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I want to tell you a brief story that I believe will shed light on what Muslims want. At the very least, it will illuminate who many of them are. It's a personal story about my wife's family.
My wife's Aunty died today; she was 90 and for most of her life, she lived in abject poverty. When her husband was alive, they slept in the house of her younger sister, a woman who converted to Islam after marrying a Muslim man, and because she wasn't a Muslim, was relegated with her Hindu husband, to sleep in the bicycle room. Hindus were considered less than human, even worse than Christians and Jews because they weren't "People of the Book," which was the Bible.
As its name implies, this was the room where the bikes were kept, and the last room used by the family at the end of the day. So sleeping was often difficult because people were always coming into this room to either take or leave their bikes--the main mode of transportation for the poor of India. Eventually the family threw Aunty out of the house because they didn't want a Hindu living with them.
Aunty's husband died and she lived on her own in a tiny and dark dirt floor shack on a busy street in Chennai. Her bed was the floor and her main care giver was her mentally ill daughter, a woman who suffered from a severe form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Her son was married and lived with his wife in the nearby neighborhood, and he also shared some of the care-giving tasks, but he wasn't able to be available as he worked during the day.
Aunty's daughter was too busy with her obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors to adequately tend to her mother's needs. She fed Aunty scraps of food, snack-like meals, and eventually Aunty's health declined even worse than it was when she was first expelled from her sister's home.
My wife got a phone call from her cousin, Aunty's son Mohan, who told her how Aunty seemed to be dying. Her body was emaciated, covered with sores, and she appeared to be in a coma-like state.
My wife and Mohan discussed how my her brother, Mustafa, might be able to help them, but when Mohan tried to get his help for his mother, Mustafa said that if Aunty converted to Islam, only then would he help. He knew that my wife's oldest sister, a devout Muslim living in the states, would have given money to Mustafa to help take care of his aunt if she converted.
My wife kept in touch with Mohan's sister and learned through her that Aunty died. But nobody in the family informed Mohan until my wife called to speak with him. The Muslims in the family didn't want him to know because they planned to convert Aunty to Islam without his knowledge or permission. Converting servants was another favorite endeavor of my brother-in-law, in addition tohaving sex with them. But when Mohan learned through my wife that Aunty had passed on, he went to Aunty's house, where he met with the family. By the time Mohan arrived, they had convinced his mentally ill sister to go ahead with the conversion of Aunty's body, but Mohan had gotten there on time and stood his ground, refusing this to happen. Mohan, a man who was not considered to be particularly strong-willed, was strong and unmoveable.
Aunty did not convert in life nor became converted to Islam in death. Mohan, an extremely poor, hard working man, hung tough. He and my wife were the only ones in the family to respect her identity and who she was, a Hindu who was the kindest, most gentle person you would ever know. As poor as she was, and you don't know poor if you're not hungry as you read this, she put money aside for Mohan--stuffed it in her pillow, and tried to save money to buy our grand daughter, a two year old she never met, silver bangles.
Aunty was love. I only met her once, saw her in the squalor of her home, and felt the mutual love of my wife and her the minute we entered the house.
It would have never occurred to Aunty to change the religion of a dying person. She would have thought it insensitive and disrespectful to imply that "your religion isn't as good as mine." That is exactly what the family showed her, and Aunty didn't deserve to be treated that way.
What Muslims want is for you to be like them because they are intolerant of other religions. When a philosophy refuses to tolerate opposing views, it means the tenets of the philosophy are weak and fragile. If you criticize Islam, you might pay with your life, because Muslims cannot answer criticism any other way. There is no intellectual refute for the theology of Islam.
The Koran mentions the word love but never in unconditional terms--there's always an "if," or "only when," implied or written. Aunty's love was unconditional and abundant, even to those Muslims who wanted something from her, so that their own soiled souls could get to Paradise. I have news for them--Aunty is there and they aren't going to get to see her again.
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My wife's Aunty died today; she was 90 and for most of her life, she lived in abject poverty. When her husband was alive, they slept in the house of her younger sister, a woman who converted to Islam after marrying a Muslim man, and because she wasn't a Muslim, was relegated with her Hindu husband, to sleep in the bicycle room. Hindus were considered less than human, even worse than Christians and Jews because they weren't "People of the Book," which was the Bible.As its name implies, this was the room where the bikes were kept, and the last room used by the family at the end of the day. So sleeping was often difficult because people were always coming into this room to either take or leave their bikes--the main mode of transportation for the poor of India. Eventually the family threw Aunty out of the house because they didn't want a Hindu living with them.
Aunty's husband died and she lived on her own in a tiny and dark dirt floor shack on a busy street in Chennai. Her bed was the floor and her main care giver was her mentally ill daughter, a woman who suffered from a severe form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Her son was married and lived with his wife in the nearby neighborhood, and he also shared some of the care-giving tasks, but he wasn't able to be available as he worked during the day.
Aunty's daughter was too busy with her obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors to adequately tend to her mother's needs. She fed Aunty scraps of food, snack-like meals, and eventually Aunty's health declined even worse than it was when she was first expelled from her sister's home.
My wife got a phone call from her cousin, Aunty's son Mohan, who told her how Aunty seemed to be dying. Her body was emaciated, covered with sores, and she appeared to be in a coma-like state.
My wife and Mohan discussed how my her brother, Mustafa, might be able to help them, but when Mohan tried to get his help for his mother, Mustafa said that if Aunty converted to Islam, only then would he help. He knew that my wife's oldest sister, a devout Muslim living in the states, would have given money to Mustafa to help take care of his aunt if she converted.
My wife kept in touch with Mohan's sister and learned through her that Aunty died. But nobody in the family informed Mohan until my wife called to speak with him. The Muslims in the family didn't want him to know because they planned to convert Aunty to Islam without his knowledge or permission. Converting servants was another favorite endeavor of my brother-in-law, in addition tohaving sex with them. But when Mohan learned through my wife that Aunty had passed on, he went to Aunty's house, where he met with the family. By the time Mohan arrived, they had convinced his mentally ill sister to go ahead with the conversion of Aunty's body, but Mohan had gotten there on time and stood his ground, refusing this to happen. Mohan, a man who was not considered to be particularly strong-willed, was strong and unmoveable.
Aunty did not convert in life nor became converted to Islam in death. Mohan, an extremely poor, hard working man, hung tough. He and my wife were the only ones in the family to respect her identity and who she was, a Hindu who was the kindest, most gentle person you would ever know. As poor as she was, and you don't know poor if you're not hungry as you read this, she put money aside for Mohan--stuffed it in her pillow, and tried to save money to buy our grand daughter, a two year old she never met, silver bangles.
Aunty was love. I only met her once, saw her in the squalor of her home, and felt the mutual love of my wife and her the minute we entered the house.
It would have never occurred to Aunty to change the religion of a dying person. She would have thought it insensitive and disrespectful to imply that "your religion isn't as good as mine." That is exactly what the family showed her, and Aunty didn't deserve to be treated that way.
What Muslims want is for you to be like them because they are intolerant of other religions. When a philosophy refuses to tolerate opposing views, it means the tenets of the philosophy are weak and fragile. If you criticize Islam, you might pay with your life, because Muslims cannot answer criticism any other way. There is no intellectual refute for the theology of Islam.
The Koran mentions the word love but never in unconditional terms--there's always an "if," or "only when," implied or written. Aunty's love was unconditional and abundant, even to those Muslims who wanted something from her, so that their own soiled souls could get to Paradise. I have news for them--Aunty is there and they aren't going to get to see her again.
My latest novel, Jihad
Joe, is about Islamic
terrorism and suspense. In it I challenge the precepts of the religion
through my protagonist, Zed Nill, a journalist, captured by terrorists and who
is destined to be killed if the American President refuses to release three
Gitmo prisoners. Of course, American policy demands we never give in to
terrorists, and for Zed, the clock is ticking.
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