On the Subject of Religion...

...and other such utterances.

Lately, the religious aspect of my cultural background has been rearing its head more and more at home, and whilst I believe in God, I'm sure most of you out there know that I'm not exactly the most pious of people.

I'll be the first to admit it - as far as 'the rules' go, I'm a sinner. A big, fat, whopping sinner. I often think of myself as having the Muslim equivalent of Catholic guilt. Perhaps this is why I enjoy Martin Scorcese movies so much...

But the thing is, I have no problem with my religion. I could talk for hours about the subject, how it's perceived by the western media, the differences between the blindly devoted and the intelligently well-informed Muslim, the wars and what-nots, but it all comes down to this:

If there's one thing I don't like, and this doesn't apply to just religion but to life in general, is someone telling me what to do.

Now, this isn't plain stubbornness or an inability to take orders (although some may disagree). I should explain: what I don't like is being told to do something that I was going to do anyway in my own time and in my own way but instead be forced to do it in a way that is considered correct when you know damn well there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Ah. This may have made less sense than it did in my mind.

I don't like taking orders, especially when it comes to the subject of religion. As far as I'm concerned, religion is deeply personal, an individual exercise. One of the reasons why I will still call myself a Muslim as opposed to claiming agnosticity is that, from what I have learned, Islam is a religion where it is up to the individual to seek out and interpret it's meaning. Not some higher authority, not some institution, but you yourself, reading through the Quran and deciphering it yourself. Of course, this is a difficult thing to do, hence the reason for having Imam's and others to teach it to the masses who can't be bothered to do so.

And when these people, these people that hold so much power over such a large group of people, start teaching what they believe, there's always the chance that something might get lost in translation or interpreted differently (either intentionally or unintentionally).

And that's how the shit hits the fan.

So please, no more pointing fingers and telling me what's right or wrong, thank you very much. I don't claim to know it all, but I know enough to know that you can take that finger and stick it somewhere rather unpleasant.