In their Own Words: Islam, Individual Needs, and Getting Past the Standard Answers

This is from an interview with a devout Muslim householder in Talas. He said that Mulsims are obligated to help the less fortunate. I asked him if he would not help the less fortunate if he were not Muslim.

If I weren’t a Muslim, only God knows, maybe a little just, as people do, just to be able to brag, I would do it. Just because I would want other people to see it. We don’t have that kind of attitude. Just the opposite, we want God to see it and God to be pleased. Out hope is to go to paradise. Every person is duty bound to do good deeds. We are all Muslims. God created everyone Muslims. Everyone should worship God. That last book…we argue a lot about religion now, say that this religion is good, or that one. No. All religions are good. Everything comes in it’s own time. There was the Torah during the time of Moses, and during the time of Isaiah, and Jesus. Now the last book is the Qur’an. God sent it to earth. Now we should all obey it. The last prophet is Muhammad. There isn’t a practice of saying, that’s an American, that’s an African, that’s a Russian or a Kyrgyz. Because we should all obey the surahs [chapters in the Qur’an] of the prophet, obey God, should obey the Qur’an, that God sent. Therefore, we’re all Muslims. We should all pray. Our dream is that God would give holiness to America, to the whole world. We ask God that he would give everyone the chance to pray the way we do, so everyone would pray and ask God to help them keep from the wrong paths. God gave us the last book, sent it to us. And we have the word of God that if we will live according to the Qur’an, we will be happy. So whoever prays five times a day—prayer is our duty, that’s what the prophet taught—will go to heaven. If you keep Orozo [a fast during the holy month of Ramadan], live according to the Qur’an, pray five times a day,
don’t miss, then paradise is prepared for you. If you don’t do that, is says that God will not make any promises with you. We are all duty bound. Before God there are no differences—American, Russian, things like that—he doesn’t differentiate. Before God we all need to accept that. What God has commanded, that we must do. Pray five times a day, keep Orozo one month a year.

This is a standard kind of answer that you get when you ask people about Islam. I’ve taught classes on Islam and have studied the history of the religion fairly in-depth. It doesn’t matter if I tell people this. They will usually give the above information anyway. I asked this many why he personally believed these things.

It’s now…this isn’t just a plain book. It’s a holy book. Allah sent it to the Arabs. If he had wanted he could have sent it to the Kyrgyz, the Russians. But by the will of God this book was sent to the Arabs. It was according to the desires of the last prophet. Isaiah the prophet said that a final prophet would come. But no one knew who the last prophet would be. It was all according to the will of God. He said that the last prophet would come, but he did not say who, where, and when he would
come.

Again, standard answer (and not really answering my question). This seems to be very common. He wasn’t being evasive—as far as I could tell, he really felt he was answering my question. I asked him to tell me about the first time he prayed.

The first time, I don’t know. I don’t remember it well, but I seem to remember God gave me a sign. I prayed that God would free me from my bad deeds. I drank vodka at the time. I participated in unholy actions. I prayed that god would save me from those things. There was guy who rode nearby on a bicycle. He suggested that I start to pray. I said that if God granted it, I would start to pray later. But somehow his advice stuck with me. Later I went to him and started to go with him to pray and I started to read. I used to drink, I fought, I sometimes said bad things to others. But then the next day I suddenly had this great fear. I prayed to God to help me stop drinking. I didn’t pray to Allah. I just prayed to Kudai [one of the traditional Kyrgyz words for God]. I prayed that he would help me stop the bad things I was doing.

Better answer. It gave me some insight into what was going on in his life at the time that he decided to take Islam more seriously. I asked him if it was difficult to learn how to pray (the five set prayers that Muslims are supposed to pray have specific wording. They aren’t just plain talking to God—that’s a different kind of prayer).

No. At that time, there weren’t any books that you could use to learn to pray. There are a lot of them now. At that time, books about Shari’a [Islamic law, based on the Qur’an and the words and actions of the prophet Muhammad], about how to pray—there weren’t any. At that time, I went to that guy’s home for about a month—to the Mullah [someone who has studied and knows more about the Qur’an than your average person]. I went at night. He said, “Come at night, come in the morning.” I went to his house early, before sunrise, to pray. We didn’t have mosques then.

I asked him how his life had changed since he started doing these things.

It’s hard for a person to just live a plain life. I used to always think about my plans, wonder what I was going to do tomorrow, how to find things. I always had those kinds of questions—how I am going to live, how can I get more money, how can I feed my children. Flour just got more expensive, and people are fearing about their lives. But we rely on God. God won’t forget us. Whatever we need, we ask God for it in prayer. We don’t have fear. If we fear, we rely on God and the fear goes away. I feel like there is someone who helps me. I don’t ask help of anyone else.