It's hard to be a Muslim in today's world. You can choose to live in Muslim countries and struggle to live knowing life can be much better, or choose to live in Non-Muslim countries and struggle with being openly hated out of ignorance. I happen to live in the later situation. If I can read people's minds, I would hear weekly: why would you believe in something like Islam. In a way I do hear it, when it's written all over people's faces it's hard to miss. I am a Muslim, and I choose it every day, every minute. When I learn about Islam my soul sings. When I listen to the quran my heart softens, and when I read it everything around me and inside me adds up in my mind. Being a Muslim, I am true to myself, regardless of what a whole world around me is.
So what is it in Islam that speaks loudly to me? A lot of things. But it does take some thinking to put them in brief specific points:
Firstly, the ultimate omnipotent nature of God, that is all present, and all close, and all in control. Islam doesn't simplify God to bring him closer to simpleton's understanding. Within our realm Islam explains God in sophisticated terms, and beyond our realm Islam doesn't apologize that God is beyond our understanding there. I'm the kind of person who would not worship a God that is anything less.
Secondly, the deeply personal relationship with God that Islam requires. Islam prohibits religious structures, and requires a direct relationship between a rational human and God. The Quran describes how a human being should use their mind and heart to get to know God, and that God will get to know them too by sending trials their way. Islam teaches, if you need to ask for something, ask only God directly. In fact, it's considered a major sin, and outright blasphemy, to expect anyone, or any creature, or anything, to be between you and God.
The personal relationship also means, you make your personal choices. You learn as you live, from experience and from different religious scholars, and you continue to apply what you learn to make your choices to be a better person, while God is keeping track of your progress, closer to you than your veins and can see everything in your intentions. In that personal space you share with God, you acknowledge your weakness, and find the comfort and support from the ultimate power that accepts you, God.
This personal relationship also means we are ALL equal under God. Islam teaches that only ONE thing makes one person better than another and that is their good heart, with their good intentions and good actions.
Thirdly, Islam helps me add up what I see around me in the world. Islam teaches that nothing can harm or benefit us if it wasn't what God wanted, and that God is all in control of everything. What God has given us to control is our choices. We have our free will to choose. The Quran speaks of how corruption of the earth and the sea has become obvious due to the bad choices of humans, and that God doesn't stop that corruption so we may learn what our choices can lead to. The Quran pushes us to use our brains and hearts to learn from everything that surrounds us. Observing the world around us, and contemplating about it is one of the important forms of worship in Islam.
There is more to say, but I'll save it for another post,
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