Denying Humanity

Tariq Nelson:

One day, I received a phone call from an old friend. This brother – if you saw him – personifies sternness upon the Sunnah. His non-Muslim mother had just passed away and he felt sad. He had not seen her in over three years and she’d never even met his wife and children. This had caused him to reflect on where his life had gone for the years that he had been Muslim. He was in an unhappy “stranger marriage”, with no money, had cut off his non-Muslim family and was feeling lonely and depressed despite the outer appearance of firmly being upon the Sunnah and having a wife and children.

What follows is a detailed explanation of a fanaticism in Muslim circles.

Converts are not only expected to completely disavow their former beliefs, but also all of their happy experiences of the past. “Astaghfirullah!” is usually the exhortation, as if simply by mentioning that the church had a nice youth center, a convert is questioning Islam.

Within these movements, converts are instructed to tell themselves that they really hated every moment of the times at Sunday dinner at Big Momma’s. We must tell ourselves: The past was all bad and all evil and then I became Muslim.

Such converts inflict this misery upon themselves because the umma is obsessed with purity and impressions.

Within this, the “everyday Muslim” – who did not necessarily cut off the family and old friends - becomes torn between what is natural and these instructions on how to be this lifeless Muslim. Muhammad Al-Shareef mentioned that he thought that many Muslims are depressed because they live two lives. One life when they are around Muslims and the other life they lead when they walk out of the door.

What an identity.