My Muslim judgements as a Christian

(5 min read) LinkedIn, I want your thoughts. For weeks I have been experiencing a deep, internal sense of judgement that I am not very proud of. I believe it has been instilled in me from a very early age, by a collective ignorance, and religiosity that has both shaped and distorted my worldview. 

Like a disease passed down from generation to generation, I feel sick and without complete cure, so am searching for tools and new ways to find healing. I now look to shed light to it, to see if any of you will come into agreement and speak of similar symptoms. Please join me in this conversation, to offer any of your sharp tools, if you have them, to help us operate on these tumors. They are the religions of our day.

As a Christian, my judgements have been very real towards Muslims, and worse off, particularly those of Arabic descent. From traveling to the Middle East twice now in the past 6 weeks (Bahrain and Kuwait) and having been through many years of international travel (from 14yrs old to 31); living abroad much of that and working/dealing in highly Muslim saturated areas (such as parts of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Dubai, Israel, Sri Lanka, Georgia-USSR, and more), I have collected and wrestled with many thoughts. From interactions with various belief systems and archetypes within the Muslim faith, and from many parts of the world (bare in mind many of these countries have large immigrations of Muslims from other parts of the world too), It is safe to say I have dealt with more types of Muslims, both in volume and geography, than even most Muslims have. So my statements I feel are warranted and my cause for speaking I feel is pure.

Now my interactions may speak otherwise. From countless shady business deals with Lebanese, to Syrian salesmen, to the certain way Egyptians bend the truth, to the countless thefts and corruption amidst my Muslim staff in Africa, and to witnessing Muslims who seem to openly celebrate in the adversity of others, and others who openly admit to lack of trust even within their own families; these thoughts, generally, can be easily attested as stereotypically warranted and in many cases, hold true! 

But only now, through experiencing Kuwaiti life, have I felt such a tremendous pull, and stirring in my spirit to dive in deeper and start to sort some of this out. So here it goes, as I sit on the coast of Kuwait city, overlooking the horizon to an eerie evening of seldom rain in the desert. 

First though, a disclaimer. What shameful misconceptions and bastardized Christian beliefs toward Muslims have I absorbed over the years, both consciously and subconsciously. And in no scale, other than of pure love and acceptance, would I deem myself ‘safe’ from sin in this regard. I am to blame, ultimately, as I am given free will to choose my every path and thought in life, though, I am both aware and fully okay with calling out the shortcomings in others that effect me, as I fairly see it, too. 

Onwards. I am as disgusted as I am disturbed — with myself, and also with my generation — for a wide array of reasons. I find myself in need of deep cleaning and repentance, to rid myself of the thickest layers of crude oil, so sticky even, that only the harshest of chemical soaps can clean me, which, very likely will come with its own entirely new set of ailments, once the stripping down of natural oils from the skin take place and the itching, cracking and dryness begins. Not any of this I can take lightly, ugh, so I need to be thorough before I can get to the positive. This is the dirty oil that blurs my vision of Muslims. 

From irrational fears of Muslim extremism, to grossly unequal and unfavorable judgements and observations; from ignorant perceptions of uncleanliness, to making foolish jokes (also known as ‘half-truths’) — I have mass-pendulum swung between religious insecurities, due to my own lack of memory and ability to recite scriptures and knowledge of Christianity, to the other side, where I rely on false senses of security, that in believing Christianity, a higher form of fundamental theology, that I’ve grown into by default, I am somehow safe from eternal damnation and Muslims are not. 

I have wrongly convicted them in my heart; I have accused them of false theological doctrines, misrepresentations and misinterpretations; I have placed them all into one bucket, often times shamelessly and in accordance to their race — observing their skin color or shape or bloodline as obvious to one belief; and even giving credence to validation when listening to many of them as they proclaim Islamic faith is the only true religion with one sect, one unchanging belief and one interpretation, unlike the many forms of Christianity who can’t reconcile their own beliefs, or other religions who worship many Gods.  

I’ve compared my religion with others and when doing so have only felt a gigantic soggy blanket-like feeling, and Christian-like covering of my sins. And with it has come an underwhelming warmth, found only as looking toward a fixer of any special blend of current needs that behoof me — such as, perhaps, my own personal validation, or redemption, or confidence, or lack of comfort, or entitlement at any given time. This blanket, while useful when applied, is small in size. And it produces only minimum heat from it’s synthetic fibers, which, ultimately I’ve only been able to use for myself, at times, to stay alive; while always it has never enough room to cover and welcome others along side me. So in my own quest for spiritual survival, I have so often failed to create more space; by sewing together more fabric and by prayerfully asking the questions of the needs of so many, so that I, myself, may welcome them into a covering. Perhaps, by now, many of those who were lost, already frozen in their iniquities, lay there as I too struggle. And even so, with such a revelation now, I can barely even continue to stay warm. 

But beyond many of these shortcomings, and any double standards that I live my daily life, I do hope I can uncover, and fathom the depths of the holes we’ve come to live in... so that we can start to dig ourselves out of them.

What I’ve found most sad is, the tried interpretations of what we as Christians use to validate another person’s true faith, quality of devotion and worthiness of welcoming to God. If one is not of Christian faith, with our own levels of judgement in accordance to our knowledge and confidence of our own walk in Christianity, we’ll tend to pray for conversion rather than convergence. And unless we’ve somehow reached a pinnacle of understanding to overcome the system and middle finger our own religion itself; our prayers and methods are likely a broken formula that we’ve been given, destining us to fail, with results being a language impossible to interpret, with convictions too many to align — so we just make up false certainties within our own faith eco system as we go along, and tell ourselves we’re all alright because, well, we tried! Participation trophy and blood of Jesus acceptance into heaven by grace through faith, right?

This all has proven to me, in practicality, only to bring about an inability for me to trust, love and/or even be open to anyone of alternative faith. So I have to wonder, if we all lack the perfect interpretation, what ever is the basis of our judgements, and warrant for such opposing beliefs, and lack of love, and further even dissension, and tyranny and war?

Now... for the parents of our generation, since I have done my job through my child-like reflection: Surely, I say to you. You have done a horrible job leading us. Is it our job as young seeds to grow and search for our own nourishment? No! It is the job of our makers to plant us in fertile soil and tend to us, so that we can grow and become able to bare good fruit? Yes. Is not the proven outcome of a seed planted in thorns, that its upbringing will be choked by its surroundings? I beg you, to grab the weeds and start helping us pull. 

Let no tree’s death among us from here on, go without a new method of composting, so as to replenish the soil to leave value behind for our own children. We must now see and experience the outcome of our parents past sins and failures, and use knowledge of it to make changes. We must begin the process of uprooting very large trees, and re-fertilizing the grounds as they die, to leave behind a new soil, that can become an inheritance for the new spiritual wealth that is to come.

Let us never forget of this human separation that we’ve faced, and the trials our world has endured; and the hatred we have inherited as a result of poor management of our own souls. We must realize also the world is much bigger than our own plots of land, and thus we need to understand the collective capacity of humankind, whereby one small seed is connected to another, and how faith here creates faith there, just as the wind may blow, and together with time and certainty, we can make entire mountains shift and oceans rise. A miracle is merely time slowed down or sped up — a simple change in state misunderstood by the temporal mind. 

Friends, finally I say to you. Let no religion of past or present hold you back from loving, in fullness, those who you don’t understand. Joke not of your differences, but of your similarities, as only you’ll determine the closeness between yourselves and others. Despise nobody, regardless of how distasteful a fruit, as they too, were born in the thorns just as you. Pray for them, rather, as you would pray for your most loved one on their death bed, and see how fast your own hearts will fill, as you begin to experience radical change. Know this, that from all sides all people are mourning, as we all similarly have yet to understand what it truly means to flourish together. 

In closing: Share this if you want to break free of your ways. Share if you are a Christian and want to love Muslims more. Share if you are a Muslim and want to love Christians more. Share if you are another religion, or don’t claim to be of any religious title, or feel it unnecessary at all to claim a religion, as you can identify with the claiming of love. 

Let us all understand that “God”, as love and light, in the highest form of divinity and nature, is what longs for us to freely function, and to so together in unison, and with certainty that our most unique and independently purposeful ways are to be of good use by all, and all of good use for us. To freely give and freely receive, this is our mandate. 

Let us look no further than our very own bodies as proof; that both function and purpose in life are granted by the summation of all parts moving and working together, allowing us the fullness of freedom and motion when the mind and wishes to act and the spirit wishes to guide. What then, if our parts that have already come together, are not purposed to work with all others’ parts? Rejoice in this discovery, that we are never alone. We are called to be together, and not to allow something as shallow as religion separate us. 

Let us now find exhale in our pre-conceived notions, and forgiveness of our previously disturbed ways. We did not consciously ask to be where we are now, but we are now consciously asking for where we want to be. How much more exponential can this power be to achieve? 

Praise God, Alhamdulillah. And God willing, Inshalla — Muslims and Christians can stand side by side with love and with strength. May God guide us, and remain together with us, every step of the way. Thank you Kuwait, I’m off to France tomorrow night. It’s been a tough trip here, but a pleasure. 

Below: This is the image that sparked me to write this. Kuwaiti Muslim woman, watching her children from behind the red rope — as they dare to run where she never will. Her in Hijab, them in civilian, as most here prefer. Just as the sun goes down over the city, this is the sign that transformation has come.