Expanding horizons

Friday, Feb. 12, 2016

I met some potential friends last week when I joined a group for discussion about faith, war, peace and living in harmony – the kind of dialog that too frequently is lacking in my life.

Four other guests had been invited: a young couple who is at the University of Utah, where the husband is a graduate student; and an older couple who has lived in Utah for 15 years, consider it home, and have established careers. All four of them are intelligent, articulate and able to carry on good conversation – qualities I appreciate in friends.

Here are some snippets from our conversation that everyone agreed with: “Life is precious.” “Everybody needs peace.” “Look at the context of a verse [from the holy book] before you quote it.”

We have differences, of course, which in my mind also is necessary for a good friendship; the most fascinating part of the evening was learning a bit about their life stories. It was a conversation I could easily continue over a glass of something – not coffee, which I don’t drink; nor wine, which they don’t drink; but maybe we could settle on tea as we delved more deeply into some of their other comments, such as: “I can name my family back 26 generations.” “We keep our history in poems.” “The war doesn’t end.” 

You may have guessed by now that I wasn’t at a casual gathering. Instead, it was the regular meeting of the Diocese of Salt Lake City Peace & Justice Commission. Because of the rhetoric from the U.S. presidential political campaign, commission members had requested an opportunity to dialog with people of the Islamic faith, so Naima Mohamed, Jeilani Athumani, and Halima and Abdi Hussein were invited as their guests for the evening.

I heard a little about the two couples’ personal stories: The Husseins left Somalia because of the civil war, which has been raging for 30 years. Naima’s family fled Somalia when she was less than a year old; she spent eight years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States, where she has lived now for 10 years.

We discussed only the broad outlines of Islam; none of the four are scholars of the Quran, and yet, as Jeilani said, they are called to be ambassadors of their faith. The Quran has many verses that promote peace, he said; those that seem to condone violence typically are taken out of context.

The same is often done with the Christian Bible, pointed out Jean Hill, the commission’s director.

“Life is precious in Islam,” Abdi told us, adding that many Muslims wonder where ISIS came from, because random killing “is completely not what we believe in as Muslims. Unfortunately, they claim our religion.”

ISIS has killed more Muslims than Christians, Halima said, but that information isn’t widely reported in the American media. Given that there are 1 billion Muslims in the world, and only a small fraction belong to extremist groups, “You cannot say all Muslims are violent,” she said.

As I listened to them, I wondered how I would react if called upon to defend my faith in light of its less glorious moments: the Inquisition, for example, or the reign of Pope Alexander VI or the priest sex-abuse scandal. 

My first defense likely would be, “That’s not the true faith!” 

Which is exactly how Naima, Jeilani, Halima and Abdi were responding about ISIS and Islam.  

Naima said it best, I think: When atrocities by Muslims are cited as reason for hatred, she suggested my response should be, “The Muslims I know aren’t like that.”

And they’re not.