Faith and Leavetaking

Ran across this a couple of days ago and was struck by it. Dave is a great blogger, and had in some ineffable digital way made it on to the list of good-hearted, intelligent Muslims I think about when the other 90% are acting retarded. So losing him--in the theological sense; so far as I know the man is still very much alive--depressed me a little. His reasons for leaving the religion make a lot of sense to me, as I think they would to anyone: the arbitrary rules get exhausting. Part of one longs to simply be ‘a human being experiencing the world’. All the religious people I know, myself included, are fascinated by rules, intellectually stimulated by them, by observing them, dissecting them, reinterpreting them, breaking them, coming back to them. I can’t imagine organized religion is very enriching if you don’t love rules. In fact, it must be agonizing.

No one’s ever asked me why I don’t leave Islam. (I like that I get to talk about this stuff now. When I was working in journalism I didn’t out of principle--when you’re covering ongoing events, you need to be able to turn a critical and impassive eye on religion, your own included. Talking about your spiritual life hampers your ability to do so, along with your reader’s ability to separate you from what you cover.) I’ve miraculously avoided a lot of ‘convert narrative’--the second-guessing, the suspicion of the new community, the absolute turning away from the old--and thank God for that, because I can’t stand identity politics. I didn’t convert to get shuttled into some convenient dress code and retire from meaningful decisions at the age of 20. I’ve had issues with my religion since the day I professed it. But there are two kinds of converts: people who arrive at a religion, and people who simply arrive. I arrived. That’s the lucky category. These are the people who open a holy book and say not “this is what I want to believe” but “this affirms what I have always believed.” This saddles you with issues similar to those faced by people born into the religion: you can get as frustrated as you want, but something about the mess is part of your spiritual DNA, and you will never be able to shed it completely. People who arrive at a religion were probably looking for one, and may have happened on the wrong kind, or may discover what they seek can’t be found in a religion at all. That’s a tough gig, the seeker. The honest ones endure the isolation for the wisdom it brings, and are a delight to know. The dishonest ones become fundamentalists.

This is why I call the people who simply arrive the lucky ones: despite the public turmoil--for people in large numbers are idiots, and your co-religionists are guaranteed to embarrass you or worse--inwardly you’re certain you’ve made the right decision. You wake up every day after that first day a better more whole person. Though you may wrestle with doctrine and polemic, you’ve been spared the crisis of doubt. It’s a gift beyond price.

But only if you like rules.

There’s a rather un-Islamic Egyptian saying I like a lot: ‘Leave with scandal; tomorrow it won’t matter’. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but plenty of people do exactly this when they renounce a religion--it’s the easiest and these days the most profitable way to go about things. So I admire the people who go with dignity, refusing to spread ugliness about a faith they no longer hold, refusing also to justify themselves to the faithful who will resent them for leaving. That takes a kind of courage most of us will never need.

For a second there, when I started reading your post, I thought you were going to follow suit!

I’ve been reading Dave’s blog regularly, for about three years, and left a bazillion comments. His blog pretty much introduced me to the Muslim blogosphere, and there was much in his writing I could empathise with. Like you, I was also rather saddened when I found out he was leaving. Yes, he has left rather gracefully I must admit, but in a way that probably makes it even more sad, because if he HAD turned against the religion a full 180 degrees it would be easier to dismiss him as one of the Islamophobes’ ‘pet apostates’ as he put it. Part of me still hopes that Islam’s fangs will sink their ‘poison’ into his heart again (in a good way I mean).
Your point about rules kind of makes sense. The way I see it, Islam has some rules sure, and they CAN at times get frustrating, but it’s not a religion that is utterly based on them in my view. Perhaps some of the more strict/ultra-orthodox interpretations of Islam, heavily centered on scholarly precedent and hadith literalism, can be nothing BUT rules, but these are not interpretations to which I subscribe. Excessive obssesion with the rules is not very healthy in my view. Islam for me is about spiritual and ethical principles above all else.

Hi Sever,

Nope, I’m still ahl sunnah. And I agree that while Islam is characterized as excessively legalistic, it’s not always true...I think modern Muslims are excessively legalistic, but a religion (any religion) is such a vast, vast entity that no description really encompasses it.

Hey there, salams. I thought that both your piece here and Dave’s ‘farewell’ post were honest and some part of me was very much touched by them (though of course your journeys are somewhat different, and ongoing).

But something sticks in my throat a bit with the view that “Islam is beautiful but Muslims are awful’ (implicit in both your pieces, but especially Dave’s).

There is usually some profound or even mundane story as to why crass reading or misreadings of this religion of ours take place. I think ordinary human compassion compels us to acknowledge that we can be truer idealists than many Muslims whose views we’re uncomfortable with precisely because we have the privilege of free, unfettered intellection. Could we possibly be so humane, so empathetic to other points of view, if we had grown up in Gaza? Or Bangladesh? Or even one of the northern milltowns of the UK?

Several years of studying medieval Islamic history at the grad. level have led me to believe that the instincts of devout Muslims are usually admirable, and that Muslim ethics could produce a more fully-fledged moral being (if the conditions are otherwise right!) than all of the other belief-systems out there, because shari’a keeps one mindful of both rights and responsibilities, with a view to maintaining the five values (life, religion, dignity, property, intellect.)

In this vast, variegated world, how is such mindfulness of peoples’ myriad needs even possible without a minutely-worked out legal and ethical code?

Don’t mean to sermonise in the least! But if Musims aren’t getting it right, there will be reasons for that that need to be recognised and understood.

Salaams Fozia and thanks for your thoughts. Once upon a time, when Islam was for me (as you’ve indicated it is for you) largely compassed by academics and theory, I tended to idealize the application of shari’a in much the same way. Then I moved to middle class Cairo. While I agree with you that the vast majority of Muslims--indeed the vast majority of human beings--are good intentioned, there is a very serious disconnect between current applications of shari’a law and the way the modern world functions. That’s not the fault of the framers of islamic law and it’s not the fault of the modern world, but it must be acknowledged and dealt with if Muslims are to remain a vital and positive force in the world.

I think your observation about where we’ve grown up is very well-made: of course growing up in a war zone or under a brutal dictatorship or in extreme poverty brutalizes a person’s psychology, and has nothing to do with religion, although it heavily affects how that person practices his religion. I’ve often argued that before we can have any meaningful discussions about the way Islam is implemented, we have to fix the underlying causes of religious extremism and brutality: poverty and oppression.

To be truthful, Willow, this bit ‘when Islam was for me (as you’ve indicated it is for you) largely compassed by academics and theory’ is not wholly true for me in as much as I do live within the structures of the Muslim framework and worldview, as do many of those close to me. It is a lived experience, and for me it communes with the psyche and the soul on many levels.

I suppose I would suggest that you have let a subjective experience (living in Cairo) obtrude upon an objective picture of how this faith of ours can work, while you are suggesting that my understanding is rather too objective and removed from the real picture on the ground for folks in other Muslim communities. There’s a degree of accuracy in both, I think!

All of that said, there’s no greater indicator of the soundness of a way of approaching the world than one’s own experience, and on that basis alone, having felt like my intellectual, spiritual, moral concerns find a space, a home and an anchor in the world of Muslim thought, I feel that it already is a force for the good in the world. I can’t pretend otherwise since that’s what my life so far has shown me!

Anyway, thanks for your ruminations.

PS: In short, we’ll always be characterised by by our experiences of a way of life/way of thinking; and in turn, we understand and portray it on that basis. But there is a vision projected by the religion that goes above and beyond these subjectivities.

Willow
Thanks for this piece. It gave me some new insight as to where you’re coming from as a writer, I think.

Fozia
I enjoyed reading your comments but I’m sorry that what you took from my piece is “Islam good, Muslims bad”, which was emphatically not what I was shooting for (can’t speak for Willow here though). My point was more “Awareness and knowledge good, belief and preconception a necessary evil at best.”

I think the summary of what I meant was ‘Islam good, Muslims human, humans fallible, religion no protection against fallibility.’ Piety makes one God’s servant, not God’s policeman--an awful lot of religious people seem to forget that.

Willow: your last comment really rings true

Dave: Your piece conveys much more than the bit I referred to above, but it seemed to me that that was part of the disillusionment. I did not mean to be reductive. (I was going to post my comments on your page, but then thought I’d do so here instead since this discussion is slightly tangential to that one.)

You know, faith is not something one can ever take for granted - we are connected to it by a gossamer so fine that we are hard put to describe it through word or image - though Ibn al-Farid comes close! (I have herd my own Sufi shaykh say many times that the wheel is ever-turning; no-one knows whether doubt or disconnection could be around the corner.) That said, the factor that keeps so many within its fold is surely not an intellectual attraction (though that may be a part of it), but the heart’s desire to know the Divine, to be with the Divine, and to approach the Divine in the manner befitting Divine majesty. In other words it’s a spiritual and emotional connection that may indeed defy the contingencies of the thinking process, though the latter is the arbiter of which particular faith one then decides to call one’s own.)

Anyway, my regards and best wishes to you both.

I think the summary of what I meant was ‘Islam good, Muslims human, humans fallible, religion no protection against fallibility.’ Piety makes one God’s servant, not God’s policeman--an awful lot of religious people seem to forget that.

Well said, Willow.

‘These are the people who open a holy book and say not “this is what I want to believe” but “this affirms what I have always believed.” This saddles you with issues similar to those faced by people born into the religion: you can get as frustrated as you want, but something about the mess is part of your spiritual DNA, and you will never be able to shed it completely. People who arrive at a religion were probably looking for one, and may have happened on the wrong kind, or may discover what they seek can’t be found in a religion at all. That’s a tough gig, the seeker. The honest ones endure the isolation for the wisdom it brings, and are a delight to know. The dishonest ones become fundamentalists.’

I’ve been thinking about this for days, it’s so true.

Thanks Saha!