07-05-2003, 08:32 AM
I hope and pray that you will not be offended by my questions. I am a Catholic and I am trying to learn about Islam and this seems like the best place!
I'll give you a (hopefully short) history about my interest in Islam. That way you will know where I am today!
I have always believed in God but I never had an "organized" religious life because my parents are all athiests and wouldn't let me attend church or read the Bible freely. Islam wasn't even known by me back then. All I knew of were Baptists and Catholics.
For some reason I have always had a great desire to remain pure and chaste until I marry. I didn't indulge in drugs, drinking, or parties. Folks thought I was a prude and my family thought I was odd. I figured it all had something to do with God so I stuck to my guns. When I was 17 I joined the Navy where I became a helicopter mechanic and found myself stationed in Sicily. We would deploy to Bahrain where we lived in a nice apartment building in Manama and worked behind the Gulf Air airport for two-month rotations. I deployed there several times and fell very much in love with the Middle East. I visited Saudi Arabia. Egypt, and spent a few days in the UAE as well. How I love the Middle East! The people, the food, the music, the culture, the incredible beauty of the desert. Most people just see sand but ... I see so much more for some reason. I'm so glad I had the chance to visit these places.
Because Muslims are very obvious about their faith and they share their beliefs openly I was first exposed to an organized sense of God through Islam. Yet I was young and shy and I only met Bahrani men via taxis or stores. I didn't feel proper engaging in deep conversations with them since I was not married and I was usually alone. Like I said, I had the desire to be proper even though I had no idea where this desire came from. I wasn't even sure about "the rules" so I followed my gut instincts.
So I lived among Muslims but I wasn't able to ask very many questions.
I remember my second deployment to Bahrain very well because I was really tuning into the religion that surrounded me. I tried reading the Koran but I was left feeling confused simply because religious books aren't easy to grasp. I saw the women in their head-to-toe black and instead of thinking they were oppressed I considered them to be rather liberated! That didn't go over well with my friends but to be honest, I'd watch my friends dressing immodestly and going to night clubs where they were treated like sexual objects and disrespected. I wondered if hijab protected a woman and kept her dignity intact because she wasn't on display. Now I'm quite convinced of this and I wish we Catholics could veil!
Anyway, on my second deployment I decided to try and pray like a Muslim. The days and nights were puncutated by loud prayers sung (chanted?) over loudspeakers from the Mosques. I loved hearing them. I went out onto the porch during a night prayer and I was bowing and kneeling and clumsily copying the people I had seen praying in public during the day times. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say so I kept saying, "God I love you! God you are great! Uh...God, I hope I'm doing this right!" One of my roomates whipped the sliding glass door open and shouted at me, "Michelle what the HECK are you DOING???" I never tried to pray again because I worried that I would get in trouble or be thought of as a terrorist. After all, the Gulf War was just ending and wasn't I an American servicewoman in the Gulf to fight "bad guys"? How would it look if I was acting like a Muslim? Yikes!
But that night something made a really deep impact on me and I realized that God was calling for me to seek Him and follow Him and quit wandering around alone. It's one thing to believe in God. It's another thing to act on that belief. So after I returned to America I started to investigate Christianity. I sorted through the imense number of denominations and finally settled on the Catholic faith because I could trace it historically back to the times of Christ and the Catholic Church's dogmas hadn't been changed over time. The other denominations were always bickering and pointing fingers saying, "WE have the truth and NO ONE ELSE does so if you don't accept our beliefs you will burn in hell!" This was really scary for me. The Catholic Church didn't seem to be so antagonistic and I felt safer during Mass when the Priest spoke about God and how to live for God but didn't rain fire and brimstone down on our heads. But I still wonder if the Bible is right.
Anyway, I like being Catholic because I have a wonderful and organized religion that helps me to try and live a good life for God. I love to worship and attend Mass. I pray the Rosary and honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. Just about everything makes sense but some things throw me off: like saying certain Novena prayers on certain days under certain stipulations. It almost feels like I'm casting a majic spell. There are some teachings that I don't agree with either and I am told that I must because the Church has historically always taught such things and the Bible says certain things about the topic. So then I feel horrible like I'm going to go to hell for breaking rules I don't understand.
Sometimes I'm perfectly content to be Catholic and other times I feel like a square peg in a round hole. Maybe this is because I spent 23 years of my life outside of any faith and I've only belonged to a faith for 5 short years? Who wouldn't feel odd? I try not to think about it too hard because I feel that my soul is at risk.
Whenever I doubt the Catholic faith I feel very guilty and I worry that maybe I'll go to hell. That's why investigating Islam is very scary! I think, "Am I wrong for reading the Qu'ran and having Islamic wall hangings in my room???" I'm not saying that I want to convert - but I do want to learn.
When I ask about Islam I run into the same situations I encountered when I was investigating Christianity: I am told with conviction that Islam is the true faith, then I am given a few quotes from the Qu'ran. Though I appreciate the answers I am left feeling unfulfilled. The questions that I have always wondered about are so rude sounding and I have to beg for your understanding and forgiveness if I offend. I take the risk I guess. Here they are:
How does one know for a fact that Islam is truly of God, that it is real? How can you be sure that the Prophet Muhammed wasn't influenced by the Christians and Jews around him and he didn't "put together" his own faith by bowrrowing heavily from these existing faiths and holy writings?
I don't want to debate Christianity vs. Islam. I'm honestly asking this thing from my heart. I honor the Prophet yet at the same time I wonder about wheather or not he "invented" Islam. (I cringe as I write this for fear that I sound mean.)
Please don't be offended by my questions! I asked the same things about Christianity and I have to admit that I never really recieved a completely fulfilling answer. It seemed that in the end I had to fill in the blanks with heavy doses of faith. There are certain passages in the Bible that seem to thwart the claim that Jesus Christ is God, and other things like that. If you have insights about Christianity and the Bible that you would like to share with me then please feel free to do so - I won't be offended. I'll search for answers instead.
I am ordering a copy of the Qu'ran that a friend of mine suggested. Oddly enough, she is a Benedictine nun! Even nuns investigate Islam. The copy that I now have is really difficult to understand because each line is inturrupted with explanations in parenthasis. The book my nun-friend owns has no inturruptions and has excellent foot notes. When this translation of the Qur'an arrives I shall let you know!
Thank you very much for your time and God bless.