Islamic Arts Museum

It was a refreshing change to see Islam from its own perspective. Like other children of Abraham, if the glosses to the exhibits are any indication, Islam sees itself as a peaceful movement and a blessing to the nations. The spice trade, like Islam, "spread peacefully across the nations, without much drama." "The decoration of guns was perfected in Persia, but the use of guns in war would be perfected in Europe." "Unlike Christianity, Islam does not disallow the beautification of women." These statements exercised my ability to be a charitable reader. Fortunately (for my ability to appreciate Islam, but not generally), my own faith has its own incongruous self-descriptions and glosses on history. In order to love myself, it has been necessary to learn how to love a confusing and self-contradictory understanding of the world. How can it be that Christians claim to love peace and yet Christian organizations still take the word crusade (a perfect translation for Jihad if ever there was one) for their name. It is all too natural to include St. Francis among the ranks of Christians in history but not the Jesuit missionaries to the native people of north America. To think of ourselves as disciples according to Bonhoffer rather than Rushdoonie. We point out that Martin Luther King Junior was a Lutheran pastor and ignore the fact that South African apartheid was justified according to Christian philosophy. In times when Islam is quite suspect in the eyes of the world, it was good to remind myself, that it, like Christianity is a bewildering and various complex of faith, religion, population, culture and historical movement. Although some of the claims made by the museum grated me, they were relatively small and few, and paled in comparison to the obvious blessings that Islam has bestowed on the nations in philosophy, the arts, sciences, architecture and culinary craft.