Experimental Blog # 213

Quotations and comments from "My Way - A Muslim Woman's Journey" by Mona Siddiqui

"Islam has relatively fewer rituals than many religions, but God is remembered and invoked at all times in the life of the individual. The name Allah is mentioned so frequently in different phrases throughout the day that it is part of the daily vocabulary of many Muslims irrespective of their mother tongue."
"For me, the simplest and most potent Qur'anic prayer is 'O Lord increase me in knowledge'{Q20:114}. Seeking knowledge in all its diversity with all its risks is central to seeking God and understanding ourselves."

" ...the two most important relationships which emerge are those between the believer/believing community and God, and between men and women. < > The Qur'an is concerned with the moral dimensions of people's relationships, and here, gender and sexuality are pivotal to the dialectic between God, man and woman. The masculine and the feminine are connected in all kinds of ways, and sex and sexuality are essential to this connection."

"One of the modern Muslim thinkers, Hasan Askari, states that 'Islam is the only religion outside Christianity where Jesus is again really present." The author, Mona Siddiqui, goes on to quote about a page of 10 Qur'anic passages that seem to be all about Jesus.

A few pages later on the author quotes from Martin Luther. In part Martin Luther's opinion is, "Oh how overpowered in the flesh of women Muhammad is. In all his thoughts, words and deeds, he cannot speak nor do anything apart from this lust. It must always be flesh, flesh, flesh."

It is interesting to remember that Jesus seems never to have been married. Although Martin Luther did marry, they say, he did so sometime into middle age. However, Muhammad was married for a long time before he became a prophet; and then, it seems, he married again, more than once, and became the father of children. Muhammad was very involved with this most fundamental part of all human life.