I would love to say that our trip to the mosque was insightful, but if I did it would not be entirely truthful. Though I did learn some new information I would be hard pressed to pass a test if we were to be quizzed over the fieldtrip. Most of the information that I have retained from this class was information I had learned last year in my comparative world religions class. The Imam was so excited about his religion that he spoke a million words a minute in an attempt to teach us all about Islam and break down the stereotypes we might have had in only ninety minutes. For instance he would talk about all of the languages he had learned and that would spark a discussion about how he memorized the Qur’an in Arabic at age 9. Though this is beyond impressive, he did not return to the original conversation about the languages he knows. He did this on two other specific occasions: once when he was talking about the three holy cities, I never learned the third holy city because Jerusalem sparked another discussion; also when he was talking about Muhammad’s wives he said that Muhammad had two wives but the Imam spoke so much about the first wife and the idea of being polygamous, he forgot to mention the second.
I definitely enjoyed how excited and in love with his religion the Imam was, I wish that everyone was as passionate about something. However, I did feel like a few of his comments showed that he was accepting of other religions but not accepting of those who are not religious. I am not a religious person and so I felt like he was trying to push Islam and almost said that it was the only correct religion. As Bri mentioned in class, it would have been interesting to speak to some one who left Islam and hear their opinion on the religion. Being a non-religious person put me at an advantage, I feel, because I was able to learn about Islam without being bias and disagreeing with the differences between religions.
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