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ISBN: Print 978-1-64611-323-1 | eBook 978-1-64611-324-8
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To my parents, Fauzia and Abdul Wahab.
My teachers and dua goyn.
My beloved family.
Ata janem, for your love and your example.
And to all who are working toward a better today and tomorrow for themselves and for the world.
CONTENTS
The terms Islam and Muslim are ubiquitous and yet burdened with countless contradictory interpretations, misrepresentations, and erasures. Historically, the contemporary political climate or zeitgeist tends to determine how Islam is defined and who is given a platform to speak for its almost 2 billion adherents worldwide. The climate of post-9/11 America bears witness to such vilification and misrepresentations of Muslims and other minority groups. What is clear is that dehumanizing, othering, and stereotyping individuals, groups, and religions is rooted in either a lack of access to the given group or a reliance on misinformation and fringe examples. The fact that you are reading this book suggests that you have a curiosity and an open heart to learn and to grow. I pray that the chapters that follow help answer some of your most pressing questions about the foundations of Islam and its teachings.
This book offers a comprehensive, though not exhaustive, survey of Islamic teachings. Each chapter deals with various aspects of Islamic belief, history, and practice. We will also discuss differences in opinion among Muslims as well as Muslim views on other religions. Ive attempted to enliven the discussion with not just the surface-level details but also the inner and interior aims of these teachings. I hope this allows you to have a more complete understanding of what these teachings involve, how they are experienced by Muslims, and the spiritual possibilities they offer. The content is informed primarily by Islams holy scripture, the Quran, as well as those narrations that are widely known and align with scholarly considerations. For readers interested in these narrations, the suggested readings will contain the cited narrations in this text. Lastly, a balanced and nuanced reading of history is employed to represent the historical narrative.
My own journey with Islam and Islamic sciences began when I started to read and memorize the Quran as a young boy in the beautiful city of Kabul, Afghanistan. I first taught someone to read the Quran when I was 12, living in the Bay Area. From that age onward, I have studied different aspects of Islam and Islamic sciences in the context of traditional Islamic learning, as well as in academia. I began to give lectures in Islamic centers and have been leading spiritual services in Oakland, California, for the past five years. I am also a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley. My current research primarily focuses on the study of Islam, Persian literature, and their relations to power and poetics.
My journey with Islam has led to opportunities to engage with faith leaders, as well as invitations to speak and teach at other religious institutions, churches, academic institutions, conferences, and television programs, which have allowed me to engage with individuals from all backgrounds, beliefs, and interpretations. I am deeply inspired by these opportunities to use the energy and potential of religion to bring people together in a way that informs, unites, and activates us all to be and do better. We must strive to soften ourselves to the challenges of the human condition and increase our concern for one anotherto combat the immense selfishness and despair that have permeated much of the world. For too long, there have been voices vociferously inciting people toward dehumanization and othering. The results of many of these acts and incitementswhether by individuals, groups, or stateshave been violence and war. Ive experienced, witnessed, and studied the destruction and pain that results from war and the trauma it leaves behind. This trauma is passed on from generation to generation. Its time for a fresh imagination, a purified intention, and vision toward a new reality sustained in knowledge, wisdom, and compassionate grace that enables us to look at one another with the gaze of kindness and humanity. If this book helps move us even one step toward this, then I have, with the grace of God, achieved my intention.
