Holy Cyclops

When she was in her late teens, my sister, who is several years younger than I, converted to Islam after closely examining the merits of Christianity and rejecting it.  The fact that her then-boyfriend and soon-to-be first husband was Moslem might have had something to do with it, too; in any event, she remains Moslem, twenty years later.  For the last couple of years, I have lived with her and her second husband, a recently-naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, and their two children (my nephews), in the house my parents used to own, so I’ve had the opportunity to see, to a certain extent, how their religion affects them.  (I say, “to a certain extent,” because I do not attend their religious services and only see the effects of their Islamic belief in small ways.) 

Both my sister and my brother-in-law are good people.  When I—an avowed nontheist—tell my nephews that the most important thing in life is to be good and kind to other people, my brother-in-law tells them to listen to their Uncle Keith.  I certainly hope and expect that if my sister and brother-in-law were not Moslem, they would still be good, kind people, but in any event, it seems that they use their religious belief to reinforce such qualities and to promote such qualities in my nephews.  (I take it that most Moslems are essentially this way:  People who want to get along with each other and who mainly try to use their religious belief to reinforce their commitments to treating other people well, rather than to justify treating other people badly.  However, I confess that I do not know what percentage do use Islam to justify treating other people badly, and of course we know that some Moslems in positions of authority in other countries have done so; and I don’t know how much of that is attributable to their religion and how much is attributable to their culture.  Because many Moslems do not believe in the separation of church and state, but rather suffuse their daily lives with their religion, it’s hard to tell how to make such attributions.)

So, what differences are there between how they behave as Moslems and how they would behave if they weren’t Moslem?  Obviously, since that is a counterfactual question, I’m limited in the conclusions I can draw; but my sister probably wouldn’t keep her head covered, as she does most of the time, and they probably wouldn’t kneel on their holy rugs, turn toward the east, and pray five times each day, and they probably wouldn’t keep several copies of the Koran around the house, and they probably wouldn’t be careful to eat only halal  (Islamically approved) food, and they probably wouldn’t have art depicting mosques or a calendar with the sayings of the Islamic cleric M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen hanging on their walls, and they probably wouldn’t fast in the daylight hours during Ramadan.  Perhaps my brother-in-law would drink alcohol, or womanize, were he not Moslem, although I’m inclined to doubt that he would do the former to excess or that he would do the latter at all.  He’s simply a good person.  (I don’t think my sister has ever been inclined to drink, religious belief or no religious belief.) 

The main effect, one that I deplore, is that my nephews are being raised Moslem—that is to say, they are being indoctrinated with religious belief.  I object to such indoctrination, and it’s fortunate for family harmony that my sister and brother-in-law seem to espouse a very moderate brand of Islam, so that I don’t feel compelled to loudly object to my nephews’ being taught religion.  At some point, they will ask me what I believe and why, and then I will tell them that although many very smart people do believe in God, I see insufficiently strong evidence or rational argumentation from acceptable premisses to justify such belief, and therefore withhold belief—as I think other people should, too.  For now, though, I don’t see a whole lot of ill effects from their teaching—particularly not drastic ones—and they’re even learning a foreign language as a result of it (Moslems do not think that you’re really reading the Koran unless you’re reading it in Arabic), which can only help them later in life.  The values they are learning are values of love and kindness and respect—ones I approve of; and they do not limit themselves in their social circle to other Moslem children.  They are growing up to be good people.