have not been able to get a response to this question, despite trying throughout this afternoon and evening through Butterball's consumer affairs department and media relations representatives.

I would love to be told that mass-produced poultry are slaughtered humanely, but I find it impossible to believe.  Meat production is about making money, and doing individual slaughtering with care and attention, as Islamic law requires, is not the way to minimize costs.

Perhaps there is confusion between halal and dhabiha (zabihah).  It's strange that they emphasize that whole turkeys are halal.  What happens when they chop the turkey up that makes it haram?  Do they spray it with bacon grease?  Unless they tell us, we can't know.

Bottom line: if Americans can't bear the thought of putting something labeled halal in their mouths, their best bet is to stick with ham – a meat guaranteed to be free of Islamic influence, stealthy or otherwise.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transcript:

بسـم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I will first start with a verse from the Qurʾān, which I will recite in Arabic and then read the English translation.

“Truly, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (Qurʾān 13:11)

America is facing immense challenges today. Often, pressure is put on our leaders and politicians to solve them. But tonight, I would like to focus on another group of people. A group that's supposed to hold the real power. A group that have always helped reform America. These are the American citizens, people like you and I. Because we are the people America desperately needs today. But where are the American citizens today?

To understand our place in society, we have to understand the concept of popular consent. Popular consent is how democracy runs– we elect our leaders, who represent us in government. But in our history, consensus has been a double-edged sword, because it was consensus that once endorsed slavery, that prevented women from voting, that kept alive segregation and racism after it was outlawed.

So, consensus can sometimes mask a country's true ideal, because the opinions people have can be manipulated. Fringe groups understand too well the power of fear and bigotry. The impact the KKK had for example, was to de-sensitize Americans to levels of violence and terrorism they would have previously never accepted. This is what made racism so rampant and hard to overcome.

And this is why Dr. King was so special: he was able to fight a skewed consensus, by popularizing the concept of freedom and dignity and the idea that “we are all created equal.” He realigned America with its own constitution. And that was his dream.

But yet again, America's vision has become clouded, thanks to the steam of hate mongers. We no longer look at our nation with hearts that believe in “we are all created equal,” but with suspicions based on ethnicity and religion. When it comes to terrorism and Islam, the American public has again tragically been misled.  For it is not Islam or Muslims that we see, but rather unconcealed hate from fringe groups on both sides, which only desire to make us forget that “we are all created equal.”

And many of us have forgotten. Now, instead of lynching in the south, or concentration camps in California, we have Guantanamo and the Patriot Act, and full body scanners.

And so today, I have a dream to make “we are all created equal” a reality. And I need your help.

It will perhaps surprise you that I was never taught the Islam most Americans learn from their televisions. The Islam I was taught by my madrasah, which is the Arabic word for school – not terror camp -, actually gave me many lessons that can benefit America today and clear our vision.

At madrasah, I learned the true meaning of mercy and love – how one would never gain mercy from God if he never showed mercy to God's creation, how mercy and a concern for society's well being is a natural extension of faith, that removing obstacles from the road was really a form of worshiping God.

I learnt that the Prophet Muhammad said that leaders are the servants of their communities – that they should serve the public before they serve themselves. 14 centuries ago, he established that lobbying was illegal, that it was wrong to use government money for funding personal luxuries. The Prophet Muhammad himself developed the institution of shura – a democratic council wherein he consulted his followers, and took their opinions. Because, at the end of the day,  he desired to do the most correct thing.

And the most profound lesson I learnt was from the verse I just recited. ““Truly, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (Qurʾān13:11) And I believe this message is extremely relevant to America.

Because, America, whenever it strayed away from its Constitution, was always reined in by its citizens, such as Dr. King, Malcolm X, and so many others. And this is what brings me immense hope.

Ladies, and gentlemen – we are the ones who have to change. A healthy democracy requires a healthy citizenry that can build an informed consensus.  We have to realize that there will be no hope, no reform, until we reform ourselves, unless we dig in our heels, open our eyes and realize that the mass media we have been absorbing is doing nothing but promoting the world views of the corporations that own them, that real knowledge about a subject comes from witnessing things for yourself and embarking upon your own path of discovery.

Our democracy is the strongest in the world, and thus we are potentially the strongest citizens in the world. The consensus you and I form, the opinions you and I have, has a huge impact on the world. We have to realize that America will never become a beacon of light in the world, until we become beacons of lights in our communities, that we will never make peace with the world if we can't make peace with ourselves and our families, that the world will continue to glare at us with angry eyes, so long as we continue to close our eyes to the actions of our government, that our government will never listen to us if we don't raise our voices, resist the pressure to live in herds, and aspire to become leaders at whatever level we can.

But, today, most of us seemingly are living our own lives, even as our country slips further and further. Yet we must remember: If we are all content to blindly trust our government and stop educating ourselves and participating, we do not deserve our status as citizens and we should not expect any rights.

Ladies and gentlemen, change is long overdue. But, tonight, I want everyone to ask themselves a question:  are we ready to change ourselves?

When the doorbell rang a few weeks ago I sent my 3-year-old daughter and autistic 5-year-old son running after their father to open it.  We were expecting their aunt, and what we saw instead was our next-door neighbor Bonnie, covered in blood and crying hysterically. Within seconds my daughter was screaming, my son panicking, and my husband staring, aghast, at a woman my own age whom we had seen just an hour before, looking a little shaken but definitely not pouring blood.

“Call 911!” my husband yelled into the house. I yelled for my son's caregiver, Joy, and our housekeeper, Cindy, to take the children into house.  They both jumped in surprise, because this is a house where people don't yell.

“Get the kids inside the house now! NOW! NOW!”

“Now?!” Joy and Cindy both echoed back, alarmed.

“NOW!” I yelled, as I ran to the kitchen and grabbed plastic wrap and kitchen shears. I snatched up the phone, dialed 999 and was grateful to Allah that I had the presence of mind to dial the UAE emergency number rather than the US one.  “My neighbor is at the door bleeding,” I told the man on the phone, “I don't know what has happened but she's at the door and she's bleeding.”

I passed my daughter in the hallway, tucked under the housekeeper's arm and still screaming in terror as she was rushed in the opposite direction.  My son was whisked past me a second later by his caretaker, and I could hear the kids crying muffled as they were closed and locked behind the playroom door.

My husband was still standing at the open gate, trying to ask Bonnie what happened.  People from the street had gathered around staring at the two of them.  I was unsuccessfully trying to give the operator our address.  The street and house numbers just wouldn't come out right, no matter how many times I tried to say them.  “Bring her inside!  Bring her here!” I said to my husband, holding the phone out to him.  My husband ushered Bonnie inside the gate, took the phone and gave the police the right address.  I sat Bonnie down next to me on the front steps and pulled off a length of plastic wrap.  Then I wrapped it around Bonnie's right wrist and tied it tightly.  I did the same to her left wrist.  I didn't know if I was tying her hands in the right place because I couldn't tell where she had been cut, but one thing was very clear – she had been cut before.  Just a few inches below the plastic wrap tourniquets, where my left and right hands were pressing her left and right wrists to try to make the bleeding stop, were the marks of several other cuts still relatively fresh and glued with strips of hospital-grade tape.

“I'm so sorry. I'm so so so sorry,” she sobbed, pressing her face against my arm.

“You don't have anything to be sorry for, it's alright.  That's a nice tattoo,” my husband said conversationally, trying to engage Bonnie.  A man's name was written across her left arm, the last two letters smeared with blood and hidden under my left hand.

“My brother, he died. My brother died…” she broke off and began sobbing with renewed misery.

I looked up at my husband and saw the gate still standing open.  Bonnie was crying and rubbing her blood-covered face onto my now blood-covered arms.  A man from up the street was standing just a few feet away, and I was without my ḥijāb or abayah.  “Can you close the gate please?” I asked. My husband turned around angrily and pushed the people back.  “Stop staring at my wife!”  He closed the gate.

The first ambulance arrived within minutes, and my husband rushed to bring me a shawl.  He threw it over me just as the paramedics entered, covering me as well as I could be covered considering that I was still holding tightly to Bonnie's wrists and she was still crying and pressing her face onto my arm.  The paramedics took her left hand from me and began to bandage it.  Then they took her right hand from me and Bonnie panicked- “Don't leave me! Please don't leave me! Don't go!”

“I'm just going to put on some clothes,” I tried to reassure her.  ” I'll be back in a minute, I promise.”

Cindy, our housekeeper, met me inside the living room and trailed me to the bathroom as I walked elbows up, trying not to trail blood on the floor.  It was warm and sticky, and I remember thinking how unusual it was that it didn't flow as much as it thickly dripped.  She took the bloody shawl from me, turned on the tap, and poured copious amounts of anti-bacterial soap onto my hands.  “The kids ok?” I asked as I scrubbed my arms.

“They're calm now.  There's blood on your nose.”  I nodded and she poured more soap onto my hands so I could wash my face.  I took off the apron I had been wearing – I was cooking dinner when the bell rang – and asked her to wash that and the shawl immediately.  I went to my room, threw on an abayah and a scarf and went outside again.

Bonnie's father had arrived.  My husband seems to have amazing presence of mind in emergencies, though I have no idea when he managed to make that call.  Bonnie's father was strangely quiet, distant even, and then I realized he was in shock, not physically but emotionally.  The paramedic told him to hold Bonnie's arm up to help stop the bleeding.  He absentmindedly took it and a few seconds later he simply dropped it.

“Bonnie's arm, “my husband said to him, “You need to hold up her arm.”

“Oh.” He picked it up again, though he didn't seem to know what to do with it.  Bonnie's head began to slump.  I took it in my hands and tilted her face upwards.  “She's not breathing,” her father said quietly, politely even. “You guys, I think she's not breathing?”

One of the paramedics whipped out an oxygen mask and put it over her mouth and nose.  I pulled the elastic over the back of her head.  Bonnie began gasping, then retching, and the paramedic took the mask off immediately while Bonnie dry-heaved into her lap.

The gate opened again and my sister- the aunt we had been expecting earlier- walked in looking alarmed.  “What's going on?”  Three new paramedics followed behind her.

“Our neighbor cut herself.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“The kids are in the playroom, they may be a little traumatized.  Can you see how they're doing?”  She nodded and went into the house.

Eventually Bonnie was put onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance.  Her mother arrived by taxi, crying, smoking, and shaking so hard she couldn't sort through her purse to locate a form of ID to give to the police.  My husband paid the expectant-looking taxi driver, who had been standing, forgotten, up the street behind the emergency vehicles that were blocking the road.

Then the ambulance took Bonnie and her father away.  Bonnie's mother needed to follow in the father's car, but she couldn't find any keys.  She asked me to follow her into the house to look for a pair, so we walked next door, following the trail of blood from my gate to hers.  She reached her own front steps, gasped, covered her eyes and turned away.  There was a trail of blood- much more than the one leading into my house and neatly pooled at my front steps- it made its way out of the open front door, splashed across the steps and stained the floor tiles all the way out to the gate.

My husband, who had followed behind us, picked up the garden hose to wash the front steps, but before he could turn it on, the mother lost her composure.  She threw herself onto his shoulder and cried, and I know she was saying something but I don't think either my husband or I could make it out.   He passed her gently to me, just as the police were entering.  “Don't wash it,” they said.  “Don't touch anything, please.”

“My friend is coming,” the mother gasped when she could speak again, “Maria is coming and she'll help me find the keys.  She'll find the keys for me.  I need a drink, I need a coke, you know I don't drink any alcohol but my throat it's just so- please, I need a drink.”  I took the mother into our house instead, which was much less bloodied, and sat her down on the same front steps.  I brought her a drink and a box of tissues.  She lit another cigarette, took a few sips of her drink and then walked out of the gate again.  She couldn't sit still or stop talking.  Everything about her was shaky and flustered with non-stop talking.

I followed her outside where she stood next to the police officers.  My husband was there as well, trying to explain how a blood-covered woman ended up in our front yard and how we could have no idea what had happened.  “You see,” the mother explained nervously, ”She's been like this since my son…her big brother, he died…” and she lost it again, tears rolling down her face and her cigarette dangling from her fingers in front of her face as she shook and cried.

“When did that happen?” my husband asked gently.

“Two years,” she choked, “It's been two years and she pretends she's ok, but we all know it hurt her so badly.”  The mother reached up and fiddled with the cross around her neck.  The police officers looked at one another and nodded.  We all knew what had just happened to Bonnie, or rather, what Bonnie had just tried to do to herself, but no one was saying it.

I went back inside the house and washed up and changed my clothes again.  We fed the children dinner and put them to bed.  My husband, sister and I each prayed Maghrib ṣalāh, and eventually Bonnie's mother returned and took us up on our offer to drive her to the hospital in case she couldn't find the car keys.  It turns out the father had taken them with him to the hospital.  My husband had a few standing bites of dinner and then left to drive the mother to the hospital.  My sister stayed for dinner, and outside of the house the water evaporated off of the sun-baked cement tiles where our housekeeper had tried to wash away the blood.

And this is the part of the story that has not yet happened – Bonnie has not yet called me back, following the surgery she had on her hands the next day to repair the tendons that had been severed.  Her father did make a brief phone call to my husband to thank us, but we have not talked about it or brought up what was, in essence, Bonnie's failed suicide attempt.

The blood outside hasn't faded yet either.  I've been hoping that the Dubai sun will bleach the stains from in front of the gate, but they persist despite the 100+ degree heat every day.  Apparently, Bonnie first went to another neighbor's house, and they would not let her in.  When she came to our house next and leaned on the doorbell, other neighbors told my husband not to let her in when he came to answer the door.  Why? Because the police would ask us questions.

We see the neighbor's lights on in the evening, and we know they're home, but they haven't invited us back in.  We wave to each other every few days – I often see Bonnie's father driving home just as I am leaving, or her mother taking out the trash when I bring my son back home from school.  I ask how Bonnie is doing and they smile and say “Fine!” and we wave and go our separate ways.  And that's the really sad part- separate ways.  Without īmān, the sudden death of a beloved brother was enough to ruin Bonnie's life two years after the incident.  She doesn't work, she stays home and paints and smokes, and in the evenings we can smell the smoke wafting over the garden wall that divides her house from ours.   I wish I could go back and reassure her somehow, but without belief in the ākhirah, in Allah's Mercy, or in the good in all things – even death – what do I have to work with?

We take Islam for granted, this I am sure of, because my husband and I, on learning why Bonnie had tried to kill herself both privately thought, “What, just because her brother died?”   To Muslims, death is a transition, not a tragedy.  The greatest loss is not of life but of īmān. The shahīd can die with faith and we are jealous of them, but a person could live without it for a hundred years in luxury and we would pity them.

I don't mean to belittle the kind of pain that Bonnie must be in, or to make light of a grief so strong that two years later it overshadows her life.  I understand that without a complete picture of human existence – one that includes resurrection, accountability, and life after death – the end of human life is a tragedy of such magnitude and frequency that perhaps one would want to just get it over with and kill ourselves now, or just get over it because everyone dies and there's no point.  Without faith, our options are depression, desensitization, or delusion.  Bonnie chose the first one.

So half of this story hasn't happened, and I really wish it would.  That would be the part where Bonnie calls, or just walks over (following the rust-colored stains) to our gate and rings the bell to have a chat.  It would involve me trying to share the salām, the peace that Islam brings us when we submit to Allah and trust in His Will, even when it hurts.  It has only been a few weeks since she first walked over, bleeding and crying; maybe she's just working up the courage.  Maybe she's just waiting for her hands to heal.  In any case, please make du'ā' for Bonnie and her family, that their sorrow be the catalyst for seeking solace, and that solace be Islam.  Ameen.

I circle around the bar. I feel my stomach swoop into my throat. One, two spins around. At the third I slip and fall to the ground, my face burning red with confusion. Am I really ready?

A girl comes over and asks if I am hurt. I shake my head and brush away woodchips. Bailey is six years old. Megan, her eight-year-old sister, joins us. I teach them some bar tricks. They are entertained, but Megan is curious about something else, too.

“Why do you wear that on your head? Do you want to wear it?” Panic.

“Uh, this? It's 'cause of my religion. And I chose to…to wear it.” Trepidation.

“Oh, I guess that you don't belong to the same religion as me.” Apprehesion.

“Nope, I guess not.” Okay…?

“Bailey, she looks kinda like Gracia, huh?” Relief. Connection.

It was as simple as that. That is when I knew that within those ten minutes we had become friends. There was something about them accepting me that made me accept myself. For many years, I fought to muster the courage to start wearing the hijab. Finally I let go; all my reasons built up to one moment in senior year of high school. But I also fell; it had been a challenge adjusting to my drastic change in identity—until that point in the playground. It was an epiphany. If two little strangers I met could see past my veil, then there was nothing for me to be afraid of. My encounter with them gave me the push to make it over the bar.

My Story

Upon marriage I was asked to give up citizenship of my country of birth. I take loyalty very seriously; my family had made great sacrifices for Pakistani citizenship. In 1947, my grandparents crossed over from Kashmir, India, on foot with two babies and lived in an open-air refugee camp for months. They witnessed families being slaughtered and gave up their land in pursuit of a new home, one with freedom of religion. It was a hard decision. I had my immigration papers for many years but waited until in my heart I could honestly take the oath.

What prompted me to make this decision was that I found my faith in America. Raised a Muslim, I did not really practice Islam. Many of us, who grew up in luxury in Pakistan, took our religion for granted. With the advent of the Internet, dīn wasn't sequestered for a chosen few, it was accessible to everyone. Shedding my cultural baggage, I appreciated the multiculturalism of the US, the equality of sexes, the spirit of standing up for what is right, the dignity of labor and the Constitution that mirrored the reading of the Sharī'ah I was learning. I reflected on the words of the Qurʾān when Allah (subḥānahu wa ta'āla) says,

“(Moses) said: 'Lord of the East and the West, and all between! If you only had sense!'”  [26:28]

Did it matter where I worship Him? I still ache for the tikka stops and old bookshops of Lahore, but it was in America where I saw my core values as a Muslim being practiced. There is honesty in dealings, tolerance, I am free to pray in public; despite a few nut jobs who oppose the building of Islamic centers, new masājid are being built every day.  I owe this understanding to the Islamic scholars in the US who have taught me that being American and Muslim is not a dichotomy. I owe this to my neighbors who have loved me, knowing that we call on the same God by different names, serving Him when we fast for Lent, Yom Kippur or Ramaḍān. I became an American.

The difference is that one notorious day. Every time, I am asked to speak on Muslim issues to non-Muslims, whether the topic is education or women's rights, someone in the audience always brings up the '9/11?' question.

No one can forget the apocalyptic scenes.  My brother-in-law watched the horrific footage of the World Trade Center over and over again for months after 9/11. He had a meeting scheduled in the Twin Towers that morning, circled in red ink in his Franklin Covey planner. He survived because he had left his job at JP Morgan on September 5, 2001. Upon hearing the news of the plane hitting the Pentagon, our thoughts were with Anwar Uncle, who worked there, a bear of a man who made my first 'Īd in this country less lonely with stories of his time in US Air Force.

Everyone warned me not to venture out of the house wearing a headscarf. After a while, needing necessities, I went to the grocery store where I met another ḥijābi and we hugged. We were joined by other women, white, black, Asian, strangers in an embrace, weeping in the cereal aisle. This was community, variegated yet converging in our pain, forgetting any differences.

Her Story

Rahma Salie was my first friend in college; we began our journey back to Islam together. She and her husband, Micky, and their unborn baby died on 9/11; they were Muslim. Micky was raised as a Greek Orthodox Christian but he accepted  Islam after meeting Rahma. Please make du'ā' for all three of them.

The last time I saw her was on Newbury Street in Boston, where her parents now run a café. We introduced our fiancées' to each other, giddy in each other's happiness.  She must have been glowing and happy when she boarded that American Flight 11; she was going to attend a friend's wedding in Los Angeles. Rahma would not have wanted to be remembered as a victim; she was a positive, powerful woman. She used her talents to make her adopted country a better place to live. Her friends still miss her and mourn her, and many gathered together last weekend at the college campus where Rahma spent 4 years of her life. The lesson I learned from 9/11: never take a day for granted, for life is very fragile and very short.

As Afkham Salie, her brother, said at a memorial

“9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, to me those men were not Muslim, they may have thought themselves as such but their actions were not of those who are true believers… but please also help make this a better world for those who are different, who may be of a different faith, race, culture, nobody I knew did this better than my sister, Rahma, and her husband Micky. If today reminds you to extend the same generosity to others of diverse backgrounds and faiths then the terrible events ten years ago, which cost Rahma, Micky and thousands of others, their lives will at least have brought some positive benefits.”

Reflections

9/11 stole my friend, awakened American Muslims from their stupor, and left us on the defensive. Maybe Allah thought Muslims weren't doing enough for this land that He blessed us with. This was an opportunity to get out of our Muslim bubble and be a part of the American fabric. Muslims have become active: engaging in civics, in politics, taking care of the needy in their cities. Even the usual divides along Ṣūfi/Salafi lines are uniting for change.

See, ten years later, American Muslims are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We are called sellouts by Muslims overseas, when our government sends drones into Pakistan and elsewhere, killing innocent civilians including children every year and when “Made in the U.S.A.” is on the tear gas canisters used against the peaceful protesters across the Middle East and North Africa. We realize this, we are not blind to the faults of the U.S. government.

We know that many more lives were lost as a result of the wars that were fought as a reaction to 9/11. Those 3000 American lives were not more valuable than the hundreds of thousands that have died overseas. We mourn their lives, of those innocents killed overseas. However, Americans value their compatriots and one American dying means a lot to the average American. Pakistani and Iraqi, et al., expression about loss of lives of  brethren gets lost in the headlines. Every day we hear of carnage on the streets of cities, like Karachi; Muslims being killed by other Muslims because of differences in ethnicity or language, which dilutes the indignation.

And at home, I think regular Americans are ready to move beyond 9/11, to pick up the pieces of our broken hearts. Yet there is an industry of hate, which demonizes Muslims, not just radicals but Islam itself and they won't let us. This hate factory includes a group of highly organized, well-funded individuals, who form a massive echo chamber referred to as “Fear Inc” in a new ground-breaking investigative report produced by the Center for American Progress (CAP).  I wrote about what anti-Muslim bigots like David Yerushalmi are doing with the money. This forces American Muslims to constantly wear our loyalty like a badge on our chests, condemning – forever condemning.

Despite these efforts to marginalize Muslims, my heart is filled with love for this land because He created it. My children see their faith practiced everyday.

I am proud to be an immigrant. We choose to be here. As is often quoted, home is not where your grandparents are buried but where your children are born and raised. My husband is a second generation American. My brother-in-law's ancestors came to California as rice farmers 100 years ago. My friend Mary's ancestors were indigenous Americans. We live with you, among you and love this land as a blessing from the Creator. We are Muslims and this is our home.

Home is where the heart is. Let us be home.

Hena Zuberi is a Pakistani-American Muslim, the Editor-in-Chief of MuslimMatters.org, and formerly a news producer on CNBC Asia and Telebiz. She attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts and the University of New Orleans.

Lee is a high school teacher in Irvine CA. He tweets inspirational words and reflections at JihadiJew and blogs here under the same interesting handle “JihadiJew”. His thoughts on Ramadan were amazing, make sure to read them.

I was asked to write a “Jewish-American” response in remembrance of 9/11/.  I am afraid that my response to 9/11 was and is a very idiosyncratic. I would hesitate to call it a “Jewish-American” response. It is rather a personal response that is nevertheless rooted in Jewish thought.

When the first plane hit the tower, I was leading prayers.  Our little synagogue in LA was crowded with an eclectic mix Chassidically-oriented North African Sephardic Jews, Lubavitcher Chassidim and homeless people who lingered after collecting alms because we had free food and  we were polite to them. The prayer that day was unusually  electric and passionate. As a prayer leader I was “on” that day and everyone went along with me. It was powerful. In fact, it was perhaps the most powerful prayer I remember, in that now long gone synagogue. The prayers came to an end and a strange energy took over the room. The tower had been hit. Though I was told what had happened, it took moments to register. Then I got it.

Like all Americans, I was shocked and enraged by the barbarity of the attack.  At the same time I had the very vivid realization that though I could never understand or excuse this outrage,  in some way I understood the twisted thinking of the attackers.  It was not their politico-religious agenda that I understood. What I understood was that in both Judaism and Islam there is a powerful inner drive for self-sacrifice and that it was that drive which had gone tragically and disastrously wrong.

There have never been Jewish suicide bombers. Nevertheless, Judaism is no stranger to the concept of the sacrifice of the self (mesirat nefesh) of giving your all in the service of G-d.  In the middle ages, Jewish tradition extolled the virtue of dying “al kiddush Hashem” for the sanctification of G-d's name, allowing oneself to be killed rather than convert or recant ones Judaism. Only a few minutes before the plane crashed into the towers, I had been visualizing myself engulfed with flames, dying as I sanctified G-d's name, proclaiming out loud with my dying breath “Hear O Israel, The Lord our G-d, The Lord is One!”  This is an spiritual exercise of  the 18th century Chassidic master Rebbe Elimelech of Lysansk described in his famous “Tzetel Katan” (the “Little Note”), to be done as a meditation on the words of the Shema, the proclamation of Jewish faith in the absolute unity of God. Reb Elimelech warns that if a person were to become too proficient in this meditation they could expire from the effort through a self-inflicted state of self-nullification.  I believe that the 9/11 attackers carried with them a grossly distorted version of this self-same concept of self-sacrifice. They had become the sinister carnival mirror reflection of the very same spiritual longing that I had experienced so powerfully  just a few moments before the attack.

The Jewish mystical classic, The Zohar, teaches us that “G-d created the world with this opposite that.” That is, that holiness and the “other side” of evil would be reflections of one another. What you find in one you will find in the other. On one side you will find great saints and scholars and on the other wicked demagogues and slick hucksters of evil ideas. On one side you will find the noble struggle with the lower self and on the other wanton violence against straw-man enemies. And lastly, on the side of holiness you will find the urge to nullify oneself  to the ultimately real existence of G-d and on the side of evil  you will find an excuse to vent murderous rage through self-sacrificial suicide to a false god in the guise of the One True G-d.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”                              -Yirmiyahu / Jeremiah 17:9-10

To me, 9/11 is a reminder of the deceitful fragility of the human heart. Though this was the act of a few crazed fanatics, it also exposed a basic human weakness, a disease which is perhaps endemic to the human soul that confuses the holy with the unholy, the righteous with the unrighteous.  For people of faith, particularly for Muslims and for Jews who share this deep notion of self-sacrifice, 9/11 is a reminder to give ourselves over only to that which is truly good and wholesome, to nullify our wills only to that of the Creator of the Universe and even then only in the service of Life.

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Link to all Ramadan 2011 posts

I pass by it every time I go shopping to the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles, you cannot avoid it. Right past the diamond district and the wholesale flower market in the richest country in the world, in one of the richest state’s richest counties, under the shadow of Hollywood actors’ condos is the human stain that is Skid Row. You forget that you are in the US when you enter the urine-drenched, graffiti covered streets of the homeless capital of the world. There is nothing like this anywhere in the country: complete desolation for 50 blocks. Ten of thousands of homeless individuals on the streets, shopping carts full of their only possessions. Signs etched in the parking meters demark territories, while blue tarps cover makeshift cardboard box condos. Trash is strewn on every corner. They come here waiting to die, the addicts, the mentally ill, war veterans but many are there crippled by financial crisis or foreclosures. Some can’t get a job even if they want to because they do not have an address; it is a vicious cycle that they may get trapped into for years. Other have jobs but cannot afford housing.

The guilt of speeding past them, ignoring them, scared to look lest one of them caught my eye, haunted me.  Back in Pakistan you would just feed someone who was so obviously hungry.  “They have a right over you, you live in this country,” whispered my soul. I started volunteering at our local homeless shelter. “Not in our backyard” signs cropped up, funding dried up and they shut it down after the worst of winter was over. What now?

Then I found out about Humanitarian Day – an event that allows me to put my Islamic beliefs of charity into practice, one the organizers choose to hold in the month of Divine Rahmah, Ramadan.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From the press release: “The Los Angeles Muslim Community under the banner “Coalition to Preserve Human Dignity (CPHD)” successfully reflect true Islamic principles around social/ civic duties by engaging in America’s domestic problems. Collectively organizing supporting resources; both intra and interfaith organizations for effective collaborations that serve the homeless with “Dignity, Love and Respect.”

The founding organization ILM Foundation has organized events serving the needy, where line items are distributed such as; hygiene kits, warm meals, clothing and medical services by the UMMA Community Clinic; all are administered and given free of charge.

Humanitarian Day  is hosted in Oakland, CA; Santa Ana, the Inland Empire, Long Beach, Baltimore, MD,  20 other cities in US and internationally in Ghana and Indonesia this Ramadan. A Humanitarian Day event is “Faith in Action” counteracting negative stereotypes of Muslims in America.”

Those kids cheering and greeting the homeless in the beginning of this clip are my ‘girls’- MYSCV. Our youth group boys were manning the canned food stand. We go there every year, alhamdulillah it has become a Ramadan tradition – these iPhone-toting, overprivileged kids see for themselves how the have-nots in this country live. They fundraise their contribution through bake sales and experience the bliss of actual giving. See, kids who grow up in the ‘third world’ see poverty on the streets everyday but here in the US, we are surrounded by the false security of Wal-Marts and Pizza Huts on our suburban street corners. So we forget to remember our blessings, to feed the hungry and clothe the poor.

On Humanitarian Day, every homeless person is greeted, handed a bag and escorted through the line. Booths of hot food, socks, blankets, are lined with balloons, manned by Muslim vlounteers. As many as 2000 are checked by volunteer doctors, given medication, eye exams.  The atmosphere is festive, a huge celebration, a party in an otherwise miserable life. ” You are so nice, I feel like a human today,” smiled a lady as she tucked newly acquired undergarments into her bag.

“We are fasting and want to share our joy for fasting by feeding the people, loving people, immigrants, indigenous Muslims, universal Muslims, together.” I sat down with Imam Sadiq, the retired Imam of Masjid Ibaadilllah and one of the founders of HD. He, along with Naim Shah Sr. affectionately known as Papa Shah, started feeding the homeless during Ramadan but were urged by the World Trade Center bombings to coordinate a united effort to solve domestic issues. “We don't want to proselytize, we are just concerned about humanity.”

Every year, the dynamics of the homeless change – last year there were many more middle class homeless individuals who had lost their homes due to the recession.  A gentle, proud man, with searing blue eyes, his milk chocolate skin giving away his Caucasian and African heritage, walked up, a polo shirt neatly tucked into his khakis. His wife urged him to take a pair of socks from the booth, “I can't” he said, shoulders slumped in defeat. As he walked away, I saw his laptop carrier slung on his shoulder – Kuwait Oil Co. embroidered in a corner. She reached out, her wedding ring glistened in the sun, “Lord bless you, may I take two?” she asked pragmatically.

There are some familiar faces too, the crack addict whose nails are always done, the old man with coke bottle glasses and a sweet smile. They are friendly and very concerned about each other. I see babies grow up to become children. This is not a place for children. We have billions of dollars to spend on wars across the world, while children sleep on the street and we turn the other way. Omar Ricci, a police officer,  has helped provide security detail for the past ten years. A Muslim, he comes back every year because “this well-planned event shows an alternative image other than the mainstream narrative  of Muslims.”

What would you say to Muslim Americans today, I asked Imam Sadiq, who is also the founder of Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, “We need to stay positive, look past the grievances…the most important thing is to keep being Muslim. People are tired of words, we need not be more vocal but be more active. Actions speak for words.”  Islamophobia was on my mind, as I spoke to the Mormon partners of the coalition, Steve Gilliland and his wife, Judy. They are from the Church of Latter Day Saints' Southern California Public Affairs Council and have supplied the lovingly hand packed school and hygiene kits for HD for seven years. “We have more in common with Muslims, socially, culturally, in areas of health, community service, family values, I could go on for a long time,” the Mormon clergyman advised us to “not let the hate intimidate (us), let people know who Muslims are, to know Muslims is to love them.”

Sister Taswiyah Mutazz is the director of food programs for ILM. “A lot of us are a paycheck away from being on the other side of that line;”  as tears formed in her compassionate eyes, she recounts countless stories of the challenges women and children face on these streets. This was the first year, I heard so many reports of homeless Muslims, men and women, too ashamed to walk into a masjid, without access to a place where their faith can help them recover.

This isn't just a feel good once a year event – these people live near here, they are here every other Sunday with homecooked and sack lunches, sponsored by Muslims communities across Southern California. However, HD 2010 brings demands for a permanent Muslim mission on Skid Row. General Jeff, “the mayor of skid row,“ pleaded on behalf of his community. ” That center near close to ground zero – no disrespect to the victims but 9/11 was a one day disaster, skid row is a lifetime disaster.” “If they are caught sleeping on a bench, they get a ticket, enough tickets earn a warrant, [which] lands them in jail,” stressed Naim Shah, Jr. the Excecutive Director of ILM Foundation. “What we do right now is direct service, now the coalition needs to move and work on policy, find the systamatic cause of why those people are in that line and help change the way people, children, and the elderly are treated. Muslims do not have anything substantial to show about everyday American issues.”

They are dream of a place with a soup kitchen, a mussallah, life assistance programs, where people can take showers, and a shelter for women and children – open 24 hours. A place that breaks the status quo – most missions here are single-room occupancy and do not accept anyone after a 'certain time at night' and make the homeless leave every morning. May their dream become reality. Ameen.

My girls learn face-to-face how to treat every human with dignity, whether Muslim or not, rich or poor. They didn't just hand out Qurans but follow the mighty example of the Prophet (SAW), who showcased Islam with his blessed behavior, not just words. As I drive the girls back to our cushy homes – they are unusually quiet, thankful, energies well-spent, their fasts finally kicking in.

If you want to start Humanitarian Day in your city – call Imam Sadiq at 626-398-3900 or Naim Shah at 626-644-8291. The Coalition to Preserve Human Dignity will supply you with guidelines, send a crew to show you how to set up the event and train your organization in working with the homeless. Their email address is info@humanitarianday.com