by Balqees Mohammed

Created on: March 03, 2010

Whenever anyone mentions the word ‘relationship’, it brings with it connotations of love as well as personal. We hear much from the Christians about their relationship with God, in that it involves love, and is something quite personal. For a Muslim, however, not only does the relationship consist of love going both ways, but it is balanced out by a degree of fear, coupled with the hope of mercy, all based upon a faith which is in turn based upon knowledge. Quite different from the Christian faith, which in the end demands for a faith not based upon knowledge, but a blind faith based upon an illogical doctrine, called the trinity.

Although any person’s relationship with God is indeed personal, still for a Muslim, it becomes a thing of public awareness because of the very nature of the religion of Islam, that it involves our interactions with not only the rest of humanity, but the world as a whole, for we (humans) have been designated as Allah’s vicegerents on this earth, physical representatives of His, charged with the care and upkeep of this world during our tenure in this earthy life. God has give us, through the Quran and the example set forth for us by Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, directives on how to interact with all of this creation so as to attain His pleasure and blessings. Hence, the Muslim’s relationship with Allah becomes a matter of public knowledge and awareness, as well as a very personal tie between us personally and our Creator.

Having come from a Christian upbringing myself, and then later turning finally to Islam in my early adulthood, I have a firm grasp on each of the two religions and what is preached and expected by both. I experienced first hand the many variations or stages that Christianity went through in the 60’s and 70’s, ultimately culminating in the hugging culture which is still current in today’s world, that one must hug another to prove their love for them, regardless of the sex of the other person, or their religious preference, or their color or their nationality or even their relation or state of non-relation. This is, of course, something completely foreign to Islamic teachings, which direct us to keep from physical contact with people of the opposite sex unless there is some blood or marital tie that permits this type of physical connection.

If one were to go on this basis of the largely Christian practice of showing love by hugging, then one must eventually

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