Things I learned from a Muslim

For the past month or so I’ve been meeting with a guy that I met at a mosque. I’ll call him Nick because I don’t know what types of people are in the 200 or so visitors this rant gets each day. Mom, I really think you count for half of those but I’m OK with that. Anyways, so I’ve been meeting with Nick for a while now and he makes no bones about telling me that Christianity is wrong and Islam is right. He has a number of papers from a lot of smart people telling me the same thing. He himself is fairly smart. He’s the son of a veterinarian and is pursuing a technical degree at the local college. He has also memorized verbatim about a third of the Quran. The meetings we have can go from 1 to 4 hours and I have asked that we start having them at a local fast food place. There was something about discussing this stuff in the library of the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam that was a little unnerving for me. He graciously obliged me so we have continued our conversation over 7-Ups and Pepsi instead of Arabic tea.



I’ve learned a number of things about Islam at an Academic level. There have not been too many revelations in my heart (notice I didn’t say zero) but there has been a lot of information that would surprise most Americans. The biggest being that Muslims revere Jesus. They love him and think he is one of the greatest prophets. They detest that Christians have turned him into a deity with their polytheistic blasphemy (not my words, just repeating) but they still acknowledge his life and say PBUH (peace be upon him) in most writings when mentioning his name. I’ve talked with Kara about this and she brought up a good point. There are a lot of the same people in the Quran who are in the Bible. That doesn’t mean we see them the say way or associate them with the same characteristics. Nick has a huge misunderstanding with what the Holy Trinity actually is. He sees it as us worshipping three Gods. I explained that it is God in three forms. He wasn’t convinced. I’ve also dispelled a number of myths about Muslims by speaking to Nick. Overall I’ve been very happy with the experience.



My real inspiration for writing this though was not what I’ve learned about Islam but what I have learned about my own faith. I see Nick who knows one third of the Quran by heart and I know maybe 10 verses by heart. He is in the middle of the month of Ramadan where he fasts from food, water and smoking from sun up to sun down. This lasts for approximately 30 days. I’ve never spent this much time fasting or sacrificing to gain a better appreciation of who my God is. I’ve also found that church answers don’t cut it when answering the hard questions he asks me about my faith. Who is Jesus? How can he be both God and Man? What’s up with the Holy Spirit? Why did God need to rest on the seventh day? This has been a huge benefit to me. It has caused me to reevaluate what I actually know and what I think I know. My decision has been that I need to go back to the source and find the answers for myself. I don’t need to fill my bookshelf with another book that mentions one verse for each page and feeds me regurgitated theology. I need to open the Bible and figure out exactly what is in there. It’s not that it has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust but I haven’t been looking at it the way I should have been. So I started last night with Luke and it felt great. Something like sinking my teeth into a nice steak after living off of fruit juice and cheese sticks for a long time. I pray that I will continue with this and not quit half way like I have on so many other projects. Who knew learning about Islam would bring me closer to God.