Hamza Tzortis – A Western Convert to Islam
Historically the West has always been firmly opposed to Islam. This is because of the strong Christian Tradition of the West. Unfortunately, the strength of the faith in the West is a mere shadow of its former self. I’ve never met a Western convert to Islam before but there are Western converts. Having reflected on the arguments for Islam and Christianity, I find the arguments for Islam to be overall very weak. The Islamic sources show a very poor understanding of the two religions that it’s trying to usurp.
What would attract a Westerner to convert? I’m talking about a real conversion here, not someone going through a ceremony to please the parents of their new spouse. I’m talking about a true conversion of conviction. I think that Islam is attractive to Western converts because it shows strength. Islam in the eyes of the West looks strong and purposeful.
In looking at this, I can’t applaud Islam but I have to criticize the Church. Christians have become such cowards in the face of secular culture. It’s very depressing when social issues come up because we always hear that it’s not up to us to judge. In the next breath these liberals will be judging someone else and think nothing of it. Where is the courage?
The two sources for the Christian faith are Scripture and Tradition. Anyone who is firmly grounded in both of these will have a strong faith. It’ll be a faith with conviction.
Today many self professed Christians are reading garbage like Joel Osteen and trash by Fr. James Martin. This has nothing to do with Scripture and Tradition. The writings of the era from 1000-1300 AD are what we need to read.
The West has no purpose either. When a youth embraces a zealous form of Islam, he has a purpose. He needs to engage in Dawah and show that Islam is the true faith. He can tell Westerners that Islam is the answer to all the woes of the West and I think that even most secularists will admit that the West is in trouble.
He can also outwardly show his faith in several ways. He can grow his beard and dress in Islamic garb. This can be very satisfying because it gives them the feeling of opposing the decadent West.
Ultimately, the strong look of Islam would not be apparent if the Church was strong. As someone who has studied Church history, I marvel at the strength of the Christian faith over it’s 2,000 year history. It’s been firm, strong, and uncompromising in Truth. It has had down times. In the year 1000 AD the Church was a mess. Western Europe was a mess, the Pope just sat in Rome as the Bishop and wasn’t really fulfilling his role as leader. The Priesthood was in shambles, and extremely disorganized. Many other problems were present but God showed His love for the Christian faith by giving the Church the reformed Popes. Popes like Leo IX, Alexander II, and most of all Gregory VII.
Right now the Church is in need of a new set of reform Popes. Popes that will firmly restore the Christian faith to its proper place in society and the world. Once this happens, Islam won’t look that strong in the eyes of the West. We all need to pray for a swift arrival of these Popes.
From my point of view one of the most depressing things of modern times is how people fail to apply reason and good sense to their view of the world. It amazes and saddens me that educated Westerners can be duped into becoming Muslims.
It is true that Western Christendom needs a renewal of confidence in our faith. Nevertheless the Papacy could make a start in meeting the great challenges of our age by revising its attitude to Islam which appears to be very conciliatory.
The Roman Catholic Church states:
(Catechism 841) The Church’s relationship with the Muslims.
“The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
I note that it mentions Muslims rather than Islam or Mohammedanism. This is a very generous attitude to take, recognising that in every age and in every nation men have sought after God. The catechism does acknowledges the desire of Muslims to know the Divine but quite properly does not recognise the religion of the false prophet Mohammed.
However in my view the papacy tend to be too diplomatic and accommodating towards a religion that is opposed to Christianity. I know it isn’t easy to strike the right balance but Islam’s foundational scripture denies the very basis of Christianity, namely the Divine nature of Jesus Christ, His death on a cross and His resurrection. Islam goes out of its way to deny Jesus Christ and His Gospel. That being so there is nothing to be gained by dialogue and supposed inter-faith understanding. Islam is based upon lies. The papacy needs to show the courage to confront Islam.
Hi Patrick,
“From my point of view one of the most depressing things of modern times is how people fail to apply reason and good sense to their view of the world. It amazes and saddens me that educated Westerners can be duped into becoming Muslims.”
You hit the nail on the head. You could not be more correct. Reason is not applied because people in the West don’t know how to think. I learned to think rationally after high school and University because they don’t teach it at all. The Christians who embrace Islam I’ve noticed have long left orthodoxy. In other words, they’ve been snowed by Raymond Brown or Bart Ehrman and are depressed. When they find Islam they can be a conservative again without that same cognitive dissidence that they had. It’s unfortunate that they didn’t encounter good apologetics first.
I find it really discouraging that the Church produces documents like CCC 841 which is a direct quote from Vatican II. Personally I think it’s an insult to all of the Popes, Saints, and martyrs fought against Islam. Similar things can be said about concessions to Judaism.
I think that the last three Popes have not been spiritual leaders but politicians. It’s very sad. Until the Papacy is restored to its former glory, every Catholic needs to do their part. Study Scripture and Tradition, pray the rosary, etc.
You also said:
“That being so there is nothing to be gained by dialogue and supposed inter-faith understanding.”
That is 100% correct. It’s so obvious as well and the reason people can’t see it is because they can’t use reason as you’ve pointed out.
Thanks for commenting and God Bless.
I was in contact with an Muslim Student Association that affiliated with some leftist campus groups. I wonder what was their conversion rate among the people with leftist orientation to Islam. You seem that it is mostly disillusioned religious conservatives that are receptive to it. I think that the latter would just become salafis, the former probably focuses more on political activism, particularly Palestine and opposing anti-Muslim tends among conservatives. One Muslim woman (from Syria) told me that most male Muslims are not that active against US foreign policy and other progressive issues.
I know about three women that did convert. And two don’t wear hijab.
—
Islam is weak and pathetic, and most Muslims know that. Muslim countries don’t have ICBMs and most are practically pawns of the US State Department. Islam is NOT strong. In contrast, the Christian West is strong. They have nuclear weapons and a helluva lot of supercarriers.
Perhaps, you should be a Marxist and realize that those things do not serve “Christendom” but rather a class within the West. If those things do not serve a narrow class, then what does it serve? Why do Christians feel so alienated when they have nuclear weapons and a bunch of supercarriers?
Hello Latias,
Thanks for your input on the Western converts. I remember the MSA when I went to University though I believe I only talked to them once and I didn’t get too deep because I didn’t know much at that time.
In regards to your last two paragraphs, I agree. Islam doesn’t pose a physical threat or an intellectual threat. The only thing that it has is numbers and some oil money.
Why do you call the West Christian though? Western governments are anything but friendly to Christianity and don’t care about its interests.
Do you think Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, and Theresa May think of Christian interests when they form their domestic or foreign policy? Not a chance!
Allan,
I honestly don’t believe the genuine left has any real political power either. If it did, then the US would be more friendly towards communist states, and a lot more people would be sympathetic to Marxism. Anti-communism is prevalent.
I will reiterate: the West is strong. It has nuclear weapons, conventional military power, and diplomatic power to issue sanctions on nations it does not like.
Many Christians and Catholics associate themselves with the agenda of the US foreign policy establishment, such as supporting Israel, supporting NATO, opposing Russia, China, and Iran, opposing Venezuela.
Many Catholics support the criminal fascists on the Maidan (in Kyiv) and the subsequent illegitimate government that was endorsed by the West. That government is vehemently anti-communist.
Interestingly, the MSA that I encountered last semester had three young woman who were international relations majors that were opposed to Western foreign policy. One, who doesn’t wear a hijab, was the vice president and became sympathetic to Marxism (in general) in college. (She is not the person that I made the comment about the men, since that person was not an international relations student). I hadn’t seen anything like this among any Christians. (And since those people left, it also seems rare among Muslims, too.)
I already provided an answer to the notion that the West isn’t Christian. This could be understood by adopting a Marxist perspective of class dynamics. It is simply that the West governance is dominated by the bourgeois class, and its policies reflect their interest. It is a more simple and elegant answer than posing imaginary maladies such as “cultural Marxism”. Marxism is a theory about the modes of production in a society and relations of power that emanate from the relationship of the classes to the modes of production. The Marxist-Leninists that I know wouldn’t want to be associated with “cultural Marxism”. “Cultural Marxism” isn’t Marxism at all.
You would have to be deluded to think that all that power I referenced is used in service of Marxism or some leftist agenda.
—
I wouldn’t underestimate the theological allure of Islam. The President (who wears hijab) said that at one point she was an atheist, but she re-embraced Islam because it is a religion where one pray directly to God and receive his blessings with the intercession of clerical authority. (Yes, she specially emphasized the lack of clerical authority, and saw it as a personal religion.) One, in contrast, could became disillusioned with corrupt clerical power.
Islam, at least in more liberal domains, allows a wide range of theological freedom. If you are conservative, just be a salafi and rigorously lower your gaze among the opposite sex and don’t touch them. If you are more leftist, you could have some limited physical contact with the opposite sex, and focus your attention on foreign policy issues that affect Muslims. For both, just don’t drink alcohol or eat pork, and at least try to adhere to salat., and pay zakat if you have enough money.
I actually think hijab is not strongly correlated with liberal/conservative orientation. It is more related to taqwa (fear of God) than any political orientation.
Hi Latias,
I have to say, thank you for taking an interest in my blog. Feel free to subscribe to get my posts emailed to you. You sound like quite an interesting person. I do talk about Islam quite a bit and I take a different approach than most Traditional Christians and apologists. I’m actually going to do a post soon on how much power Islam wields. Stay tuned.
You’ve got quite a lot here. I don’t want to respond to all of it but I’ll share with you some of my thoughts.
“I honestly don’t believe the genuine left has any real political power either. If it did, then the US would be more friendly towards communist states, and a lot more people would be sympathetic to Marxism. Anti-communism is prevalent.”
Well, I would agree in regards to the political left but the cultural left wields a lot of power unfortunately. I also agree with you that the West is strong, the only thing I’ve disputed is that Western governments are influenced by Christianity when they engage in foreign or domestic policy. It’s usually for their own self interest and those who fund them like the military industrial complex.
You bring up certain policies and regimes that Catholics have supported. According to Wikipedia, there are 1.285 billion Catholics in the world. They live in different countries, cultures, with different customs and speak different languages. They all come from different social economic backgrounds. I’m not responsible for any of them. I’m only responsible for what I say and I try to derive all my views from Scripture, Tradition, and Catholic Social Teaching. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them in regards to those topics.
Thanks for sharing regarding theological freedom. I’ve only been to two Muslim countries(Albania and Kosovo) and they’re both super liberal. I have family and friends who have been to more but I don’t think they’ve been to any religious Muslim countries.