This post is about my personal relationship with and my family history regarding Islam, and my viewpoints on Islam today. If you would like to know why I am writing such a post, I refer you to my previous post.
My mother and father raised me as a Baha'i, a religion that originated in Persia (now Iran) in the middle of the 19th century. Baha'is have been systematically persecuted by Muslim authorities since the origin of the religion. I heard stories from childhood about the torture and murder of Baha'is in an effort to get them to recant. Unsurprisingly, the current Islamic Revolutionary government of Iran is extremely hostile to the Baha'is. At present Baha'is are not allowed to attend schools and are frequently jailed on flimsy charges, and at various points have involved executions. The Baha'i Faith is still believed to be the largest religious minority in Iran, but there is no official headcount because the government does not officially recognize them as a religion.
My father was raised a Muslim in India. Sometime during his teenage or young adult years (I don't know the full story as well as I wish I did), he converted to the Baha'i Faith, as well as his younger sister. For that, they were effectively disowned by my grandfather, a very "conservative" Muslim. I got to meet him when I was about 7, very briefly. The only thing I remember about him personally is that he made me feel loved from the instant I first looked at him.
My mother was raised a Presbyterian but became a Baha'i as a teenager. She was interested primarily in religious studies, although she eventually pursued a Ph.D. in history, largely because history departments are better supported in academia than religious studies departments. She was going to go to Iran to research her dissertation, and right as she was set to go, the Iranian Revolution happened, and as an American Baha'i woman, there was no chance she would be safe there. Instead, she went to India and wrote her dissertation on the Zoroastrian diaspora in India. Zoroastrianism was, until the Muslim conquests, the state religion of Iran, and it is really impossible to tell the story of how Zoroastrians came to leave Iran without telling the story of the Muslim invasions that displaced them. Most of her published articles deal with the Baha'i Faith, which again is rather difficult to study without first understanding the Muslim societies from which it originated.
All of this is to say I am quite aware of the brutality that occurs in many Muslim majority countries. I am quite aware that Muslims are capable of being intolerant. But my basic impression, on the whole, of the many Muslims I've interacted with is that they are just people. Sometimes they do ordinary things. Sometimes they do admirable things. Sometimes they do shitty things. History, in my mind, provides no evidence that their morals are defective compared to the rest of the world. To the contrary, they have a history towards tolerance of Jewish and Christian minorities (much more so than the Christian world had towards religious minorities prior to the very recent past). Prior to the 20th century, the Muslim world's record on women's rights was superior to Europe's. I don't mean to downplay the serious depravity and danger posed by ISIS or the state mandated oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. I mean to say that apocalyptic death cults and oppressive dictatorships are hardly an invention of the Muslim world or confined to Muslim countries.
I also want to be clear about what I think about Muslim immigrants in particular. One of the most important things to remember about Muslim immigrants in Europe and America is that these people chose to live in a country where they were a minority because they thought they would have a better life there. These aren't people who are opposed to Western values. These are people who are embracing Western values and abandoning (or, as in the case of Syrian refugees, desperately fleeing) less free societies.
ISIS has had some alarming successes wooing European-born Muslims. So far, they have had very little success with American-born Muslims. A commonly cited explanation is that American Muslims feel much more integrated with their societies than European Muslims do. Personally, I'm proud that America can boast that. But if we persistently send American Muslims the message that they are unwelcome and we find their faith incompatible with American values, I think we will be making a grave mistake, both morally and in terms of the possible consequences.
My mother was raised a Presbyterian but became a Baha'i as a teenager. She was interested primarily in religious studies, although she eventually pursued a Ph.D. in history, largely because history departments are better supported in academia than religious studies departments. She was going to go to Iran to research her dissertation, and right as she was set to go, the Iranian Revolution happened, and as an American Baha'i woman, there was no chance she would be safe there. Instead, she went to India and wrote her dissertation on the Zoroastrian diaspora in India. Zoroastrianism was, until the Muslim conquests, the state religion of Iran, and it is really impossible to tell the story of how Zoroastrians came to leave Iran without telling the story of the Muslim invasions that displaced them. Most of her published articles deal with the Baha'i Faith, which again is rather difficult to study without first understanding the Muslim societies from which it originated.
All of this is to say I am quite aware of the brutality that occurs in many Muslim majority countries. I am quite aware that Muslims are capable of being intolerant. But my basic impression, on the whole, of the many Muslims I've interacted with is that they are just people. Sometimes they do ordinary things. Sometimes they do admirable things. Sometimes they do shitty things. History, in my mind, provides no evidence that their morals are defective compared to the rest of the world. To the contrary, they have a history towards tolerance of Jewish and Christian minorities (much more so than the Christian world had towards religious minorities prior to the very recent past). Prior to the 20th century, the Muslim world's record on women's rights was superior to Europe's. I don't mean to downplay the serious depravity and danger posed by ISIS or the state mandated oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. I mean to say that apocalyptic death cults and oppressive dictatorships are hardly an invention of the Muslim world or confined to Muslim countries.
I also want to be clear about what I think about Muslim immigrants in particular. One of the most important things to remember about Muslim immigrants in Europe and America is that these people chose to live in a country where they were a minority because they thought they would have a better life there. These aren't people who are opposed to Western values. These are people who are embracing Western values and abandoning (or, as in the case of Syrian refugees, desperately fleeing) less free societies.
ISIS has had some alarming successes wooing European-born Muslims. So far, they have had very little success with American-born Muslims. A commonly cited explanation is that American Muslims feel much more integrated with their societies than European Muslims do. Personally, I'm proud that America can boast that. But if we persistently send American Muslims the message that they are unwelcome and we find their faith incompatible with American values, I think we will be making a grave mistake, both morally and in terms of the possible consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment