Close Encounter of the Crazy Kind

I finally met some crazy Christians! So, my friend and I went on this double date the other day. We were on our way to get some Tibetan dumplings when the two girls asked to stop at the bible shop. Imagine my shock and surprise because I didn't know them at all(my friend had set us up) and I was really looking forward to the Tibetan dumplings being in my mouth. Not to spoil the evening, we stopped at the bible shop. They went in and came out ten minutes later sying that they just witnessed a miracle! They had arrived at the shop just as it was closing and the kindly shopkeeper had let them make a last-minute purchase. According to the two girls this proved that god is indeed real and answers prayers.

My friend and I just looked at each other. The chances of any action tonight were completely destroyed. Well, atleast we had the dumplings. So we got back into the car and tried to make the best of things. Suddenly, one of the girls started giving a long testimonial to the reverend over the phone concerning the miracle that had just happened. The other girl, seeing my obviously disgusted face, decided to "share her faith" with me, which rapidly descended into a debate about the veracity of the bible and ended in her praying for my soul and me wanting to strangle her. All this while my agnostic friend was interjecting with vigorous shouts of "Buddhism rocks!!!"

Incidentally, those turned out to be the worst Tibetan dumplings I have ever had. My friend and I went home courting headaches and upset tummies, all alone. Needless to say, we won't be seeing those two girls again.

Amazingly, both of those girls are assistant professors of Sociology at a good university. If I was religious, I would be praying for their students.

One great analogy I recently heard from an eminent Pakistani intellectual(one of the handful who make sense):

"Just like the feet of women were tightly bound with cloth at an early age because small feet were considered desirable in medieval China, the brain of the Muslim has been bound with dogma from an early age. By the time a Muslim man grows up, he is incapable of thinking for himself, because his brain has been crushed and unable to grow because that is what is desirable in Islam. If you put a powerful giant in a small enough cage for ten years, even he would come out hunchbacked and deformed and nonthreatening."

"Nonthreatening" being the key word here.

They say that Muslims used to rule the world, which is the biggest lie ever told. Certain powerful individuals ruled the world in the name of Islam. They plundered, raped, killed and conquered in the name of Islam, but the power and wealth and prosperity was only in their hands and their families'. The average Muslim has always been, and still is, an ignorant, poor savage who can be easily commanded into believing anything and then giving up his life for it. The average Muslim has always been cannon fodder in the power games of the ruling class.

They talk about how today's Islamists have "distorted" their "peaceful" religion, but history can prove that this culture of violence, plundering and conquest was started by Muhammad himself. Islam has always been violent. Islam has always been contemptuous of women. Islam has always been ignorant. Islam, unlike Christianity, is still waiting for its Reformation.

Note Autobiographical

Kashmir was damp
With the damp of dreams
Autumn's funeral
With a coffin of leaves
I asked Grandma,
"Is God a Muslim?"

No one taught me the Koran
My father mouthed Freud and Marx
Something about recognizing necessity
Mother had long since discarded the veil

Grandma read me the tale of Job
"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away

Then God came:
A poor eyesight, a silver beard,
Ninety years old
My Grandfather

I worshiped him
Proud and gentle
But he crumpled
Like a maple leaf

Dust unto dust is his will.

Then our servant lost his shoes at the mosque
I had nothing left to ask.



My voice cracked on Ghalib
As dreams of God crumbled for me

Our servant, his shoes stolen at the mosque,
Turned deaf to the muezzin's call

The calligraphed dome gave way to the sky
Autumn caved into me with its script of flames
And ignited my dry garbage of God

I varnished my face with the sun,
My tongue forgot the texture of prayer.

--Agha Shahid Ali