Jeffrey Lang: Struggling to Surrender

Here is powerful example of the Quran’s centrality in how Prof Jeffrey Lang came to know Islam and ultimately became Muslim.

“You can not simply read the Koran. Not if you take it seriously. You have to surrender to it already or you fight it. It attacks tenaciously, directly, and personally: it debases, criticizes, shames, and challenges. From the onset it draws a line of battle and I was on the other side.”

Why did he become a Muslim? His daughters would one day ask. He did not consider the choice that he made would affect generations to come. He is not a scholar of Islam. He writes about how it is to be Muslim from a Christian background, and being a minority in the Muslim community. He hesitated writing this book, because he felt it was too personal. He grew up catholic. He grew up with a mathematical and scientific mind. He gave up on being Catholic, long before he became Muslim. He became agnostic. He felt that being Catholic that it was not a logical religion. He felt that he alone created his existence. He began to feel mentally very lonely. He studied and received his doctorate in Mathematics, and yet he felt this was not enough.

He met a woman student who came to him for help. She was a Muslim woman, and she was covered head to toe. He felt that Muslim women were oppressed. His perception of Muslim women completely changed. She was a graduate student and teaching assistant and very capable of handling her students. He felt that there was a beauty and calmness about her.

He became very interested in religion and started going back to the Catholic church, but it did not satisfy his soul. Another Muslim student came into his life, His friend gave him a Quran.

He states:

“You can not simply read the Koran. Not if you take it seriously. You have to surrender to it already or you fight it. It attacks tenaciously, directly, and personally: it debases, criticizes, shames, and challenges. From the onset it draws a line of battle and I was on the other side.”

He was greatly affected by the Koran, and decided that he needed to talk to someone. He went to a mosque that was in the basement of a church. He had a great deal of emotional difficulty because the experience was too much for him to handle. He thought maybe he could walk and turn away. There were other men inside the mosque that persuaded him to stay and to embrace Islam. After a very touching moment with the Imam, he decided to convert to Islam. Emotionally, anyone who reads this first chapter, which I can inadequately convey, would very deeply be moved to tears.

His book is very dense reading. Every line is filled with conviction and knowledge which he wishes to convey. One can tell that he is extremely well read and full of self searching. He tells us that he understands what other new converts are struggling through.

He states that the Koran is the integral to the life of a Muslim. To the first Muslims, the language was spellbinding. The Koran sought to reform not to destroy the culture. It brought religion in a novel way. Religion must be more than an exercise in logic. Being a Muslim, there is no division between secular and spiritual, all of life is a sacred experience. The Koran is the revealed word of God.

God is addressing humanity. The Koran represents the mission of Muhammed pbuh as the restoration and the culmination of the Prophets.

The proof of Allah existence in within His signs:

“Do they not travel the land, so their hearts learn wisdom? (26:7)

Do they not examine the earth?(26:7) Do they nor look at the sky above them?”(50:6)

The implication within these questions that the evidence of this the truth of this message is to be found in the study of history, cultures and the nature among them.

“Read in the name of your Lord who created man from a tiny thing that clings….(96:1-5)”

Revealed the Prophet…Gabriel squeezed him and told him to read.

Reading and the ability to do so was considered to be a very divine gift. In reading the Quran, one finds beauty, coherence, transcendence and wisdom.

The Koran cannot be translated. It is only an interpretation when it is translated to another language and has no chronology in it like Bible. Islam also does not divide sacred and secular. Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) is a human instrument of who Allah speaks through.

The Koran is very scientific, for it describes many situations in nature from the fine particles that may be atom, to the development of child in the womb, the discovery how the earth rotates on its axis, to many other natural phenomenon, to the lives of bees and insects, to the expanding of the universe. What is amazing about the Koran that it explains these things in details.

The Koran states:

“He who created the Heavens one above the other. No fault you will see in the creation of the most Merciful. So turn your vision again. Do you see any flaw? Turn your vision and again your vision will turn back to you dazzled and defeated. (67:3-4)

God is more merciful than vindictive. He is more intent on saving more merciful than throwing into Hell fire.

What I feel that Lang writes in his book, is his experience and his profound amazement of what is in the Koran, from his personal view, with his scientific and mathematical background, that he found a great deal of logic in what impressed him in the Koran, what he could not find in the Catholicism that he grew up with.

Lang writes a great deal about Hadith in his book. Some of the Hadith he feels are more controversial than others. Some are more authentic than others. For new Muslims, this can be very confusing. The Koran does not delve into Prophet Muhammed inner personality. But when Prophet Muhammed feels concern over the Ummah, Allah tells the Prophet, that he is only the messenger. Throughout the Koran and the Hadith, Prophet Muhammed shines through. Lang states that to have had been the elect of God, to have won the love of his disciples so effortlessly, to have changed society and history to the extent that he did, he was surely much greater than merely the Arab ideal. Lang states that he must have possessed the kind of concern, compassion and spirituality that we can poorly approximate in ourselves. He was swift to dispense God’s will impartially, Prophet Muhammed was very concerned about justice. Even if his daughter Fatima were to steal, the same type of justice that was given to others, she would have to face it. The book describes how his early followers greatly loved the Prophet. Lang is very sincere in belief in the Prophet (pbuh). Critics have said of him that he is searching in the dark, about Islam, but I feel that he comes to the conclusion that he greatly believes in Prophet Muhammed’s mission and believes that Prophet Muhammed is a great mercy to mankind. I personally feel that those who become Muslim go through a questioning period and not blind faith. Many with great love and devotion accept Allah and his messenger with strong conviction. It takes time to get rid of all the baggage from the other faith that one has been brought up with.

There is so much inside this book, that it is so densely filled with information, that it is difficult to condense his ideas and thoughts into a short overview as this. In another chapter, he writes about the Ummah, and how Islam is a religion of equality, in everything you do within Hajj, within the prayer, in fasting, and other acts of worship, you do as a group effort. There is a great deal of unity in Islam. There is a great deal of responsibility to one’s parents and toward family. There are roles between husband and wife, although each of them have a different role to play, each are equal in the eyes of God. Each have the same amount of duty and worship towards God. There is a small segment on the relationship between husband and wife, our duties towards each other. Also one can divorce if one is not satisfied in the marriage, but it is something that Allah truly dislikes. He covers many different topics, that he struggles with, and what he has learned upon his journey.

He also talks about how the greater Jihad is not just going to war to fight for human rights but the struggle of righteousness within ourselves, which is the greater Jihad.

By Sr. Stephenie Bushra Khan – MuslimBridges Team

Source: http://www.muslimbridges.org/content/view/860/35/

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