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The Islamic Bulletin
Noor Al-Malaikah Freeland
“Sister, who is your Lord and Savior-do you not fear the hellfire?!” A fat
man in a blue suit charged with spittle on his chin as he waved his Bible
enthusiastically outside theWest Florida Regional Public Library. “You’re
gonna be in Heaven, right?” I asked, my practiced reply in mind. And
upon his immediate affirmative came my cheeky retort, “Well then,
Hell doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
Growing up in the “Bible-belt” provided lots of opportunity for self-pro-
claimed atheists and agnostics (my friends and I) to spar with so-called
“bible-beaters” like this man. We had great disdain for organized religion
and itsmembers; peoplewhowillingly submitted to theology and took the
rolesof brainless sheep. Theyacceptedanythingapreacher saidas factwith
nomore substantial evidence than their own faithandno required thought.
My cohorts and I (to the best of my knowledge) had no more under-
standing of the “f”word thanwehadof thepurple/green gloop servedon
Wednesdays in our school cafeteria. But through all our joking, sarcastic
remarks, and even our disdain, I had a deep dark secret: I wanted to
believe in God and my lack of faith scared me to death.
I sat in church every Sunday, listening and waiting for Jesus (PBUH)
to “enter my heart” (astaghfirallah). I wanted the understanding and
the blind faith that I saw in the people around me. But it never came.
When I read the Bible, I felt sickness inside. It held no more truth than
an interesting novel. I could not pray in the name of Jesus (PBUH) for
Jesus (PBUH) was a man. He ate as a man, spoke as a man, slept as a
man and he accomplished miracles only in the name of God. I wanted
to pray in the name of God. Christians seemed to worship a God who
was no more than a man, no more superior than a king.
Soon, all my hope once again became disdain. As I looked at mankind,
this disdain took the formof despair. I disparaged our very existence and
a hideous kind of cynicism captured my sick heart. People are utterly
selfish-without
honor.Weare “civilized” dogs. Snapping andpissing and
accomplishing nothing except perhaps to produce more of ourselves.
We are faithless beings without any true loyalty and hypocrites in every
right.Wedeserve nothingwhichwe own, and yet we truly own nothing.
Shakespeare said it best when he called us clumsy untrained actors
flailing around on the stage of life. I didn’t knowwhat came after death,
but whatever horror it could be-it was nothing a human didn’t deserve.
The fat man’s eyes widened and he pointed a crooked finger at me as
he said, “Sister, HELL is no joke! Jesus is-” Something snapped deep
inside me and I felt hysteria rise in my throat as-ignoring all on-lookers
and passer-bys-I screamed, “WHO IS JESUS?!?”
At this point the man got a knowing (okay, condescending) look on his
face as he launched into the all too familiar “vapor, solid, liquid” analogy.
Iimmediatelyinterruptedhim,beyondmyselfwithire,“DoNOTtellmethat
Jesus (a human!) is to God as ice is to water vapor!” I stood up and spread
my arms apart in appeal, “we are creations of God and Jesus was like US!
We lay no claim to perfection except our own knowledge of its existence.
Look aroundyou! Look inside you! Look at your ownugliness! Ask yourself
howGodcanbeanything likeyou-Howcanyoubeanything likeGOD!!!?”
Tearswere nowstreaming downmy face and I was shaking as four or five
people stared in shocked silence. “The only goodness we have comes
from God but we continue to succor evil. You worship a man and you
worship yourself. SURELY, if there is a Hell, you will burn in it for all your
“knowledge” of God!”
It took less than a moment for me to regret these words, thrown like
stones in anger. However, today I do recognize their utmost importance
in my life. As I looked around me that day, I saw many strange faces, all
displaying varying degrees of reaction tomy tirade.One face, inparticular,
was marked by grave interest and... curiosity. The man had dark Arab
features and a long graying beard. In a moment, he approachedme and
said, “I want to show you something.”
I followed him into the library; we walked amid countless shelves of hu-
man “wisdom.” In silence, we reached the area marked “600’s-religion
and philosophy.” He searched a moment and then proceeded to hand
me a book entitled, The Noble Qur’an. It had a translator but no author.
“Read this,” he said, “and find peace because Sister you are Muslim.”
I read the Qur’an in less than a day and then I read it again. I felt the
first stirrings of true trust in my life. For me, this volume answered every
mystery I cared to question.
One of the great guiding principles of Islam is that the believer should
tread a path between fear and hope. He should not take it for granted
that he will enter Paradise, because this will make him complacent, and
he does not know in what state he will die. Nor should he assume that
he is going to Hell, because this is despairing of the mercy of Allaah,
which is forbidden. So the believer does righteous deeds, and hopes that
Allaah will reward him for them, and he avoids evil deeds out of fear of
the punishment of Allaah. If he commits a sin, he repents in order to gain
forgiveness and protect himself from the punishment of Hell.
Allaah forgives all sins and accepts the repentance of those who repent.
If a believer fears that the good deeds he has sent on before him are
not enough, as you suggest, then he will increase his efforts, in fear and
hope. No matter howmany righteous deeds he has sent on before him,
he cannot rely on them and take them for granted, or else he will be
doomed. He keeps striving and hoping for reward, and at the same time
he fears lest his deeds be contaminated with any element of showing
off, self-admiration, or anything that will lead to them being rejected by
Allaah. Allaah describes the believers (interpretation of the meaning):
“...those who give that (their charity) which they give (and also do other
good deeds) with their hearts full of fear (whether their alms and charity,
etc.) have been accepted or not), because they are sure to return to their
Lord (for reckoning).” [al-Mu’minoon 23:60]
So the believer keeps on striving, fearing, and hoping, until he meets his
Lord, believing in Tawheed (Divine Unity) and doing righteous deeds,
and earns the pleasure of his Lord and Paradise. If you think about the
matter, youwill realize that these are the right motives for action, and that
righteousness cannot be achieved in this life in any other way.
As regards to what Christians say about original sin, this matter needs to
be approached from several angles.
Firstly: The Islamic belief concerning human sin is: the individual bears
the responsibility for his own sin; no one else should bear this burden for
him, nor should he bear the burden for anyone else. Allah says (interpre-
tation of the meaning): “And no bearer of burdens shall bear another’s
burden...” [Faatir 35:18] This refutes the idea of original sin. If the father
commits a sin, what fault is that of his children and grandchildren? Why
should they bear the burden of a sin that someone else committed? The
Christian belief that the descendents should bear the sin of their father is
the essence of injustice. Howcan any sane person say that the sin should
be carried down the centuries by all of humanity, or that the children,
grandchildren, and subsequent descendants should be tainted because
of their father’s sin?
W
hy
I E
mbraced
I
slam
Dr. Tariq Al Suwaidan discovered some verses in the Holy Quran
that mention one thing is equal to another. See below for some
astonishing results:
24 - Al Rajul (Man)
24 - Al Mar’ ha (Woman)
115 - Al Dunia (This Life)
115 - Al Aakhirat (The Hereafter)
88 - Al Malaika (The Angels)
88 - Al Shayteen (The Satans)
145 - Life
145 - Death
11 - Iblis (King of Devils)
11 - Seek refuge from Iblis
And amazingly enough look how many times the following words
appear:
5 Salat (Prayer)
12 Al-Shahr (Month)
365 Al-Yahom (Day)
32 Sea
13 Land
Sea + Land = 32 + 13 = 45
% Sea 32 / 45 * 100 71.11111111%
+
% Land 13 / 45 * 100
28.88888889%
= 100.00%
Modern Science has only recently proven that the water covers
71.111% of the earth, while the land covers 28.889%.
The Miracles of the Quran will never end. There will never be
a time where mankind can fully take in the knowledge that is in
this holy book. It is a treasure of which guides those that want to
succeed in this life and the hereafter.
Following Are Excerpts From a Letter by Malcolm X
After His First Pilgrimage
America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion
that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels
in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with
people who in America would have been considered ‘white’-but
the ‘white’ attitude was removed from their minds by the religion
of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood
practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.
Never have I witnessed such overwhelming spirit of hospitality and
the true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races
here in this Ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad,
and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week,
I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness
I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world.
They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black skinned
Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual displaying
a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America
had led me to believe never could exist between the white and
the non-white.
You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this
pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me
to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and
to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too
difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a
man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new
experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an
open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in
hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. During the past
eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same
plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on
the same rug-while praying to the same God-with fellow Muslims,
whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was die blondest
of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of ‘white’. And in the
words and in the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white’ Muslims,
I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims
of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana...
We were truly all the same (brothers)-because their belief one God
had removed the ‘white’ from their minds, the ‘white’ from their be-
havior, and the ‘white’ from their attitude. I could see from this, that
perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then
perhaps, too, in reality the Oneness of Man-and cease to measure,
and hinder, and harm others in terms of their ‘differences’ in color.
With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called
‘Christian’ white American heart should be more receptive to a
proven solution to such a destructive problem.
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the Worlds.
Sincerely,
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)
M
ath
in
the
Q
uran
L
etter
from
M
ecca