Recent reading

I am on the lookout for resources that may assist me to dialogue intelligently with friends from a Muslim background.  That motivation was in play when I glanced at shelves of new books in Duke's library, being drawn especially to a particular volume. Letters to a Young Muslim is a recent (2016) collection of personal notes written by Omar Saif Ghobash to one of his sons:  "I want them to understand how to be faithful to their inherited religion of Islam and its deepest values, as well as to see how to chart their way through a complex world." 

Having spent the majority of his own childhood-youth without a father, who was tragically killed by an assassin aiming for someone else, Ghobash recalls the religious and moral confusion that confronted him into his young adulthood.  The personal upheaval seems to have resulted largely from the events surrounding the rise of Wahabism and violent Islamic movements as well as his own interactions with others especially within his experience of local mosques.  His mother was Russian, his secondary education took place in England, and his current role to serve his government of United Arab Emirates as a diplomat to Russia – all combined to set him apart from many of his peers.  He has become familiar with the clash of value systems.  At the same time he has observed and learned to appreciate that those with differing religious loyalties can offer much that his own tradition has either forgotten or is not currently highlighting.

Ghobash is deeply concerned with the indoctrination within his Muslim tradition that has fostered unspeakable atrocities with the assurance that perpetrators are doing God's will.  He urges his sons to use their minds, to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is truly Islamic and what is peripheral to that faith.  He urges his son to attend to the Friday preaching in mosques but especially to replace the rhetoric of anger and violence with thoughtful counsel of doing good.  Listen to those who "bring our highest and best qualities to Islam as we practice it."  He challenges his own people to confront the dreadful violence that is being enacted in the name of Allah.  It is not accurate or helpful to simply turn their backs as though "that is not true Islam".  He advocates that Muslims must take responsibility to enact a moral and religious high ground.

Other reviewers have called Ghobash's efforts "brave", "incisive", "self-critical".  Indeed, I wonder how Ghobash himself and this book are being received in his part of the world.  How are his own people, people of the way of Islam, reacting to his courageous call for religious reformation?  Sifting through an Internet search reveals little if any criticism.  The West, however, seems enamored by Ghobash, e.g. having invited him to speak with NPR, Charlie Rose, Google employees and C-Span!

I noticed that Gobash never questions his religion nor does he advise his son to explore whether another Way might be ultimately true and, conversely, that Islam falls short.  In fact, the author seems never to doubt or stray from personal loyalty to the Prophet, the Quran or the Islamic Ummah (community).  I pray that people of the Way of Jesus might cross his path and spark Gobash's own sincere hope for dignity, individuality and independence of mind to be ultimately fulfilled in YHWH God's Messiah, Jesus.