Over the years, I have encountered a small number of Muslims who used to be priests, preachers or other members of the church. There was the former Roman Catholic priest who headed off to work in Egypt; the former nun who now dedicates herself to looking after her disabled son; the bishop of the Catholic Apostolic Church; the former Methodist minister who rediscovered Jesus the Son of Man in Islam; and the teacher of religious education who adopted the faith just before he completed his training to be an Anglican priest and without ever meeting a Muslim. On every occasion, I am reminded of what the two traditions hold in common, not what separates them.
This recognition emerges as soon as these converts open their mouths to speak. If I close my eyes, I can picture them wearing a clerical collar, not because I know what they used to do, but due to their manner of speech. I popped into a mosque one Saturday afternoon to do my midday prayer after a day out in London and decided to wander downstairs to catch the last half of a talk in the meeting room. As soon as I sat down, I was sent back in time and found myself listening to a friendly, charismatic vicar—except that the theology and terminology was Islamic. I realised that the gulf between the two traditions is not as great as we sometimes think it is.
I once knew a fellow who explained that the reason he was not taking his shoes off to pray on the dusty carpet in the basement of his bookshop was that we should differentiate ourselves from the Jews and the Christians. I had heard other justifications for shoes-on-carpet before, but I thought he was confused. I pointed out that, in this country certainly, Christians do not tend to take their shoes off when they go to church. Far from differentiating himself from the Jews and Christians, he was differentiating himself from other Muslims.
Pondering the legacy of my Christian upbringing, those sometimes-argumentative discussions seem quite strange now. The initial response of one who adopts a new faith—even the latent Catholic who finds himself a sudden evangelist—is often to reject all that passed before. Yet when I think about the trend of rejection more deeply, it seems obvious that I should question how much of it is just skin deep.
Much of who I am, how I act and what I think are a legacy of my Christian education. This upbringing taught me good manners and modesty, both of which are perfectly admirable Islamic characteristics. Concerns about global justice and social responsibility spring from this root as well. As a Muslim who believes that fairness and social work is part of my religion, I buy Fairtrade products, but I still acknowledge the root of this concern. I buy my meat from a smallholder in Somerset and my milk direct from the producing farm. All of this is a legacy of my upbringing.
Yet my background has done more than affect how I act: it can be seen in my thinking. As a Christian I was raised on the parables and reported stories of Jesus’ life in the four Gospels. The commentary provided by Paul’s epistles seemed less important in childhood than for the adult faithful. Jesus’ exhortations to the Pharisees to observe the spirit of the Law is no doubt reflected throughout everything I write. Although Luke tells us of a dream in which all foods were shown to be lawful in his Acts of the Apostles, the gospel accounts appear to call for an appreciation of the purpose of the Law, not its rejection.
Unconsciously I see this affecting the way I live. This is not to deny the impact of other aspects of one’s background on thought and belief, however. The society in which we are brought up, the education system and the impact of the media all affect our outlook. Some aspects that I am acutely aware of include cynicism, scepticism and suspicion. There is a degree to which these mores can be healthy, but they can also affect one negatively. In my case, I cannot watch recorded debates between Muslims and Christians, for example, because I find myself disputing the claims of both parties.
Our cultural background also affects how we look at the world around us. Societal norms, for example, make us look differently at our environment to how our predecessors did. I am very much aware that the way I think and act is far removed from the ways of those who passed before us. I have been conditioned by my environment to the extent that things once viewed as extremes are now the norm and things once seen as normal are now considered wild aberrations.
The overwhelming feeling, however, is not to consider Islam a negation of my upbringing, but rather a continuation of it. Indeed, retaining that which is good, I often consider it to be a perfection of my culture. There is no doubt that it is useful to acknowledge the legacy of our upbringing and to be truthful about this too, recognising that much in the trend of rejection that we encounter between individuals and nations is often very superficial.
