Experiencing the Big Three
Here's a fascinating interview of Daveed Gartenstein-Ross -- a Jew who became a Muslim and then later embraced Christianity!
Raffi Khatchadourian's excellent New Yorker article on Adam Gadahn outlines his spiritual development. After his conversion, Gadahn joined a small Islamic "discussion group" that was quite legalistic. Zena Zeitoun, a black convert to Islam, told Khatchadourian: "Everything was haram [prohibited by Islamic law] to them in the United States. If they saw a girl walking down the street in a short skirt, that's haram. If they saw you with a beer bottle in your hand, that's haram. If they saw a man and a woman holding each other, that's haram. Everything was haram to them."
He's describing a key difference between the West and the Islamosphere. A few activities are illegal in the West; the people are free to do everything else. However, in Islam, a few things are considered alright, all the rest is haram.
A key moment that, for me, was the bridge to accepting a fully legalistic interpretation of Islam was when I stopped listening to music -- something that many conservative Muslims regard as haram. This was not easy: I had loved music ever since I was a kid, and had an enormous CD collection. But after wrestling with the issue, I decided that I would stop listening to music, and even broke in half a favorite mixed tape from college.
It tells you something about the extreme fanaticism of such Muslims who consider music to be haram since music (though censored) is openly sold in Saudi Arabia! I bought dozens of bollywood filim soundtracks when I lived there.
Read the whole thing to get an idea about the tyrannical and soul crushing nature of Islam. Many Muslims don't follow the drastic parts of their religion and for this they don't really have a religious justification, only a personal one.
Link via View from the Right.
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