The Battle for the Muslim Mind

by Sharifa Alkhateeb

Growing up, deciding on goals in life as a conscious person, and living in America as a practicing Muslim, pose many hardships. This daily decision-making process is made no less difficult by the pressures of a generally immoral, materialistic society that threatens all people of faith, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

Injected into this development process are the problems and joys of developing a sound and healthy relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims - one that is positive, clean hearted, and that allows for mutual respect, caring and love.

My parents provided my first exposure to other religions. My mother, who had been educated in a Catholic convent during her childhood, and who had converted to Islam before her marriage, was an excellent source of information about Christianity. I learned to appreciate people of faith, no matter what road they traveled to reach Allah (SWT)

The general approach of missionaries, I have observed, is to assume that our Islam is an illegitimate expression of yearning for closeness with the Almighty. Most often, they do not read about Islam and do not read the Qur’an itself but are very insistent that we quote chapter and verse whenever we want to discuss the Bible with them. Through my college years, no one seriously tried to convert me. At that time, most people were not into religion but into non-religion. The Hippie culture was entirely anti-religion, and professors, faculty, parents and students were generally all taking drugs of some kind, aside from liquor. There was no vision of a future, everyone lived for the “now.” There were very few exceptions to this, even among “Muslims.”

As an adult and after having two children, our family moved to Arabia, where we stayed for nearly a decade. My husband worked with an American company and so most of our acquaintances were Americans.

The Christians knew I felt at ease to tell me about their church experiences in Arabia, where church services were allowed in most of the foreign schools and at some of the embassies. As a reporter, I researched the activities of the church in Arabia and had talks with several priests and reverends. There was an understanding between the embassies who arranged these services and the government that they could practice their faith as long as it involved ministering to existing Christians and not to Muslims.

The Christian efforts to convert Muslims came from the hundreds of missionaries who came as “technocrats” to work in all types of positions as ordinary workers but who had been trained as missionaries. These undercover missionaries were not well-trained but they were able to convert some of the very poor Muslims, who never understood much about Islam.

Such missionaries went out of their way to befriend maids, drivers, construction workers and tea boys who were among the most ill-treated people in Arabia. I met a number of these people who had left Islam for Christianity, but I found their conversion to be from ignorance into ignorance because they knew very little about Islam.

What turned them to Christianity was the caring shown to them by Christians - not the ideology. I found these individuals to be simple people with simple desires. Their wish was to be respected and to be happy. I am very sorry that they did not find these basic needs among Muslims.

One of the most active missionary groups in Jeddah at that time was the Numeraries, a group of Catholics who dedicate their lives to missionary work. One of my husband’s co-workers was a member, and our families became friends. Before meeting these individuals, I thought that most missionaries were self-serving and arrogant but I was introduced to an entire group of God-conscious people who, although they were in Arabia to convert Muslims, never thought of themselves engaging in malicious activity. For them, it was a sharing of their “knowledge of salvation” with Muslims. They were, for the most part, unsuccessful at converting Muslims and were perplexed as to why they had no luck even among lax Muslims.

In my view, the days of such missionaries are over. The new, sophisticated missionary has a different approach and a different message. The new approach talks of indigenization and contextualization. Simply put, indigenization is an attempt to let converts to Christianity minister to their own flocks with minimal control from foreign sources. The goal is to let these converts feel a sense of maturity and self-respect. Contextualization is to present ideas about Christianity in a way that easily fits into the dominant culture. In the case of Muslim societies, missionaries are instructed to investigate the personal experiences of each Muslim targeted and that individual’s mixture of religion and customs. Next, the missionary devises an individualized approach that will take into account the Muslim’s special weaknesses, all to facilitate easier conversion.

There is a local group in Northern Virginia which collects funds specifically to convert Muslims in Indonesia. Their method is to go to the poor villages and to personally distribute rice, milk, beans and clothing. The missionaries follow these handouts, of course, with their preaching. Funds are pouring into Indonesia to create new churches for the new Christianized Muslims.

The Zwemer Institute in Pasadena, California also coordinates missionary activity in the Muslim world. It is named after Samuel Zwemer, a missionary who proselytized throughout the Muslim word from the 1890s to the 1940s. He established an international network of Christian missionaries focused on Muslims and personally wrote 13 books on converting Muslims. The Institute carries on this work.

I believe that the individuals who direct these and similar efforts are mostly sincere Christians who have given up on converting Christians to Christianity in the U.S., and so look to more “fertile” ground for belief in God.

However, among them are some pseudo-Christians who have definite ulterior motives in their involvement. Muslims who may give even partial loyalty to foreign sources can be swayed and used politically to the detriment of their own country. Such Muslim targets may also be called “Christian” and form the basis for military intervention into Muslim countries under the pretext of protecting a religious minority. One would hope that Muslims will gain an awareness of these incursions into the Muslim psyche.

Through all this, I believe it is possible to recognize the faith that spurs these people on and to respect it for what it is - faith. But I wonder if missionaries will ever be able to be content to simply look at Muslims as legitimate inheritors of the legacy of Abraham, Moses and Jesus (Peace be Upon Them). Will they ever be able to really accept us on our own terms, as we all travel toward the One Goal - the One God?

Muslims who are able to feel sympathy and even love for Christians should try to reach out to these people and seek out those among them who are God-conscious to share faith in Allah. There are many to be found, perhaps one of them is your neighbor.

(Muslim Youth Council)

* Originally published in the print edition of The American Muslim / Jan-March Winter 1992