If I Should Speak

by Umm Zakiyyah

  But it made sense!

  No, no, she fought herself. What was she thinking? Didn’t she want to go to Heaven?

  Makisha was right. But still, this book…

  Tamika found another “Jesus” reference.

  In blasphemy indeed are those who say that God is Christ the son of Mary.

  Tamika’s heart pounded fiercely, the night suffocating her, blaming her.

  Her heart fell. There was no way to deny it. She was guilty.

  This book! What was it saying to her? About her?

  Say, “Who then has the least power against God, if His Will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother and all—everyone that is on the earth?”

  Her hands shook holding the book as the question engulfed her. Who would have power against God if He did that?

  But wait… What was she thinking? Jesus was God, wasn’t he? But then, didn’t God create Jesus? And certainly, anything He created He could destroy? But then…no. But well… yes—no!

  But…

  For to God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He creates what He pleases. For God has power of all things.

  He has power of all things. Yes, this was true. This was definitely true. She could not deny it.

  (Both) the Jews and the Christians say, “We are sons of God, and His beloved.”

  Yes, this was true. Children of God. It was in the Bible...

  Say, “Why then does He punish you for your sins?”

  Why? Tamika did not know.

  But Jesus died for her sins!

  ...Or did he?

  Nay, ye are but men—of the men He hath created.

  Was Tamika not merely a human, a creation of God? Couldn’t He punish her if He wished? And she had done a lot to deserve punishment—the alcohol, the boyfriends… But that was all over now. She had left all of that...after being born again. Saved.

  But still, she had done it. Guilt still haunted her...

  What was she saying? Jesus died for her! She was forgiven for everything! Saved!

  ...Or was she?

  He forgives whom He pleases and He punishes whom He pleases.

  That included her!

  Suddenly, Tamika felt weak, helpless.

  And to God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and all that is between. And unto Him is the final goal (of all) .

  Unto Him is the final goal. Final. The word was so…final. What if she were wrong? What if everything she had been told was a mistake? A lie? A lie! Not possible.

  Final.

  But if it was wrong? Then, when she died it would be over for her.

  Final.

  No turning back.

  Final.

  No asking for another turn!

  Final.

  No saying she didn’t know.

  Final.

  Because she did know!

  Final.

  But no, no… Why?

  Why! It couldn’t be. Not this religion of oppressed women!

  Final.

  Not the religion her preacher mocked.

  Final.

  Not the religion her mother laughed at.

  Final.

  Not the religion Makisha warned her about!

  Final.

  But what if…?

  No!

  But what if…?

  It couldn’t be! Not possible!

  But what if she was wrong? Dead wrong?

  What would she do when she died?

  Final.

  O Lord!

  Tamika felt her body shaking. Trembling. She could barely lift the book to return it to its place. The holy book. The true book.

  No!

  The book, that book…

  Tamika needed to rest, clear her head. She was tired, delirious. Makisha! Mom!

  What time was it?

  An alarm sounded.

  Alarm? But it couldn’t be morning! Had she been here that long?

  The sound of movement in the bedroom.

  The alarm ceased.

  Tamika tried to quickly return the Qur’an to its place.

  But it was too late.

  “What are you doing up?” the sleepy voice asked her, eyes blinking, struggling to wake. Her roommate had been about to go to the bathroom. Why did she have to glance in the living room?

  Oh. The light.

  “Uh…” Tamika stuttered a reply. Aminah’s hair was uncovered and disheveled, and her gaze fell to the book in Tamika’s hands.

  Tamika was guilty.

  Her roommate smiled.

  A groan. She had not wanted anyone to see her.

  Aminah walked over to her, pleased. “So you read it?”

  Tamika forced a smile. She was not in the mood for friendly conversation. She shrugged. “A little.”

  “That’s good.” Aminah, now standing over Tamika, stole a glance at the page, nodding approvingly. “You understand everything?”

  Understand? She was overwhelmed. She could not even think straight. “Pretty much.” She paused, avoiding Aminah’s gaze. “I mean, I have a few questions, but it was pretty, uh…clear.”

  A nod. “That’s good.” She started to walk away.

  Good. Relief.

  “Feel free to ask,” she told Tamika before disappearing into the bathroom and closing the door.

  Tamika could have kicked herself. How could she be so careless? So stupid? She should have waited until she was home alone. But the curiosity… Why couldn’t she have been more patient?

  Water was running in the bathroom.

  Tamika figured she should leave the living room while she still had the chance. Quickly, she put the Koran back in its place on the stand and stood.

  Then it hit her. She had not slept. How could she go to classes today! What was wrong with her! Perhaps she would sleep. Perhaps? She had to sleep. She had no choice. She hated to miss classes again, but she was not one to push herself beyond her limits. She had never even pulled an all-nighter for a test!

  But she had while reading the Koran.

  But why? How? Why had she been so drawn to the book? And why hadn’t she noticed the time? What time was it when she had gotten up in the first place? She had no idea.

  Tamika yawned, growing tired all of a sudden. She was too exhausted to think about anything else. Her mind needed rest. She needed rest. Stretching, she dragged herself to her room and climbed into bed.

  Chapter Four

  “I guess my first question is what exactly is Islam and how is it different from Christianity?” Tamika inquired that evening, seated on the couch a few feet from Aminah. Dee stood leaning lazily against one side of the kitchen doorway, listening and eating from a bag of chips. Aminah and Dee had finished praying a few minutes before, which sparked Tamika’s curiosity again, reminding her of the religion paper and note cards she needed to do. After missing her classes that day, Tamika was inspired to do well in her courses, fearing that her absences would greatly affect her grade. When Dr. Sanders had called early that afternoon while she was sleeping, inquiring if everything was okay, she was mortified, and felt even worse. But now she was determined to do better.

  “Well,” Aminah replied, considering the question. She no longer covered her hair in her room, Tamika had noticed, most likely because Tamika had accidentally seen her hair uncovered on several occasions, and she was now accustomed to Aminah’s appearance without the head covering. “Islam literally means submission or surrender,” she explained, “but in the religious sense its complete, voluntary submission to God alone. It’s different from Christianity mainly in its concept of God. In Islam God, or Allah in Arabic, is the Creator, and everything else is creation. And these two, Creator and creation, are separate and never overlap, in that the Creator is not creation, half-man, half-God, or anything like that, nor does the creation share any attributes of the Creator. In other words, there is the Creator and the created, period.

  “But,” Aminah continued, her soft voice rising, showin
g a command of the subject, “in Christianity, God is viewed as Creator and created at the same time. So the notion of half-man, half-God is a possibility for Christians, in that a person who is created can also be the Creator. Of course the best example of this is of the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, whom the Christians look at as God and the son of God, while still accepting that he’s man.” She raised her eyebrows and shook her head as if it made no sense to her. “But anyway, in Islam, we don’t believe creation procreates with God.”

  “Christians don’t believe creation procreates with God,” Tamika interjected defensively, momentarily forgetting that this was an interview for her research paper.

  “But,” Aminah blinked, green eyes on Tamika, “don’t you believe Jesus is God’s son?”

  “Yes, but not like that,” Tamika retorted defensively. Her face contorted in abhorrence of Aminah’s implying that Christians believed in God procreating.

  “Then what makes him God’s son?”

  “He didn’t have a father,” she emphasized.

  “But think about it,” Dee interrupted, crunching on her chips, walking into the living room, inviting herself into the conversation. “You say God does not procreate,” she gestured with her hand, a chip waving in the air between her fingers, “but then you say He has a son.” She shook her head, forcing a chuckle. “Then how does He have a son?”

  Tamika felt suffocated by the roommates. She was outnumbered. She groaned and rolled her eyes. “It’s not that kind of son.”

  “Then what kind of son is it?” Dee inquired, appearing to be taking pleasure in Tamika’s frustration.

  Before Tamika could respond, Aminah cut in. “Anyway,” she said, her voice calm and diplomatic, apparently sensing what was about to happen. “God says in the Qur’an that the similitude of Jesus before God is that of Adam, who He created from dust and said ‘Be’ and he was. So that shows us that even if a person has no father, this does not make him God or the son of God, because then that would make Adam the son of God too. And, anyway, Muslims believe God does whatever He wants and says, ‘Be’ and it happens.”

  Just then Tamika remembered reading about that. Hm. That was something to think about. Then how was it that Jesus was God’s son? “It’s just in the spiritual sense, not literal,” she explained more for her benefit than her roommates’.

  “But then that makes us all God’s children, wouldn’t it?” Dee argued, still smiling, irritating Tamika, who wished she would just leave it alone. “I mean, if it’s not literal and you don’t mean God procreated with anyone, God forbid, then what makes Jesus so special?”

  Tamika started to say something.

  “But another major difference between the two religions,” Aminah interrupted, intentionally redirecting the conversation back to Tamika’s paper, “is that Muslims believe in God’s last prophet and messenger, Muhammad, peace be upon him.”

  Tamika was grateful for the redirection of the conversation, internally sighing relief. “So Muhammad is like your savior?”

  “No, no, no,” Aminah replied, shaking her head emphatically, chuckling and gesturing with her hand. “Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him, was simply a man, a prophet and messenger, with no power to save anyone. He was here to convey to humans the Qur’an, God’s last book, and to show us how to live by that book, and we call his example the Sunnah.”

  Tamika nodded. “I see,” she said, jotting down notes in her notebook, comfortable that the tension was now gone. “So you don’t believe he died for your sins like Christians view Jesus?”

  “No, not at all. And,” Aminah added, “we actually don’t even believe Jesus died.”

  Tamika jerked her head in surprise, now staring at her roommate. “You don’t?”

  “We believe that he was not crucified and that God raised him up, body and all, and he will return as a sign of the Day of Judgment.”

  “You don’t believe he was crucified?”

  Aminah smiled and calmly shook her head. “God made it appear like that to the people though.”

  Tamika was still staring, confused. “But you do believe he’s returning.”

  “Yes, at the end of time, and he will rule by Islamic law.”

  “He will?” What was Tamika saying? She knew that she should not pay any attention to this information.

  “Yes, he will.”

  Really? She sat thinking about it for a moment. “So, he’s still alive then?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Where?”

  Aminah shrugged. “We just know that God raised him up and that he has not yet died.”

  “Oh.” Tamika was amazed, having never heard this information before. “So it just looked like he was crucified?”

  Aminah nodded. “Yes.”

  They were silent momentarily.

  “Did you have any other questions?”

  “But how can you think that?” Tamika asked, realizing something suddenly. “He had to be crucified, because he died for us, and that’s why he came.”

  Aminah smiled, still calm, confident. She shook her head gently, as if correcting a child. “We don’t believe that’s why he came.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “But he died for our sins so we can go to Heaven,” Tamika told her. “Because he said none can get to the Father but through him.”

  “So,” Dee interrupted again, asking incredulously, paraphrasing for Tamika, grinning and disbelieving that Tamika actually believed all of this, “you’re saying the entire purpose of Jesus coming was to die for our sins and be our Lord and Savior?”

  “Yes,” Tamika replied emphatically.

  “Okay,” Aminah interrupted, raising her hand to Dee, letting her know she would handle this one. “Do you believe in the prophets like Noah, Abraham, and Moses and that they were sent by God to their people?”

  “Of course,” Tamika responded. “That’s in the Bible.”

  “And what’s the purpose of a prophet?”

  “To deliver God’s message to their people,” she replied simply.

  “Then what do you believe was the message of those prophets to their people?”

  Tamika wrinkled her forehead, not understanding the relevance of the question. “What do you mean?”

  “What I’m saying is,” Aminah began, “you say you believe in the other prophets and that they were sent by God to their people with a message, and of course, we all can agree that their message was one that was necessary to share with the people so their people could go to Heaven, right?”

  “Of course,” Tamika replied, blinking, trying to figure out where Aminah was heading.

  “But if the only way to Heaven is through Jesus,” Aminah reasoned, “then what was the message of the other prophets who came before Jesus—the message that God told them to tell their people so they could go to Heaven?”

  Oh. Now Tamika understood Aminah’s point. She waved her hand as if it did not matter. “Anyway, they’re not responsible for accepting Jesus because they never knew of him.”

  “But still,” Dee insisted. She chuckled, shook her head, and stared at Tamika, creasing her forehead in apparent dissatisfaction with her response. “God sent the prophets with a message, and, certainly, He told the prophets everything their people needed to know to get to Heaven. So what was it that He told them if Jesus is in fact the only way to Heaven?”

  “Jesus was not there yet, though,” Tamika insisted.

  “But the way to Heaven was,” Dee replied. “I mean,” she said, grinning, “what was that way to Heaven before Jesus?”

  Tamika did not know how to respond.

  “Okay, think about it like this,” Aminah offered. “If you say Jesus said that none shall get to God—we don’t call Him Father—but through him, as a Muslim, I can accept that in principle,” she leveled, ‘‘in that the people during the time of Jesus could not get to God but through him because the only way to Heaven was through following what God
revealed to him. So none of the people of Israel could make up their own religion or turn away from Jesus and think they could go to Heaven. They had to go through Jesus, by worshipping and obeying God as Jesus showed them.”

  It made sense, Tamika could not deny it, but still… But still what? What could she say? “But that’s not what the Bible says.” That was a satisfactory response, wasn’t it?

  “Actually that is what the Bible says,” Aminah corrected

  “Where?” Tamika asked challengingly. She had never heard of such a passage.

  “In John 6:29,” Aminah replied matter-of-factly, shocking Tamika with her knowledge, “where a person is reported as asking Jesus what the work of God requires, and Jesus is reported to have said, ‘The work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent.’” She casually added, “You can also read Exodus 20 verses three and four and Exodus 34 verse fourteen, where it proves Jesus can’t be God.”

  Aminah went on, “So that shows that the way to Heaven has always been to believe in God’s prophets. And, by following them—or through them, if you wish to call it that—you go to Heaven.”

  Speechless, Tamika said nothing. She did not even recall reading the passages. But if they were actually in the Bible, then that was definitely something to think about. But she would have to check later to make sure they were actually there because she could not just go on what Aminah was saying.

  “But anyway, the point is that in Islam, the message of God does not change. We don’t believe that originally the way to Heaven was to worship the Creator and follow His messengers and now the way to Heaven is to worship His creation, whereas that was the way to Hell before.” Aminah shook her head at the confusion.