Ajmal Masroor
Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism does not come as a surprise to anyone but I would have liked him to turn to Islam instead.
| This could be because the author is a Muslim, but at least he tries to give a few reasons for his preference in a matter that's none of his damned business. |
Blair has claimed on many occasions that he has read the Quran and has said he found its teachings "progressive".
| I haven't read the Koran. I started reading it when I was a young fellow and laid it down because it was a hopeless hodgepodge with no internal consistency. I was assured that it made sense in Arabic. I believed that until I learned a bit more about linguistics and translation, to whit, that while the translation may lack the poetry of the original, even a minimally competent translation will in fact reflect whether or not the original idea made sense. I'm assuming Blair is being polite when he describes the Koran as "progressive." |
He is right that the Quran is progressive and as a revealed book of God, it is the latest testament.
| Only if you accept that it's a work that's revealed by God. My opinion is that if it was revealed by God it would have made sense, regardless of which language it was presented in. |
Why would Blair turn to the older versions of God's testament when there is the Quran?
| Probably because he regards it as authentic, or representative of the culture he grew up in, or worthwhile, or some combination of the three. |
His conversion sounds rather regressive to me.
| We've said similar things about Muslims here, regarding them as stuck some time in the 7th century A.D. |
Different denominational churches within Christianity are part of the same house. If the Church of England was not providing our former prime minister with spiritual fulfilment changing to another denomination within the same house surely will not make substantial difference.
| I'm not an expert on the Church of England. I leave that to Chris Johnson. I do know a little bit about Protestantism, having read some of Wesley's sermons and some Knox, and I know a bit about Catholicism, having read some of the usual authors, starting with the Baltimore Catechism. I suspect that's more than Ajmal Masroor has done. That's why all Christian denominations look alike to him. I can't speak for Blair, but I suspect that the Church of Rome, still giving regular consideration to matters of sin and redemption, defining good and evil, and the continuity and brotherhood of not only the world's largest Christian denomination, but of the mass, celebrated every day since the Acts of the Apostles, hold more for him than the diluted skim milk and incessant infighting offered by Archbishop Rowan's Anglicanism. |
If he is looking for reform and spirituality, he should come to Islam.
| If he came to Islam looking for reform he'd no doubt be welcomed with open arms until some takfiri chopped his head off. "Reform" implies innovation, which is a bad word to Salafists. |
Blair has said the Quran strikes him as a reforming book "trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, much as reformers attempted to do with the Christian church centuries later". If he so admires the Quran for its reformist outlook, why turn to Christianity and particularly Catholic Church, which has been plagued with centuries of baggage?
| The temporal church gave us Julian II and the first John XXIII, the sale of indulgences and the suppression of reform as heresy. The spiritual church somehow survived them all and gave us consideration of the elements (admission, contrition, and penance) necessary for the forgiveness of sin. Most importantly, Catholicism is a core of Christianity, the central premise of which is to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and to "love thy neighbor as theyself." Both of these ideas are missing from Islam. |
In an article published by Foreign Affairs early this year, Blair spoke of the Quran as being inclusive.
| So is Christianity. It's always accomodated both master and servant. |
His new Church has been the most exclusive and in the name of its own version of Christianity has murdered and destroyed the lives and properties of many fellow Christians over the years.
| That's that temporal versus spiritual church. I've occasionally used the Papal States an an example of what government shouldn't be. Islam adopts that model by preference, tossing the temporal and the spiritual into the same pot and assuming that holy men are going to be pure enough of heart to administer the state without dipping into the till, much less diving in head first. I'm too polite to point out that Muslims are shooting, booming, chopping, and otherwise bumping each other off both casually and in the name of Olde Tyme Religion each and every day. |
In his role as a Middle East envoy he would have won the hearts and minds of the Muslim world if he had come to Islam.
| He'd also have lost his existing consituency. |
He might have found redemption for his crimes against Iraq and its innocent people.
| Against the innocent Egyptians, Soddies, Syrians, Jordanians, and other riff raff who came swarming in to kill and maim Iraqis regardless of religious stripe, whether Sunni or Shia or Christian or Yezdi? |
His conversion to Catholicism would no doubt remind the Muslim world, especially the Arab world of the history of the Crusades. The blood of millions of people still stain the cobblestones of the Holy Land from the cold-blooded murders committed in the name of Christianity and was blessed by the then Papacy in Rome.
| The Crusades -- the Christian equivalent of holy war -- came about because the Muslim rulers of Jerusalem and the other holy sites were oppressing pilgrims. Given that the Christian world should have refrained from crusading, so also should the Muslim world have confined itself to Arabia, rather than destroying the ancient civilizations of Persia and Egypt and North Africa. Certainly no Moors had any business in Iberia, yet today's turbans make a point of mooning over lost al-Andaluz, where the natives kicked them out. |
According to Blair, Islam "extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition". I agree, but why has he embraced Catholicism with its history of hostility towards science and is embedded with superstition? If Jesus (may peace be on him) was to descend today and walk into a church he would not recognise anything that Christians are practising in his name. So why then convert to Catholicism?
| If Christ were to walk into a mosque I doubt he'd be very happy at all. I believe he mentioned a time or two that it takes more than the mere forms of worship. For all the head banging and butt waving of Islam, there's precious little of that "love thy neighbor" to be found, and even when it's found, thy neighbor had better be a Muslim, otherwise his worldly goods are there to be despoiled. |
Blair was very clear in his words when he said Islam "is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance".
| Its time, on the other hand, was the 7th century. In the 7th century King Alfred hadn't yet had his cakes. |
If Islam is a religion that values family and respects women why has he converted to a church that prohibits its priests from getting married, whose holy man are dogged by accusations of homosexuality and paedophilia?
| The Roman church -- unlike the Orthodox -- adheres to priestly celibacy. Those indulging in homosexuality or pedophilia are violating their office, much as are Muslim holy men when they bugger their madrassah students. The difference is that the church doesn't threaten to murder those bringing the charges, as the ulema occasionally does. |
Blair certainly admires Islam. He said "under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands were breathtaking. Over centuries, Islam founded an empire and led the world in discovery, art, and culture." If I admired a faith so much I would convert to it.
| Maybe he admires the accomplishments of his own society more? Islam ceased leading the world in discovery, art and culture. It was the West that picked up that ball as a byproduct of separating religion from government and commerce. Within a few years Islam had been left in the dust as the West discovered concepts like individual liberty that Islam still hasn't picked up on. |
So I am baffled to know why he has converted to Catholicism and not embraced Islam. Islam certainly stands for tolerance and demonstrates this by giving a special status to the Christians and Jews calling them people of the Book - Ahl al-Kitab.
| And by having olde sayings like "O Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me. Come and kill him." |
Christianity does not do the same. Blair reminded us that "the standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones". Yes, but why has Mr Blair converted to Catholicism? Surely he stands for tolerance, progress and good governance.
| Prob'ly because it's not the early Middle Ages anymore, at least not in the West. |
And finally I have one last question for Blair. Did you not say "the faith of Islam is very peaceful and a very beautiful faith"? Why have you not tried Islam?
| Maybe because if you try it and discover you don't like it they kill you when you try to leave. |
I do not want to dismiss your journey to spirituality, but it is not too late to try Islam - you may like it. |