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I read other books on Islam, and came across
some passages translated by W. Montgomery Watt from “That Which Delivers from
Error” by the theologian and mystic Ghazali, who, after a mid-life crises of
questioning and doubt, realized that beyond the light of prophetic revelation
there is no other light on the face of the earth from which illumination may be
received, the very point to which my philosophical inquiries had led. Here
was, in Hegel’s terms, the Wise Man, in the person of a divinely inspired
messenger who alone had the authority to answer questions of good and evil.
I also read A.J. Arberry’s translation “The Quran
Interpreted,” and I recalled my early wish for a sacred book. Even in
translation, the superiority of the Muslim scripture over the Bible was evident
in every line, as if the reality of divine revelation, dimly heard of all my
life, had now been placed before my eyes. In its exalted style, its power, its
inexorable finality, its uncanny way of anticipating the arguments of the
atheistic heart in advance and answering them; it was a clear exposition of God
as God and man as man, the revelation of the awe-inspiring Divine Unity being
the identical revelation of social and economic justice among men.
I began to learn Arabic at Chicago, and after
studying the grammar for a year with a fair degree of success, decided to take
a leave of absence to try to advance in the language in a year of private study
in Cairo. Too, a desire for new horizons drew me, and after a third season of
fishing, I went to the Middle East
In Egypt, I found something I believe brings
many to Islam, namely, the mark of pure monotheism upon its followers, which
struck me as more profound than anything I had previously encountered. I met
many Muslims in Egypt, good and bad, but all influenced by the teachings of
their Book to a greater extent than I had ever seen elsewhere. It has been
some fifteen years since then, and I cannot remember them all, or even most of
them, but perhaps the ones I can recall will serve to illustrate the impressions
made.
One was a man on the side of the Nile near the Miqyas Gardens, where I used to walk. I came upon him praying on a piece of cardboard,
facing across the water. I started to pass in front of him, but suddenly
checked myself and walked around behind, not wanting to disturb him. As I
watched a moment before going my way, I beheld a man absorbed in his relation
to God, oblivious to my presence, much less my opinions about him or his
religion. To my mind, there was something magnificently detached about this,
altogether strange for someone coming from the West, where praying in public
was virtually the only thing that remained obscene.
Another was a young boy from secondary school
who greeted me near Khan al-Khalili, and because I spoke some Arabic and he
spoke some English and wanted to tell me about Islam, he walked with me several
miles across town to Giza, explaining as much as he could. When we parted, I
think he said a prayer that I might become Muslim.
Another was a Yemeni friend living in Cairo who brought me a copy of the Quran at my request to help me learn Arabic. I did not
have a table beside the chair where I used to sit and read in my hotel room,
and it was my custom to stack the books on the floor. When I set the Quran by
the others there, he silently stooped and picked it up, out of respect for it.
This impressed me because I knew he was not religious, but here was the effect
of Islam upon him.
Another was a woman I met while walking beside a
bicycle on an unpaved road on the opposite side of the Nile from Luxor. I was
dusty, and somewhat shabbily clothed, and she was an old woman dressed in black
from head to toe who walked up, and without a word or glance at me, pressed a
coin into my hand so suddenly that in my surprise I dropped it. By the time I
picked it up, she had hurried away. Because she thought I was poor, even if
obviously non-Muslim, she gave me some money without any expectation for it
except what was between her and her God. This act made me think a lot about
Islam, because nothing seemed to have motivated her but that.
Many other things passed through my mind during
the months I stayed in Egypt to learn Arabic. I found myself thinking that a
man must have some sort of religion, and I was more impressed by the effect of
Islam on the lives of Muslims, a certain nobility of purpose and largesse of
soul, than I had ever been by any other religions or even atheisms effect on
its followers. The Muslims seemed to have more than we did.
Christianity had its good points to be sure, but
they seemed mixed with confusions, and I found myself more and more inclined to
look to Islam for their fullest and most perfect expression. The first
question we had memorized from our early catechism had been, “Why were you
created?” To which the correct answer was, “To know, love, and serve God.” When
I reflected on those around me, I realized that Islam seemed to furnish the
most comprehensive and understandable way to practice this on a daily basis.
As for the inglorious political fortunes of the
Muslims today, I did not feel these to be a reproach against Islam, or to
relegate it to an inferior position in a natural order of world ideologies, but
rather saw them as a low phase in a larger cycle of history. Foreign hegemony
over Muslim lands had been witnessed before in the thorough going destruction
of Islamic civilization in the thirteenth century by the Mongol horde, who
razed cities and built pyramids of human heads from the steppes of Central Asia
to the Muslim heartlands, after which the fullness of destiny brought forth the
Ottoman Empire to raise the Word of God and make it a vibrant political reality
that endured for centuries. It was now, I reflected, merely the turn of
contemporary Muslims to strive for a new historic crystallization of Islam,
something one might well aspire to share in.
When a friend in Cairo one day asked me, Why don’t
you become a Muslim, I found that God had created within me a desire to belong
to this religion, which so enriches its followers, from the simplest hearts to
the most magisterial intellects. It is not through an act of the mind or will
that anyone becomes a Muslim, but rather through the mercy of God, and this, in
the final analysis, was what brought me to Islam in Cairo in 1977.
“Is it not time that the hearts of those
who believe should be humbled to the Remembrance of God and the Truth which has
been revealed, and that they should not be as those to whom the Book was given
aforetime, but long ages passed over them and their hearts grew hard, and many
of them are ungodly? Know that God revives the earth after it was dead. We
have indeed made clear for you the signs, that haply you will understand.” (Quran
57:16-17)
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