Angry Religious People
Whenever I watch a film or television series where the main protagonist discovered that the said-assailant was person who ‘became religious and hence turn to violence’, a certain kind of emotion comes over me. The same feeling surges whenever I hear someone tell me that I am religious, just because I pray 5 times a day and observe a 30 day fast during the month of Ramadhan.
I can’t quite point what that emotion is. I would feel offended. There is a little bit of pain. I feel some despair. And maybe a tinge of anxiety. Perhaps the reason for that mishmash of emotion is that the notion that when someone becomes religious he or she becomes violent is fallacy. I do not have any evidence to back that up but I have a collection of anecdotes that might assist my opinion. You see, throughout my life, since I was little, I have not met a single person who became religious in my circle who became a violent person. Or for that matter, I have yet to find a religious person so angry with the world. In fact, if a person is still angry at the world despite enrolling oneself into all these religious classes, there is something very wrong with this individual.
I am offended because religious people minimise the ‘worldly’ activities’ and increase their ‘godly activities’. I do not do that. Religious people retreat from the daily society to focus and develop their relationship with god. Just think of a monk and you will get the idea.
One of those religious people is my uncle. Most of his time, when all his familial duties have been carried out, he retreats to his room to dzikir and/or to recite the Quran. Dzikir is an act of remembering god. He would do a chant numerous times quietly in his room. Those spare hours that he has will be allocated to such activities. He doesn’t have time for any forms of social media. Additionally his job is bringing people to Mecca at least 4 times a year, whether for Hajj or Umrah. So in other words, almost 24/7, his time is filled for his devotion to Allah.
Praying five times a day is a compulsory act for a Muslim. If I am religious I will do the extra billions of additional prayers other than the mandated five. So in other words I am offended for all the religious people in the world. What would they think if this punk gets to be called a religious person. Their position as a truly religious person is greatly devalued. For that, I am sorry religious people! I didn’t claim to be one.
Admittedly, I might know a few things about the religion because I have been educated and schooled from I was ye’ high but that does not mean I am religious. Knowledge does not equal the deed. We know many educated people with deep knowledge who have committed bad and evil deeds. And I am not even talking about religious education and knowledge. We know that they have committed those deeds because of their uncontrolled desires and greed. I am not saying that I am of those people even though I have transgressed many times. I have transgressed with full knowledge and without realising it. And because of that, I feel rather disappointed if I were deemed a religious person. Perhaps that is why I feel some kind of despair.
Now back to my uncle.
I rarely see him angry. There was that one time though but that was because I was a naughty 8 year old who deserved it. Otherwise, he always appears contented. I rarely hear him raise his voice over my aunt. In fact they rarely fight. There was a time when they had a serious discussion. But I could not hear anything because they weren’t bickering. It was a sane logical argument about marriage stuffs.
Maybe I don’t know. Maybe I am just a bit thick. Maybe I have been tricked by my surroundings into believing that religious people usually present a calm and stoic demeanour. I should believe what the TV series such as CSI Cyber and Castle says about us. Religious people (let alone Muslims) equals angry-AK47-toting-group-of-people. Or maybe my memory has failed me. But it should not be because I met my religious teachers just a few months ago. They still present the same stoicness as I remember and pictured them. With all that has been mentioned about Muslims in the television, why are they not pissed off? Perhaps we go back to the original conviction. They simply do not care as much as we do about the worldly stuffs.
So if a person say he is becoming religious and yet has some anger issues, he is a liar. If the media says that so-and-so-person-killer was becoming more religious, don’t believe them. It is a misconstruction of an idea. Yes, the religious will be full of jihad. Their lives will be a constant struggle not to transgress and offer the full devotion to god. They would retreat from the world just as Muhammad retreated into Hira from away from the hustle and bustle of his society. They want to hear that comforting silence and not the noise of an armed conflict. They would want to contribute to society without forgetting their Maker.
If a person is truly becoming a religious Muslim, he or she will progressively have no time for anything else. He or she will not be writing articles or essays or making music or even planning a raid. He or she would not look forward to a short life because less time here means less time for divine devotion. Every worldly activity will be so calculated to maximise their relationship with god. It is not they are so repelled by this life here but they would not like to waste every second of their time here doing things that does not benefit the afterlife. At best he or she will be undistracted by the glitters of the world for the world hereafter awaits for them.