Religions > Atheism > Margaret Marcus, Ex-Atheist, becomes maryam Jameelah Part II
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Religions > Atheism |
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"Buddy III" |
| Date: |
13 Oct 2007 10:54:21 PM |
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Margaret Marcus, Ex-Atheist, becomes maryam Jameelah Part II |
Q: Were you scared that you might not be accepted by the Muslims?
A: My increasing sympathy for Islam and Islamic ideals enraged the other
Jews I knew, who regarded me as having betrayed them in the worst
possible way. They used to tell me that such a reputation could only
result from shame of my ancestral heritage and an intense hatred for my
people. They warned me that even if I tried to become a Muslim, I would
never be accepted. These fears proved totally unfounded as I have never
been stigmatized by any Muslim because of my Jewish origin. As soon as I
became a Muslim myself, I was welcomed most enthusiastically by all the
Muslims as one of them.
I did not embrace Islam out of hatred for my ancestral heritage or my
people. It was not a desire so much to reject as to fulfill. To me, it
meant a transition from parochial to a dynamic and revolutionary faith.
Q: Did your family object to your studying Islam?
A: Although I wanted to become a Muslim as far back as 1954, my family
managed to argue me out of it. I was warned that Islam would complicate
my life because it is not, like Judaism and Christianity, part of the
American scene. I was told that Islam would alienate me from my family
and isolate me from the community. At that time my faith was not
sufficiently strong to withstand these pressures. Partly as the result
of this inner turmoil, I became so ill that I had to discontinue college
long before it was time for me to graduate. For the next two years I
remained at home under private medical care, steadily growing worse. In
desperation from 1957 - 1959 my parents confined me both to private and
public hospitals where I vowed that if ever I recovered sufficiently to
be discharged, I would embrace Islam.
After I was allowed to return home, I investigated all the opportunities
for meeting Muslims in New York City. It was my good fortune to meet
some of the finest men and women anyone could ever hope to meet. I also
began to write articles for Muslim magazines.
Q: What was the attitude of your parents and friends after you became
Muslim?
A: When I embraced Islam, my parents, relatives and their friends
regarded me almost as a fanatic, because I could think and talk of
nothing else. To them, religion is a purely private concern which at the
most perhaps could be cultivated like an amateur hobby among other
hobbies. But as soon as I read the Holy Quran, I knew that Islam was no
hobby but life itself!
Q: In what ways did the Holy Quran have an impact on your life?
A: One evening I was feeling particularly exhausted and sleepless,
Mother came into my room and said she was about to go to the Larchmont
Public Library and asked me if there was any book that I wanted? I asked
her to look and see if the library had a copy of an English translation
of the Holy Quran. Just think, years of passionate interest in the Arabs
and reading every book in the library about them I could lay my hands on
but until now, I never thought to see what was in the Holy Quran! Mother
returned with a copy for me. I was so eager, I literally grabbed it from
her hands and read it the whole night. There I also found all the
familiar Bible stories of my childhood.
In my eight years of primary school, four years of secondary school and
one year of college, I learned about English grammar and composition,
French, Spanish, Latin and Greek in current use, Arithmetic, Geometry,
Algebra, European and American history, elementary science, Biology,
music and art--but I had never learned anything about God! Can you
imagine I was so ignorant of God that I wrote to my pen-friend, a
Pakistani lawyer, and confessed to him the reason why I was an atheist
was because I couldn't believe that God was really an old man with a
long white beard who sat up on His throne in Heaven. When he asked me
where I had learned this outrageous thing, I told him of the
reproductions from the Sistine Chapel I had seen in "Life" Magazine of
Michelangelo's "Creation" and "Original Sin." I described all the
representations of God as an old man with a long white beard and the
numerous crucifixions of Christ I had seen with Paula at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. But in the Holy Quran, I read:
"Allah! There is no god but He,-the Living, The Self-subsisting,
Supporter of all. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things
in the heavens and on earth. Who is thee can intercede in His presence
except as He permiteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as)
before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His
knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens
and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them
for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory)." (Quran S.2:255)
"But the Unbelievers,-their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts,
which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he
comes up to it, he finds Allah there, and Allah will pay him his
account: and Allah is swift in taking account. Or (the unbelievers'
state) is like the depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean, overwhelmed
with billow topped by billow, topped by (dark) clouds: depth of
darkness, one above another: if a man stretches out his hand, he can
hardly see it! for any to whom Allah giveth not light, there is no
light!" (Quran S.24: 39-40)
My first thought when reading the Holy Quran - this is the only true
religion - absolutely sincere, honest, not allowing cheap compromises or
hypocrisy.
In 1959, I spent much of my leisure time reading books about Islam in
the New York Public Library. It was there I discovered four bulky
volumes of an English translation of Mishkat ul- Masabih. It was then
that I learned that a proper and detailed understanding of the Holy
Quran is not possible without some knowledge of the relevant Hadith. For
how can the holy text correctly be interpreted except by the Prophet to
whom it was revealed?
Once I had studied the Mishkat, I began to accept the Holy Quran as
Divine revelation. What persuaded me that the Quran must be from God and
not composed by Muhammad (PBUH) was its satisfying and convincing
answers to all the most important questions of life which I could not
find elsewhere.
As a child, I was so mortally afraid of death, particularly the thought
of my own death, that after nightmares about it, sometimes I would
awaken my parents crying in the middle of the night. When I asked them
why I had to die and what would happen to me after death, all they could
say was that I had to accept the inevitable; but that was a long way off
and because medical science was constantly advancing, perhaps I would
live to be a hundred years old! My parents, family, and all our friends
rejected as superstition any thought of the Hereafter, regarding
Judgment Day, reward in Paradise or punishment in Hell as outmoded
concepts of by-gone ages. In vain I searched all the chapters of the Old
Testament for any clear and unambiguous concept of the Hereafter. The
prophets, patriarchs and sages of the Bible all receive their rewards or
punishments in this world. Typical is the story of Job (Hazrat Ayub).
God destroyed all his loved-ones, his possessions, and afflicted him
with a loathsome disease in order to test his faith. Job plaintively
laments to God why He should make a righteous man suffer. At the end of
the story, God restores all his earthly losses but nothing is even
mentioned about any possible consequences in the Hereafter.
Although I did find the Hereafter mentioned in the New Testament,
compared with that of the Holy Quran, it is vague and ambiguous. I found
no answer to the question of death in Orthodox Judaism, for the Talmud
preaches that even the worst life is better than death. My parents'
philosophy was that one must avoid contemplating the thought of death
and just enjoy as best one can, the pleasures life has to offer at the
moment. According to them, the purpose of life is enjoyment and pleasure
achieved through self-expression of one's talents, the love of family,
the congenial company of friends combined with the comfortable living
and indulgence in the variety of amusements that affluent America makes
available in such abundance. They deliberately cultivated this
superficial approach to life as if it were the guarantee for their
continued happiness and good-fortune. Through bitter experience I
discovered that self-indulgence leads only to misery and that nothing
great or even worthwhile is ever accomplished without struggle through
adversity and self-sacrifice. From my earliest childhood, I have always
wanted to accomplish important and significant things. Above all else,
before my death I wanted the assurance that I have not wasted life in
sinful deeds or worthless pursuits. All my life I have been intensely
serious-minded. I have always detested the frivolity which is the
dominant characteristic of contemporary culture. My father once
disturbed me with his unsettling conviction that there is nothing of
permanent value and because everything in this modern age accept the
present trends inevitable and adjust ourselves to them. I, however, was
thirsty to attain something that would endure forever. It was from the
Holy Quran where I learned that this aspiration was possible. No good
deed for the sake of seeking the pleasure of God is ever wasted or lost.
Even if the person concerned never achieves any worldly recognition, his
reward is certain in the Hereafter. Conversely, the Quran tells us that
those who are guided by no moral considerations other than expediency or
social conformity and crave the freedom to do as they please, no matter
how much worldly success and prosperity they attain or how keenly they
are able to relish the short span of their earthly life, will be doomed
as the losers on Judgement Day. Islam teaches us that in order to devote
our exclusive attention to fulfilling our duties to God and to our
fellow-beings, we must abandon all vain and useless activities which
distract us from this end. These teachings of the Holy Quran, made even
more explicit by Hadith, were thoroughly compatible with my temperament.
Q: What is your opinion of the Arabs after you became a Muslim?
A: As the years passed, the realization gradually dawned upon me that it
was not the Arabs who made Islam great but rather Islam had made the
Arabs great. Were it not for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the Arabs
would be an obscure people today. And were it not for the Holy Quran,
the Arabic language would be equally insignificant, if not extinct.
Q: Did you see any similarities between Judaism and Islam?
A: The kinship between Judaism and Islam is even stronger than Islam and
Christianity. Both Judaism and Islam share in common the same
uncompromising monotheism, the crucial importance of strict obedience to
Divine Law as proof of our submission to and love of the Creator, the
rejection of the priesthood, celibacy and monasticism and the striking
similarity of the Hebrew and Arabic language.
In Judaism, religion is so confused with nationalism, one can scarcely
distinguish between the two. The name "Judaism" is derived from Judah-a
tribe. A Jew is a member of the tribe of Judah. Even the name of this
religion connotes no universal spiritual message. A Jew is not a Jew by
virtue of his belief in the unity of God, but merely because he happened
to be born of Jewish parentage. Should he become an outspoken atheist,
he is no less "Jewish" in the eyes of his fellow Jews.
Such a thorough corruption with nationalism has spiritually impoverished
this religion in all its aspects. God is not the God of all mankind but
the God of Israel. The scriptures are not God's revelation to the entire
human race but primarily a Jewish history book. David and Solomon (peace
be upon them) are not full-fledged prophets of God but merely Jewish
kings. With the single exception of Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of
Atonement), the holidays and festivals celebrated by Jews, such as
Hanukkah, Purim and Pesach, are of far greater national than religious
significance.
Q: Have you ever had the opportunity to talk about Islam to the other Jews?
A: There is one particular incident which really stands out in my mind
when I had the opportunity to discuss Islam with a Jewish gentleman. Dr.
Shoreibah, of the Islamic Center in New York, introduced me to a very
special guest. After one Jumha Salat, I went into his office to ask him
some questions about Islam but before I could even greet him with
"Assalamu Alaikum", I was completely astonished and surprised to see
seated before him an ultra-orthodox Chassidic Jew, complete with
earlocks, broad-brimmed black hat, long black silken caftan and a full
flowing beard. Under his arm was a copy of the Yiddish newspaper, "The
Daily Forward". He told us that his name was Samuel Kostelwitz and that
he worked in New York City as a diamond cutter. Most of his family, he
said, lived in the Chassidic community of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, but
he also had many relatives and friends in Israel. Born in a small
Rumanian town, he had fled from the Nazi terror with his parents to
America just prior to the outbreak of the second world-war. I asked him
what had brought him to the mosque? He told us that he had been stricken
with intolerable grief ever since his mother died 5 years ago. He had
tried to find solace and consolation for his grief in the synagogue but
could not when he discovered that many of the Jews, even in the
ultra-orthodox community of Williamsburg, were shameless hypocrites. His
recent trip to Israel had left him more bitterly disillusioned than
ever. He was shocked by the irreligiousness he found in Israel and he
told us that nearly all the young sabras or native-born Israelis are
militant atheists. When he saw large herds of swine on one of the
kibbutzim (collective farms) he visited, he could only exclaim in
horror: "Pigs in a Jewish state! I never thought that was possible until
I came here! Then when I witnessed the brutal treatment meted out to
innocent Arabs in Israel, I know then that there is no difference
between the Israelis and the Nazis. Never, never in the name of God,
could I justify such terrible crimes!" Then he turned to Dr. Shoreibah
and told him that he wanted to become a Muslim but before he took the
irrevocable steps to formal conversion, he needed to have more knowledge
about Islam. He said that he had purchased from Orientalia Bookshop,
some books on Arabic grammar and was trying to teach himself Arabic. He
apologized to us for his broken English: Yiddish was his native tongue
and Hebrew, his second language. Among themselves, his family and
friends spoke only Yiddish. Since his reading knowledge of English was
extremely poor, he had no access to good Islamic literature. However,
with the aid of an English dictionary, he painfully read "Introduction
to Islam" by Muhammad Hamidullah of Paris and praised this as the best
book he had ever read. In the presence of Dr. Shoreibah, I spent another
hour with Mr. Kostelwitz, comparing the Bible stories of the patriarchs
and prophets with their counterparts in the Holy Quran. I pointed out
the inconsistencies and interpolations of the Bible, illustrating my
point with Noah's alleged drunkenness, accusing David of adultery and
Solomon of idolatry (Allah Forbid) and how the Holy Quran raises all
these patriarchs to the status of genuine prophets of God and absolves
them from all these crimes. I also pointed out why it was Ismail and not
Isaac who God commanded Abraham to offer as sacrifice. In the Bible, God
tells Abraham: "Take thine son, thine only son whom thou lovest and
offer him up to Me as burnt offering." Now Ismail was born 13 years
before Isaac but the Jewish biblical commentators explain that away be
belittling Ismail's mother, Hagar, as only a concubine and not Abraham's
real wife so they say Isaac was the only legitimate son. Islamic
traditions, however, raise Hagar to the status of a full-fledged wife
equal in every respect to Sarah. Mr. Kostelwitz expressed his deepest
gratitude to me for spending so much time, explaining those truths to
him. To express this gratitude, he insisted on inviting Dr. Shoreibah
and me to lunch at the Kosher Jewish delicatessen where he always goes
to eat his lunch. Mr. Kostelwitz told us that he wished more than
anything else to embrace Islam but he feared he could not withstand the
persecution he would have to face from his family and friends. I told
him to pray to God for help and strength and he promised that he would.
When he left us, I felt privileged to have spoken with such a gentle and
kind person.
Q: What Impact did Islam have on your life ?
A: In Islam, my quest for absolute values was satisfied. In Islam I
found all that was true, good and beautiful and that which gives meaning
and direction to human life (and death); while in other religions, the
Truth is deformed, distorted, restricted and fragmentary. If any one
chooses to ask me how I came to know this, I can only reply my personal
life experience was sufficient to convince me. My adherence to the
Islamic faith is thus a calm, cool but very intense conviction. I have,
I believe, always been a Muslim at heart by temperament, even before I
knew there was such a thing as Islam. My conversion was mainly a
formality, involving no radical change in my heart at all but rather
only making official what I had been thinking and yearning for many years.
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