Evil and Kindness are Both Ubiquitous

There are times when a really nice person will smile at you, shake your hand and be of enormous help to you.

Then they will drop you deep into the poo-poo.

Thus it was, for me, on a sunny Friday afternoon in Khartoum in a Masjid (Mosque) on the south side of that city.

We, a couple of my students and I, had gone there to perform Friday prayers. This is an innocent pastime much beloved by Muslims everywhere.

In spite of the lies spread by sundry people, it is not a war council where acts of terror are planned rather it is a time of peace where we contemplate God and give thanks for how good things are for us and ours.

On this occasion an ancient gentleman appeared, unbidden, and explained that he would be my interpreter for the duration of my stay there in the Masjid.

This was an act of kindness; it was exactly the sort of thing I had come to realise was the norm here in Sudan—or, at least, in Khartoum and its surroundings.

The old man was genuinely pleasant. He was well informed, as you might expect, his English was fluent, calm and enunciated carefully.

I liked him.

We stayed there for the day for our visit. There was nothing to rush off to and so it was decided that we should spend our time there in this company to relax and soak up the cool atmosphere and amiable surroundings.

After Friday prayers, the old man said, very gently, “It would be most appreciated if you would give a talk to the children. They are fascinated because they have never seen, or heard of, a white man who is a Muslim. Perhaps you could tell them how it came about that you embraced our faith.”

I had no presentation planned. What to tell the children? He had said that there were very few there so that it would be more of a conversation than a lecture.

The man was so kindly and gentle I had no heart to refuse him. Besides, it is always good to have respect for our seniors (not that many people have much respect for their seniors—like me! You know who you are).

An hour later there was an array of children, about fifty of them, forming an arc in front of a couple of chairs where I sat next to the elderly fellow.

“Thank you,” I told him, “For dropping me in the deep end unprepared for a swim.”

He laughed, put his arm around my shoulders and said, “You will be fine. They will, very likely, not understand you anyway.”

I addressed the children, “For those of you that understand English, please help those who do not.”

As one they all shouted happily, “OK, Sir. We shall do that.”

“It seems,” I muttered to my ancient colleague, “that you have underestimated their degree of education.”

“Ah, well,” he beamed delightedly at me, “We were all British, you know.”

After a few minutes of speaking to the children I became aware that the spaces behind them were filling up. Ten minutes later the area behind the little ones was packed. One of my students estimated that there were upwards of two hundred men listening to me—all fascinated, all, apparently, understanding my language.

I spoke for an hour and then asked them if they had any questions.

There was much scratching of heads. Eventually two children asked. They were shy and very quiet so somebody had to repeat the questions for me.

Einstein said, “There is no such thing as a stupid question; there are only stupid people who do not ask questions.”

Perhaps he should have added that ‘only the children ask the wisest questions’!

Question one was, “Did my family object to my choice, or change, of religion?”

Answer, “I don’t know. Nobody said anything to me that would suggest an objection. Several of my family, including my favourite Aunt who was a devout Christian, supported me. I cannot say if there were those who didn’t like it because I do not know what is in their heads if they stay silent on the matter.”

Question two, “How can we convince others from other faiths that Islam is the right choice for them?”

Answer, “If you do bad things that repulse other people they will reject you and all that you stand for. It may be something simple like the way you dress or something deeper like the way you treat others.

“Islam is about peace. It is about caring for others. If we do good things and if we care for others irrespective of their beliefs or faiths then they may wish to be like us. If we do things that upset others, if we do things that are divisive, hurtful and insulting to other people, then they will reject us.

“People will only respect you, personally, and the things that you do. Those Muslims that do un-Islamic things in the name of our religion are making us hated and reviled throughout the World. People will always believe the worst of any other group wherever they can.

“It is up to us to show, in practical terms, that we are not evil or hateful. We have to grow up and practice what we read in our books. You have to be a good person.”

I still believe that fervently.

I have said in these pages, often, that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Everybody is right.

Even Atheists are right if that is truly what is in their hearts.

There is no proof. Jews can proffer the Torah, Christians their Holy Bible, Muslims their Qr’an and all the other faiths and beliefs can show their literature and doctrines. They can all claim that this is 'proof' but, in all honesty, it is not.

There is no proof.

It is all based on belief and what we are, personally, comfortable with believing.

In spite of the haters and nay-sayers there is no doctrine of violence in the Qr’an unless it is misinterpreted to make a case. The only violence is in the need for defence. Nowhere does it say that other faiths should be slain. Nowhere.

If Muslims continue to turn the World against them by their inhumane acts against others and particularly women, by practising suicide—an act that is expressly forbidden in Islam irrespective of the number of virgins offered, by slaughtering each other and other faiths in acts of bestiality and violence then the World will turn more and more against Islam.

We have to learn. We have to grow.

The Prophet (pbuh) said, “Live with the times.”

Do we?

Really?

Science died in the eleventh century for Muslims because some cleric decided that ‘science was the work of the devil’. Up until that point Muslims were the leading lights in the scientific world; the knowledge went to the West through Madrid where it was interpreted into Western languages—mostly German, at that time.

Muslims also stopped growing then. Those that continued to grow have been outshone by the minority.

As usual, it is the silent masses that allow the lunatics to run the asylum.

We are silent because we are peaceful.

We are silent because we are ashamed.