The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

ISLAM 

The Reverend Richard R. Davis  --  January 11, 2009

            Here’s why I first joined the Unitarian Universalist movement about thirty years ago – I was inspired by the teachings of different religious traditions, and I could not say I primarily adhered to any one of them.  I discovered that the Unitarian Universalists were one the few religious bodies that would not only allow, but encourage, me to have such a wide ranging freedom of conscience. 

            We are indeed open to “wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life” as it says in our Principles and Purposes.   This year I have committed to sharing my thoughts on how the various world religious traditions inspire me. 

            Today I am supposed to speak of the role the Islamic tradition plays in my own spiritual life – however, among all the major faith traditions this one is the most foreign to me.   Let’s be honest - if there was a popularity contest of world religions in America , Islam would come in dead last.  If our nation was put on the couch for word association psychoanalysis and the analyst said “Islamic” the first word that would come to our national mind would be “terrorist.” 

            Ever since Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade against Moslems in 1095 there has been bad blood between Western and Islamic cultures.  Memories of the Crusades still linger in the collective consciousness in the Islamic world as well as resentment toward the west for its colonization of Muslim lands in later centuries.  As for us, we have our recent memories of terrorist attacks by those who claim to be Moslems.  In our recent presidential election Barack Obama was “accused” of being a Muslim – though he is not - as though this disqualified someone from being president.  Then, General Colin Powell spoke to the nation about seeing a picture of a mother of an American soldier who had died in Iraq weeping by her son’s grave – and the headstone was not adorned with a cross or a star of David but the star and crescent, a symbol for Islam – Powell pointedly and poignantly asked the nation if young American Muslims who were willing to sacrifice their lives for our nation could not also dream of being president.  After this, it seemed to anti-Islamic rhetoric simmered down, but it certainly did not go away. 

            To be quite honest, I carry some of my own prejudicial assumptions about Islamic culture, especially in regards to what seems to be the subservient role of women and what I understand of sharia law, which strikes me as excessively harsh. 

            In short, there are monumental levels of mistrust and misunderstanding between the Islamic world and our own. 

            Now the approach of some religious communities in our country in regard to the Islamic world is to pray and work for their conversion to Christianity – basically, continue the mission of the Crusades using words instead of swords.  Indeed, a frightening number of our fellow citizens actually consider that we are currently engaged in a Holy War against the Islamic world in Iraq , Israel , Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan and elsewhere.  Here’s a nightmare waiting to happen:  if terrorists, who call themselves Islamic, were to succeed in carrying out some act of widespread destruction in our country then we could slide into a brutal clash with the Islamic world.  That is a very real danger.

            Now I’m not God, so I don’t know how history is going to unfold, but I am quite confident that the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world are not going to convert to Christianity.  In fact, I would not want that to happen anyway.  I don’t want to see this religious tradition disappear, because it has something unique to offer us.  Nor do I want to see more bloodshed.   We need to create new paths to common understanding. 

            There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world – second only to Christianity, which has the most adherents of any religion.   What would it be like to meet them, know them as people, with their own hopes and dreams?   What could we learn from this ancient tradition that shapes the lives of so many of our sisters and brothers around the world?  And what does our Western, democratic culture have to offer Islamic culture?   America is a great place to address this question – there are a growing number of Moslems in our country, and this gives us a unique opportunity not only to avoid a clash of cultures but to create a new, richer synthesis.  Furthermore, an American version of Islam that has soaked up the best of our culture can be a vital voice in the larger world of Islam.  In fact, this process has already begun to happen.  One example: feminist American Muslims are able to speak out in powerful ways that they might not be able to from more traditional Islamic countries. 

            A number of years ago I decided to learn something about Islam and turned to the Koran – the Holy Book of Muslims.  I didn’t get very far.  It’s an inaccessible book for non-Arab speakers, so for most of us it’s not a good place to start.  Yet a person should start.  Spiritual literacy is important because the prevailing spiritual ignorance in America is so dangerous.  It allows people’s minds to be filled with all sorts of hateful and negative images of Islam.  This rich, ancient tradition too often gets boiled down into a bitter brew of terrorism and intolerance.   There need to people here who are willing to do more than mirror the common prejudices that lead to further polarization – there must be those who are willing to stretch, to learn, to grow in genuine appreciation of Islam’s unique contributions to the spiritual storehouse of humankind.

            The entry point for me is to look at spirituality in relation to the Five Pillars of Islam.  Although the Koran may be a hard nut for us to crack, the practice of Islam has a clarity and a spiritual ingenuity that helps explain its widespread appeal. The five pillars constitute the foundation upon which faithful Muslims stand, and as I consider them, I discover wisdom that sheds light on my own path.

            The first pillar of Islam affirms that “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.”   This affirmation was first heard in a society in which most people believed that many gods and spirits were loose in the world, none of whom was especially admirable and worthy of devotion, and 7^th century Arabian society reflected this chaotic perspective – ethically and spiritually it was a primitive and barbaric scene.  Then the prophet Mohammad, who had had profound spiritual experiences in a remote cave outside of Mecca , came forward – at the urging of his wife, Khadija -  to assert that there was One Holy, Ultimate Reality worthy of absolute devotion – Allah – “The God” .. “the Holy, the Peaceful, the Faithful, the Guardian over his servants, the Shelterer of the orphan, the Guide of the erring, the Deliverer from every affliction, the Friend of the bereaved, the Consoler of the afflicted; in His hand is good, and He is the generous Lord, the Gracious, the Hearer, the Near-at-Hand, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Very-Forgiving, whose love for people is more tender than that of the mother-bird for her young.” 

            The perennial question that Islam’s first pillar poses is whether reality has an underlying unity or if chaos reigns.   If there is no transcendent unity, then you might as well go for all the gusto you can get because it’s all about you as much as anyone, there is no higher value than each isolated individual, and a “whoever dies with the most toys wins” philosophy makes as much sense as any.  But if you believe that we are bound together in one indivisible whole – in “an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it – then you are invited and challenged to live as though each person you greet has the same inherent worth and dignity as you do, that together you are united as fellow beings in one great mystery.  The question boils down to this: are we in this separately or all together?  Islam says, and I concur, that we’re all in this together, connected to one another and to a transcendent reality in which we live and move and have our being.  

It should be noted here that Mohammad firmly believed that people should have freedom of conscience in regards to their religion – he did not say that everyone had to accept the truth he preached -  sadly, that’s a fact too often ignored by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. 

            Now if you do have faith that there is a sacred unity worthy of ultimate devotion – call that reality by whatever name: God, Allah, the Tao, Brahman – then another existential question is posed  - how can you align your heart and mind to be in harmony with the Holy?  This is the purpose of all spiritual discipline, and in Islam this most commonly takes the form of prayer.  The second pillar of Islam calls for daily prayer facing the direction from which the original revelation to Muhammad arose – Mecca .  This serves to promote a sense of worldwide unity with all other Moslems who are likewise facing the same direction from whatever corner of the globe they might be in. 

            Here we come to the heart of this faith tradition - “Islam” derives from “Salam” which primarily means “peace” and secondarily “surrender”  - the full sense being “the perfect peace that comes when one is surrendered to God.”   To individualist westerners this may sound like abject humility and slavish obedience to an authoritarian patriarchal God, but it need not be so conceived.  There does come a point when each one of us must realize that most things are beyond our control and we need to choose whether to live with an attitude of trust or not.  The ritual of daily prayer - which includes the physical act of bowing - helps remind Muslims to “let go,” to trust in a source greater than the individual self.   St. Francis of Assisi was so enamored of the Muslim practice of bowing in prayer five times a day (Sunni’s do this – Shia do it three times) that he tried to introduce the practice into Christianity.  Certainly, it seems to me that there is great wisdom in practicing the art of “letting go” over and over and over again in life.

            A regular pitfall in the spiritual path is that you can become so focused on your own relationship to the sacred or to your own personal growth or enhancing your own wisdom that you get so narrowly focused that you forget about others.  Recognizing this pitfall Islam not only reminds the faithful to “let go” – to surrender in trust to that which is beyond our control but also to embrace – to embrace others, especially those on the margins of society.  As a young boy Mohammed was an orphan and experienced great hardship, so as a man and a prophet of Allah (which means “THE God) he was especially sensitive to those who were poor and needy.   Thus the third pillar of Islam calls for believers to be charitable to those in need so that none in society live in extreme privation.   Also in recognition of the fact that it’s easy for people to give a very little and delude themselves into believing that they have fulfilled their moral obligation, there is a clear guideline on how charitable to be – this third pillar of the Islamic tradition calls for each person to share one fortieth (1/40^th) of their entire wealth annually (not just your income) for the welfare of all.

            Yet Islam also recognizes that mere admonitions to be charitable may, in the course of time, fall short.  It’s better if the practice of charity rests upon a foundation of experience and awareness.  Thus, the fourth pillar of Islam calls for all the faithful to observe one full month of fasting - abstaining from both food and drink – from sun up to sun down  (called Ramadan, it is based on the lunar calendar and thus, it occurs in all seasons).  This accomplishes three purposes.   First, the personal experience of being hungry and thirsty makes you aware of how it does feel to be poor and needy.  Samuel Johnson once observed that “those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.”  The discomfort that comes during Ramadan brings an awareness that engenders compassion for those who do hunger and thirst and suffer from other privations – this taps into the fact that we grow most in adversity, not ease and comfort.  Secondarily, the practice of fasting is a discipline in self denial, it helps the practitioner learn to control the appetites which lead to greed and compulsive consumption.  Third, this time of denial creates space in the heart and mind for introspection and reflection on one’s spiritual life.

Like all faith traditions, Islam recognizes that people also yearn for a sense of what can be, a vision of a world in which the sacred unity of humankind is a palpable experience.  Thus, each Moslem is encouraged, if at all possible, to make their personal pilgrimage – a hajj – to Mecca , where Mohammad received his revelations.  This is the fifth and final pillar of Islam.  Consider the effect the hajj had on Malcolm X, the Black American Muslim.  Before his hajj Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist sect that claimed (at that time) that the white man was the devil.  Malcolm X left that movement but remained devoted to Islam, and as a faithful Muslim he made his pilgrimage to Mecca . 

Here is what he wrote of the experience: "There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. 

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. 

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana .  We are truly all the same-brothers.  All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds."

Malcolm X’s experience calls to mind two quotes.  The Christian G.K. Chesterton once noted that “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.”  Similarly, the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought about Western civilization and he replied:  “I think it would be a good idea.”  In a similar vein a person might well say that their opinion of a truly Islamic society is that it would be a good idea and should be tried.  Certainly, it is a faith that could shed light and meaning into any who earnestly embraced its beliefs and practices.

I do not think we are called to convert members of this glorious tradition  - I think we are called to learn from it and if need be, call those who profess the faith back to their highest ideals, even as we would ask them to do that same for us.