Trusting sources
People keep asking me what led me to study Islam. I keep telling the story a bit differently, depending on what memory or part of the story comes to mind first. What I never got to mention was this; I had read a passage in a novel that made me reconsider what I had accepted as facts in the world:
…
“But the thing is, boys don’t like girls who are too smart.”
Sarah’s eyebrows went up. “Is that so?”
“Well, that’s what everybody says…”
“Like who?”
“Like my mom.”
“Uh-huh. And she probably knows what she’s talking about.”
“I don’t know, Kelly admitted. “My mom only dates jerks, actually.”
“So she could be wrong?” Sarah asked, glancing up at Kelly as she tied her laces.
“I guess.”
“Well, in my experience, some men like smart women, and some don’t. It’s like everything else in the world.” She stood up. “You know about George Schaller?”
“Sure. He studied pandas.”
“Right. Pandas, and before that, snow leopards and lions and gorillas. He’s the most important animal researcher in the twentieth century-and you know how he works?”
Kelly shook her head.
“Before he goes into the field, George reads everything that’s ever been written about the animal he’s going to study. Popular books, newspaper accounts, scientific papers, everything. Then he goes out and observes the animal for himself. And you know what he usually finds?”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“That nearly everything that’s been written or said is wrong. Like the gorilla. George studied mountain gorillas ten years before Dian Fossey ever thought of it. And he found that what was believed about gorillas was exaggerated, or misunderstood, or just plain fantasy-like the idea that you couldn’t take women on gorilla expeditions, because the gorillas would rape them. Wrong. Everything… just… wrong.”
Sarah finished tying her boots and stood.
“So, Kelly, even at your young age, there’s something you might as well learn now. All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they tell you will be wrong.”
Kelly said nothing. She felt oddly disheartened to hear this.
“It’s a fact of life,” Sarah said. “Human beings are just stuffed full of misinformation. So it’s hard to know who to believe. I know how you feel.”
…
That’s a passage from The Lost World, by Michael Crichton. I read it when I was 11, and this lesson stayed in my mind for years. Eventually, with Americans going berserk with panic over Muslims, I somehow remembered this moral out of nowhere. I actually went to the library and tried finding books about Islam. In retrospect, nearly everything I learned about Islam and Muslims was exaggerated, or misunderstood, or just plain fantasy. It made it all the more frustrating to explain to people, since they refused to part with those notions.
