What Islam is and why people love it.

In the discussion on Alfarini Eridani Agnes says, likely as a self-defensive reflex against the “cloud” which Islam may have been put under by the polygamy issue, always a difficult issue for Muslim women to deal with:

I LOVE ISLAM!!!!!

Loving a religion? A certain type of Christian might say “I love God” or “I love Jesus” but “I love Christianity” is a far less commonly heard thing. Google says:

Results 1 – 10 of about 775 for “I love Christianity”.

While for the other:

Results 1 – 10 of about 19,000 for “I love Islam”.

Note these results are in English, which is the language of Christianity for many but not of Islam, for most.

Understanding why the expression “I love Islam” exists can tell us much about the nature of Islam and may enable us to understand a lot of what is happening in our world today, from the rise of Islamic militancy and terrorism, to cartoon rage, to the increasing tendency of Muslims to mark themselves off from others by the way of their dress, among many other things.

First we need to know what is the thing that is loved. It is evidently not God, or else Agnes would have likely said so. What is loved, which means what Islam is, is a way of living, a lifestyle, an identity, a history, a tradition, a sense of belonging to a worldwide community, a community which is highly fractured and prone to bitter internal conflicts, yes, but one which nevertheless deeply yearns for the unity of the “ummah”.

Those who criticise Islam would do well to note this. Quoting evil sounding verses from the Quran is a largely useless effort, since it does not address what draws people to Islam, or keeps them attached to it, it does not deal directly with Islam’s strengths, which are many.

The problem we are faced with today, or that Muslims are faced with, is that their way of life, which is one way of saying their religion, and then, logically, even themselves, is under enormous pressure. Cultures and peoples do not survive for ever, weaker ones are annilihated by the stronger, and while this has happened since the beginning of history it is today that the process of destruction of traditional cultures goes on at a frenetic pace, due to new technologies and what people usually call globalization.

The future is in Los Angeles, and Shanghai, it is not in any Islamic “capital”. The traditional way of life, which is to say, again, the religion, of hundreds of millions of Muslims will unlikely survive the great upheaval of modern times, the sorting out of winners and losers, the grim battle for economic survival. Not long from now, if it isn’t happening already, children in the middle east will briefly turn away from the video game they are playing to cast a disdainful eye on the photos of their peculiarly dressed grandparents. Islamic terrorism, the Taliban, the tendency of Muslims to accentuate the differences between themselves and others, are all different kinds of reactions against this destruction, desperate protests, desperate attempts to survive.

Which brings us back to loving Islam. Love can be displayed in many different ways and it can be at its most intense when we fear that the object of our affection will leave us or be taken away, and the biggest, most powerful stars burn brightest when they are dying.