A Strange Thing Happened Last Spring...

All photos courtesy islamfact.com

Firstly, to all muslims: If I misquote or misrepresent the Koran or Islam in any way, please correct me. I will change those sentences immediately (I know how important that is).

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Last March I went to a lecture given by an ex-music minister from Houston, Texas, who later coverted to Islam. I went to all three of his lectures and was invited to visit him at a private party after (they really liked my questions after the lecture). I had a great time at these lectures and met a lot of new friends and Yusuf Estes taught a lot of essential info about Islam that many Westerners do not understand. I had a number of questions after these lectures. I kept the questions simple and stayed away from old arguments as they would lend nothing to the process.

Question No 1. There was a guy up on stage earlier (an Englishman) who had just converted to Islam. He appeared to go through some sort of emotional change during the "swearing in" (for lack of a better word). My question was: Christians also go through such an emotional change during the point at which they are saved, what is the difference between Christian salvation and Islamic salvation?

Answer: According to Muslims, you are not connected to God through another being (ie: Jesus). Instead, you are connected directly to God (Allah). This was a very short trip to a very long answer which Estes tried to explain...

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Question 2: If I remember, this question was regarding original sin and how Muslims find absolution of that sing.

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Answer: Muslims do not believe in original sin. They believe strongly in staying out of sin as much as possible and then putting the rest on the mercy of Allah. (I imagine this is why it is so important to stick to to the 5 pillars).

Question 3: I had a very hard time finding a bible in Muscat to look up something. At Borders, I was told that they were not allowed to sell Bibles. Apparently this is not a law. I later found out that bibles were sold at several stores, but (silly me) they are in Arabic! But my question was: It seems to me that the most faithful person will be the one who has read two books and made his mind up about both (holding up a copy of the bible and a copy of the Koran). It seems to me that it would be best to teach both books rather than just one and a very slanted or non-existent view of the other (certainly America is no better at this).

Answer: You can buy bibles anywhere in Oman. They teach bible in Oman.

What a picture! All I need is a quarter staff and a monk's robe!

Question 4: If choosing to be a muslim is something of that should be done of free will, why is it a death sentence to leave Islam?

Answer: Yusuf says it is not a death sentence to leave Islam (I have higher sources to the contrary). But the death sentence was set up to prevent non-muslim terrorists from sneaking into mosques and killing everyone (it happened a few times back when this rule was written). The rule is not in the Koran.

Final comments were a compliment to Yusuf on his lectures, an appology for being mistaken about bibles in Oman and a final greeting and handshake.

Yusuf shook hands with me and showed everyone that Christians also believe in telling the truth. He pronounced me "Brothers Through the God of Abraham".

It's funny... After the second speech I was sort of surrounded by guys in white turbans and long beards, but in friendship. They sort of gave me the Islamic version of what Christians call "The laying on of hands..." I had a lot of people talking to me. I had a lot of guys asking me questions... I got invited to a dinner with that Yusuf Estes guy.... That was an experience! It was at somone's mansion.

Omani houses have two entrances, the men's and the women's. My wife had to go through a different entrance. When I came into the men's entrance, Yusuf was sort of sitting in a central chair and talking to everyone through a microphone (it was a VERY big house belonging to someone famous). When he saw me walk in, he jumped to his feet and shouted "Paul's here! Allah Akhbar!" ... Which was followed by about a hundred guys in white turbins shouting "ALLAH AKHBAR! ALLAH AKHBAR!" over and over and I had to shake about a hundred hands and return a hundred smiles... It was pretty intimidating. After all that, I decided to keep a low profile. The ladies around the women's entrance asked my wife who she was. She said, "I'm famous Paul's wife!"

The end result was that it got my wife and I down to our own church (Generic Protestant) on sunday - which we hadn't attended in ... well never.... Yusuf pinned down a guy at the party and I was stumped at any means to defend him... Ofcourse, five minutes online and I was shouting "I should have said that! I should have said that!" So I decided that I had to get my head back in the game.

Muslims take their beliefs VERY seriously. There's no room for argument or jokes with anyone but your closest friends.

Like I said, I didn't want to be famous, so I laid low and let the attention go away. Every once in awhile. Someone comes up to me in a shopping mall and wants to shake my hand because he saw me at the Yusuf Estes lectures...

Yusuf is an evangelist minister, converted to Islam, so he uses all the evangelical chrisma that he picked up as a Christian, but under a different religion. People call him "The Funny Sheik".

Here's a sample of Yusuf in action.