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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Understanding Islam

By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture: Luke 4:16 – 30 New Revised Standard Version

¹⁶ When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸ "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." ²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." ²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" ²³ He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, "Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, "Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.' “24 And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. ²⁵ But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; ²⁶ yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷ There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." ²⁸ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. ³⁰ But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

I believe we are in a profound teachable moment in our current American history about understanding the freedom of religion guaranteed in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, as well as in understanding the second largest religion in the world.  This is a religion that one commentator said is, “the most important religion for Christians to learn about next to our own faith.” (Adam Hamilton in Christianity and World Religions.)

The resources and information coming out every day to help us take advantage of this “teachable moment” are plentiful and often disturbing. Last Tuesday, a New York City cabdriver was attacked by a passenger and suffered several significant knife wounds after his passenger learned that the cab driver was Muslim. That driver, Ahmed Sharif, is now being treated for a serious neck wound as well as wounds to his forearms, face and hand, and is also joining other New York cabdrivers in a press conference calling for an end to bigotry and anti-Islamic rhetoric in the debate over the proposed Islamic center in downtown Manhattan.

Part of this tragedy is that the passenger who allegedly attacked Mr. Sharif was volunteering a few months ago for an organization called Intersections International that promotes interfaith understanding and tolerance, and which is supportive of the concept of the Islamic Cultural Center in lower Manhattan.

Here is a second piece of information from last week’s Time Magazine.

“To experience what it feels like to be Muslim in America today, walk in the shoes of Dr. Mansoor Mirza of Sheboygan county Wisconsin. It is a February evening and you’re at a meeting of the planning commission of Wilson, Wisconsin which is considering your application to open a mosque in the nearby village of Oostberg, Wisconsin. You are not expecting much opposition. You already own the property, and having worked for the past five years in the nearby Manitowoc hospital, you are hardly a stranger to the town. Indeed, some of the people at the meetings are like most of your patients, white Americans who don’t seem to care about their doctor’s race or creed when they talk to them about their illnesses.

But when the floor is opened to discussion, you hear the things they would never say to you even in the privacy of an examination room. One after another they pour scorn and hostility on your proposal, and most of the objections have nothing to do with zoning regulations. It’s about your faith. Islam is a religion of hate, they say. Muslims are out to wipe out Christianity. I don’t want it in my back yard says one. Another says, It’s just not America.

Afterward, Pakistani born Dr. Mirza was shaken. “I never expected that the same people who came to me at the hospital and treated me with respect would talk to me like this.” (Time, August 30, 2010, pp 21-22)

Here is another resource for our reflection together.

Last Thursday in the New York Times a reporter tells us that the Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida will commemorate the anniversary of September 11 by sponsoring a bonfire burning of Korans. He argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s holy book because “it is full of lies.” Last year he posted a sign at his church saying that Islam is of the devil.

According to the article by reporter Damien Cave, Pastor Jones “has suddenly attracted thousands of fans and critics on Facebook, and around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-Islamic sentiment. One Islamic group in England has now incorporated Mr. Jones’ efforts into a YouTube video that can serve as a catalyst for increasing terrorist acts and spark riots. 

The Council on American Islamic Relations says that Florida, in particular, has had a rise in anti- Islamic activities, including  a pipe bomb being set off at a mosque in Jacksonville, and the vandalism of a mosque and school south of Miami that first suffered a spray of 51 bullets. (Damien Cave, “Far from Ground Zero Obscure Pastor Is Ignored No Longer,” New York Times August 25, 2010)

In contrast to these very troubling examples and to me, apparent non rational hysteria, we also have the fascinating story from the Pentagon in DC where there was also an attack on September 11 in which 125 people were killed, and on the very site of the rubble from the attack, a new chapel was built where for the past eight years every Friday at 2 PM, a group of 400 worshipers faithfully attend the Muslim prayer services.  This is one of the five prayer services that faithful Muslims are obligated to attend.  This particular time of Muslim prayer seems to have caused no such controversy as the proposed center in Manhattan. And we ought to wonder what the difference might be.

What are the issues in the controversy about the cultural center in Manhattan, a center that appears to be similar to a YMCA, only established by an Imam who is a Sufi, the most reformist branch of Islam? Imam Abdul Rauf is supported in his vision by two influential New York City pastors.  One is the pastor of Trinity Episcopal Church right at Ground Zero. Some of you have been to that building which was used by emergency workers in the days after 9/11 for food and rest. The other pastor is the Very Reverend James Morton of St. John the Divine who has known Mr. Rauf and his family for decades and who says, “To stereotype him as an extremist is just nuts.”

Mr. Rauf is currently on a Middle Eastern tour on behalf of the U.S. State Department, hardly something the state department would do if he were a Muslim extremist, I believe. When he was the Imam for a Sufi mosque (more about Sufism later) and right after 9/11, he “was all over the airwaves denouncing terrorism, urging Muslims to confront its presence and saying that killing civilians violated Islam.” (Anne Bernard in the New York Times 8/22/2010)

Mr. Rauf is a Sufi just as Rumi was.  Rumi is one of the favorite poets of some of you, who has been called “a thirteenth century Islamic saint.” Sufism is, I believe, the most progressive and mystical strand of theology in Islam, and right wing Muslim extremists and jihadists are in almost total disagreement with people like Mr. Rauf and would see him as a legitimate target for assassination!

Some Sufi worship services are led by women and men and women sit together. This is not the case in traditional Muslim worship services.

In a recent article by journalist William Dalrymple, he says that we in the west are blind to the pluralism and the distinctions within Islam and that the least we can do is to encourage the Sufi Muslims in our own society and embrace them as vital allies against Muslim extremists and terrorists! (William Dalrymple, New York Times August 16, 2010)

There are other questions in this controversy. Who should be deciding about the placement of this cultural center and mosque? Should you and I get to vote for its placement? What about the importance of local control in and around its neighborhood? Most of us are in favor of local control and the facts are that its placement has been approved by the Manhattan entities that  have that authority. And they have made that decision despite the objections we have been reading about. “It is too close to Ground Zero.” Others have answered that there is already a mosque meeting in the proposed location, there is already a mosque meeting four blocks from Ground Zero, and there is already a mosque meeting twelve blocks away from Ground Zero.

Another objection has been that to allow the construction of the cultural center will be disrespectful of those who died at the hands of Muslim extremists nine years ago, and alternative voices have said that there were also peaceful American Muslims who were killed in those offices as well as Jews and Christians and atheists.

Another objection has been that to build the cultural center and mosque will only give support to Al Qaida, and one response has been that to deny its construction would only give extremist leaders an example to make their false argument that America is at war with all of Islam and that, therefore, their terrorist acts are justified. Most say that the better strategy is to recognize both the pluralism in Muslim thought and to continue to honor the ways we are different from places like Saudi Arabia in that we really do mean those words and images in the constitution about freedom of religion and diversity and tolerance of different beliefs, even beliefs that are unpopular with the majority of citizens!! In other words, WE ARE NOT LIKE SAUDI ARABIA IN PROHIBITING SOME RELIGIONS—and that is the point!! We do believe in pluralism and tolerance and diversity where they do not! It is in our Constitution!!

Another question that has arisen from this controversy is about how American leaders and citizens can support the majority of Muslim leaders who are NOT jihadists. Many of us have said that we want the voices of moderate Muslims to be louder so that all Islam is not perceived as violent and extremist. Is it not, then, a good thing to support this apparently progressive and pluralist voice of those who are proposing the Manhattan mosque?

Most of us are so uninformed about this religion of one billion people, our first cousins if you will, among the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Islam and Christianity. One of the best overviews of Islam is in Rev. Adam Hamilton’s book on Christianity and World Religions. He tells about the Five Pillars of Islam:

• Belief - There is no god but Allah (another word for God) and Muhammed is his prophet.
• Prayer - Each Muslim is to pray and acknowledge God five times a day. Do you and I do that regularly, take a time to connect with God five times a day?
• Fasting - No nourishment each day, during the day, for the month of Ramadan.
• Charity - Each Muslim must give two and a half per cent of their income to the poor and needy. What if we United Methodists set that as a minimum goal for each of us?
• Pilgrimage to Mecca once during one’s lifetime if one can afford it.

Rev. Hamilton says that most of us would agree with these except for taking issue with the Muslim understanding of the place of Muhammed in replacing and correcting Jesus.

There will be other differences between our faiths, but if we only want to look at the violent strands of scripture in the Koran, then we need to look at the violent scriptures in the Bible and we need to look at how Christianity has sometimes  advocated for violence over the past 2,000 years. During the Crusades 60,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Jerusalem in the name of Jesus.  250,000 Cathar  Christians were killed in France and the Spanish Inquisition killed thousands of “heretics” not to mention the Ku Klux Klan and its violent and murderous work under the symbol of a cross…..shall we go on?

Here is how the Gospel text from Luke can help us broaden our spiritual perspectives. Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth where he says something in his first ever sermon that occasions the first attempt on his life. After reading from Isaiah, he tells his fellow Jews that God is bigger and more inclusive than they think.  He says that God is not just their God, but that God is the God of all people, even those they think are “pagans.”

That is what those references are about.

Elijah the prophet was not sent to a Jewish widow to help her but to a GENTILE widow in the Phoenician town of Zarephath in what is now Lebanon. It was considered pagan territory and of course it is a place for Islam belief today. And in his next example Jesus says that the Prophet Elisha was not sent to heal a Jewish leper but was sent to heal another pagan, a Syrian leper living in what is now Syria, also today a Muslim country.

Jesus is saying in this passage that in his audience, the god that people are worshipping is too small an image of God and that God is the God of all people and not just those who saw themselves as God’s chosen people.

And as for Jesus’ message of inclusiveness and welcome to the people considered to be, “the other,” Jesus’ comeuppance was the first attempt in the Bible to kill him. They took him to the edge of the town of Nazareth to try and throw him off a cliff! But he escaped by walking through the crowd.

One other resource that is holy and sacred to us is our United States Constitution, which in the First Amendment has guaranteed the free expression of religion, even unpopular religions, non majority religions, and has been interpreted over the past two centuries to not let any group limit or proscribe that free expression of a faith, whether that is a small group like Jehovah’s Witnesses or a larger group like Mormons or even a group of Muslims. America is not like many other countries, we believe that the plurality of belief is strength and that when we try to limit the legal expression of one minority faith, all points of view are in jeopardy.

Even more important is the fact that our country was founded and settled by folks who were members of a minority religion and who came here so that they could have the freedom to practice their religion and not be subjected to discrimination from those religious leaders who represented the majority!

In the last week, one civil rights attorney said it this way: “Preventing Muslims, or any religious group, from freely practicing their faith is unconstitutional and conflicts with our core American values.”

What do you think? Is that correct? I believe that statement is correct. What do you think?

What can we do to help the current controversy about Muslims in America begin to generate more light than heat? I believe that in the past few days there has been too much heat and not enough light.

We can be informed. We can read and listen to more than one source. Be sure that you have facts. It is disturbing to see how much misinformation and disinformation is being propagated right now including the report that some 20% of citizens believe that President Obama is a Muslim and not a Christian.  By the way, one of the President’s spiritual advisers on a regular basis is Methodist Minister Kirbyjon Caldwell who talks and prays by phone with the president about once a week!

We can look at some of the books on our bookshelves on Islam such as the one by reformer

Irshad Manji titled The Trouble With Islam Today, or the one by Reza Aslan titled No God But God or the chapter on Islam in Rev. Hamilton’s book on Christianity and World Religions. We can sign up for the extremely timely class, Islam: Understanding the Tradition, Theology and Politics of the Second Largest World Religion beginning Tuesday, September 21 taught by Dr. Jacob Kinnard from Iliff School of Theology. How much more timely could that be?

And we can take the attitude of the first President of the United States, George Washington who said in a famous letter, when remembering that the monotheistic religions of the world claim all to be descendants of Abraham, that the U.S. gives to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance, prayed that “the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be no one to make him afraid.” (Hendrick Hertzberg in The New Yorker August 16, 2010).

Amen