Burn in hell?
Religion is a difficult subject and I usually try to avoid it but sometimes it is not possible. The other day when Lotte and me bought a Quran in Sharjah we also received a lot of information on Islam and women and Islam and science for free, just to have a look. I can since I arrived in in the Gulf I already got four free Qurans in three different languages for free. I never before received so many. Often I get asked why I did not converted to Islam yet or if I am planning to do it. Usually I reply that there are many ways to get close to god and that there are always good and bad people in every religion and in every country. Today I went to Sohar for work and was confronted with some obstacles. As I arrived at the al-Ain border to get an exit stamp for my Emirati visa, I was confronted with way to many people in the waiting room who were all handing in several passports at the same time. Some of them even had not less then 30 passports with them for all the people that were waiting outside in the buses. In addition, just one guy was working on his computer, unfortunately the computer that was usually on the second desk was gone and so was the other officer. So I went to one of the taxis and asked a driver that I new if he could take me to another border. Everything worked out fine but on the Omani border there were about 5 buses packed with Omanis waiting. I still wonder why locals have to stamp out of their country but there must be a reason for it. Apparently all of the people I saw at the different borders today, are on their way to Saudi Arabia to do their small pilgrimage. Hamad, my driver, already went four times and will go again next week. He was complaining about his destiny to drive there and instead of taking the plane. I always had the impression that in Christianity pilgrimage is somehow connected to a hard and maybe unpleasant way of travelling, for example walking for some days or even crawling on knees. That is why I told Hamad that I thought a pilgrimage needs to be connected to suffering , at least a little. Here I have to admit that I never went on a pilgrimage -that is just the picture I have in my mind. Immediately he invited me to come a long so we could go through the process together he would pay for all costs. I found that a very tempting idea but due to research responsibilities it is impossible for me to join in. After that I got a long speech on how it is not good for me to not convert to Islam because I really need to find the right belief if I don’t want to suffer the pain of burning in hell. I heard this many times before from different people belonging at least to two different religions and I am very happy that people are caring so much about me. I guess if god wants so I will turn one way or the other one day.
Wow … So In the Gulf too the Dawah is important.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience. But that sort of stuff comes mostly from men. When I explain my approach to faith to women (that it does not matter what “people” label you – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or wahtever – it is enough that God knows you have learned how to live as a good person and honour him), they immediately accept it. They even admit that there are enough Christians that are better people than most Muslims (agreeing implicitly that the label doesn’t matter).
Or have women given you the same sort of speeches?
Yes, it always comes from men, women somehow do not think that discussing this subject with me is necessary at all. I also do not think that some religions are better then others, I guess they all have their highlights and down sights. It is just funny how much more I get confronted with this in the Gulf then I ever got in Sham.
Yeah, I too was surprised to hear that things were like that in the Gulf. I got the impression that this sort of thing was perhaps common in Egypt, but not so much in other places. I know from colleagues the dawah movement is pretty agressive in SE Asia as well.
The whole approach to religion is extremely gendered though. I’m almost glad of that. B/c if “become like us or burn in hell Islam” were the only conception of Islam out there, then I think I would start to become rather “turned off” by it all. But my discussions with women in particular (and also with more critical believers in Iran … some of whome are turning to more mystical interpretations; which have also always been out there – and are very cool, by the way) have prevented my from becoming too dismayed by what is going on.