Muslim Youth meeting: conversion, hell

[qatarperegrine]

Here is the promised write-up of the Muslim Youth in Education City meeting I attended last week.

This is a new student organization; I gather this was their second meeting. By my count there were 10 men and 22 women in attendance, in addition to us kuffar (Jess, Kristin and me). The genders sat separately. At the beginning of the meeting, a student recited a section of the Qur'an (6:122-127) and another read some related hadiths.

A recent (7-week-old!) convert to Islam then spoke. Here are the highlights of his talk:

• Asked about his life before Islam, he stated that he feels that he was born a Muslim. This is, of course, the traditional Muslim viewpoint; as the hadith goes, "Each child is born in a state of fitrah [an innate predisposition to both morality and submission to God], but his parents make him a Jew or a Christian." He was raised Catholic (which he referred to as "the extreme form of Christianity," a comment I think I was not alone in finding puzzling) but said he was never confirmed because he couldn't buy into the idea of the Trinity. He studied other religions in college, and said he always liked the Qur'an because it gave him practical advice on how to live.


• Asked what he finds most beautiful in Islam, he said he loved its monotheism, the equality of praying shoulder-to-shoulder with others, the beauty of the Qur'an, and its simplicity.


• Asked about his family's reaction to his conversion, he said his uberChristian brother was extremely upset, but only because he believed some untrue things about Muhammad. He says he prays for his family, but doesn't worry about them since he believes they can go to Paradise without converting.


• One of our students asked an intriguing question: What's the best way to approach westerners about Islam -- scientific, emotional, etc. Kevin said that they're all good, but he thinks the important thing is to engage people in conversation about faith and to be available to people who have questions about Islam.

Overall he sounded exactly like what I'd expect someone to sound like seven weeks after conversion: excited about his new faith, dismissive of his old one, and not actually hugely educated about either.

After a break for prayers, the students reconvened for pizza and conversation. The most interesting part to me was when Jess asked the students how they can reconcile an all-loving and all-powerful God with the existence of eternal torment in hell. The students all stressed that they're not scholars and therefore aren't qualified to answer the question, but they mentioned possible answers such as:

• There is no one answer, since this is a non-central point of Islam and therefore a matter of fiqh, or interpretation/jurisprudence.


• We have to be held accountable for the misuse of freedoms. Plus, it's not "dignified" for the righteous to end up in the same places as Hitler after death.


• It's easy for us to say that God should give people second chances, but the only people who end up in hell are the ones that God already knows would blow their second chance as well. (I have a vague memory of a Quranic verse or hadith that says the same thing -- that if people in hell were resurrected they'd commit the same sins again -- but I don't recall details; does anyone else?)


• The only unforgivable sin (in Islam) is shirk -- associating nondivine beings with God or, in a word, polytheism. Everything else may be forgiven. (I'm not sure why they'd consider this a reassuring answer to people from a Christian background, since by definition we all commit shirk.)


• A student quoted one of my favorite hadiths:

  "God divided mercy into one hundred parts. He released one part of it to the earth, by which the creatures are merciful to one another; you see a female horse or she-camel lift up her hoof so as not to trample on her young ones. Allah then kept the remaining ninety-nine parts with Himself for the Day of Resurrection."

  In other words, we have only experienced a tiny portion of God's mercy, and we can have faith that there is more mercy to come.


• We shouldn't get too carried away thinking that we can understand God's nature. God has multiple attributes which may seem contradictory (infinitely just, infinitely merciful) but that's only because we're thinking of God as though God is a created being, and this is a serious error.

After this conversation they broke into small groups for Qur'an study, and Jess and I ducked out.

I found the evening pretty fascinating. Jess and Kristin, I'd love it if you'd add your thoughts.