azdak

I've been thinking for a while that it's ridiculous, at this stage of world history, that I don't know a single Muslim, and that my knowledge of Islam comes exclusively from such reliable sources as TV/newspapers/the internet. So I finally got off my backside and went to my local mosque/Islamic centre, where I grabbed a passing bloke who looked vaguely Middle Eastern and said I wanted to learn about Islam. He took me off to their offices, where an incredibly nice man who said he was "the office boy" talked to me for about two hours about Islam. I couldn't suppress my scepticism at some things he said, especially when he got onto science and the Koran, other things I thought were wonderful (albeit it purely from the Comparative Religion perspective of a committed atheist - I did say right at the beginning that I wanted to learn about Islam in order to tackle my own prejudices rather than because I was thinking of coverting). My favourite moment was when he said that in Islam, if you intend to do a good deed and then don't carry it out, Allah judges this as if you had actually done the deed (so you get one point); if you intend to do a good deed and then do carry it out, it's rated as if you'd done between 10 and 700 good deeds (so up to 700 points, coooool!). However, if you intend to do something you know is wrong and then don't do it, it doesn't count at all; and if you intend to do an evil act and then carry it out, this is counted as one evil act (so minus 1 point). I love this - it's such a relief after the endless wallowing in guilt for sins of ommission and nitpicking about my motives that Christianity taught me ("the road to hell is paved with good intentions" etc - plus when I went for a walk today and saw an empty plastic bottle on the path, I nearly left it there and then thought "700 points!" and picked it up and carried it to the next bin). I'm going back on Monday with the family and a couple of friends for a tour of the mosque, and I'm thinking seriously about taking some Arabic lessons, although I suspect this is the kind of good intention that will end up being awarded only one point ;-)