I Make No Excuses...

…for being who I am. 

**Okay wait, before you read on, let me make one addendum to this blog:  A few friends know that I chat in a desi chatroom and have been doing so for many years.  I've made a lot of friends (as well as enemies) and have been lucky enough to become a part of a very interesting community that exposes me to thoughts/ideas/commentary/information/what have you that I would not otherwise have been exposed to here.  Most of the things I 'learn' in this chat space are things often coming from those living in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.  I don't need you to approve or disapprove, I just wanted to let you know this so that the rest of this blog makes some sort of sense.  This was actually written to be posted on the website where I chat but the dratted thing was too long so I figured that I'd just scrape it and post it here instead.  So as you read on then just keep in mind the original audience to this blog was not you, but a whole group of other people.  Oh well, you win some you lose some.  Read on...**

You're wondering, 'who's asking her to anyhow?' My answer is:  no one.  And if someone asked me to do so, I wouldn't blindly comply.  So now that the basic has been established, let me go into why I'm writing this blog at all.

For a long time now there have been a lot of posts regarding religion.  Advocates from both sides have spoken up, have posted, re-posted, argued to the pros and the cons and as to be expected there has been no consensus.  Really there shall never be, not a topic so very…personal and basic. 

But I figured, with all that’s being bandied around against the concept of an organized religion, I’ll put in my two-cents (literally probably only worth that much) as to why I believe in it.  And this is where the title of this blog, btw, comes into play.  I do not apologize for who I am, or what I believe in, specifically speaking, being one of faith, a Muslim.  Does this proud admission disturb you?  Am I making you cringe?  Roll your eyes?  Smirk?  Are you doing one of those gagging motions?  Well, I’m not stopping you and you won’t stop me either…so here I go, let me give you a bit of background:

I was born into a Muslim family, one that was fairly religious (particularly on my Mom’s side) going all the way back to my grandparents.  As a child, when I was visiting Bdesh, I would hear my grandfather roam around the house during Fajr reciting passages from the Quran.  In fact it wasn’t a simple recitation, he would sing them almost.  And I would be lulled in and out of sleep listening to him, a phenomenon that my mother told me she had also encountered when she too was my age. 

During every religious holiday, festival, prayer, whatnot, I was painstakingly and diligently told as to why we do what we do.  A Maulavi was hired to teach us how to read Arabic and how to pray.  My parents encouraged me to understand every bit of what I was learning fully, which meant going outside of their authority and ask questions, do research, and become educated.  The question can be:  Would they, my parentals, have encouraged me to ‘find my faith’ on my own?  My answer: No, of course not.  Islam was and is all that they have ever known.  But they did not mind that I questioned it for honestly they always had a passage, reasoning, an answer to my questions and if they didn’t, they would push me in the right direction to find out.  Again it goes back to becoming educated, not being a lemming. 

When I was in high school, I decided to become more involved in the nearby Islamic community.  Off I went to volunteer at the mosque and within a year I was a Sunday school teacher.  Armed with the bit of knowledge I had under my belt, I felt as if the job couldn’t be all that difficult.  After all I could read Arabic fairly fluently (though I struggled and was slow) but what bothered me most was that I didn’t understand it.  How does one read and yet not comprehend?  Up to that point I had always read the Quran in Arabic and thought (or assumed) that it was how things went but after consulting with the Imam I realized that Islam encouraged you to cognize, not just memorize.  So I turned to the English translations and had many ‘aha’ moments I confess.  This knowledge, and the stories I was reading, turned me into a better teacher and I was such for over 4 years, well into a busy college life.  Oh one interesting tidbit of info about me:  When I had first started teaching, a few months into it, I donned the hijab pretty much full time.  I went to school in it for that matter and could care less about what others thought.  I do not wear the hijab any more, and the reason I stopped was because my mother, who was and still is, a very obedient and well-educated Muslim-a told me that first one should practice the more important key parts of the religion before taking it a step further.  Basically, if I wasn’t praying 5 times a day, covering my hair wasn’t going to please Allah.  

Anyhow…about my junior year of higher education, I was required to take a class regarding religion in order to graduate.  This was a definite earmark to my own personal spiritual evolution.  I started taking the class as a way to a means, mainly I could get the hell out of college, but it ended up having a much more significant impact.  What was that?  Well we had studied a total of 7 mainstream religions:  Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism (although how mainstream this is I’m not sure).  I believe the last was Taoism.  And each new religion that was introduced to me was fascinating.  Not a singular one of them did I view upon as total lunacy or ridiculous.  I developed a sense of respect for all and maybe because of this fascination I made it my mission to learn as much as I could.  I used to talk in-depth with others who followed whatever it was that they followed and I sort of delved into their psyche.  The questions I asked them often ranged from:  “but why”, all the way to, “will you pass it along to your kids one day?”

I walked away with a lot of information yes but almost everyone who I talked to said something about how refreshing it was to educate someone upon their own beliefs, how most were resistant to it and therefore they often did not bother to bring it up as topic of convo in the first place.  Hmm…well frankly, I’ve always found this plain ol’ ignorant (bordering on stupid no less).  Why not have free flowing exchanges of thought, idea and values with someone else who is on another spectrum?  What’s wrong with that?  We’re not talking about preaching here folks; we’re talking about just simple learning.  Isn’t educating oneself about the most powerful tool one can have in their arsenal in the way to evolving as a human being? 

The summer that proceeded, I was immersed in learning about not only these familiar, yet new, faiths; I took a much deeper look into my own.  Although I didn’t speak to my parents about this, I wanted to learn for myself whether or not in fact Islam was one that I wanted to follow, heck if I wanted to follow any religion at all.  Long (well that’s a foregone conclusion right now anyhow) story short:  yes, Islam was the best fit for me.  This period of intense introspection was all me.  My self-realization was all my own. 

So that’s the background, now to address why it is I’m writing this blog.  All this religious debates (diatribes, angry statements, etc…) that’s been lopped back and forth (with no ultimate resolution that I’ve ever seen) leads to this question: what’s the point here that people are trying to make? 

On one side you have the secular/nonreligious/agnostic/atheists scream that those of us who do follow an organized religion are nothing but sheep, cattle, lemming, unintelligent, basically ignorant, brainless and no less brainwashed groupies who believe in an ‘invisible’ higher power. On the other side you have the ‘believers’ of organized religion (whichever it may be) denouncing that the other half has no soul, no belief, no faith, and no substance. 

Frankly speaking folks, this is exhausting. 

Why does anyone here think they can trump the other person in a discussion so very personal?  You think that after you have finish all your yapping, throwing underlining insults or questioning someone’s intelligent, there will be a ‘light bulb’ (or tube light as Desi’s like to say) moment in which things just turn around?  Like that other person will fall to their knees and cry out into the heavens “OMG, I have now seen the light!!!!  I have reformed!!!!” 

If that’s what you think, seriously get off chat, quick.

These things don’t happen people, no matter how badly we want it and rarely if ever on chat specifically.  Every single one of us, whether you chose to believe or not to believe in some greater being, feels the way they do due for varied amounts of reasons.  They may deem it worthy to share it or not, but regardless there are oft times explanations behind everything.  I’m not arguing that there are not plenty of people out in this great big world of ours who also believe simply because they were indoctrinated into some religion that their forefathers followed but for what I’ve seen, there is now an uprising equal amount of that same sort of thing happening on the nonbelieving side.  Presently, folks are growing up in households where the parents stress the idea that there should not be any such concept of organized religion. 

All very fascinating and interesting that even when most of us know what I have written to be true, we still insist upon degrading or making the other person feel inferior upon their own belief system (whether this ‘degrading’ and ‘inferiority’ is done with purpose of intent or not).  This does show a bit of weakness in yourself as well as whatever it is that you find to be true if you succumb.  First go about strengthening that in which you find your faith in and you will be pleasantly surprised that standing up for yourself is not so very hard.

To be honest, I have never been shy of telling people who I am or what I believe in.  I am a woman of faith…simple.  Do I stray from it?  Yes.  Do I follow it 100%?  No.  Do I believe in the concept of heaven and hell?  Yes, absolutely.  Do I believe that God in essence is wrathful and horrid?  No.  You want to flash a quote from the Quran that says ‘kill the infidels’?  Then I can flash another one (if not more) that say the precise opposite.  You want to tell me what’s wrong with my religion?  Guess what, I can tell you so many things that are amazing about it.  You want to say that I’m a moron for believing?  Well I can say that you’re equally moronic for not.  Hey, it’s all in the point of view, don’t you think?

My religion is indeed the foundation of the person I am.  I will never deny this.  Every good thing I’ve learned was at one point taken from the Quran, and passed down from generation to generation till it sunk into my cranium and has lodged there for the last 40 years.  Why should I fight this fact?  And what bad have I learned?  You can say, scream or cry to me ‘but what about independent thinking, you lemming you!?!?’ and I will say, re-read again my journey that has led me to where I am.  That should suffice as explanation.

I have had a few people ask me why I believe in my religion, have tried to debate it with me, tried to make me see the ‘error of my ways’ and I will tell you this much, when they do such a thing and are trying so very hard to prove whatever point it is that they are adamant in proving, in my head I think to myself ‘when I am not thrusting it down your throat, when I do not go around thumping my Bible/Quran/Geeta/Torah/etc at you, then why are you so darn persistent in changing me, lecturing me about intolerance?  Who is, in fact, the intolerant one here?’ 

BTW, one last point to be made here…for the most of us who are following some sort of religion (and I’m talking majority), I assure you that all we want to do is simply…live.  We are not on a jihad or holy war, we are not trying to convert you, we are indeed not trying to give you religious lectures and change your POV.  All we want, for the majority, is to be left to practice whatever it is we wish.  You may take the few weirdo radical sensationalized morons out there, push them in front of us and say ‘this is who you are, this is the representation of your faith’ and I guarantee you most of us are simply rolling our eyes and itching to forward to you the dictionary definition of the word ‘radical’.  They are not our spokespeople and you, by using them as examples, are proving  not a thing to us…just a friendly FYI.

 

So if you wish to think I’m a moron/idiot/sheep/lemming/whatever, go on and do your thing.  Ain’t no one stoppin’ you…just realize for as many times as you call (or think) those things of me, you are proving yourself to be almost the same and narrow-minded to boot. 

 

: )

 

Have a great one!