One of my friends asked my advice on how to deal with a sensitive situation with one of her children. I assumed that it pertained to the usual tricky questions that no parent likes to answer but was far more perturbed by its nature than I had previously imagined. Her six-year-old child had returned very upset from school one day. In spite of her efforts to ascertain what was wrong, she met with a wall of silent and obstinate resistance. It was only when plans for the upcoming summer vacation were being discussed that the child in question began to allude to what the root cause of her distress was.
“I don’t want to go to Disneyland, Mama, because they will kill us there,” she blurted out.
“Don’t be silly,” she chided trying to make light of her mortification. “Why on earth would they do that? Disneyland is a place where we can have so much fun!”
“Because we are Muslim and they hate us. If we go to America they will kill us or put us in jail!”
I counseled my friend to gently ascertain where her child had gleaned this impression from and was relieved in part to be apprised of the fact that it had not been a matter discussed in the classroom. Apparently when the little girl boasted to her friends that she was going to Los Angeles in the summer she generated this spiteful and venomous reaction. Horrified by what I had heard, this incident brought back memories of a similar problem I had had with my own daughter many years ago. She came home from school one day and blew me away with the comment, “Right everyone hates Arabs?” I felt deeply shocked and saddened by this casually made remark.
What really upset me so deeply was that I had spent some of the most precious moments of my life with people of different faiths. From an early age, my parents instilled within me the knowledge that even though we were different, looked different, spoke a different language at home it was still possible to live in a community that was alien to us by respecting ourselves and others in equal measure. The key, I learned in my formative years, was tolerance. Everyone was different. I still have visions of my father holding up his hand and saying, “See? All my fingers are different and yet they still form the same hand. They all work together. Just like people in this world.” From then on I learned an important lesson that would form the bedrock of my life.
When I first attended school in London, 70 percent of my schoolmates were Jewish and the establishment itself belonged to the Church of England. I was at the time the only Muslim among 600 children of other denominations. Rather than being singled out for negative attention or made to feel apologetic for what I stood for, I was made to feel included and always respected. Many of the girls were fascinated by my religion and sheepishly asked questions about many of the rituals I adhered to in those 14 years.
During annual trips abroad for skiing and sailing, my friends used to serve as my prayer call, Jews and Christians alike. “The sun is setting! You have to pray!” they would insist. The corridor outside the dormitory where I stayed would be cluttered with an assortment of ski boots, snow boots and running shoes politely removed so that I would have a clean place to pray. One of my Jewish friends who was far more adept than me would position my compass incorporated prayer mat in a corner of the room. A group of girls would huddle together in pin drop silence watching me as I prostrated myself in the direction of Makkah. My associates would be mindful of not handling my copy of the Qur’an without a cover and would always ensure that it was kept on a shelf somewhere high up so that it would not be subject to any inadvertent defilement.
Those were the days when I used to be invited to friends’ houses for lunch or dinner. Their parents would always ensure that they had purchased halal meat for the meal and pork would never be served. I would receive gifts and cards for Eid. Some of my friends even came with me to the Regent’s Park mosque on one occasion, reverently covering their heads with a hijab and buzzing with curiosity about the congregational prayer. I have always been treated with tremendous deference and courtesy throughout my life by people who espoused different beliefs but never allowed these to come between us.
We learned through listening to each other, fostering feelings of mutual understanding and sharing our experiences much more than we did through any textbook or comparative study of religion. To me, this constituted my true education. The interaction that I had with all these people throughout the years has been more instrumental in shaping my own personal beliefs and value system than having pursued qualifications abroad. Without developing empathy, compassion and tolerance for others degree certificates and academic endorsements are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Every Muslim should look to the embodiment of our religion, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) and follow his example in practical matters. He was the personification of consideration and justice to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Many people of different faiths lived under his jurisdiction and greatly enjoyed his protection and compassion. He was renowned for his generosity toward all people regardless of their creed or ideology and it was this attitude that gained him so much admiration.
Unfortunately politicians and the media have created a myth pertaining to the “Clash of Civilizations”. They have painted a picture of Islam as being incongruous in, and even threatening to, a modern world. There are many people the world over who are aware of this fallacy and many others who are not. History bears testimony to how Muslims and non-Muslims have come together in the face of adversity to defend each other. Be it in Gujarat in India where many Hindus sheltered and safeguarded their Muslim counterparts during the riots, human chains formed around military targets in Baghdad, or the outpouring of over a million people of all faiths onto the streets of Europe to protest the war on Iraq, I believe that this amply demonstrates how the practice and preaching of tolerance and respect can counteract hatred and violence.
If you seek so you shall find innumerable examples of how great individuals have defied social and political dictates and stood up for what they have believed in irrespective of the hardships that eventually befell them.
It was a Jewish American who stationed himself outside Yasser Arafat’s door when he was under siege in his headquarters in Ramallah. He vowed to defend the leader’s life with his own and warned that if the authorities tried to slay the popular statesman then they would have to kill him first.
It is an Israeli lawyer, Felicia Langer, who has dedicated her life to offering her services as a defense lawyer to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Not only does she continue unflinchingly in her resolve to fight for justice for this oppressed people but campaigns incessantly in the face of continuous death threats to bring global attention to human rights violations incurred by the Israeli government.
It is for this reason that I advised my friend to seize the opportunity and explain to her daughter what I had explained to mine, and what my parents had explained to me. How in spite of provocation we should try and resolve issues and not succumb to hatred. How hatred was a terrible destructive emotion and God would not be happy with us if we hated any of His creations. How we are all different and in order to live together in this world we have to respect these differences and make allowances for each other. How it is written in the Qur’an, in Surah 49 Verse 13, “O mankind! We have created you from a male and female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another.”
How regardless of outward manifestations or inward beliefs, in the final analysis people are people and all men are created equal in the sight of God.
(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)
