Much ado about something!

Salam alaikum!

The past two to three days were quite difficult to go by… my mother, younger sister and I were terribly ill, all together! Cold and high fever together, so much so that we were all in bed with damp clothes on our faces. It was irritating, to an extent, because it’s the third time we’ve fallen prey to a flu-like sickness in a month – twice in Ramadan! This time, we suspected it was viral Malaria due to the high fever but then it was diagnosed as a very bad case of flu that’s been ‘around’… why does flu always seem to be ‘around’?! Anyway, alhamdolillah, we’re all quite well now, though continuous high fever for a day and a half has left a sour taste in the mouth, lack of energy and aching limbs.

The test for Dow Medical college, this Sunday, was not a major cause of concern to me during the illness, alhamdolillah… though maybe not because I did well in the KMDC test but because I was occupied with something much more important!No long suspense. :)

I said in my last post about my budding interest in Da’wah activities. Well, would you know it, that very same day a Brazilian Christian, Rene, at Orkut (a site where you can exchange messages with friends and join communities according to your interests) I’d only just started to message, asked for my MSN ID.

I found this person at an Islamic community and thus thought he’d probably be more receptive to our religion. He also had an interest in spirituality, though not any religion associated with it. Anyway, I left him a short note thanking him for being polite to Muslims at the community, and asking him about his interest in Islam. Well, he didn’t turn out to be very interested, only a tiny bit, and not with good intentions, I can assure you.

Still, I let him add me at MSN. Initially, we made small talk… in fact, right away, he asked me how I was so tolerant towards him. All other Muslims had been infuriated with his occasional taunt and mockery of Islam. I have to admit I hadn’t known he could be very frank in his statements of Islam – sometimes, it hurt. I also discovered later that he was extremely rude to other people in his messages (messages between people at Orkut are not allowed privacy) and he actually incited them to hate him in return.

According to Rene’:

'I'm at orkut mostly to be an unrespectful ass***e than anything. So I do disrespect muslims. Not just muslims, but also jews and even christians, like me. But you were so kind and sweet at my scrapbook, so I couldn't be disrespectful with you.'

I told him a Muslim is tolerant and doesn’t have to resort to verbal abuse (like Muslims had been doing with him at Orkut) to get his point across. I also told him that no matter what I say to you, I couldn’t change you on this if you didn’t think it was wrong yourself. So, it was wrong to scream “you’ll rot in hell!!!!! Allah will burn you allll... you’ll never be guided to the truth.. Muslim win you are hell people! Allah will never guide you 2 da truth!” like Muslims at Orkut were doing, and were very pleased with themselves (half my time at Orkut is spent on messaging Muslims to correct this crazy behavior).

Well, Rene’ was surprised, and impressed. I have to say, alhamdolillah, he has never once said anything rude to me or abused me in any way! I’ve told him I had my own views, I didn’t agree with what he did at Orkut, but I couldn’t possibly abuse him for it. At this he called me 'wise' but I pointed it out to him that it wasn’t wisdom – it was the way of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) and all other Prophets before him... tolerance and patience.

We chatted randomly about Brazilian people and South Asians... a few jokes here and there. Rene, aged 24, turned out to be studying Economics but he’d lost a job recently so he’d had to give up his University for the time being due to lack of finance... but he didn’t sound very depressed about that.

Before I signed off, I mentioned it to him that if he had any questions on Islam, I’d be pleased to provide him an authentic answer, inshAllah. And so, my first chat with Rene was quite exhilarating, as I was really not prepared to talk to someone like him! I mean, he’s quite a weird person... the typical anti-Islam Non-Muslim in some respects but totally unexpected in others! For example, at Orkut, he’d inserted two Arabic words with his nickname so I asked him about their meaning. He didn’t want to translate them for me, as, according to him, it wasn’t something good. I asked him anyway, and really, it was far from decent. He expected some anger from me probably but again, I told him I was bound by tolerance.

‘Truly hope you have no hard feelings at all with my disrespect to others
Muslims,’ he said.

What do you make of a person like that?

Well, I wish to write more but a blog entry shouldn’t become cumbersome to read. I’m definitely going to be posting a lot more about Rene’, inshAllah. This was just the beginning – I’ve chatted with him two more times and we entered the topic of Islam with a big bang... not really how I’d hoped but I suppose when you talk to young Non-Muslims, they’ve got typical questions on Islam that, like it or not, have to be addressed.

I’m thinking of posting our chats on a geocities personal site constructed for this very purpose, what do you think about that? I would have to edit them, though, to keep them decent enough to read. Then, you can give in your ideas too, to have a share in the Da’waa process, inshAllah! (This is so exciting!)

For the next post on Rene’s very interesting chats, stay tuned! Salam alaikum!