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OP-ED: Amina’s one-way journey —Razi Azmi

Amina is so perturbed by the ill-health of the umma that she prescribes a medicine: a second Islamic renaissance. I doubt whether there was a first Islamic renaissance, or whether any renaissance can occur within the constricting boundaries of any faith

For the discerning reader, Akbar S Ahmed’s op-ed piece on Amy Christianson’s conversion to Islam (“From Amy to Amina,” Daily Times, 6th March) seems to throw more positive light on the Western society than on Muslims. But perhaps the point will be lost on most Muslims who have, for long, relinquished critical thinking.

The interview of Amy (inevitably now re-named Amina) reveals that despite her apprehensions her Christian American family accepted her conversion gracefully. According to her, when she revealed her conversion to her mother, she “seemed calm, and said that it was my right to decide what I wanted to believe in. . . . Most of my family seemed to accept my decision....” This is something for Muslims to ponder.

It is certainly worth noting that the United States as a state, country and society has no problem if, even in the aftermath of 9/11, one of its children not just converts to Islam but also begins to advertise and preach a religion many of whose adherents — even if they be on the fringe — have sworn to wreak havoc and destruction on that country in the name of Islam. Whether or not these people are misguided or have deviated from the “true path” of Islam is a moot point.

For a moment, let us imagine a reverse scenario, a Muslim converting, say, to Christianity or, Heaven forbid, Hinduism or Buddhism, in a Muslim country. It defies imagination. There is unanimity among clerics from the various Islamic schools of thought that the penalty for an apostate (murtid) is death, the only disagreement being whether the execution should occur instantly or after the murtid has been given an opportunity to recant and return to the fold of Islam. So sure is the punishment and so strong the attendant social and family pressures that it is unthinkable for Muslims ever to openly question any aspect of their religion, let alone convert to another or to practice agnosticism or atheism.

Scepticism and free enquiry about religion, culture and tradition have long been banished from Muslim societies and homes, with the obvious result that these countries have become stagnant and regressive. While this has not prevented many individuals from covertly abandoning or renouncing their Islamic faith, they have been forced to keep their apostasy secret from their families and societies. For their part, however, Muslims from America to Argentina and from Norway to New Zealand celebrate and count the conversions to Islam from other faiths, working overtime to bring them about and even boasting that it is the fastest-growing religion in the world.

Our Amina is mightily impressed with the “asalamu alaikum” she has been greeted with in a mosque in Virginia. I know from my experiences of living in three Muslim countries that she would not be so blessed there. Speaking of the United States, when I first arrived in the small Ohio town of Oxford, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with “hi” from strangers. This is in the nature of all small communities and towns.

Amina is happy to “now belong to a very special and beautiful community, the Muslim community.” In the same breath, she laments this beautiful community’s “lack of unity,” “polarisation,” “in-fighting” and “holier-than-thou attitudes.” And she has not yet experienced life in a Muslim country! Why, she only has to ask her new sisters-in-Islam about their lives in their former Muslim homelands to find out the reality as opposed to the promise. Or wonder why tens of thousands of her brothers-in-Islam would much rather drive taxis or sell newspapers in New York and London than work as engineers or doctors in their own countries. No, it’s not just about money, as some would argue, but about security, liberty, personal dignity, equality before the law and long-term future, for themselves and their children. Or ask why all member-states of the Islamic fraternity called Organization of Islamic Conference are in such a mess.

Amina needs only to reflect for a few moments at the phenomenon of Muslims in their hundreds of thousands voting with their feet by fleeing their Islamic homelands for the “decadent West” to realise that actions speak louder than words and that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. All myths and false promises dissipate before the reality. Indeed, even Amina is so perturbed by the ill-health of the umma that she prescribes a medicine: a second Islamic renaissance.

I doubt whether there was a first Islamic renaissance, or whether any renaissance can occur within the constricting boundaries of any faith. It is good to remember that central to any renaissance are rationalism and free thought, which hold nothing sacrosanct or beyond the pale of enquiry and criticism. And when Muslims begin to subject dogma to rational critique, and allow and welcome dissent, they wouldn’t need a renaissance. I do hope, for Amina’s sake, that she does not change her mind about her conversion, for if she did, she would have nowhere to hide. I wonder, too, whether those who formally inducted her into the fold of Islam even hinted to her the dire consequences of attempting to part ways with the venerable umma.

Razi Azmi, a former academic with a doctorate in history, is now a freelance writer and columnist

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