Promoted to the front page
I get home to my apartment, turn on my computer, check my e-mail, and see that I have a comment on one of my Facebook pictures. I look at the comment, and it says the following:
إنشاء الله تهترئ بنار جهنم يا شاذ
you don't have the right to talk about islam. not ever! read about 'قوم لوط'.
Now, before I even saw the message, I knew it was gonna be some homophobic stuff because I've gotten messages like this from this guy before. Who, for some odd reason, friended me on Facebook...and one day left a message on my wall that said "homo" and nothing else. Incidentally, this guy is also friends with two other (gay) FB friends of mine.
When I saw this message however, I was already starting to feel very hurt...especially considering that I could make out a lot of the Arabic. "Qawm Lut." "Jahannam." "Fire." "You pervert" (or "deviant," or "homosexual"). Something to do with "tearing apart". I felt worse with each word that I deciphered. Eventually, I had an Arabic speaking friend to give me a true, accurate translation: "God willing, you will be demolished by hellfire you pervert/homosexual."
I noticed that my emotions went from being hurt, to being angry, to pity, and finally to some kind of compassion for this person. If he is going around wishing for people to be "demolished by hellfire", then perhaps he should be more than a little concerned for his own soul, not just those of others. Something tells me it's NOT sunnah to be saying such things to people! If indeed someone is sinning in your view, the appropriate response is to gently and compassionately urge them towards what you believe to be the good, the moral, the ethical, etc.
This causes me to think of at least two things:
1. How sad it would be for someone to even have such nastiness in his soul. I can only think that maybe God will give the guy a break on account of sheer ignorance.
2. Is this the Muslim mentality? (Though, obviously, one cannot really speak of a single mentality applicable to all 1 billion of the world's Muslims.)
It's the second that I find the most intellectually fascinating. In my experience with Christianity growing up, even if you're dealing with the worst sinner imaginable, what you wish for him/her is not hellfire but sincere repentance, getting saved, and going to heaven. Yet, you get this guy wishing me to be "demolished in hellfire"....is this a Muslim thing, an Arab thing, or what? Or is the whole "loving God" just a Christian idea that is not transferable to the other Abrahamic religions?
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If someone believed that you were a decent person committing a sin, they'd reach out with love and guidance. To desire the destruction of another soul is pure evil, and the height of Godbaggery. God IS loving, merciful, forgiving, compassionate, forbearing, etc. All those who claim to speak for Her may not be.
Bashirkareem .....
Your post sounds like the person who wrote to you provided a major learning moment about human nature. Indeed, is not Allah sufficient to sort out who He wishes to punish and who not? Does He need our help in figuring this out? Or are we hoping that if we squeal loud enough at others, that He won't notice us and our glaring deficiencies? I think that hatred of gays and others has become a fetish upon which people get drunk and vent their general rage and frustration and let's face it ...... a lot of gay bashers are themselves gay who can't face it and despise those who can. I have known several people like this myself. The way a lot of religious people of all kinds talk about religion, you'd think God was some frail old thing in a nursing home sitting in a wheelchair, half senile and in need of our good advice and righteous judgemental actions. I shudder to think just how stupid every last one of us really is.
Well you can do nothing with someone who insists on using the Quran as a battering ram. However you can block him can't you? Also say some dua's for him, that works better than anything else I know. When I get revenge its good, when God gets revenge its much much better. Trust me. I don't believe the Most High God is in the business of using us as his little messengers of hate.
Dear BashirKareem.
I felt really badly that someone would send you such a hateful message to you - My heart goes out to you. I just imagined how I would feel to have a message of hate poste dot my Facebook, it would have left me emotionally crippled and deeply upset for some time.
I don't know you, but for someone to be maligned in such a terrible, terbile way and
to do it so cowardly behind the mask of Facebook, it really gives me chills to think that
it could be from someone living in a civilized society.
I am amazed by the courage you have shown in the face of this adversity and outside of this whole intellectual discussion we are all having around the notion of hate, redemption, salvation, or whatever the heck it is that we have been discussing her eon the topic, I just wanted to express my sympathies to you and to any of the people in your life who have been impacted by such a hateful message. I wish you all the best and I pray that Allah grant you the strength to stand up to such hateful ideals against you.
You mus tbe assured that there are many people of all faiths including Muslims (I am a practicing Muslim) who do not share this person's hate - My belief is we are all Allah's special creation and love for one's fellow man is not just part of humanity but imperative to all followers of the major faiths.
OK, now that I have said my personal wishes to you, we can all go and start intellectualizing the central theme you brought about in your blog! I just didn't want
the feelings of sympathy, love, and good wishes toward my fellow brother (whoever you are) to be lost in any debate that comes out of your message.
You Take Care.
I am an (Anglican/Episcopalian) Christian and had something similar happen to me on Facebook. It escalated and escalated until I had to block him.
There are Christians who believe that gays will be extinguished by hell fire. After an internet discussion on what the 6 Biblical "clobber" passages meant I got an email from an outraged Christian who said that my soul was going to be extinguished. According to him, homosexuality was worse than genocide and I was leading good Christians astray, so I was beyond redemption.
In my experience, some of these homophobes are probably closeted homosexuals struggling with their own internal demons, but many seems to be very patriarchal men who hate having their worldview challenged. For them, religion is more about being correct than being compassionate and if they are wrong about homosexuality, then they could be wrong about other things and being wrong is the ultimate sin. Their faith is like a house of cards and they are afraid that it could come tumbling down. It's a strange way of thinking, one that shouldn't exist in Christian circles were we are supposed to be free of the law, but it exists.
Hang in there. Prayers for you.
I was raised in the Mormon religion and I remember when a young gay man shot himself on the church steps just two minutes from where I lived in California. I cried when I read his story, http://www.affirmation.org/suicide_info/to_be_gay_and_mormon.shtml. I grieved that I had mindlessly obeyed the counsel of church leaders and voted the way they said I should vote; that I was complicit during all the anti-gay rhetoric that led to this young man's suicide. It happened all over again with the passage of Prop 8 in California last year and the Mormon church raised millions of dollars to get it to pass. That was it for me. I'd had enough. Surely this was not how God intended for us to treat each other. I think that a "true Christian" or "true Muslim" would be a person filled with the love of God and love for our fellow beings. Unfortunately, it seems not many of these people exist.
I think you may be right in that some of these people may be struggling with their own demons. I heard a saying that the definition of "moral outrage" is "jealousy with a halo." That sounds about right with some of the religious fanatics I know.
hello dear bashirkareem!
How do we maintain our own dignity and affirm that we gay Christians, Muslims and Jews were made in the image of the Almighty as we are taught in the holy books when many of our brothers and sisters in spirit would deny us this truth? It hurts, it makes us angry and depending on where and when we are alive it makes us scared for our lives. And yet maintain and affirm we must.
For the life of me, I don't understand why someone would care enough about who and how we love to write something like " God willing, you will be demolished by hellfire you pervert/homosexual." But I believe that it's impossible to hate someone that way unless you equally hate yourself. Hating and being happy cannot possible be compatible. So that person must be profoundly unhappy and self-loathing.
By contrast, you, bashirkareem, have the love and solidarity of your sisters and brothers, be they Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Jew. May that love comfort you and may we all love enough that it is felt by those who would persecute us so that they come to the understanding that love is the nature of the One that created us all and the One that joins us all in humanity.
Salaam aleikum, my dear brother.
Albert