My Spiritual and Intellectual Journey

In this revealing book, I delve deep into my complex spiritual and intellectual journey, which has been shaped and reshaped over the years by conflicting forces of tradition, faith, freedom, and modernity. I was born into a devout Muslim family, where words like Allah, Muhammad, and the Qur’an weren’t just words; they were the compass by which we navigated life. But as a youth, I found this compass restrictive. The Arabic verses of the Qur’an I was made to memorize without understanding became symbols of constraint, alienating me as I entered the rebellious years of adolescence.

When I got to college, I tasted the freedom I’d longed for and swung to the other extreme. Suddenly, I was submerged in Western thought, cinema, and even theology. The Christian narrative, as laid out in the Bible, captivated me. It offered a continuity and historical coherence that I had felt was missing in the Qur’anic stories of Prophets and previous nations. In my mind, Western progressiveness was intrinsically linked to its religious underpinning, which led me to a local Catholic Church for a dialogue. Here the priest offered me a simple and easy ‘Jesus solution’ to spiritual salvation. The Christian road to salvation seemed far easier than the complicated Muslim salvific scheme.

However, the universe has a way of bringing us back to where we started. A surprise visit from my father to my dorm became the tipping point. His discovery of the Bible in my room led to fervent, often heated, discussions with family and scholarly friends. It was a crucible moment, forcing me to confront head-on the ideological questions, inquiries, and leanings I had developed. These dialogues unveiled to me the multifaceted nature of Islam—from a religion of rituals and practices to a comprehensive guide for human interaction rooted in morality. I felt that Islam meant different things to different people.

My intellectual unrest didn’t stop there. In my pre-med program, I noticed a gaping hole: the absence of Muslim contributors in modern science. When I probed for answers, what I got were either dismissive waves towards the ‘golden era’ of Islamic civilization or mystical justifications that emphasized the eternal over the temporal. Neither satisfied my quest for understanding why, if Islam is a religion for all times, it seemed to lag in contemporary scientific achievement.

This book is a synthesis of these soul-stirring debates, existential questions, and relentless search for meaning. It captures the essence of my varied interactions with Islam—as a code for ethical living, as a set of ritualistic practices, as a political tool, and as a complex tapestry interwoven with cultural norms and individual interpretations. Along this journey, one observation became starkly clear: that Islam, for all its universal teachings, was understood and practiced differently by different people. It could be stringent or flexible, inward or outward, political or personal.

To sum it up, this book is not just an exploration but also an invitation for you, the reader, to engage with the fluid, often contested, always relevant, questions about faith, culture, and identity in a globalized world. It’s a testament to my personal struggle to find where I fit in this expansive spiritual landscape, an odyssey that has taught me the importance of questioning as a means of understanding, not just Islam, but the very fabric of human existence.

In my quest to understand the comparative worth of religious traditions, particularly Islam and Christianity, I embarked on a deeply exploratory academic and spiritual journey. My initial encounters with a Muslim professor and a Catholic priest revealed two starkly contrasting perspectives: the former credited Islam with shaping much of the modern world’s knowledge, science, and ethics, while the latter attributed the West’s success to Judeo-Christian values. This divergence motivated me to delve further into the issue.

According to the Muslim professor, Islam not only had an empire but was a fountain of unparalleled knowledge, rejuvenating Greek scholarship and setting the stage for the European Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. He argued that the decline of the Muslim world coincided with a departure from the core principles of Islam and Islamic rational discourse. The Qur’an, an unchanged text for over fourteen centuries, and its rational bent were identified as pivotal catalysts that could potentially revitalize the Muslim world if adhered to sincerely.

Contrarily, the Catholic priest presented Christianity as the bedrock of Western success, critiquing the Qur’an as backward in its teachings. The priest’s theology seemed simpler than Islamic teachings, with its alluring promise of effortless salvation through belief in the Trinity and Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for humanity’s sins. Yet, a later interaction with a more educated priest revealed that Christian theology was fraught with complexities, especially regarding the concept of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, making me question whether the earlier priest had oversimplified things.

Further complicating matters were my interactions with a group of American Protestant missionaries at a book fair in Islamabad. Among them, even the basic tenets like the nature of God or the inerrancy of the Bible weren’t uniformly agreed upon. The kaleidoscope of opinions led to an earnest recommendation to consult competent theologians for a more nuanced understanding of Christian teachings.

In pursuing my Master’s degree at the International Islamic University in Islamabad, I delved into comparative religious studies. This exposed me to various world religions and led to interactions with prominent scholars like Professors Houston Smith and Ninian Smart at a conference in Rome. Surprisingly, Professor Smith was uncomfortable with traditional Christian theology and organized Christianity, encouraging me to explore its intricacies in top theological programs in the United States, for which he generously offered recommendations.

So, I found myself at a crossroads. My experience taught me that both Islamic and Christian theologies were more intricate and nuanced than their simplistic portrayals by their respective proponents. Far from drawing a clear line between them, my explorations deepened my realization of the complex and sometimes paradoxical facets of religious belief and practice. I resolved to continue probing these complexities, seeking a balanced, well-informed understanding while recognizing that both faith traditions have contributed significantly to human civilization. Whether Islam or Christianity, what stood out was that a religion’s societal impact is not merely the product of its doctrines, but also of its adherents’ commitment to or departure from those principles.

After joining the Comparative Religions department at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) as a full-time lecturer, my life took a turn that drastically reshaped my understanding of faith, spirituality, and academia. In the midst of preparing for a study leave to join the Harvard Divinity School, I was severely injured in a car accident that left me paralyzed from the neck down for almost two years. This episode forced me to confront existential questions that I had previously ignored, such as the nature of life, death, and divine providence. In my hospital bed, I contemplated the paradoxes and intricacies of monotheism, and allures of atheism, questioned the nature of God in Islamic and Christian doctrines, and grappled with issues of faith and doubt.

My slow recovery, nothing short of miraculous, took almost two years. Subsequently, I found myself at Saint David’s University College, University of Wales. The institution provided me with a different academic environment, one that was far more skeptical and less traditionally religious than what I had experienced in Pakistan. Here, I came under the mentorship of distinguished scholar, Professor Paul Badham, whose guidance immensely influenced my approach to studying religious texts and traditions. Professor Badham was the head department of theology, an accomplished Christian theologian, (the son of Leslie Badham, Vicar of Windsor, and chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen of England), and an acclaimed author. His objective, academic approach to the study of religion and theology gripped me like a thriller.

My work, which spanned seven grueling years, resulted in this book. It dissects the problems of atheism, skepticism, anthropomorphism, origin of religions, reason and revelation, and evaluates the historical and textual integrity of sacred texts in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. My methodology is rooted in objectivity and relies on respected sources from each religious tradition to avoid bias and prejudice. My thesis also received valuable input from experts like Professor John Kelsay of Florida State University and Ian Richard Netton of Exeter, which added a layer of credibility to my research.

This book aims to stimulate intellectual discussions among followers of the three Semitic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. While these traditions share much common ground, they also possess unique perspectives shaped by their historical and cultural contexts. Acknowledging and discussing these distinctions, rather than brushing them aside, can facilitate a more profound understanding and acceptance among these communities.

The journey has been long and arduous, but profoundly enlightening. The chasm between the divine and the mundane has never felt so significant, yet so surmountable. It is my sincere wish that this study paves the way for constructive dialogue, mutual respect, and coexistence, bringing the Abrahamic God closer to the modern, alienated individual who yearns for moral and spiritual guidance.