Monkeys!!!

"Monkeys!", she said to me in a tone of utter astonishment. I was engaged in an in depth conversation about the creation of human beings. There are a few students who come to speak with me everyday in the English department, while I conduct my volunteer hours in the English lab. They have taught me a great deal about Islam, for which I am forever grateful. I cherish my conversations with them.

When I explained to her that I'd been taught the scientific theory of evolution, she responded with the previous quote, which was accompanied with a big smile, the type which covers the whole face, one that you simply can't conceal with all your effort. She had given me an article about creation a few days before, and I had read it with much interest. The article explained, with a great deal of scientific support, that humans, or Adam more specifically, were created from clay, by Allah, as the Holy Qur'an clearly states.

The conversation became more and more complex and I look back at it now as one of those exercises that both tests your beliefs and opens your mind to new possibilities. I explained to the students that I didn't feel it was my duty to god to conduct my life in the manner in which I choose to do so, but my duty to humanity. Islam teaches with great respect the ideals of mutual respect and the lifelong goal of serving humanity, things I've always believed strongly in. Our disagreement, or at least my disagreement, is the motivation. I don't feel that humans should need motivation from god to conduct themselves in this manner. We shouldn’t need promises of paradise to treat others how you would want to be treated, at least in my opinion. When I did get my point across to the students, they agreed to a certain extent, and told me that those Muslims who live their lives only with the goal of reaching paradise are not faithful to Allah or his words dictated in the Holy Qur'an. The result of our conversation, besides mutual enlightenment , was that my next article would focus on the idea and motivations of paradise in Islam.

Last night, before I went to sleep, my roommate spoke to me in the darkness of our bedroom. "I dreaming of the Jewish again, they come to my village and invade". He told me how when he was young the Israelis had invaded his village, "truly", and that since then he'd had the same nightmare of the Israelis invading his home and him running to his mother's arms in tears. "I don't know why I dream this", he said to me. "Some things never leave us", I said to him, hoping that my words could help soothe him, but knowing that I would never truly understand the dream that haunts him to this day.