I got out of my car and started walking towards the building. I was brimming with nervous excitement. I’d been to lots of different kinds of Churches before, but this was different. This was completely foreign territory, or at least I thought it was. I didn’t know what to expect. I approached the door and entered the Mosque. A few feet in front of me I saw what looked like a greeter. He was a average-sized man with a medium build and dark skin. We exchanged introductions and I told him why I was there. This is why I was there. “This is obnoxious,” I thought to myself. “Hey,” I said, “I can’t go out there and you know it.” I was standing in the hallway of the Barbier Dormitory, a small building on Rochester College’s campus. My friend Steve was calling me out into the public lobby of that dormitory. I was still fairly wet from my recent shower, covered only in a towel. I don’t have to tell you that public nudity is frowned upon at Christian Colleges. So, as I said, Steve’s insistence struck me as obnoxious. “Come on out Jon, you do need to see this.” This was different. This was our dorm parent, Frank Pitts, speaking. A dorm parent was like a dorm manager/ mentor for the students who resided in the dorm. I was confused by Frank’s approval, nevertheless, I entered the lobby in a towel. Needless to say, my jaw dropped. I, like everyone I knew, was visibly shaken. I got dressed and called my family and a few friends. I had witnessed 9-11. Like most Americans, I was frightened. I had nightmares for weeks. I was angry too. I had a bloodlust that I simply do not know how to justify today. As the days turned into weeks though, I was also curious. Who were these people? What did they believe? Did they hate us? Did they have a good reason for hating us? I realize now that these questions are a bit simplistic. Nevertheless, they made me realize something very startling. I didn’t know anything about Islam. So there I was, a religion student at Rochester College. I intended to make converts of people from other religions. I had this expectation that everyone in the world should know about my God, should read my Bible. And there it was, starring me in the face: I was a hypocrite. How could I expect these folks to spend time learning about a religion they “knew” was false, if I wasn’t willing to do the same thing. So, that’s what I did. And, I tried to do it in an honest fashion too. I didn’t buy the Christian Apologetics guide to Islam. I was still pretty young, but the whole idea of that seemed pretty dishonest to me. I wouldn’t encourage a Muslim to by the Islamic Guide to Christianity. I don’t expect Michael Moore to be honest about conservatives, and I don’t expect Glenn Beck to be honest about liberals. I didn’t back then either. So, I went to the source. I read a book by a man named Yahiya Emerick, a professor from Cairo University in Egypt. I picked up a translation of the Koran, and, of course, there I was, standing in the lobby at the Mosque. What followed was pretty surprising. I stood, kneeled, and did whatever else the Muslims did during their worship service. I made a practice of this, no matter who I was worshipping with, Catholic, Protestant, whatever. I wanted to get as much of their experience from it as possible, even though I knew that was impossible. I was impressed almost immediately by one thought. As I walked around the worship area, I noticed that they had precisely measure exactly where to face. All Muslims everywhere face Mecca when they pray. The symbol of unity was impressive, if nothing else. Both before, and especially after the service, I was overrun with greetings and questions. This is what struck me. The people were very excited about their God, and about sharing their God with me. They were happy, and very friendly. The experience was comparable to going to a Charismatic Church. They wanted me to tell them about the Bible, they wanted to share the Koran with me. After a while, the crowd started to disperse. I was talking with two guys as I made my way to the Imam’s office. An Imam is like a minister. As the two men left they promised to pray for me to find the truth. It was sincere. So was my response. I closed the door behind me, looked at the Imam and said, “Every one says that you know.” “They certainly do,” he replied. He asked me what I knew about Islam so far, and what he could do for me. I told him what I had read. He looked at my translation of the Koran and frowned. He handed me something more modern. I was reading something like the KJV. What happened next threw me completely off guard, and not just for the moment, but for years to come. I’m not a shy man. I like to ask questions, and I really like to ask tough questions. I like to ask questions that I know people can’t answer, and then wait for their response. This is especially fun in churches. So, I asked several questions. One of them was this, “Islam teaches that Jesus was not crucified. The Christian texts say otherwise. Many Muslims say that Christian texts have been edited, and, of course our scholars agree. But they haven’t been edited that much. We know that early Christians believed in the crucifixion. What would Islam say to that?” What surprised me was that the Imam didn’t try to answer. He told me that there was a lot I didn’t know about him, and a lot he didn’t know about me. He used something called Johari’s Windo of Perception. And then he told me this, “God answers my prayers.” He gave me several examples of God answering his prayers, and basically told me that he couldn’t answer every question I had, but that I didn’t have to. Faith was just that, faith. What blew me away about this whole experience was just how not foreign it was. Everything was so very familiar, at least, it was much more familiar than I could have expected. It was nothing like the Hindu Temple I visited later.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 23:14:34 +0000
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