Letters To A Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash
Reading Letters To A Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash was inspired by my Penn class trip to the UAE. Lana Aveyard, our host, was quite an interesting woman and a prolific reader. She suggested I read Ghobash to understand the psyche of the modern muslim as they are caught between many worlds and many choices. She was an American citizen born in Boston but raised in Saudi Arabia; as a woman, she's spent her life in the UAE and will inevitably be forced to leave when she retires. She has had no place to truly call home. I'll best remember Lana as a woman of three worlds, belonging to none but her own (and her husband, as she said).
A primary theme is Ghobash's call to young muslims to engage with todays modern world and reject fantastical, and ultimately impossible, ideas of returning to the 7th century ideal of Islam. He warns against trying to maintain a notion of islamic purity without considering the consequences or where that mentality arises from. He argues that violence is a short route to an immediate empowerment and immediate satisfaction but like alcohol, it has dangerous repercussions. He talks about questions relating to the ideas like: taking responsibility, fitting in, extremism, fundamentalism, and taking a stance.
The book is best expressed as a series of questions. It was a gentle reminder me that well framed questions are the fundamentals of a resilient mind. As I reread some of the questions, I realize they're truly meaningful only with context.
Is it fair to equate freedom with license for moral decadence?
It places individuals responsibility at the heart of society. Freedom is a gift to use your will and perception to place a moral structure on yourself. Without the freedom to choose our path, we are morally crippled.
Are we only fully accepting of out faith when we are free to reject it?
Is it possible to maintain some preachers’ view of islamic purity in the modern world of social media and a globalized economy? From the perspective of a young Arab and from the perspective of all those who would presume they are different or superior in other societies.
Why is it the case that rule-following as a path to salvation has an emphasis over understanding the values behind the rules?
How can we find a theological and social space and place for doubt, question, inquiry, and curiosity?
What is violence for? What does it do and how does it affect things? What does it express and how is it expressed?
To clerics who are obsessed with the theology of violence and death: where are their learned theories on the role of kindness and generosity? Why, if you can write hundreds of pages of texts, on the theology of death, can you not give equal attention to what Muslims can do with life? Why the intense focus on departing this world with a storm of blood and anger?
Why do the rules of moral behavior not apply to the jihadist fighters?
Do our islamic role models lock us out of the modern world or do they allow us into the modern world?
Muslims have idealized the warrior type figure from the first four caliphs. How might we interpret this in the modern world in a positive and productive way?
Were the specific values and ideas that we (Omar’s generation) were being educated in a conscious or inertial decision?
What is the structure that would let Omar live in the Western world as a muslim?
How do we blend living in the moment versus moral accounting?
“Our convictions are undermined by our evolving perceptions”
“A question buried is not a question answered"