Jeffrey Lang - Struggling to surrender : some impressions of an American convert to Islam

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

Questions 127

Family 130

Perspectives 137

To the Islamic Center 140

Women in the Qur'an: 142

The Male and the FemaleRights and ResponsibilitiesBeginnings and Endings Ways to Paradise Beyond Husband and WifeA Woman's WitnessLeadership^A Woman's Dress^Education and Segregation The Woman's Complaint

Law and State 182

Jihad 183

Faith and Power 190

Apostasy 195

Chapter 5: Ahl al Kitab 201

Revelation and History: An Interpretation Ahl al Kitab (People of the Book)Muslim-Chrisitan DialogueThe Israeli-Palestinian ProblemTies of Kinship

Parting Thoughts 230

Preface

Almost everything of their beauty could be traced to northern Europe the delicate angularity of their features, their fair complexions, their long, luxuriant golden-brown hair^but not their eyes: large, flashing dark brown eyes, the type you might steal a glance from at an outdoor market or on a village street in Arabia, the type that see? right through you and lingers in your memory for a long time.

"Why did you become a Muslim?" asked one of my two interrogators. What answer would their innocence comprehend? Both gazed up at me dispassionately, as if they had all eternity to wait for an explanation. Maybe they were not meant to understand but only to ask, to initiate the process of self-examination.

No, I thought, their question was more personal than that. I remember when I asked my own father why he had become a Catholic. It was not due to curiosity alone but a result of my own search for self-definition.

When I became a Muslim, I did not consider how many choices I was making, not just for myself but for my three daughters and their children and their descendants. Of course they needed to know why I made that decision, because it had been made for them as well and they would have to come to terms with it for the rest of their lives.

The prophet Muhammad said of his youngest daughter: "Fatimah is a part of me and I am a part of her. Her happiness is my happiness and her pain is my pain." A father finds special fulfillment in his relationship with his daughters. Through their feminine nature, he can reach beyond the limits of his gender and is opened to a greater range of feelings and emotions than his public life allows. They complement and counter-balance him, not just as females but as his children, because he sees the completion of himself in their personalities. "Why did you become a Muslim?" holds an entirely different significance for me when it comes from my daughters, for it originates in me. It is my completory voice, in its still untainted truthfulness, cross-examining me.

I explained it to them briefly and as well as I could, but not in a way that finalized the matter, as I wanted to be sure the door was left open for fiirther inquiry. Their question is the impetus behind this book, which began as nightly reflections on their question.

If you are not honest with your daughters, you are being untrue to yourself. For that reason, I did my best to tell it as sincerely and honestly

as I could: to "tell it like it is," as we used to say. This meant including all the various highlights and lowlights, discoveries and doubts, answers and questions. Thus, this is in no way an authoritative book on Islam in the United States. My daughters know that their father is not a scholar of Islam and Muslim scholars will easily recognize this as well. I therefore oifer this remark as a caution to those with lesser knowledge of the religion. For those who wish to understand mainstream Islam in the United States today, I may suggest Gamal Badawi's excellent Islamic Teaching Series.

The work before you might be best described as my experience of or reaction to Islam, something like a diary or personal journal, that will most likely be of interest to a certain type of audience. As I could not include every personal reflection or question I have ever had, I confined myself to topics that seemed to be of general concern to converts, as voiced in American Muslim newsletters and magazines. In addition, I have relied on personal communications with fellow converts, some of whose recollections appear throughout this book.

Some themes (i.e., the signs of the Qur'an and science) became of interest to me through association, while others (i.e., questions about divine mercy and justice) were intrinsic to my own search for spirituality. The first two chapters are reflections on becoming a Muslim: the first chapter highlights the decision to convert and the second focuses on the part played by the Qur'an. Although I have done my best to interpret these topics, there is so much contained within them that still remains a mystery to me. The last three chapters, which form the major part of this work, are, in reality, an appendix to these subjects. They deal with the difficulties encountered after conversion and the struggle to participate in Muslim community life.

The American Muslim convert is most often of Christian or Jewish background, which means that he or she has rejected one prophetic tradition and one version of history in favor of another, closely related one. As this entails rebellion against the prior religious tradition, it should come as no surprise that converts are often skeptical of Islamic tradition, particularly when dealing with the sayings and reports concerning Prophet Muhammad. Tradition, Muslim scholarship, popular feeling, history, and Westem criticism all collide to create what appears to be irreconcilable confusion. This is 4he subject of chapter three.

The Muslim congregations in the United States are made up of a vast array of cultures and customs, many of which have a religious basis. The majority are from traditional and more conservative societies. The shock that they face upon their arrival in this country, like all immigrants before them, is perplexing and frightening. The convert also experiences this

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pain, for he/she finds himself/herself in the unaccustomed position of being a minority within the MusHm rehgious community. This aspect of conversion to Islam is taken up in chapter four, with special emphasis on the changing roles of the sexes. The last chapter deals with some of the difficulties of being a Muslim in a non-Muslim family and society.

I have been fighting with myself for some time over whether or not I should publish this book. My hesitation was not due to any fear of causing controversy but rather because of its very personal character. Without doubt, it is a very American interpretation of Islam, for how could it be otherwise? I cannot (and should not be expected to) extricate myself from the first twenty-eight years of my life. I continue to follow a strategy that I used when I was an atheist: I study what scholars inside and outside of a religion say about it. Insiders often overlook or brush aside sensitive questions, whereas outsiders have their own prejudices. Through cautious comparison and contrast, I hope to offset the two tendencies. Thus, my understanding of Islam has been influenced by non-Muslim scholars.