Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God today's guest is Dr. Gülsüm Kucuksari, who was one of my professors this past semester at Wartburg theological seminary. She has served as faculty at a number of academic institutions and also as a chaplain in Arizona and Massachusetts.
She holds a master's of arts in Islamic studies and Christian Muslim relations from Hartford Seminary. And her PhD is in near and middle Eastern studies from the University of Arizona. Welcome. I say this every time, it's difficult for me to address faculty by their first names, but it's the Wartburg way. I don't intend any disrespect of your academic accomplishments. How are things so far for you this year?
Gülsüm: Thank you, Barbara. It is a challenging year, like for everyone else and me as well, but it's going okay.
Barbara: Challenging and then some. We'll talk about some details with this interfaith dialogue. I wanted to start by talking about some of the global interfaith dialogues that are taking place. Specifically, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is the faith group that I belong to, issued a declaration of inter-religious commitment in 2019. I'm going to just be reading two very short quotes from it about why our conversation today is important.
On page three, they say: “in a deeply divided world, and as a faithful response to Christ's message of reconciliation, we seek right, peaceful, and just relationships with all our neighbors, including those of other religions and worldviews.”
Then further on page six, it says: “when we engage our religiously diverse neighbors, we can expect both a new understanding of the other and a deeper understanding and appreciation of our own Christian faith. Mutual understanding involves moving from factual knowledge of commonalities and differences to grasping coherence and even glimpsing beauty. In discovering how others love and cherish their religious traditions, we more deeply love and cherish our own. We empathize with the challenges and struggles others face in their religious commitments, as well as appreciate their joys. Mutual understanding opens the possibility of friendship and accepting responsibility for each other's well-being.”
I'm very grateful that I took your class in introduction to Islam because I didn't really know very much about it. And I learned that my impressions of the Muslim faith from the news and media was often based on misinformation.
My classmates and I said over and over last semester, how we wished we had learned some basic information before your class about Islam and other cultural and historic aspects that shaped the Muslim faith today. Have you noticed themes from students you've taught at different schools? What were they surprised to discover about the Muslim faith?
Gülsüm: Yes, thank you for the question. I actually liked that and it's one of the things that I actually like to talk about to my friends as well. So the first thing I was surprised to find out, how less people are informed about Islam is a religion, faith tradition, not like what they see in the media, but it's a faith tradition that it is an Abrahamic faith.
And most of his teachings are shared by Christianity and Judaism. Like most of the time the students don't know the word Allah, which means the God in Arabic, it actually presents the same God that the Christians and the Jews believe in. So learning that it is a monotheistic religion, it's an Abrahamic tradition, they are surprised to find that out. And I'm surprised to find out that they are introduced to this for the first time.
The second most important shock probably is when they get both shocked and upset is they learn about the long history of stereotyping the people of the middle East and especially the Arabs through the visual media or news media, Hollywood movies and books. So in the classes, we look at this documentary Real Bad Arabs, and it lists a number of American movies, well-known movies that depict Arabs as hostile, violent, the women as submissive or sexual beings or men, Brown men, especially, fond of white American women, which I find very racist as well. So these all go unnoticed and the students are shocked at, I watched it before and I never realized that, well, it is heartbreaking that it just goes without noticing. And they are also terrified to find out in this documentary, the famous movie Aladdin. It goes with these lyrics. They cut off your ear if they don't like your face- it's barbaric, but it is home. So unfortunately, it's kind of opening their eyes.
And the third one that I would like to say when they're introduced to the nature of what Islamic law is about because, there's this Sharia or Islamic law to be monolithic, to be strict, to be like a constitution that never changes. And it has been like that for all times for all Muslims, all around the world.
So what is that all about? And as they learn about in a historically, like in the Ottoman empire, how Christians and Jews, although they had the choice to go to their own courts, like in the Ottoman empire, they would actually like to go to the Sharia courts because they found it less strict than their own ones.
And these are existing today. It's a whole big subject to talk about, but just as an introduction to it, it really amazes them. How things actually get changed in the modern times after Western colonization, after world Wars, is all new to the students.
Barbara: I appreciated learning about law because I thought, well, say for example, the American constitution, there's amendments to it. There's the Supreme court that can take a look at how is this being implemented?
And to learn that exactly what you said, that there is also flexibility that there is not this stereotypical rigidity and that in fact, Christian or Jewish women could receive more rights in courts that were not their own courts. So a Christian woman could seek adjudication probably through the church or depending on the land it was in. Like you said, the Ottoman empire that they could get more rights for women from the Muslim court.
Gülsüm: sometimes the religions have their own distinctions. So we know like divorce is a hard issue for some Christian denominations. Like if they don't like the decision in their courts. So they had the right to go to another court. It was the Muslim court. And I think these kind of legal pluralistic idea, I think we kind of don't see it because it is veiled from us because of our modern conception of what law is and how the constitution is. Well, how law really works in generally in the modern times, which is very different than the pre-modern times.
Because when we look at not only to the Muslim lands, but to non Muslim places, we will see that there are different courts of law that worked together. So Islamic law was one of them. It was flexible. It had different, doctrines that could work together. That was flexible. That could change, but its nature was completely changed by the beginning of the colonization. And again that was this effect of the colonial powers because they couldn't control that. So it was easier to control one set of rules.
So they kind of helped to canonize and change the entire nature and entire working system of Islamic law that we actually have a problem today.
Barbara: Interesting. Thank you very much for pointing that out. And while we're talking about some similarities and some differences, I also really appreciated learning more about Sufism, which is based on Islamic teaching, but it's also perceived to be different.
And I'm wondering if you can speak with us a little bit about that as well as the word mysticism, which may be new to some listeners. If you could explain that.
Gülsüm: Yeah, definitely. So I would like to say a few things about the Muslim faith here, because Sufism is actually a mystical branch in Islam which focuses or emphasizes more of spiritual connection with God. I don't think we can separate this from the Muslim faith itself. And I think what we see in the Muslim faith is a real combination of the deep spiritual aspect of Christianity and also the aspects of the discipline life of rituals that we see in Judaism.
So when we look at Sufism let's see Sufism as the Christianity aspect of Islam and Judaism as the theological aspect of Islam. And I'm just saying this because I just want to make it clearer or, easier to understand.
God talks in the Quran in both ways. So on the one hand, what you see in the Holy scripture Quran, it says like all my servants who who transgressed against their souls, Don't despair of my mercy.
Allah, God forgives all sins. He can forgive you all of your sins because he's the most merciful. And then, the Quran repetitively brings in the verse that says, God is the most merciful, compassionate, because all of the chapters of the Quran, except one is with that verse, that God is the most merciful.
And then there are sayings of the prophet that focuses a lot on God's desire to meet with his servants. Like whoever decides to meet with God, God desires to meet with them. But on the other hand, you see other verses in the Quran that's focused on human responsibility.
That there's a life after death, that humans are responsible for what they are doing. And shame on those who pray to God but you don't do the neighborly duties to other humans or doing that to be seen by other men. So it encourages people to worship. And it's also, while encouraging it, you see that there's this dimension of worship actually is a connection between God and his people. So what we see in the Sufi's, I think they put a lot of emphasis on the first part. Like it is not that they don't believe, or they disregard the second part, which is more on rituals because they actually do a lot of rituals. They believe that rituals are important connections.
And Sufi's are also known to do extra rituals, to get connection to God, but they don't stay strictly about law. Like they are always trying to find a way out because they believe that the compassion of God is bigger than his wrath, which is also a verse in the Quran that says my compassion goes beyond, surpasses my wrath.
So they want to emphasize that message. And in Muslim tradition, we have great Sufi's and one of them I'd like to talk about today is Rumi. I'm sure it is well-known to a lot of Americans because he has been the best sold poet in the US for quite some time, because it was translated in English and his poetry is his interpretation of Quran because he writes his interpretation of the Quran in a form of poetry, where he was able to being in that Quranic message in everyday language.
His book is called Quran in Persian. And he has such an open way of accessing to everybody and he says, come, come, whoever you are, whether you are an infidel, a Zoroastrian or an idol worshiper. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times, come again, come again. He continues.
Barbara: I'm so glad that you assigned us one poem to read for the course, because I found the concept of mysticism to be really intriguing.
And going back to something you had said earlier, sort of contrary to some stereotypical images that I had been aware of through the news, or even through “entertainment” of just violence and aggression. And I think in some Christian or other world faith-based groups, mysticism is universal, but not every group practices sort of mysticism.
So even it seems to me that in Christianity, there are people who sometimes set themselves apart from the world and there are rituals and there's more of an intense focus on time with God. And maybe people use other words to describe it. Would it be okay if I read just one paragraph from a poem that you had given us in class? I know it's tremendously out of context, the whole poem is fantastic.
I'd highly recommend it. It's titled Moses and the Shepherd. I highlighted a bunch of stuff, but just for the sake of today, the shepherd was talking to God basically. And here's the second verse:
"Moses could stand it no longer. Who are you talking to? The one who made us, and made the earth and made the sky. Don't talk about shoes and socks with God. And what's this with your little hands and feet? Such blasphemous familiarity sounds like you're chatting with your uncles. Only something that grows needs milk. Only someone with feet needs shoes. Not God! Even if you meant God's human representatives as when God said I was sick and you did not visit me, even then, this tone would be foolish and irreverent."
I especially appreciated that verse, then later on in the poem, there's a change of heart, but to talk with God as if he was your uncle, that really captured my attention.
And I'm sure this is not a fair representation of all of Rumi's poetry, or even this whole poem, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Gülsüm: I love that poem. This is why I actually chose that. When you continue the poem, it goes like how God told Moses saying that I sent you as a prophet to bring this connection between me and my servant.
And so this is the main thing that God actually looks at. Like all these biblical prophets, which are also present in the Islamic scripture, their role is to connect us to God. So if they're already connected in some way, the prophet is only there to appreciate and to maybe increase that relationship.
So this is why God talks to him and he sees in that man, Rumi says like, you already connected to me, and he says, I don't look at the beautiful words. I look at the heart. And Rumi says the root of religion is faith. Love of God and real connection to him. And when you look at all the rituals, what we see is actually your connection to the divine.
Like where do you stand in your connection to the divine? So it's not the theologians are also saying like, you are weak in front of God. And then we acknowledge that. It actually brings in compassion of God, and this is what God wants, to acknowledge that relationship - beautiful poem.
Barbara: You had previously referenced mercy on a number of occasions and talking about how sometimes there's a little bit more emphasis on the law, perhaps, and then there's also mercy and that's a theme also in Christianity. I don't want to leave Sufism too quickly. If you have any other thoughts that you want to share about it.
Gülsüm: in my own personal journey I like to connect the Sufi aspect of Islam to a theological aspect of Islam. I read comparatively and I like to compare Rumi especially to a 20th century Islamic theologian named Said Nursi.
I like to say we can't really separate Sufism from the depths of Islam itself. And one example from Nursi that I like, he is a big contemplator. So he contemplates after world war one and world war second, because he actually sees in his lifetime both of them, and he contemplates over the deaths of non-Muslims. And he gets actually very disappointed and he gets into a despair about so many deaths in Russia, in Germany, in different parts of the west.
And he talks about that in his writings. I'm fascinated with how he actually brings in that example. He says those people who die under the sufferings of war and who suffered from disasters , tortures, oppression and tyranny, in different parts of the world war, some of them, especially if they're under 15 years of age, they will go to paradise.
They will be martyrs in the eyes of God. And God's mercy is so great that all of them, even among them are infidels, God's mercy will reward them because they have suffered so much in the world. And this is his interpretation of the Quran. So this is a very spiritual, but this is also a big release for me as a Muslim, because there's this understanding sometimes that I think all people from all faith traditions sometimes get into this trap, like me sometimes think, Oh, it is only Muslims who will be saved or it is only Christians who will be saved or this and that.
But I think it actually shows that it is only God who knows who will be saved. It's only God and God is so merciful, we can really put people into boxes. And sometimes these boxes are named Muslim, Christian, Jewish, but God is more compassionate and he knows much better than us. So this is how I actually like to see comparatively, Sufism and theology.
Barbara: and the theologian, just want to spell it to make sure that I'm remembering correctly from the class. The last name is Nursi.
And one of my favorite textbooks that I wanted to check in with you on was written by the Reverend Dr. Todd Green. And you won't see those accolades on the front cover of the book, but the title is The Fear of Islam. I highly recommend that book, as well as many of the other readings from the course.
And one topic that is important to me is honoring the rights of women. I learned during this class perspectives on this theme, when it comes to Islam, what are a few examples of why history is important when considering the rights and treatment of women around the world today, and not only women who are Muslim?
Gülsüm: It's an important question. I am thinking that unfortunately, we only look at our current contexts to understand what is currently taking place, which cannot really tell us the entire story of the people - in the case of Muslims.
They had a story of 1400 years and since they are also being diverse even today, and there's 2 billion Muslims around the world, scattered around Africa, the far East, middle East, like Bosnia in the Western hemisphere as well.
So how come you didn't put all 1400 years of history and all these people, how can we put all these people into one certain box? And how can we say that this is the story of all Muslim people?
You cannot say that about any, any people? So the story of the oppressed women of Afghanistan, which is a fact, which is not deniable, but this is not the entire story of Afghanistan. I have a very close Afghan friend. She is very passionate about change for her country.
And we talk about these issues together with her. She wants to talk about what Taliban has done, how he destroyed, the country. But on the other hand, she does not like a country to be represented by Taliban. Is it all Afghans are Taliban-like, or all Afghan women are oppressed? All Afghans are lazy? They don't want change and this and that? So this is not the story of all Afghan women.
So we should be misled if we look at it that way. Now when we look at the media, this is what we see- the media likes to zoom in and take that picture and show it to us repetitively so that we are misled. And then because media actually goes somewhere with that, they had their own agenda and they go somewhere with that and they do it very well.
And so I don't know if you're familiar with this female African author about Single story approach. And what is that? So in our Western dominated and Eurocentric media, we have many stories of Americans or the western people.
Like we have good Americans, bad Americans, like serial killer or, savior. We have all sorts of Americans. But and sometimes even more so towards like good whites, right. Sometimes yes. But then you look at the third world, she says that we have a single story. Like Africa, she says we have that big prejudice against Africa. It's a huge continent, but is it like a village and the common denominator we can summarize like everything about it as policy you're poor, right? But she is an African woman. She doesn't like that. So we put all Africans into one box and sometimes we get so swamped in that, it almost becomes a racist approach.
A very recent example. Can we define all Americans with the actions of the recent attackers in the Capitol building? I'm sure you present all America is only a part of a bigger story.
So I don't want to deny the fact that some Muslim women are denied and not given particular rights in places like Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, but it is definitely because of the political regimes in those countries and their abuse of power. And there's abuse of religion in those places.
And there's a lot of other human rights in those countries. Like we know that a lot of journalists are in prison in countries. All sorts of human rights abuses in those countries. So those places where we see Sharia in place this is what we see all this is because of the Sharia that they are suffering from.
This is a spoiled version of Sharia. This is a modern version. This is kind of a colonized version of Sharia. It is not what Sharia is about. It has a flexible nature, it is changeable. So this is why it is important to look back at history because history has different examples.
So that we can actually have a better appreciation of today is a better comparison. And we should understand that the world has a bigger history than what we have today. So we can't just judge all Christians know by looking at modern America. By looking at the 15th century, the crusaders.
So the same today, the Muslim world is still suffering from colonization. The trauma of that, they are still suffering from that. So we have to understand the Muslim psyche under the lights of that. Otherwise we will not understand. It is not to justify the violence that they turn to, but it is to make sense of why this is happening.
It's not because they are born violent. Because this is very racist actually, when we think of people, oh, they're this way, because this is how they are. It is very similar to how we actually talk of African-Americans. I mean, this is because you are black and this is like a skin color.
No, it is not because of that. Look at the reasons why, I mean, why there is more African-Americans in ghettos In the United States because of their skin color or just because of other things in play?
Barbara: there's politics, there's social constructs, there's racism, overt and white privilege. Absolutely.
Gülsüm: So one of my hopes in teaching middle East in my classes further on is to bring a comparative contexts to Americans to understand that better. So Americans and Europeans have that impression that Muslims are prone to violence.
Right? And I can bring the example of African American experience in the US to understand this better. And if you say why do we have more African-Americans in prison today? Why was there a war on drugs? What is the reason it's because of their skin color?
No. Look at the history. Look at what has been happening in this country. So then if you compare this to the Muslim experience, look at the past. Don't focus on the present because this is a setback and it hinders the fact that the violence that you see in parts of the middle East today, it is actually I mean, not only the violence, there's also a feeling of dismay and hurt.
So not all Muslims are terrorists or violent- it's a small minority, but I think what we can talk about among the Muslims, there's a feeling of dismay and hurt among them towards the west. And this is the product of recent history of western colonization. It is at the back of their minds.
And one of the shocking moments in my teachings actually was how the definition of colonization changes from a Muslim to an American, because my students, as we talk about colonialism, they repetitively tell me that this is the first time that they hear or they read anything negative about colonialization.
Barbara: Yeah, absolutely. Me too. I was taught, well, yeah, the British had this territory, the French had this territory and it all seemed perfectly normal, but not these people are being squashed. They're being murdered. They're being oppressed. And they're being told that white people are better than them. That's not okay. As far as I'm concerned.
Gülsüm: Yes. And they say, this is how they were taught, as you say, and they also say this was a positive thing. Because they think of it as modernization and technology, the parts of the world, which was barbaric, was less than the whites. But when you turn to the Muslims, I mean any Muslim, honestly, I don't think I'm exaggerating it. They have a very negative definition of colonization. I mean at its best, it was racist, and at its worst, it was violent, it was deadly. Like if you take the case of Algeria, for example, the French colony from 1830 to 1960s, I mean, it is more than a hundred years of colonization where your land and your natural resources are used.
And you're not even given the right of citizenship or right of voting, like basic rights you are denied of that. And discrimination against your skin color was also apparent in those. So racism was inherent in this experience, and this is why I say it's been comparable to the story of racism here in the US.
And I think this needs to be understood. In order to better talk to the Muslims. I think we have to understand the psychology that they're coming from. And so this is why some of the western places, even the concept of jihad got very politicized because jihad, the concept, look at the colonial period and look at before the colonial period. Why do we have ISIS today that we did not have before in history? I mean, we didn't have such an organization even during the time of the crusaders. Why do we have that today? What is the reason- look at the historical reasons?
Because saying that Oh, it is because of the religion would be just actually a very superficial reading of history and politics and so forth. So again, the religious notions after World Wars and the colonization, they get politicized easily and people, especially if they are not feeling welcome still in even some places like France, then they can get easily brainwashed by these organizations.
Because we talked about the meaning of jihad actually, originally it means to fight anything that takes you away from God, maybe like hating love of money, like jealousy, being fond of women, gambling. So it get rid of them - fight with those feelings in your ego.
We have to understand its historic contexts. First to make sense of the anger of some radical organizations today. And is that they're still building on this hundred year anger and frustrating.
Barbara: So the word jihad has been, I don't know if taken out of context is the right way of saying it, but if it's to fight against something that takes me away from God, I have that in my Bible - not the word jihad, but to drawing closer to God, obeying God and pushing away sinful behavior or desires and things like that. And that's not the same thing at all of how I hear the word.
Gülsüm: this is actually a good point because it has to be in the Christian tradition and it has to be in the Jewish tradition as well, because Islam builds on earlier traditions. It's an Abrahamic tradition.
So it can't really just start all the new concepts. It has been there since the beginning of time, like Adam, it was here with the beginning of the first person because we are here on earth. We are on a kind of journey. It's kind of a test right from that. So it has to be there in the Christian tradition, but why it is getting that violent interpretation is also because jihad was also, like you can defend yourself against aggression. Or you can defend your people against aggression, but you can only do this as a defense and it happened in history, but I think historically sometimes Muslims probably misuse that concept as well.
Like we can't really say if you're attacking your land, you can't really call this jihad if you're attacking it. And it seems to me that in historic time so Muslims, but not like terrorist organizations today is a very different situation. It is like a person becomes a suicide bomber.
It's a personal choice. And then you become a Jihadi. Nope. This is very narrow. This is a very radical notion. We don't have that traditionally. So why is getting that radical it's because of people's radical experience, you know hate produces hate, and we know that very well in this country. So I think religion becomes a tool in the hands of these angry masses.
Barbara: I think most people would agree about fighting defensively to protect. And then it sounds like there's different perceptions of what does attack mean? Am I being attacked?Philosophically? Am I being attacked- your values don't match my values? I'm not sure of all of the different ways of perceiving it, but it seems that's what I am hearing a little bit.
Gülsüm: Yes, Barbara, this is why I think today, what would these radicals will say, they would say we're attacked. Like our religion is under attack. It has been under attack by the colonization. And there's still western hegemony. So they say they're still attacking us this way or that way, but it doesn't actually give them credit to do all these attacks Islamically because you can't really just choose a people and then you can just attack. Okay, someone has killed me and I'm going back to revenge.
And I'm killing 10% from his family or her family- the people in the US or the people in the west today can not be responsible for the mistakes of what their grand parents and not all of them. Not all people in the west were colonizers, they were politicians, they were people who were doing it in a mission or for political purposes.
So it was only some people doing it. So we can't just say, Oh, you're coming from that progeny, so you are also guilty. I mean, there is a Quranic injunction that goes against it because it says everyone is responsible for their own mistake.
Barbara: I do think there's room for reparation though, of having the responsibility of generations of using people's bodies in slavery or something like that. But I appreciate that you're saying that it doesn't mean that everyone in my family needs to be murdered because somewhere hundreds of years ago, we did something terribly wrong to other people.
Gülsüm: Yeah, people find other mistakes. Muslims do some other mistakes in history. So I mean, we should always be in war with each other then. And forgiveness is an important concept in Islam as well. God said, even when it talks about injustices, there are verses that say you will have the choice of not forgiving. You have that choice. But if you forgive, God says you will be rewarded for that. So forgiving is actually more valued than not forgiving.
And we try to take revenge, like random. Like what is today being done is very random, without putting any humanness in it, it is terrible. I mean there's nothing to justify that. And here I'll start to emphasize that, although we talk about these radicalism in the Muslim world during the colonial times, it doesn't mean that the Muslim world doesn't or didn't have their Martin Luther Kings. We actually had our Martin Luther Kings as well. And I wish they were as famous as like some of these radical thinkers in the Muslim world. And I really think Said Nursi was one of them. He was a Martin Luther King, I mean, or maybe one of them, of the Muslim world during the 20th century because he was also very much heartbroken by colonization.
He was very dismayed by all of these things happening during those times, and he's trying to bring in change also, he was also important in politics, he wants to bring some change, but then he says, I realize that politics is just so corrupt.
And he says the way to bring in new Muslim consciousness, it's to renew your faith and to renew your identity in the modern age. And he brings in a total, I think, beautiful vision, a modern vision of being Muslim. And he writes his own interpretation of the Quran. And it's about 6,000 pages and he has a lot of followers in the Muslim world.
I mean, at least 2 million followers in Turkey but more followers in around the world. And his works are interpreted and translated into different languages. I think 30 languages at least. So we do both, right? We have Martin Luther Kings. We have radicals because it is a human story and this is why we have, I think, similarities.
And I think the approach should be again, we shouldn't be misled by the notions, oh, this is a mystical land- we shouldn't be misled by the stereotypes, right? Because stereotypes actually dehumanize people. These are humans. So of course there's going to be comparisons.
Of course, there's going to be radicals. Of course, there's going to be Martin Luther Kings, because this is a human story. But if you take it from its context, we don't look at what actually caused this to happen. We'll get the reasons. And then try to understand the entire picture.
And then again, you look at the entire picture, you'll see a human story there.
Resources:
Said Nursi
“Real Bad Arabs”
The Fear of Islam by Todd Green
Poet Rumi
Dr. Gülsüm Kuchuksari