A recent interview with Bachir, the Imam at the Islamic Center of the Quad Cities, shed much light on Islam--both its beliefs and its presence in the United States and its perception.
It is common knowledge that Christianity and Islam have butted heads since their inceptions, from the Crusades to the Christian dominant America's troubles with Islamophobia. Interestingly, these two religions are extremely similar in almost all respects. As nigh everyone knows, these arguments come from the differences in belief of these religions, which is rather ironic. There were a few minor variations in the creation of man, and almost all other differences are such petty differences that the clash between the religions is almost comical. Consider the idea that Eden isn't a place on Earth but instead a testing ground for Adam and Eve before they're sent to Earth, admitting to not knowing what angels look like, or believing that Jesus was the Messiah, just not the son of God. These are some of the biggest differences between the beliefs of Christianity and Islam, and a religious feud over such things is frankly preposterous. The similarities are innumerable, and far outweigh the differences too. Both are monotheisms that believe in the same one Abrahamic God, though the name of God changes depending on who you ask. Muslims will tell you his name is Allah, while Jehova and YHVH or Yahweh are used in Christianity and Judaism. Both Christianity and Islam state that Jesus was the Messiah, or Christ, what exactly that entails is the only difference. That God created the universe and that there is a life after death, the quality of which is determined by your time on Earth, are all common threads between all Abrahamic religions as well. The question is what makes Islam really different, what makes it count as its own religion and not just a denomination of Christianity or Judaism, and that really boils down to prophets. Islam has a much stronger focus on the role of prophets as a whole. The prophets' role, particularly Muhammad's, was to confirm that which was already said by the other prophets and to reaffirm the word of God. Jesus, Moses, Adam, and Muhammad are all particularly important in the Islam faith. Muhammad, as said, was the last prophet whose job was to reaffirm the teachings of other prophets, Moses, according to Bachir, is the most referenced prophet by Muhammad, and Adam and Jesus are part of a particular system of people and their parentage. Jesus, Adam, Eve, and all other people as a collective unit form an almost poetic rhyming scheme in their parentage. Adam was created from no parents, Eve from only a man, being Adam, Jesus from only a woman, being Virgin Mary, and everyone else as a collective unit being born of both man and woman. Try not to think of Adam as Eve's parent and it is all good. Though I don't understand its importance as a whole, in our conversation Bachir spent much time clarifying this point. At a certain point, Bachir asked me my own religious beliefs. I then told him that I was generally Atheist, that I don't think there necessarily is a god (lower case because here it isn't a proper noun, don't worry I'm not slandering the principles of a god) nor do I believe there necessarily isn't one. Bachir went out of his way to make sure that I still felt welcome in his Mosque and said that it was entirely up to me what I believe. He even recited a favorite adage of my mother's: "God gave you a brain, use it." Well, her's is more a command not to be an idiot, where his was a welcoming of all mindsets, but that is an irrelevant distinction at this point. This openness and acceptance to other religions both surprised me and pleased me, but it also piqued my curiosity. It made me wonder if there were Islamic missions or conversion works. He told me that Islamic conversion wasn't like Christian conversion (more accurately, it wasn't like his perception of conversion, which would have been more accurate even thirty or forty years ago, but has since grown somewhat outdated). A Muslim will teach you about their religion, but won't make attempts at converting you to it. They want you to come about your conversion naturally and from within yourself. They don't "force" the matter, as Bachir put it several times. When I asked Bachir if he himself had had any encounters with discrimination or prejudice, he said, to my incredible surprise, that he had not personally experienced any real discrimination. There were miscommunications, as he called them, from time to time, but he found that he usually got along well with almost everyone. While it delights me that he was lucky enough to escape severe prejudice, the same cannot be said for everyone. Bachir went on to tell me that it is usually around presidential elections that the prejudice is the worst. He recalled and recounted John McCain's running committee sending out CD's with foul misinformation about Islam and slandering all Muslims. During that time, a girl wearing a scarf (though he never actually said if the girl was really Muslim or not) was attacked by a man throwing a wine bottle at her. If he had hit her head it could have been a fatal injury, I was told. I finally asked what he wanted everyone to know about Islam, and all he said was that if you want to know anything, learn it from Islam itself. Don't go to Fox New's website, instead read the Quran or ask your local Imam (our local Imam, if you haven't gathered, is a very friendly and kindly gentleman of the name Bachir and can be found at the Islamic Center of the Quad Cities, right near Black Hawk College, I implore you go speak with him if you have even any questions, he couldn't be more of a delight to speak with). And he said don't take Islam for what the radical few do, take it for what the peaceful masses do. He compared radical Islam to Hitler's Holocaust, saying that even though Hitler called himself a Christian, he wasn't exemplary of all Christians, and that he wasn't even really a Christian because his behaviors didn't show understanding of those taught by Jesus, and that the same could be said for radical Islam. Bachir even pointed out that one of the original definitions of the word Islam is peace, and that like Christianity and Judaism, among so many others, Islam is a religion propheteering peace and tolerance, not violence and hate. Bachir. Personal interview. 28 January 2021.
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