Why Am I a Muslim?

It may be asked whether people in the Muslim world reflect on why they are Muslims. In the Muslim culture it is just a given that one is right, the way it used to be in this culture: it was just a given that Christianity was true and everything else was false. That is simply a given of any culture that has a dominant religious teaching which still has power and influence, and certainly Islam is still in that position in the Muslim world. To question, or really to think — why am I a Muslim, other than the fact that I was born here? — is something most people will not come to. There would be social stigma, for one. But that should not negate it: even if there were, it is still important to reflect and think. There have always been people within cultures who have questioned things. In the Christian tradition there were always some who remained Christians but could still challenge the culture. Sometimes they were burnt at the stake; other times they were not. But the point is that there were people who would say: is this right? Is what we are doing right? That is an important human question.

There are simply a lot of non-reflective people, and there is a lot of encouragement for the absence of reflection, for social and political reasons. This is a country of entertainment. People know massive things about sports — basketball and baseball and football — and there are adults who can give brilliant analyses of why this team is going to make it to the Super Bowl, with all their statistics at hand, and they do not have a clue about the national debt, or why over fifty per cent of the tax dollar is going to interest on the national debt, or why the schools are literally crumbling before our eyes, or why there are children killing children. There is just not a lot of emphasis on analysing, on thinking, on seeing. Americans tend to delude themselves, often. For educated people it is probably not the case; but there are certainly a lot of people out there who really have not given a lot of thought to anything, and who are much more obsessed with the latest entertainment, with what the latest movie is. The Romans controlled their societies with bread and circus. Bread and circus: it is a very common political way of maintaining control.