What Every Christian Should Know About Muslims We might think we have nothing in common with people who practice Islam, but that’s actually far from the truth. by Abdu Murray We were one of the few Muslim families in my suburban Detroit community—a dash of pepper in the salt, so to speak. It was a pre-9/11 world, and our exoticness was at the same time both mysterious and cute. We dealt with our share of stereotyping in those days, but many people seemed to change their minds after getting to know us. Following 9/11, perceptions of Muslims shifted. Many Americans now saw them as potentially dangerous people with dangerous beliefs. Others jumped off the opposite cliff and thought Muslims were constantly victimized and could do no wrong. The reality, of course, is that Muslims are people. People are imperfect, and we’re all quite complex in our imperfections. A year before planes crashed into the World Trade Center, my worldview underwent a revolution. After a nine-year search, I gave my life to Christ. I now enjoy the blessing of knowing what it is like to be both a Muslim in America and a Christian who deeply loves Muslims. From the contrarieties of that experience, I’ll offer two contrary yet true statements about Muslims. One, they are different from us. And two, they are very much like us. Muslims are different than us. Today it’s fashionable to focus on our similarities. But our differences are important, too. Some of these differences provide ways for Muslims to remind us about what’s important in life. • The primacy of community. Muslims tend to come from cultures that value deep and wide communities. It’s been said that language reflects a culture’s passions. Arabic, for example, has four words for cousin, at least two words each for grandmother and grandfather, and two words each for uncle and aunt. Muslims blur the lines between friends and family, calling unrelated elders “uncle” or “auntie,” and friends “cousin.” What Every Christian Should Know About Muslims While Muslim immigrants fall in love with America, they lament that Westerners tend to drive into their garages after work, not to emerge until the next morning. Muslims love lively interaction. When I first met my wife Nicole, I brought her to my parents’ house for dinner. The TV’s volume rivaled a jet turbine. My dad, brothers, and I competed with the TV, which led to my mom shouting at us to make sure that everyone got some food. When we left, Nicole looked at me and asked, “What were they upset about?” I laughed and said they weren’t upset—just Lebanese. Compare that with the first time I met Nicole’s parents: The conversation was orderly and quiet, voices barely above a library-appropriate level. As we left, I thought the silence meant that something was wrong. “What were they so upset about?” I asked. She explained they weren’t upset—just white. • The blessing of community. In the West, we tend to retreat to our personal spaces, forgetting that the Christian faith is meant to be lived in community (see Acts 2:42). And if you join Muslims for dinner, you’ll enjoy an avalanche of delicious goodies and vibrant sounds—similar to those enjoyed during the wedding feast at Cana. At its heart, Christianity is much the same, having sprouted from roots sunk deep in the communally rich Middle Eastern soil. But with the smiles and smells comes the “shame and honor” dynamic. While Muslims value truth, they are strongly influenced by shame and honor. The cardinal virtue is loyalty to family, so disloyalty is the cardinal sin. To even consider a different worldview like Christianity is to flirt with a shameful betrayal that affects the community as a whole, the family in particular, and the individual Muslim most devastatingly. • Religious identity. Sam Solomon, himself a former Muslim, asks us to picture a circle with a dot in the middle. In the West, the circle is life and the dot is religion. In Muslim culture, the dot is life and the circle is religious expression. Religious identity permeates and saturates everything. That’s why nominal Muslims who don’t regularly practice Muslim rituals enthusiastically defend Islam in debates. In essence, they are defending their very existence. What Every Christian Should Know About Muslims Muslims are just like us. • Muslims are given to stereotyping. Unfortunately, Muslims share our penchant for unwarranted generalizations. Growing up, I thought that if you were white and not Jewish, you were by default a Christian. And while I knew plenty of carnal Christians, just as I knew plenty of carnal Muslims, I still thought that if you identified yourself as a Christian, then you took that identity seriously. Muslims also tend to think that Christians know a lot about their faith and like to discuss it. But when I began challenging self-identified Christians about their faith, I saw that many had no clue about what they believed or why they believed it. That brings up another similarity: Many Muslims (like many Christians) aren’t as familiar with their sacred text as they’d like to be. Muslims have the same hopes and fears. Like you, they lie awake worrying about their careers, retirement, and gas prices (because most of them don’t actually work in or own gas stations). Their kids go to school with your kids, watch the same TV shows and movies, and listen to the same music. So Muslims pray that the public school system and the media won’t bankrupt their kids’ morality. Sound familiar? • Muslims crave divine connection. Like Christians, Muslims have a deep hunger to connect with God. While Islamic orthodoxy dictates that He can’t be known intimately, Muslims still crave the connection. I found that connection in Christ. If we’re to offer Muslims that connection, we need to shift our attitudes. Most Muslims aren’t smoldering militants twisting their mustaches as they scheme your destruction. Nor are they merely foreign curiosities. They are different and yet the same. In the most important way, Muslims are just like all of us. They are sinners in need of the Savior. And the Savior loves them just as much as He loves you.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 20:52:04 +0000
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