Get to know others before you judge them

Some of my lively and engaging readers never miss an opportunity to educate me about my own faith, my traditions, and the geopolitical dynamics in parts of the world that I have studied all my life and where my roots are deeply embedded in a soil as ancient as the Karakoram Mountains.

Some of them, when they do not have a comment on my opinion, search for derogatory material about my faith and my culture in the cyber-wasteland to send my way.

Recently, a reader sent me an article with the following note: "Tell me you still think the Muslim faith is so great (you should be ashamed)".

The article "Joys of Muslim Women" was written by Nonnie Darwish, an Egyptian Muslim woman who converted to Christianity. In the article, Ms. Darwish said that Muslim men are allowed to marry four wives, which is true, but with hard-to-fulfill restrictions.

She also contended that a Muslim man can marry a prostitute for a few hours, and that Muslim men are permitted by religion to beat their wives. Neither of these things is true.

But the clincher was her statement that there is a huge conspiracy by Muslims to split the West by imposing shariah, or Islamic, law in western societies. She says that Muslims have taken over many towns and cities in the United States. She gave Dearborn, Mich., as an example.

This disgruntled former Muslim has taken a few kernels of religion and mixed them with some bizarre cultural traditions to make it look as if all Muslims are part of a conspiracy to undermine Western civilization. One wonders how much of that is because of her upbringing in a household where a strong-fisted father ruled the roost.

In Pakistan recently, I met a few university students over a cup of tea. You would expect educated young people to know the difference between facts and fancy.

But in our discussion about religion, one of them said that we should not expect anything good from Christians. When I asked why, he told me that a religion that advocates sexual exploitation of children has to be evil.

The young man was basing his outrageous opinion on the abuse of children by some Catholic priests. He did not know -- and I assume did not care -- that Christians are divided into Catholics and Protestants, and that Protestants are further divided into dozens of denominations. How can one blame Christianity for the despicable behavior of some of its believers?

I often hear from some of my Muslim friends about the horrible way Jews treat their women. They point to the physical and emotional abuse by Israel's ultraconservative Jews of female students who do not conform to Orthodox standards of dress.

These critics feel comfortable, mainly because of their ignorance, in blaming all Jews for the actions of a small minority of the Jewish population of Israel.

Orthodox Jews in Israel will tell you that they are following the commands of their religion. The same is true of Hasidic Jews in parts of New York City where women are forced to sit in the back of the bus.

Do these Hasidic Jews represent mainstream Judaism? Just ask my friend Sandy Isenberg, the former Lucas County commissioner. She holds her Jewish faith very dear, but don't tell her to sit in the back of the bus.

You can look at any major religion and find some followers who do things in the name of religion that the mainstream does not condone. Should these aberrations be pinned on the entire edifice of religion?

Should the person who wrote me be ashamed of the actions of some of the faithful of his own religion?

My advice to him is not to judge others based on the rant of a preacher or the pronouncements of an anti-Muslim poster child such as Ms. Darwish. Cyberspace is full of hateful material against all religions. All of us could find enough dirt and filth to satisfy our prejudices.

The hallmark of a thinking person -- and an essential element of a civil society -- is to get to know your neighbors, even if they are different from you. A shared cup of coffee and genuine conversation go a long way toward helping us understand each other.

Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is a retired Toledo surgeon whose column appears every other week in The Blade.

Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net