If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

by Carla Power

That for new migrants to big cities or foreign countries, the mosque provides shelter from loneliness. That for people unmoored from home or family, a prescriptive faith provides an anchor.

Western depictions of Eastern cultures were pageantry, an extension of the very real political and economic subjugation of Asian and African peoples by European colonial powers.

“Cultural dialogue is the world’s most powerful weapon against extremism of any kind,” I pontificated. “Genuine engagement between people holding different points of view is the best hope for making this increasingly polarized planet work.”

“Why is the United States so unswerving in its support for Israel?”

“What is the reason that American politicians always seem to act against Muslim interests?” asked Akram’s courtly, mustachioed uncle.

often patriarchal culture, not Islamic tenets, restricting women.

Islamic laws were only as humane as the Muslims interpreting them.

“You Westerners make love in public and pray in private. We Muslims do exactly the reverse.”

Such discussions were a relentless tit-for-tat of examples, rather than exploration.

“Think of Palestine,” he suggested. “We have no doubt that there has been wrongdoing against the Palestinians by the Jews. But one has to really think about helping what is a very weak community. The way to help is not to bring justice.”

Compromise, said the Sheikh. That will bring peace, which in turn will give a battered community the time and space to heal.

“Look at the people in Palestine and Kashmir. They need space and time to do something, to build something. They need to get education. If they keep fighting for justice, they will lose more—and not even get that.”

The major problem with Islamists, said Akram, was their tendency to make Islam more about political struggle than piety.

“They want what the West has,” he said. “They want power.” If the Sheikh

In the West, the word “jihad”—literally, striving or struggle—has become synonymous with wars like the Major’s. But jihad al-nafs, the struggle of the individual against his lesser self, means a person’s effort to quell negative impulses and to lead a pious life.

That, Asad told him, is why he became a Muslim. “You tell me, ‘Believe in faith, and then you will understand it.’ My religion tells me ‘Use your reason, then you will gain faith.’”

True worship requires one to look past burqas, beards, and sharia laws, which too often are just the props, not piety itself.