Beautiful Things in Saudi

There are Westerners and other foreigners who come to Saudi Arabia and find it an intensely ugly place. There are many who'd never set foot in the country who think similarly. I have said as much many times myself: there are few trees here, you hardly see a woman's face, the cities are something from the third world for the most part, and beautification and ornament is something against Saudi's conservative version of Islam in principle; how could you think otherwise, right?

But when you are an English teacher in Saudi there are beautiful things like the following which appear before you when you least expect it (or learn to cultivate it?) . A couple of days ago, because all the material in our book had been covered and the semester was basically over, I got my writing class back on my favorite topic (and the whole reason I came to Saudi): U.S.-Arab relations and Christian-Islamic relations. I actually covered this for a couple of days last week and asked one question each day for a couple of days running. I spent the entire period I was with them having the students work on a question and write on it.

One question I asked was this: If we wanted to improve relations between "the West" and the Islamic world, what could we do? Some students said there is nothing we can do: "Westerners just hate Islam and American wants to control everything, especially Middle Eastern oil." Others said "get rid of Bin Laden and Bush and everything will be fine." Others said "improve communication and continue to share expertise." I have all of this as I collected their responses.

Following up on the idea that communication needs to be improved, I asked them what they might tell groups of Westerners were they to meet them and talk to them directly. A couple of them said that they would stress that Islam is a religion of peace. I asked them how they would use the Qur'an itself to show and demonstrate this. They didn't know other than to stress that the very root of the word Islam means "peace." They said they would get back to me on this.

They also said they would call Christians to task for thinking of God in three parts and not one. I told them that a majority of Christians would likely not know how to respond to this with any sophistication, but that in the NT Jesus utters a proclamation that is very similar to the Islamic Shahadda that "there is no God but God," which I wrote on the board. It is basically a refrain coming out of Judaism which runs "hear, Oh Isreal, the Lord your God is one Lord, which appears in the Gospel of Mark. I also wrote on the board the two basic commandments Jesus utters towards the end of the Gospel of Mark: to love the lord your God with all of your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself, which I told them they might want to remind Christians of were they to talk with them. The students told me that this was very similar to what Islam teaches. Not only was this an amazing and beautiful exchange, but the students were also furiously writing down what I had written on the board showing that it was definitely a "teachable moment" taken advantage of.

In case anyone thinks this indicates some kind of missionary zeal to convert Muslims to Christianity on my part, let me say that I repeatedly stressed to my students that I care little if they converted. I told them that I would actually prefer them not turning their backs on their own religion and to deepen their understanding of it. There is a difficult issue here as Islam sees itself as having completed the Christian revelation. It is also widely believed by Muslims that the Christian scriptures are corrupted and that Qur'an is not. Jesus is also highly venerated in Islam as he is seen as the pinnacle of the prophets before Mohammad. So we can encounter and feed their possible missionary zeal if not careful.

So were these students furiously writing down what I had written on the board because they had found another arrow to place in their quiver to be used against Christians? I think not, and think it was simply a beautiful moment in a place where beauty is best thought seen and encountered obliquely rather than directly, in subtle and still, small voices rather than in bombast and in its in-your-face...let-me-show-you-my-midriff-now variety.


Another question I asked on the following day was this: In my country (the U.S) Muslims can freely practice Islam at any time they wish and can visit a Mosque and worship with fellow Muslims freely. But in Saudi Arabia, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists are forbidden to practice their religion and thus feel a good deal of loneliness when they are here because they are cut off from their communities of faith. Is this fair?

After a couple of minutes, the only thing a few students could verbalize was a couple of different answers to the effect of "this is a Muslim land, so there can be no other religion here" and that "if we allow other religions, the Muslims here will lose their zeal for Islam and have their faith corrupted." One student told me he could say what he thought but he might go to jail for it because he knows people who are in jail presently for expressing similar opinions. But in the end the students told me they simply could not put this into language, either Arabic or English, because they had simply never thought of it before. I told them that if they could not verbalize an answer, then there must be something wrong with this...or not?

Another beautiful moment, I'd say, although one I could be fired for. Oh well! Let's hope that doesn't happen..."In sha Allah."