Heaven is Full of People
...Who Didn't Get Invited to Parties
Our religion wouldn’t exist today if not for a woman many of our communities would probably overlook. A lot of us wouldn’t think about Hajar on Eid. Many of us wouldn’t include Hajar on the day we celebrate because of Hajar.
Without Hajar, though, there’s no Isma‘il. Without Isma‘il, of course, there’s no Muhammad (may God’s peace and blessings be upon them all). Tomorrow is Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the biggest holiday of the Muslim calendar, and all I can think about who is and isn’t included, what our priorities are, whether faith ever bleeds through my shalwar kamizes, kurtas and thobes, into me, changing me, until I am not myself but who I am meant to be.
I’ve been thinking about this more so than usual, probably because of this Umar Lee post (he’s a Substacker I read regularly—and you should, too):
Sister Nela spent 27 years as a Muslim before returning to the church. Her video testimony on her experience leaving Islam caused somewhat of a stir and was sent to me by several people, because we all know people similar to Nela. I appreciate the fact Sister Nela was courageous enough to share her experience and later take the time to talk to me. She has been nothing but courteous and respectful. I reached out to her with a series of questions after watching her video, because I found her story interesting. But I didn't think the interviewer had enough familiarity and expertise to ask the right questions. His style was more in line with a Speakers Corner or prison library level of discourse.
As you can imagine, there have been lots of responses, lots of thoughts, lots of words, which Umar didn’t just acknowledge:
In the spirit of fairness, I offered Brother Hamzah Raza the opportunity to respond to Nela from a Muslim perspective. Hamzah graduated from Harvard where he trained as a missionary at the most prestigious seminary for Wokeness. After graduation Hamzah opted not to start a nonprofit, gentrify a neighborhood, take a teaching job, become a political activist, or enter the Muslim or South Asian identity rackets. Hamzah headed the other direction and pursued a calling to study Islam at Al Azhar University in Egypt and exchanged one seminary for another. In Egypt Hamzah has dived deep into the study of classical Sunni Islam and the sciences of Sufism as he trains to be an imam.
But the approach Hamzah took is not one I would’ve taken… and in that specific regard, I agree with Umar. I don’t know Hamzah personally, and do not mean this in any spirit of personal criticism, but what Umar’s saying here echoes what we know about why historically most people converted to Islam (and, for that reason alone, why we can expect people to convert out—if we’re not thoughtful):
In his rebuttal to Nela, Hamzah leans heavily into theology. That’s his job as a theologian and the standard response from a Muslim imam. Totally understandable, A Christian pastor would do the same thing to a Muslim convert. However, I don’t believe many really care about theology other than a small subset of men who argue about it online and clerics. In Western societies people convert or stick around because of self-improvement, community, and family. Once they see all three of those areas in decline they may leave. Does a Mormon convert sincerely believe Joseph Smith found some holy tablets in the woods? Or are they more likely just impressed by friendly Mormons and their sense of community? Does a middle-aged convert to the Nation of Islam sincerely believe in “the wheel”, a mad scientist created the White Man, and a man named Wally? Or do they like the sense of self-reliance, pride, and social teachings of the Nation? They'll stay if the experience is good, bounce if the experience is bad, or they may get stuck in a place akin to a loveless marriage. Besides, as Terron Poole and Roxanna Irani repeatedly show us on their brilliant channel, do we really wanna know how the sausage is made? Do we know what's in it? Is the meat even real?
That above could be a khutbah. That should be a khutbah. How many people really and truly embrace a faith because of a reasoned elaboration of its core creed? Now, of course, people should do that (and teach that—hello, Sunday Schooled!) But is that where most people are most of the time?
If your son is looking for a wife, and asks you what to look for, do you really say, “someone grounded in ‘aqidah?” I mean, I’d hope that’s not where you start.
I felt myself deeply and truly sad; I wished a different conversation could have taken place. Not because I believe that that conversations should be transactional—I certainly don’t know Nela, and her decision is hers alone, but I think there’s so much here for us as Muslims to reflect on. To sit with.
To build on.
Cue yet another reason I like to read Umar Lee: Not only does he often tell us things we’d rather not hear, but he preempts many of my own concerns and considerations. Umar’s next post, which I link to directly below, features a one-on-one conversation with one of my favorite American Muslim scholars, Shaykh Ubaydallah Evans, who said what I (at least) needed to hear.
What does this have to do with Hajar (Hagar), may God’s peace be upon her? Just about everything, including Eid.
Yes, I understand theology. Nothing happens without God’s decree and power. But God gives us agency, and commands us to act, and singles out certain individuals for their remarkable courage, charity, decency, humility, or wisdom, and some people have many or even all of these. Hajar is one such intrepid soul, whose place in the world-story of Islam is undeniable, without whose bravery, diligence, steadfastness, and dedication, there would be no Muslims.
Hajar is a foundation-stone of Islam. We can’t all get to hajar al-aswad. But we can all sit with and learn from Hajar, ‘alayha-s-salam.
The part of the story that sits with me these days is above all her concern for the future, her realization that the story doesn’t continue because she continues—the story continues if there’s someone there to continue the story. She wasn’t thinking about herself when she ran between Safa and Marwa, desperate for succor.
She was looking for water for her son.
She was thinking about the future. Hers? Kind of. But also ours. She might have had no idea how enormous the stakes were, but I suspect she kind of did.
Why else would she be in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to be found, except that she was at the center of everything, with everything on the line?
There’s a number of moments, in fact, when the destiny of our faith hangs in the balance, when a single individual makes a fateful choice that changes the direction of our destiny. When the Prophet’s uncle, Hamza, stood up to Abu Jahl, when he said “hit me back if you dare,” when he in fact struck him for the many times Abu Jahl had struck the defenseless and the helpless, and then? Hamza had made it clear that this community would not be stomped upon by a Meccan boot. He changed history.
When ‘Umar felt remorse and shame, and did his ablutions at his sister’s command, and read Qur’an, he changed history.
When ‘Ali agreed to sleep in Muhammad’s place, he changed history. In all of these moments, there was a consciousness of something bigger.
Something bigger than us, individually.
Ali did not lie down in that bed, the night the Prophet emigrated, thinking, what if I die? He knew he might. He didn’t care. Because the only question in his mind was, what if he, peace be upon him, dies? There’s this concern for the future, this understanding that our obligations to each other, our communities, countries, and the cosmos exceeds any concern we can have for ourselves, because life is bigger than each of us and all of us, and without that self-sacrifice, that humility, that willingness to do more, or better, or simply be where we are needed, there would be no Islam.
Is that the difference between the Islam that pulls people in and the Islam that turns people away? That there’s a future in one and nothing but the past in the other—a past we don’t live in, can’t access, and has nothing to offer for our realities?
Islam is about facing what’s here and what’s coming. With wisdom from the past, of course, but the wisdom is timeless, and so it must be renewed and reapplied in every circumstance, whether that’s ancient Bakkah or contemporary Boston.
That’s part of what we celebrate tomorrow, on the Feast of the Sacrifice, and though it doesn’t seem like it right now, given just how many Muslims there are, where we choose to spend our time and energy matters. I’m so disappointed by American Muslims. We have so much wealth, so many resources, so much potential, but I see so little of it mobilized in a direction that can benefit our cities, our country, and our planet. I’m so excited by American Muslims. We have so much faith, so much passion, and so much fidelity, that we are already making impacts, and we can make more.
This Eid, think about our ancestors, yes.
Not just blood-and-soil ancestry, though, or hardly that, coming as this Substack does from the son of immigrants who were themselves the son and daughter of emigrants. But the real kind of ancestry, the one where we honor those who sacrificed for their posterity, where we remember that the Prophet, peace be upon him, honored us as his brothers and sisters, because we believe in him though we have not yet seen him, where we remember that Abraham’s name is venerated, with Hajar’s and Isma‘il’s, in a continent that they had never heard of, in mosques they could not imagine, on an Apple CarPlay or Android Auto they couldn’t have conceived.
Because they cared about the future, a future well beyond one they would live in, because they took what they had—beginning and ending with their lives—and donated it. They were qurbanis, sacrifices, not mindless or feckless, but resolute, resilient, and remarkable. They are our ancestors. They are our strength. They are our models. What kinds of ancestors will we be?
If heaven is full of people, that’s because heaven, and our faith, were made for people. Are our institutions? Are our policies? Are our practices? Nothing of what we have is ours alone. Nothing of what we accomplish comes from us alone. The first responsibility we have is to acknowledge that. But that responsibility is not complete if we do not pass that forward.
To the future.
Eid Mubarak.
In the second half you really speak about how we need to mobilize and make an impact for our community and future generations, similar to the way Hajar AS was trying to find water for her son (who represented the future righteous people). But I’m curious if there are any specific initiatives you want to see from Muslim Americans?
Thanks for this, Haroun, and Eid Mubarak! I also think a lot about why people do/don't convert. People always ask me how I, as a Catholic, can know and love so much about Islam—and even teach an Intro to Islam class—and not have decided to become Muslim myself. I also don't think it's much about belief, or theology, or being 'convinced by the ideas,' so to speak. But rather, Where do I feel most at home? I can love someone else's home—even be envious of it at times!—but it's not my home. In my exploration through Islam, I have realized that Catholicism feels most like home, and one that I would really struggle to leave.