I have grown up in a Muslim household.
(I know that because, as a kid, I asked my parents just to make sure.)
Yet I, too, paid an apprentice’s attention to how my parents, infallible in my eyes, paid homage to their faith. They did not attend a mosque, but never missed a prayer. My mother never wore a scarf, but she never wore a bikini either. They fasted during, and at times outside of, Ramadan while holding the most ascetic of iftar dinners, breaking their fasts over dates and lentil soup rather than over a lavish dinner party. “Belief is action,” my mother would always say, reconciling in my head what was not a contradiction, but rather a highly visceral application of her own religion. I knew we were Muslim-but as a kid, I asked just to make sure.
Where she was an educator, I was an experimenter. Where she saw contradiction, I saw coexistence. As a woman of faith, she was careful not to go against her doctrine in any way, shape or form, while I entertained the possibilities of context and perspective in flexibly guiding me towards Islam’s pluralist directive.
Still, we both agreed that Islam, in its pedagogy and in history, are in fact highly political. The doctrines of the three Abrahamic religions, while peaceful, were incubated in histories that were otherwise brutal. Because of this, their faiths demanded political solutions to their societal problems.
The tragedy in Orlando and the implications of Brexit are contemporary provocations of Islam’s reputed incompatibility with “the West.” Muslims have been pushed to vindicate their religion and condemn those whose acts of terrorism, the products of poverty, occupation and desperation have no bearing on their own faith. And Muslims, along with many Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures, have felt the need to subordinate, mitigate, hide, defend and apologize for their religious and cultural identities.
I no longer want to relegate my roots–which have been a grounding of identity and a source of power and practice for me–to a plate of hummus to make it more palatable to the disoriented Orientalist. While it’s a fallibility in itself to conflate Islam, a philosophy and ideology, with the cultures it often cohabits, it’s safe enough for me to say that both have been neutered and silenced despite their roles as sources for personal and political empowerment.
Jesus spoke out against the injustice of the Pharisees, confronting them with the defiant notion that all people were equal. He also preached forgiveness, but was by no means an apolitical pacifist. Muhammad–hailed by Michael Hart in his book, “100 Most Influential People of All Time” as the most influential man in history–was a military tactician and political philosopher as well as a religious figure. And like Jesus, he took the political initiative in fighting against the injustice of the ruling body, the notoriously materialistic Quraysh tribe, in his time and place.
The mistake in connoting Islam’s political dimension with terrorism and Taliban-esque fundamentalism would miss the point in recognizing that the purpose of Islam, as would any other philosophy, is in subordinating the divisive nature of humans to better serve a higher purpose. Islam, to me, is supposed to enhance, not destroy, my sense of justice and humanity.
So I will admit: perhaps I’m not the most conventional of Muslims. But that just means I find God in the trees rather than in a lavish mosque. It means I chose discretion over my words and reflection upon my actions. It means that I dress for comfort, but not for competition. It means to me that I hone and develop a strong critical consciousness that rejects and acts against injustice and oppression everywhere.
By these principles, I believe that today’s social and political climate couldn’t be more appropriate to call oneself a Muslim in. Eschewing materialism is the answer to rejecting the classist and racist outcomes of capitalism. A more just and equitable social system could be the answer to destructive speculative markets and crass wealth inequality.
Rather than looking at politics through the lens of religion, I approach religion through economic, political, and social applications. At times, the metacognitive influence that religion has on its adherents, manifested in the most ardent defense and practice of their faith with an enthusiasm that goes above my utilitarian, Western-bred brain can seem distant and at times archaic. Yet the zeal and spirit of justice and righteousness is enveloped in Islam’s religious lessons that are yet to be lost in translation.
glutenfreehummus 