Islam - Voluntary Submission To Allah

Why?

I am occasionally asked  '' Why do you spend so much time mentioning Islam and matters related to the Muslim world?   Is it 9/11, the War on Terror, the politics of the Muslim world, your own experiences of Muslims, your travels in the Muslim world or other motivations? ''

These are very good questions and do require some clarification.

When You Are Confident In Your Own Faith or Belief or Identity, Tolerance of Others Is Never A Problem

I suppose, having been schooled very well in Christianity, I 'branched out' during the 70s and 80s into, why you might call 'Christian 'mythology' [the goddess Isis and her relationship to The Blessed Virgin Mary etc etc] and Christian 'occult' [Rennes-le-Château etc etc] to extend my understanding of the faith I was born into.  [I specifically mention the Blessed Virgin Mary as I was schooled by The Marist Order. You might even call it, for it's day, at that time, a  'sect'  of Catholicism, but within the 'conservative' ranks of the Catholic Church.
[The Catholic Church itself has many prominent 'sects' or Orders - notably The Franciscans, The Dominicans, The Jesuits, The Marist  ,The Missionaries of Charity [Mother Theresa], The Sisters of Life [Cardinal O' Connor], The Poor Clares, The Carmelites, The Benedictines , The Trappists, The Carthusians, and The Cistercian Orders.   This list is by no means extensive and for active Catholic Orders today in Africa, The Middle East, India, China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, The Philippines, Asia, The Pacific including Fiji and Tonga, Australasia, Indonesia, The Caribbean, and The Americas you should research the relevant country or geographical area.   I apologize if I have left out your particular country or area. www.religious-vocation.com/differences_religious_orders.htm
http://relzim.org/major-religions-zimbabwe/catholics/catholic-religious-orders/ 
and http://oblatesisters.com/

Travels In Non-Christian Lands beyond The Middle East
Islam in Context and in Distortion

I traveled to many parts of South East Asia and developed an interest in Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. While I never traveled extensively in Africa I have always had an affection for Animism as it is so close to nature to be almost the natural order of things, in another world.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today.  What makes Islam so attractive to so many people has interested me for a long time.   At the current rate of growth, Islam could well number half the Earth's population in the next 200 years (maybe even sooner.)

Despite all of the criticisms, aberrations, 'barbaric practices' (at least to myself, as an outsider), intolerance and discrimination (within Islam), yet people worldwide flock to and embrace it  (most voluntarily – they don't need fanatics to convert them at the point of a gun or at the point of death) more than any other religion existing on this planet.   So clearly this religion offers the prospects of 'eternal salvation' and a way of life - in a manner  which no other major faith of today can compete against.

It's only when you travel through a country like Indonesia that you can really appreciate the broad range and diversity of Islam.  The Middle East gives a distorted, bizarre perspective, an Apartheid-like scenario- similar to that which I described traveling through Brazil where you virtually have ''Blacks/Whites/Coloreds Only'' segregation.  
 (I also mentioned in an earlier blog that the opening [on the bus] scene from the film ''Fatherland'' (Rutger Hauer) is strikingly similar as to how the Brazilian government 'manages' it's image and internal Apartheid to the outside world to give tourists and visitors the impression that ''everything is fine'' - and their responsibility here (in Brazil) as tourists or guests, is to confirm this fact to their folks back home.)
In the Middle East it is Jew-Non-Jew-Christian segregation.  In Egypt,  for example, it's almost accepted that Christians do all the dirty jobs - including garbage and sewage collection as Imams [in the Levant-Saudi-North Africa  Muslim world] have for centuries preached that their love of pork and alcohol makes them 'unclean' .  This forms part of the religious [Christian hate] 'education' of Muslims by Saudi and Iranian-inspired Imams and their 'acolytes' operating worldwide today.
[There has been a fairly recent impetus from Saudi-inspired  clerics to forbid or at least 'actively' 'discourage' Muslim girls and women even shaking hands with Christian girls and women on the grounds that they might be 'unclean' thereby 'polluting' .   The exception ,of course, being for 'propaganda' reasons - such as Western media presence or international events where such are 'inevitable' and can therefore be 'temporarily' entertained. ]  

Islam In It's True Diversity 

Yes there are problems of religious conflict in Indonesia, but for a country of around 250 million  Muslims, not disproportionate to problems anywhere else of similar proportionate size in the world.
[I could use the cliché that you will find extremists in every country on planet earth.]
Many of today's problems in Indonesia are being influenced by outsiders - Muslim clerics from the Middle East  or, at the very least, their literature (CDs, DVDs, 'Prayer' [hate] Speeches etc) are inspiring conflict and division.
This is something the Indonesian government takes very seriously (see my abridged interview with The Indonesian Ambassador to The United Kingdom on the internet.)

Now, having some scant knowledge of Islam I can see it's appeal to the disenfranchised, the poor, those facing untold discrimination because of race, color, ethnicity or caste.   For example, those people living in the slums or favelas of Brazil - destined through birth to remain there all of their lives, with no hope of 'Christian' 'salvation' in this world only the prospect of perpetual impoverishment and racism without end.

Abraxas

I can see that Islam will be so attractive to such impoverished and destitute individuals not just in Brazil but worldwide, that the 'blast off' of Islam throughout the developing and under-developed world has not yet even begun – and when it does, it will be meteoric, voluntary, and on a scale far surpassing anything Christianity ever achieved through force of arms since it's birth.    Aberrations in extremist Islamic ideologies – such as we see in today's world - will place a temporary ceiling on the numbers of new converts.   Indeed, I would go further and speculate that it is only thanks to today's Islamic extremists that this religion is not growing at an even faster rate, worldwide.   Having said the latter, not everyone is 'in love' with America nor American 'values' so there may well be unintended consequences of the the U.S. and West 'demonizing' Islamic 'extremists' in terms of individuals being motivated to convert to the Muslim faith.

We should not judge everybody else's values purely from our own Christian and Western perspectives.

Sometimes you have to step out of the picture to see it more clearly.

I hope this gives some part explanation as to why I have  spent time focusing on aspects of Islam in several blogs over the past two or more years, and why I will continue to so do, as and when necessary.

© Patrick Emek, 2014