Rediscovering Islam

A panoramic view of Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.

I have spent the majority of the past four years doing my undergrad studies in Canada. I was born into a Muslim family in Bangladesh. However, I was raised with the utmost freedom of choice to make my own decisions. My parents and my whole family for that matter were never overly practicing Muslims. And religion was never preached to me with an aggressive approach. Growing up, I went to English medium schools. I never found Bangladeshi culture interesting and associated myself more with activities more common in the Western world.
From childhood I have always been overly curious, some would say. I wanted to know how the world worked and not be told how it works. I always had an innate feeling that there is a higher power, I believed in a God. As a child I learned how to read Arabic through my own will and read the Quran once. However, quickly after, I lost interest mostly since I was too young (about ten years old). As I grew older I lost interest in it completely. I prayed Salah as Muslims normally do but irregularly. My idea of Islam was based on observations of Bengali Muslims as my parents granted me complete freedom to make my own decisions based on my own experiences. However, I would like to describe my experience of Islam from Bengali culture to be quite unsatisfactory and hence, over time I saw Islam simply as an old and outdated tradition. Thus, I made the decision to try to better myself as a human being my own way and claimed to believe in God in a spiritual fashion.

I lived in Canada by myself, either at the University dormitory or in my own apartment over the last four years. The only Bengali friends I had there, I knew prior to moving there. I barely associated myself with Bengalis or East Asians. My friends were all from Europe or North America and I was extremely close to them as I realised I could relate better to them. I was living a completely Western life to the extent where people I newly met wouldn't believe me if I told them I was an International student, they saw me as a Canadian as much as themselves. Although the society I was brought up in and the one in Canada are as different as could be imagined I adjusted quite easily.

As I grew more aware of how society and the whole world really works, I decided to start with a blank page on my religious perspective. Whatever I learned about Islam in Bangladesh disappointed me quite substantially and I decided to learn about world religions starting with Budhism, Taoism and others until I came to Islam. Once I started learning about Islam myself instead of being told what it is and what it is not, I realised it is nothing like what my perspective about it was during my time in Bangladesh. I found the message that is Islam to be mesmerising. And I realised how far we as Muslims in Bangladesh were from that message in how we associate and behaved with each other, and from my perspective it is because of our lack of understanding of it.
One activity of Bengalis that bothered me the most is the habit of gossiping behind people's back. I believe spreading unverified information is a big problem within all and particularly our society. Islam discourages such habits and encourages people to educate themselves. I found that to be a big problem within our society. Instead of expanding our view by learning about various subjects we spend our time concerned about others in a fashion which benefits none. And in the process we do not educate ourselves. Furthermore, we spread information unverified and hence contribute to the problem of misinformation immensely in our daily lives.

In an age where information dominates the distribution of power we are harming ourselves with such actions. Islam also encourages tolerance towards Muslims, non-Muslims and humanity in general. Yet we are quick to condemn each other. Islam I believe teaches one to be humble and yet we are arrogant in every manner. We see ourselves to be better than others simply because we were lucky to be born in a respected or wealthy family, yet we fail to realise we have not made any great contributions ourselves towards humanity to command such superiority.

We see people who are not financially as well off as ourselves to be people of a lower class and treat them inhumanely. This inhuman view thus sets in to the whole social structure and forms a vicious circle where everyone treats and are treated inhumanely. We have become a society lacking any understanding for an individual's situation and are quick to pass judgement. This particularly bothers me as even in the Quran God tells the Prophet (Peace be Upon Him; PBUH) that he is only but a warner, and that God will be the one to judge. Yet we see ourselves so much more worthy to simply dismiss and judge others who are different from us, something even the Prophet (PBUH) was forbidden to do. Islam itself encourages treating every single human being as equal and with respect and yet we do neither.

The more I learned, the more I loved Islam. The more I realised the value of this message especially today. The true essence of Islam from my point of view is missing in our society. Once I started praying, fasting and talking to my non-Muslim friends abroad about the things I was learning they found this message so beautiful that they started to ask me about what I was learning and started learning themselves. They wanted me to teach them how to pray, they wanted to fast. What this experience taught me was: if you want change, you have to be the change. If we can take anything from Islam, I would say it should be hope. If a simple human being fourteen hundred years ago in the middle of a desert could change the whole world, so can we. If we can truly understand why it is mentioned in the Quran when God tells Prophet Muhammad (saw) you are simply a warner, I will be the one to guide them, we might remember God is not only the most powerful, but also the most just and merciful. Only then can we realise whatever happens, happens for a reason that is much bigger than us as individuals, but consists of every single individual. And we might truly appreciate the value of the statement God made to humanity through Muhammad (saw), “remember my favour upon you, today I have perfected for you your religion.”