Fiona Veitch Smith

It was a late Friday afternoon in 2003 and I was responding to a call to prayer. I was waiting for my new friend Kamelia to join me. Kamelia is a Muslim and had invited me to visit her mosque in Newcastle upon Tyne, while she, in turn, would visit my church. I felt very conspicuous standing near the entrance, modestly dressed but without a veil. Kamelia had said there was no need to wear one because I wasn’t a Muslim. But I wished I had - I would have been better disguised.

Men and women, young and old, in all shades of the rainbow, nodded at me as they passed. Some of them greeted me with the traditional ‘Assalamu alaikum’ (peace be on you). But seeing I didn’t know the correct response of ‘Wa laikum salam’ (on you be peace) at the time, I just nodded and smiled. What were they thinking when I was so obviously an imposter?

Eventually Kamelia arrived. Kamelia is even fairer than I am with blonde hair and green eyes. Her mother is English and her father Egyptian. She is also married to an Egyptian man. Although she looks and sounds like any other white British woman, she was born and raised Muslim. The only thing that sets her apart is the scarf she wears on her head.

I met Kamelia at an adult education philosophy class. We were the only two women, the only two animal lovers - the class was debating the existence of animal consciousness - and the only two people who claimed to believe in God. We spent many a session arguing with our animal-hating, God-hating, non-female colleagues, and as a result, became firm friends. Apart from two Pakistani boys with whom I used to play football as a child, Kamelia was my first true Muslim friend.

It’s all about Jesus

We had many discussions about our common love for God and the differences and similarities between our faiths. And of course, it always came back to the way we see Jesus. For the first time I realised that Muslims also revere Jesus as a ‘great prophet’ although, as I already knew, they cannot accept him as the son of God. Kamelia told me that it is even considered blasphemy to suggest that God has a son.

Another difference between us is in our assurance of salvation. As Kamelia told me, she has no absolute assurance that when she dies she will go to heaven but has to trust that she has done sufficient ‘good works’ to be accepted by the Father. I on the other hand believe that I can never do enough good works and the only way to be accepted by God is to believe in his son’s death for me on the cross. That’s when Kamelia told me that Muslims believe that it was Judas who was crucified, not Jesus.

A Christian in a Mosque

So by the time I attended mosque with Kamelia we had a pretty good understanding of where the other one stood. But I wasn’t so sure about the other people who were attending Friday prayers; those, who unlike Kamelia, were not so ‘Westernised’ in their outlook. As the mosque is attached to a university, many of the worshippers were visiting students from predominantly Muslim countries - countries like Syria, listed as one of George Bush’s so-called ‘Axis of Evil’.

We took off our shoes and entered the mosque. Kamelia greeted people in English and Arabic and repeatedly introduced me as her ‘Christian friend’. Then we went to the women’s gallery (behind the men) where we went through the prayer ritual. At the end of it one of the women asked me who I had prayed to - I said: ‘Jesus of course.’ She nodded in understanding.

After prayer we went into a room where around 20 other women were gathered for a discussion of the Qu’ran. Again I was introduced as Kamelia’s Christian friend and was greeted with warm smiles and handshakes. The only person who I felt gave me a cold stare was an Irish woman who had converted from Catholicism. A passage was then read from the Qu’ran in Arabic and translated into English. It was to do with a woman’s right to inheritance and drew a good discussion about wills and financial planning.

After the study the food came out. And boy, did it beat the packet of biscuits we have at our Bible study!

By then, more women had joined us. I was introduced to them in turn. I forgot most of their names, but I remember their nationalities: English, Moroccan, Iranian, Indonesian, Egyptian, Malaysian, Jordanian, Saudi, Syrian… The Syrian was a very beautiful woman called Rashia . Rashia’s husband was doing his PhD at the university and they had been in England for two months. She appeared very pleased to see me and asked: “Is it true that you are a real Christian?”

I said: “Yes, Kamelia asked me to come.”

“I’m so glad,” said Rashia. “I’ve been asking Allah to meet a real Christian. I want to ask you questions.”

The ‘better’ way

And so she did, for nearly two hours. She asked me what I believed and why I believed it. We spoke about heaven and hell and salvation. And Abraham and Isaac and Ishmael. And Jesus and the meaning of the sacrificial lamb. She politely disagreed with me on many things, but allowed me to have my say. By this time Rashia and I were surrounded by a dozen or so women, listening to our conversation. It was then that she asked me the question I was dreading: “Do you believe Christianity is better than Islam?”

The truthful answer was: “Yes, I do believe Christianity is better than Islam.” But I wondered, if I said it, whether the warmth and tolerance I had experienced up until that point would have continued. And if I’m honest, all of my subconscious fears about Islam being a ‘violent’ religion came to the fore. My heart was racing. My mouth was dry. I asked God for his protection and said: “It’s not an issue of better, it’s an issue of truth. If I don’t believe Christianity is true then it would be stupid of me to follow it. Christians put into practice the words of Jesus who said that he was the only way to the Father . We do this by believing in his death and resurrection.”

You could have cut the silence with a knife. “So are you saying Islam isn’t true?” asked Rashia.

“I believe that most non-Christian religions contain some truth about God but not all of it. There are elements in every world religion that point to the true faith. And Islam has much truth in it,” I answered.

“But not all of it?” asked Rashia.

“No,” I said. “If I believed that, I would be a Muslim.”

With that she smiled and said: “But you are wrong. Islam is the truth. It is better than Christianity. The prophet Muhammed lived 700 years after your Jesus. It is Christianity that points to Islam, not the other way around.”

So we agreed to disagree. But for the next year and a half we met up regularly and had wonderful discussions about our faith. She introduced my husband and I to her husband and we became good friends. We even played tennis together, although Rashia couldn’t run very fast in her long skirt! My husband and I prayed long and hard for their salvation, and at times we thought they might recognise the truth of Christianity, but as our lives took separate paths they were still Muslim and we were still Christian.

A Christian’s responsibility

Some people reading this might think I went too far in trying to convert Rashia and her husband - that it is arrogant of me to think that my faith is ‘better’ than theirs.

As a Christian, I believe I have a responsibility to let people know about the salvation that is theirs through Jesus Christ. In Romans 10:14 St Paul says: ‘How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone telling them?’

The question is, how do I do that without being insulting? Britain is a multi-cultural society with people having a right to follow whichever religion they choose. But does that mean we should ignore one of the major tenets of the Christian faith?

St. Francis of Asissi said ‘Preach the Gospel by all means available - and if necessary use words.’ As a young, immature Christian, I’d done my share of what I call ‘hit ’n run’ evangelism - collaring people on the street and forcing them to listen to a four-point presentation - but this is simply sharing information, not sharing my life. And the Good News should be visible in my life, not just my words.

However, if I want to ‘share the gospel’ with my Muslim neighbours, or in fact with anyone, I need to be prepared to listen to their point of view as well. Rashia and her husband had as much right to try to covert us to Islam as we did them - and they tried! But what happens when neither side accepts the other’s view? Well our friendship should still remain. And if it doesn’t we should question our motivation for befriending them in the first place.

The ‘truth’ as we know it

Others might believe that I went too far in attending the mosque and saying that there is some common truth between the two faiths. I will be labelled a syncretist or an apologist who backs away from telling it as ‘it really is’. You are entitled to your opinion.

Even though I believe Christianity is the truth, and the Bible the carrier of it, I don’t believe for an instant that my interpretation of it is the only one or even the entirely right one. I’m bound to have got some things wrong. I will be judged on what I did with the truth as I knew it at the time. And that, I believe, is what Muslims will be judged on too.

We, as Christians, need to be very careful about the ‘truth’ we represent to our Muslim neighbours. Do our lives contradict our words? Do we confuse our culture with our faith? Do Muslims feel that they have to become ‘Westernised’ if they accept Christ as Lord? And what about the war in Iraq? And the Palestinian issue? And the decadence of so-called Christian cultures? And the upsurge in ‘Islamic’ terrorism? These are difficult questions, but ones that need to be thought about.

The culture question

I was reading an article in the Sunday Times about the proposed new citizenship test for largely Muslim immigrants in Holland. It shows topless women on a beach and provocative shots of what some would consider sexually deviant activity as an introduction to ‘Dutch lifestyles.’

Now I have Christian friends who live in Holland and other friends who come from Holland and this video does not reflect their lifestyle. If this is what Muslims believe Christians do, then it’s no wonder they think they are more ‘Godly’ than us.

And yet, if I’m honest, this is something that really bugs me about some Muslims. I was born in Britain and raised in ‘white’ South Africa. Both countries have significant Christian populations and cultures based on a Christian ethos, but I do not believe that everyone born in Britain, or any other Western country, is automatically a Christian. We are not ‘born’ Christians. As Jesus pointed out, we become Christians when we are ‘born again’ of the spirit of God.

Good, bad or mad?

Why then can’t some Muslims separate Christianity from the negative aspects of Western culture? And why do some moderate Muslims refuse to declare that Islamic terrorists are not ‘real’ Muslims or even believe that recent atrocities have been committed by Muslims? I had this discussion with my Muslim friends. They were pointing out that they did not think all Christians were terrorists just because members of the IRA were and so we shouldn’t think all Muslims are either. I told them so-called Christian terrorists were not Christians even though they acted in the name of religion. I said that if they were to say that Islamic terrorists were not Muslims, then we in the West would not be so ready to think that Islam approved of terrorism. They were amazed at my statement. They said that it is written in the Qu’ran that no Muslim can say to another Muslim ‘you are not a Muslim’. For them being a Muslim is something they are born as and will die as. But they agreed that there are some ‘good’ Muslims and some ‘bad’ Muslims, just as there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Christians. I asked them what the terrorists were. ‘Mad people’ was their answer.

This conversation revealed a fundamental difference between us. Coming from a non-conformist Christian tradition I see religion and culture as something separate. My Muslim friends do not. And to complicate matters further, nor do some Christians. The fact that the Queen is the head of one denomination in this country gives the impression that she is only the Queen of the Anglicans. What about Baptists or Methodists or Pentecostals or Catholics? And what about Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims and Jews? And let’s not forget the equally patriotic people of no faith at all.

When in Rome

The Roman Empire had the same problem. As more and more cultures and faith groups were assimilated, the question of loyalty to the Empire or loyalty to home nations and / or religions, became more vexed. The Roman solution was to declare the Emperor a god, who superseded all other gods. Citizens had the right to worship whomever they chose to, as long as they also worshipped the Emperor. Neither Christians nor Jews would do this and were persecuted to death.

And the Romans just couldn’t understand why. They were so restricted by their own culture and their own way of thinking that they could not perceive that anyone would think differently nor that they even had a right to. Are we making the same mistake today?

What does it mean to be British (or Dutch or French or American)? Where should our allegiance lie? Can we practise our respective faiths and still be equally British? This is something the Muslim community is trying to come to terms with. In a survey conducted by YouGov in 2005 it was revealed that 52% of those interviewed ‘believe British political leaders don’t mean it when they talk about equality. They regard the lives of white British people as more valuable than the lives of British Muslims.’

An alienated people

This is a sign of an alienated people, one that does not feel ‘at home’ with the rest of us. And yet, 73% said they would inform the police if they believed that someone they knew, or knew of, might be planning a terrorist attack. Of course, if you can trust the survey, that leaves 27% who wouldn’t. But we don’t live our lives according to statistics. We live it on the street where the majority of Muslims are as peace-loving as the majority of us.

Like you, I need to figure out how I can apply Jesus’ teaching to love my neighbour as myself. And with wars and terrorism being increasingly fought along religious and ideological lines I need to be careful that the same lines are not drawn between me and my Muslim neighbours.

First appeared in Plain Truth as ‘Common Ground’, November 2006

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