You Mecca Me Believe

The last in the triumvirate of large Abrahamic traditions, Islam began in 609CE with the prophet Muhammed's revelations from the angel Gabriel. Now the second largest religion in the world, Islam has contributed to arts and science over the centuries. In this episode, we cover the history of Islam, the observances as well as the controversies of 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

The last in the triumvirate of large Abrahamic traditions, Islam began in 609CE with the prophet Muhammed's revelations from the angel Gabriel. Now the second largest religion in the world, Islam has contributed to arts and science over the centuries. 

In this episode, we talk about Muhammad’s revelation from the angel Gabriel and how this revelation became an entirely new religion. Muhammad is unique; he was surrounded by polytheists, whereas Moses and Jesus were really reformers of religions that people were very familiar with.

Muhammad added to the Abrahamic faith, but he also had to convince the people around him to worship Yahweh instead of the large number of deities they were worshiping. 

Muhammad’s revelation became the Quran, and Muhammad’s sayings and wisdom became the Hadiths.  The only true form of the Quran is in Arabic, but we talk about textual variants and about the translations that exist. 

There are 5 universally accepted pillars of Islam that we will discuss:

As well we discuss the unofficial sixth pillar of Islam, jihad, and some other controversial (but not actually that scary) topics like Sharia Law and Fatwas. 

Like most religious groups Muslims have unique practices that separate them from non-believers. This includes following rules for clothing, food, and daily practices that are either Halal (permissible) or Haram (non-permissible).

For more great resources check out Karen Armstrong's book, A Short History of Islam; and the 8-part podcast by History & WNYC Studios, Blindspot: The Road to 9/11.

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Preston Meyer  0:00  
Hi, I'm Katie. 

Katie Dooley  0:03  
Hi, I'm Preston and Welcome to the Holy Watermelon podcast. Right? I mean, we can tell everyone how excited we are to talk about Islam today. Give them a little preview and then the song will kick in and they'll go

Intro Song

Katie Dooley  0:21  
Hi, I'm Katie.

Preston Meyer  0:25  
Hi, I'm Preston,

Katie Dooley  0:26  
and welcome to the

Both Hosts  0:27  
Holy Watermelon Podcast!

Preston Meyer  0:31  
So this is the third instalment in our mini-series of specific religious studies. And we're going to look into the continuation of the saga that is, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,

Katie Dooley  0:47  
The Abrahamic boys

Preston Meyer  0:49  
The trilogy that culminates with Muhammad,

Katie Dooley  0:54  
Or arguably, Joseph Smith but that's

Preston Meyer  0:57  
That's a different trilogy. It's like when finally Disney says, "Eh... the sequel trilogy wasn't that good" And everyone's like, yeah, you're right. And then they come up with another one that's... less popular.

Katie Dooley  1:16  
But today you're right, is all about Islam, the most recent of the Abrahamic air quotes, Western religious practices

Preston Meyer  1:26  
Of course, ridiculous label of Western when I mean, it's still Asian.

Katie Dooley  1:32  
I mean, we'll say this every episode for the next five episodes that I don't like the labels, but it helps. I think it's a common term, I guess

Preston Meyer  1:41  
There's a little piece of me that thinks that Hinduism is more Western than Islam is. Which we'll address when we dive a little deeper into Hinduism.

Katie Dooley  1:54  
So you want to start with a little bit of the history, Preston, of Islam.

Preston Meyer  2:00  
Yeah. So there's this foundational figure, I think most people are at least familiar with the name Muhammad. If you haven't met somebody, or heard of somebody with the name Muhammad at all, you've definitely been living under a rock. It is the most common name in the whole world.

Katie Dooley  2:19  
Is that really?

Preston Meyer  2:19  
It's the most common male name, yeah. It's a popular tradition, to name your kid after the Prophet if it's a boy.

Katie Dooley  2:28  
You must know Muhammad Ali, the boxer, not the the caliph.

Preston Meyer  2:31  
I don't know personally, obviously.

Katie Dooley  2:33  
No, but you've heard.

Preston Meyer  2:34  
Yeah. And, again, you'd have to be living under a rock. If you're listening to this podcast, you've definitely heard of a Muhammad somewhere. That's the reality. And most of that the reason for the popularity of his name is this figure, Muhammad, who is the founder of what we know as Islam. He was born around the 600-ish AD, and he was a reasonably successful and well respected trader, merchant. He was approached by the angel Gabriel and said, Hey, there's some things you need to help me change. And Muhammad took that message from God that he received through Gabriel, and made little changes.

Katie Dooley  3:35  
Turned it into a whole new religion. Which I think this is an interesting point. We have it in our notes set Muhammad and just like Moses, and Jesus didn't go out to start a new religion. He thought of himself as reformer. And so often these stories are because the current era has it wrong in some way, shape, or form, and we get this new iteration or God's saying, Hey, you forgot about all this stuff, or here's some new notes for you to go off of.

Preston Meyer  4:05  
Yeah, there's that a very strong parallel between him and those former figures. One of the bigger differences, though, with Muhammad, is that he wasn't surrounded by people who worshipped one God, to the same level that Jesus was a Jew preaching to faithful-ish, Jews.

Katie Dooley  4:25  
Monotheistic people. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  4:27  
And Moses was teaching Israelites, who, though they were familiar with and maybe a little too comfortable with Egyptian gods, they were also largely familiar with Yahweh, the God of Israel. Muhammad didn't have that same benefit. He had a lot of people in his community that were worshipping a wide variety of idolatrous gods. So his efforts to reform were a little trickier... But as you gain people's trust, by one means or another, he was able to convert them to a monotheistic faith.

Katie Dooley  5:15  
One of the, I guess the mystical part of Muhammad story is that Gabriel revealed the Quran to him the religious book. And Muhammad was completely illiterate. So the story goes, so he wrote down the Quran from divine revelation.

Preston Meyer  5:35  
So I was always told to me it was he didn't write down anything himself

Katie Dooley  5:38  
He just repeated it enough times that, yeah,

Preston Meyer  5:41  
Just told his inner circle and they wrote it down.

Katie Dooley 
I mean if you're illiterate yeah.

Preston Meyer
It makes it a lot easier... It makes the story more palatable to have an illiterate person, not write it. Ya know? But it's interesting that there are textual variants to the Quran that seem as though they are coming from different traditions of different scribes. Though there is currently just as there is with the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, there is a standard accepted Quranic text that everybody sticks to today. And the variants are ignored completely by literally everybody except scholars on the subject.

Katie Dooley  6:25  
Yes, I was going to say that the Quran is, I mean, you're right, it's available in probably almost every language in the world, because Muslim, or Muslim Islam as a very widespread religion, my goodness. But because it was revealed in Arabic and written originally in Arabic, that is considered the approved text. And if you go to a mosque, again, I'm sure you can probably get mosque services in every language. But predominantly, I believe it's an Arabic, because that's the divine.

Preston Meyer  7:01  
Or even the Catholic Church was really reluctant to have mass in any language other than Latin until the 60s, wasn't it?

Katie Dooley  7:08  
It was quite late yeah

Preston Meyer  7:09  
Like super recent. And so like, maybe 600 years from now, Muslims will be a lot more comfortable having their services in the vernacular. If that's not I'm sure that is the case in some circles, but I think that'll be a lot more widespread. Somewhere around that same timeline, in religious age, you know?

Katie Dooley  7:32  
In my brain, and I don't know, I should probably look into this, but where we are, you can get church services, you know, predominantly, we see it in Asian languages. Oh, there's a Korean service at 2 pm and an English service at 10 am. So I feel like that's probably common in North America where you'd get an Arabic service at one time and maybe an English service at a different time.

Preston Meyer  7:54  
Probably.

Katie Dooley  7:55  
Again, I don't know. I'm just guessing. But that would seem reasonable, especially because Islam is, is an evangelical religion, they're actively looking to convert people to it.

Preston Meyer  8:07  
Yeah. But the Quran is not the Quran, unless it has the Arabic text. Everything else is just a translation of the Quran. And it's actually super important to most Muslims that I speak with that that is deliberately pointed out.

Katie Dooley  8:25  
One thing that's interesting about Islam is that it's very anti-idolatry.

Preston Meyer  8:30  
Yeah, hugely. Both Moses and Jesus were hugely opposed to idolatry, a little detail that you'll find some Christians forgot about somehow. And Islam and what specifically Muhammad spoke out strongly and harshly against idolatry, following that same ancient tradition. And so there's a lot of cool things that have come out because of that practice.

Katie Dooley  8:59  
So there are some good things about Islam being anti-idolatrous, and then there are some bad things that don't come from that as well.

Preston Meyer  9:11  
Indeed, there is the art of Islam is really cool. I always think first of word art, their calligraphy, to represent figures is really quite awesome. Almost every time every time I've seen it is great. And as Katie has mentioned to me before, the geometry and that just the drawings, pattern, the patterns, all of that, that comes up as art when you can't be drawing people and animals, for fear of them being treated as idols, is actually really quite awesome as well. What's the bad side?

Katie Dooley  9:48  
I love how you left me with the bad stuff. So to be clear, I guess idolatry in like a Christian context would be pictures of Jesus or Mary or... I don't think there's too many iterations of God except in the Sistine chapel's, but Muslims refrain from pictures of God, which is already quite rare, but of Muhammad as well,

Preston Meyer  10:13  
And that's caused some problems,

Katie Dooley  10:14  
And that has caused some problems. So most notably, the Charlie Hebdo Magazine in Paris drew a likeness of Muhammad.

Preston Meyer  10:14  
Several times

Katie Dooley  10:23  
Several times. And there was a bombing, I believe

Preston Meyer  10:27  
There was bombings, there was shootings, there was stabbings of other people related to the sharing of those images. Which sucks.

Katie Dooley  10:37  
And to be clear, this is extremist behaviour. I think most Muslims would condemn that even if they obviously don't agree with pictures of Muhammad being created or distributed, I don't, most Muslims would not kill someone else.

Preston Meyer  10:56  
Right?

Katie Dooley  10:57  
They might send a disgruntled letter

Preston Meyer  10:59  
Please stop this.

Katie Dooley  11:00  
Fair enough. We should all write the occasional disgruntled letter.

Preston Meyer  11:04  
Right? As far as I've observed, most Muslims are far more concerned with self-governing rather than governing the actions of others.

Katie Dooley  11:15  
But that is a extreme, but I don't want to say good, but

Preston Meyer  11:21  
It is a visible example

Katie Dooley  11:23  
Of idolatry at its worst.

Preston Meyer  11:27  
So among all of the things that Muhammad taught, anti-idolatry was a big deal. He helped convert an awful lot of people in the region, to Islam. And a lot of people smashed their idols and I've heard reports that a lot of these chunks of idols are in the Kaaba in Mecca.

Katie Dooley  11:49  
Oh, interesting.

Preston Meyer  11:49  
I have also heard that that is not true.

Katie Dooley  11:55  
I got really excited.

Preston Meyer  11:58  
One way or the other, I straight up don't know. But I do know that a lot of people for quite a long time have been with... they've been not worshipping idols, which is kind of cool limiting your worship to a sky daddy. Even though it looks nonsensical to an awful lot of people, it makes a lot more sense than worshiping a chunk of gold or iron or wood that you would have in your home.

Katie Dooley  12:32  
That is interesting to me. I just finished a book on evangelical Christianity, and I can see how idolatry is beneficial in the sense that it helps you. This is going to sound not the way I want to sound but helps you suspend disbelief essentially.

Preston Meyer  12:48  
Because it's a thing that's there.

Katie Dooley  12:49  
Yeah, this book was talking about how you basically have to like, circumvent thought processes. In prayer specifically, so I can see how having a physical or visual thing can help with that. So it's an interesting rural, not rural, an interesting rule in Islam that idols are not to be used.

Preston Meyer  13:16  
This prohibition does date back, at least as far as Moses. There's also stories written long after the time of Abraham with him also going out and smashing all of the idols he could get his hands

Katie Dooley  13:27  
Rage smash!

Preston Meyer  13:28  
So it it's not specifically Muhammad thing. This is a strong Judaic tradition.

Katie Dooley  13:37  
Yes. I'm just curious why it pops up in in Christianity then. Especially and I think it's in my brain especially goes to Catholicism, but...

Preston Meyer  13:48  
The idolatry we see in Christianity looks like it comes from Roman pluralism, the huge polytheistic pantheon that is the Roman tradition. Which of course, isn't even original for them.

Katie Dooley  14:07  
Okay, good answer. Now, I love Islam because they have the easiest summary of beliefs ever

Preston Meyer  14:18  
It's a nice short checklist, and it's a solid, almost universally agreed upon checklist,

Katie Dooley  14:25  
The five pillars of Islam - five points we're going to run through and I wish all other religions made it this easy on us to research and reiterate. So I will start the first pillar of Islam is an I'm gonna do I'm gonna try the Arabic.

Preston Meyer  14:45  
You're gonna try pronouncing the word? I think we should do it.

Katie Dooley  14:48  
Okay. The first one is called shahada or the profession of faith. And it is two statements of faith that you are expected to verbalize but also believe that and this is what makes you a Muslim. So the first statement is "There is no God but God" and the second statement is "Muhammad is the Messenger of God." And these statements are said during prayer they're also the first thing said presumably if you're born to a Muslim family the first thing that are the first thing said to you when you're born and the last thing you hear before you pass. So they're pretty important statements in the Muslim faith and I believe it's also part of the equivalent of a Muslim baptism so whether you're converting or or converting or confirming.

Preston Meyer  15:06  
What now?!

Katie Dooley  15:43  
Converting or confirming. Oh, the look you gave me... converting or confirming this this is critical in that point. Your disgust is making me laugh.

Preston Meyer  16:09  
We're trying to be high-brow! The second pillar of Islam is prayer or Salaat. Prayer is done several times a day, almost universally in Islam, because there's a difference of opinion. There are set times where specific prayers are to be given. And that's part of Muslim piety. You can't really go without

Katie Dooley  16:36  
Piety not pee-ity?

Preston Meyer  16:39  
I've always heard it piety. I don't think I've ever even heard pee-ity? If you're a pious, I guess you're exhibiting piety.

Katie Dooley  16:47  
Now I'm second-guessing myself. Okay, I'll take it sorry. Muslim piety. You should probably mentioned Mecca.

Preston Meyer  17:04  
Oh, yes. Also, when praying, Muslims are meant to be facing Mecca. That's kind of a big deal that Mecca is the holy place. This is a tradition that's not exclusive to Muslims. Jews typically orient their synagogues facing Jerusalem, which is, which is not so distant from Mecca is to see much of a visible distance in one community, both buildings are usually gonna be facing pretty much exactly the same way. Which is kind of cool. Though, it's obviously these two communities are different in many other ways. Where we are in North America, inCanada. That is south-east. I had to think way too hard about my direction.

Katie Dooley  17:50  
I mean anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, you're facing east. It just depends how north or south you're facing.

Preston Meyer  17:56  
Exactly

Katie Dooley  17:57  
In Canada you face southeast. Yeah, I guess he'd probably have to get pretty far south in the states to just face pure east.

Preston Meyer  18:03  
Yeah. I think so. I mean, in Florida, it might be

Katie Dooley  18:09  
Because Saudi Arabia is pretty close to the equator if I'm not mistaken

Preston Meyer  18:15  
It's it's close, but it's not super close. It's I mean, it's way closer compared to us. I think it's technically tropical.

Katie Dooley  18:23  
I can't picture where the equator runs.

Preston Meyer  18:26  
The equator hits the bottom of West Africa.

Katie Dooley  18:31  
Okay, then. Yeah. Okay.

Preston Meyer  18:34  
That much. I remember. Geography is not my thing. No, this is my thing.

Katie Dooley  18:41  
That's all that matters. Number three is the Zakat or almsgiving. And Muslims are expected to pay a tithe. This is pretty common in I think, all religions. Muslims, for the most part, I think the standard is 10%. And I know in Christian traditions that can vary some have a set percentage and some it's just kind of what you can afford or what you are moved to give. The other piece of almsgiving is Muslims are expected to be charitable and give to the poor and help out those in need.

Preston Meyer  19:18  
Not terribly foreign ideas.

Katie Dooley  19:20  
No it's just how to be a good person 101 in five steps

Preston Meyer  19:27  
The fourth pillar of Islam is fasting. This is

Katie Dooley  19:32  
Sawm he's not gonna say it, Sawm.

Preston Meyer  19:35  
Yep. I actually did mean to say it, and now completely lost my momentum.

Katie Dooley  19:44  
I'm sorry. The month of fasting

Preston Meyer  19:47  
Yeah. The fourth pillar of Islam is fasting. Sawm is the word and it's most visible in the month of Ramadan a whole month, set aside for daytime fasting as long as the sun is up from dawn to dusk, you will not eat anything. Drinking anything is also forbidden. As well as sometimes other pleasurable activities are also forbidden.

Katie Dooley  20:17  
I don't get it.

Preston Meyer  20:20  
Many people abstain from sex during the daytime, or sometimes even the whole month according to some reports,

Katie Dooley  20:29  
So a lot like I won't say a lot like Lent, but similar to Lance, more strict than Lent.

Preston Meyer  20:35  
More strict than Lent. Instead of just one thing. It's a whole bunch of things.

Katie Dooley  20:39  
And it culminates in the celebration of Eid, which is a really big holiday in Islam.

Preston Meyer  20:47  
Much of the same way that Lent culminates in Easter. So Eid and Easter, I don't think they have much in common really?

Katie Dooley  20:55  
I know there's a big feast.

Preston Meyer  20:56  
There's a big feast. You're right.

Katie Dooley  20:59  
I mean, that's all a good holiday needs is food, right? Food and family.

Preston Meyer  21:04  
It's hard to enjoy a holiday when there's not a meal, you know

Katie Dooley  21:07  
Yeah. Who can not fast?

Preston Meyer  21:14  
So everybody should be fasting when it's reasonable to do so. Except of course, those who it's not reasonable for like the sick, the elderly, or also sometimes very, very young should probably not be fasting as well.

Katie Dooley  21:28  

The other thing people people should know, the other thing about Ramadan is that it changes every year because Muslims follow a lunar calendar, so their months are shorter. So Ramadan changes, goes I think it goes back a week, every year. And if you're in North America, that can suck when Ramadan in the summer and our days are really long, because you are fasting from sunrise to sunset it's a lot easier in the winter, like right now where our days are very, very short.

Preston Meyer  22:02  
Yeah, the month of Ramadan is a lot easier when the sun sets at 3:30 in the afternoon

Katie Dooley  22:07  
Oh dinner time!

Preston Meyer  22:10  
I thought it was really interesting to learn that the month of Ramadan is named as it is at Ramadan is the name of God. And so an awful lot of people will feel uncomfortable with you just calling the month Ramadan. It's the month of Ramadan if you want to be most correct, you're saying the month God. I mean more or less Ramadan doesn't mean that is one of his titles, okay, and he has many titles

Katie Dooley  22:40  
Doesn't he? The Fifth pillar, the last pillar of Islam is called the Hajj or the pilgrimage. And you are expected as a Muslim once in your life, if financially feasible, so they're reasonable human beings if you don't...

Preston Meyer  22:58  
If you can't do it, don't

Katie Dooley  22:59  
Don't put yourself into poverty to do the hajj but you're expected once the once a year no once in your lifetime to visit Mecca during the twelfth lunar month. And during the time, pilgrims are given two white sheets to wear and that's to put everyone on the same. I want to say economical footing so that there's no classes based off of possessions or garments.

Preston Meyer  23:25  
Make everybody look like equal make everyone

Katie Dooley  23:27  
Make everyone look like equals equals under the eyes of God. And during that time, they circle the Kaaba in Mecca, which is this big black square stone that Preston mentioned. And you

Preston Meyer  23:41  
The square isn't stone. It's a box built around a stone.

Katie Dooley  23:47  
Oh, interesting. I thought... you can't see the stone though.

Preston Meyer  23:50  
No, it's presumably sitting in the corner of the building

Katie Dooley  23:54  

In a big black box and you are supposed to circle it seven times

Preston Meyer  24:01  
I like to imagine a traffic circle where you need like you're you're obviously going to start on the outside of the circle on your way in. And hopefully by the end or the middle of the third path, you need to get close to that middle because everyone wants to get to the middle, right? Everyone wants to sneak a touch or more. I don't know. Remember, there's witnesses, there's not gonna be a lot more...

Katie Dooley  24:25  
There are millions of people.

Preston Meyer  24:26  
This place is super crowded all the time. And then hopefully by the middle of your fifth lap, you're on your way out because you might be forced into an eighth lap.

Katie Dooley  24:37  
There's also other what's the word I'm looking for practices or rituals that you perform during the hajj. You walk between two mountains because Muhammad did and obviously there's different prayers and and things like that. And yeah, millions of people visit Mecca every year. The city I think quadruples in size. It's actually like a big infrastructural problem that Saudi Arabia has to deal with is all these Muslims showing up every year, and you can do... people do pilgrimages throughout the year, but it's not your hajj, you have to go at this specific time for it to be done. And it's a big rite of passage sounds like the right term. But typically, it happens when you're older in life. So it's kind of you know, we think of Rites of Passage happening sort of in your teens and your 20s. But

Preston Meyer  25:32  
This is something you have to save up for.

Katie Dooley  25:33  
Yeah, you have to. So yes, you have to save up for your hajj. I had a friend and her parents completed it probably, I'd say, probably four or five years ago. And all her all their kids are adults. And they were just at a point in their life where, you know, they were financially able to do it. But it was an exciting thing, right, she told me that her parents had complete it and was excited to share that. Now, there's an unofficial sixth pillar of Islam. And these might sound these next few topics might sound scary to our viewers. But we assure you they're not. We've just made them scary.

Preston Meyer  26:14  
Culturally, we made them become scary to us

Katie Dooley  26:18  
Far more than they are. So what is the sixth pillar, Preston?

Preston Meyer  26:21  
The sixth pillar, unofficial sixth pillar, it's just not foundational to the faith is the principle of jihad, which is, for most people, just the an internal struggle to be more pious to be more righteous. But there's enough people that you've heard the word before, use it as a drive for a holy conflict between people.

Katie Dooley  26:58  
Now, the word actually means striving or struggling. And as you said, it can mean a multitude of things, you struggling to be a better Muslim, you the struggle to evangelize or convert people, because it is an evangelical religion. There are two I want to say streams, schools of thought there's the jihad of the pen, which is literally writing or debating your faith. And then there's jihad at the sword, which is this idea that Westerners are and are afraid of, right that a jihad is coming. Now jihad is meant to be defensive only. But of course we are, are humans, and we can twist things.

Preston Meyer  27:50  
Sometimes we're just offensive people, right?

Katie Dooley  27:52  
Sometimes, yeah, sometimes we're just assholes. So you know, we hear the term jihad and we think of 9/11. And, you know, in their minds, it probably was the defensive jihad of the sword and, you know, of Westerners, we have a different idea that, but most Muslims, this idea of jihad is very much internal struggle. Worst case scenario, a debate or, or strongly worded letter, in defence of your, essentially your right to practice religion. It's a it's a debate on freedom of religion.

Preston Meyer  28:29  
Absolutely. I think we had Sharia next?

Katie Dooley  28:33  
Yes. So another scary term to us Westerners is,

Both Hosts  28:36  
Sharia

Preston Meyer  28:39  
The idea that somebody else's laws could be imposed on us sounds awful. And yet, that's exactly the way we've been living forever. That's human life.

Katie Dooley  28:50  
The human life. Yes. So, I mean, I just said that humans are fallible, we can interpret these laws any way we want, we can interpret them in really scary ways. We can make them mandatory or we can make them guidelines. Like there's this whole thing. And man, so often, we hear "ahh there's gonna be Sharia law or so and so wants to bring in Sharia law". It's literally and I'm not saying there isn't some, you know, stuff in there that isn't good, but it's literally like how to live a more pious life,

Preston Meyer  29:26  
How to be a moral person,

Katie Dooley  29:28  
How to be a better Muslim, and how to relate to God better and be a more ethical human being

Preston Meyer  29:40 
I mean, ultimately, that's the essence of it. Yeah, there's loads of specific little things, but

Katie Dooley  29:45  
It covers everything from financial transactions to domestic sort of family law stuff to like, literally, it's honestly kind of boring.

Preston Meyer  29:59  
Right? And for all Christians who are worried about it, the Bible says don't let the sun set on a debt. So our current biweekly pay schedule is anti-biblical. So if you're worried about religious laws, let's worry about some of the other ones.

Katie Dooley  30:19  

Yeah. And like I said, it's not like there aren't, you know, absolutely. It mentions stoning. But you need four witnesses before you can stone someone and it's her, you know, heinous crimes, you know,

Preston Meyer  30:29  
And the Muslims didn't invent stoning. That's very well-established tradition in Israel that we can see. And they didn't invent it either. I mean, it's just a really effective way to kill people.

Katie Dooley  30:44  
It's very interactive,

Preston Meyer  30:45  
Right? It's a group activity that brings the community together.

Katie Dooley  30:49  
Oh, wow.

Preston Meyer  30:49  
All right. And another scary word that we've heard on TV, because that's really where you're going to be hearing it most is the idea of fatwas kind of got sensationalized about 15-ish years ago on TV, or at least that's where I first experienced it. And how when, and you see things like this person put out a fatwa on this other relative, and now they're gonna die, like like fatwa is somehow synonymous with honour killings when that's not the case at all. A fatwa is a non-binding legal opinion, which can include I think this person should be put to death. But it's, it's such a broad category of speech.

Katie Dooley  31:38  
I also love that it's non-binding,

Preston Meyer  31:40  
Right? Especially if you have no real authority. If you're just some dude with a BA sitting in somebody's basement, then your authority to call somebody else to death is zero. But if you're a well-respected Imam or a Khalif, you have a lot of authority. And even though technically you're fatwas or non-binding, you're going to have a lot more people concerned about what you have to say, and your opinions. And usually, the more conspicuous of a person you are in the public eye, the less likely you are to call somebody to be put to death without them having broken more than one very important law.

Katie Dooley  32:26  
And I would say, especially in North America, like you know, we hear about atrocities elsewhere in the world where it's probably more likely, but yeah, your average person in North America calling up fatwa?

Preston Meyer  32:41  
It's not happening very often.

Katie Dooley  32:42  
It's just like a neckbeard in their basement.  That's upset about..  the keyboard warrior... that's upset about something. So don't worry about jihad, or Sharia or fatwas basically,

Preston Meyer  32:56  
they're not going to affect your life unless you're a Muslim. And then you'll know how to deal with that because you'll have been properly educated.

Katie Dooley  33:02  
Yes. and reading on Sharia there are Sharia councils, and it's basically, I think, honestly, it's more of an advisory thing. And I, you know, obviously this will deal more predominantly with like, Sharia women's councils. So let's say you want to divorce your husband, you would go to our Sharia Council, because divorce is, you know, not, it's not, I don't want to say it's not permissible, but it's frowned upon. And it's, I mean, it's frowned upon in Christianity, too. So don't, don't get all huffy with me. And it's sort of the council that would sort of give you that blessing to have a divorce because your husband's an asshole. And that's kind of how it runs. And that happens in Christianity, too. And I presume Judaism as well, that they say no, you're fine. God won't be mad at you for divorcing your wife-beating husband, and they go, Okay, thank you. And then they get their divorce and everyone's happy. And that's kind of how especially in the West how Sharia would play a role the same as bringing your issues to a church elder.

Preston Meyer  34:11  
Yeah, pretty much. What are we on to now?

Katie Dooley  34:15  
We are on day-to-day beliefs on what it looks like to be a Muslim in day-to-day life.

Preston Meyer  34:23  
So as somebody who likes food, that's usually where I lead to beliefs being the most visible is how people's religion affects their dietary practices. And so you'll often see labels in your grocery store depending on where you live, of course, of Halal yogurt and Halal foods. And Halal is the opposite of haram. Halal is permissible. Haram is forbidden.

Katie Dooley  34:55  
And we'll we'll talk about food first, but there's lots of things that are halal. Halal and haram aren't just for food. Also, if you're a restaurant owner, like, man, just make your meat halal. I don't know why.

Preston Meyer  35:11  
Because people like food that's not just restricted to that category.

Katie Dooley  35:17  
But like it doesn't affect me if meat is halal, but how many more customers would you get if your meat was halal, that's what blows my mind because I have some Muslim friends who are like, well, I can't eat there because it's not halal. But here's the list of restaurants I can go to

Preston Meyer  35:30  
So many people love bacon. I mean, that's us. Pork Chops staple of American diet.

Katie Dooley  35:36  
So what Preston is getting at is that pork is haram. Just I mean, the term is different. But just like in Judaism, pork is not permitted to be eaten. There are a bunch of other meats that are not supposed to be

Preston Meyer  35:49  
Alligator. No good.

Katie Dooley  35:51  
Shark. No good

Preston Meyer  35:53  
Dog. No good.

Katie Dooley  35:54  
Monkeys. Bad.

Preston Meyer  35:55  
Straight up awful. Actually. Like, I know that. I know, the restriction is don't eat carnivores. I mean, there's more restrictions. Yeah, but I feel like monkeys. It's probably a little bit not just them being carnivorous, but also them being like, too familiar to humanity.

Katie Dooley  
Fair. Also dogs,

Preston Meyer
Right?

Katie Dooley  36:15  
Not that dogs are like humans, but I have a dog on my lap right now. And I don't think I could, though we joke about her chicken legs.

Preston Meyer  36:27  
As far as the prohibition against eating dogs and jackals and whatnot is the carnivore thing that they're just kind of dirty. I mean, you see a dog lick another dog's butt and if you're in the middle of writing rules about eating, dogs are gonna make that list.

Katie Dooley  36:43  
Insects are also haram on the list of of meats to not eat. And back to halal meat. So halal chicken, halal beef, it has to be slaughtered a certain way. Blood is haram so all the blood needs to be drained. And I believe a prayer is said so it's very similar to to kosher meat. Same thing has to be slaughtered a certain way and all the blood has to be drained.

Preston Meyer  37:09  
Yeah, the rules aren't exactly the same. The list isn't exactly the same, but they are awfully close. But one thing being haram does not make it or well, okay, I was gonna say one thing being haram does not make it kosher. That is absolutely factual. But also one thing being halal doesn't mean it's kosher and vice versa as well. What else is haram?

Katie Dooley  37:34  
There's lots lots of things that are haram. And but I say that and it's pretty standard to most religions. So other consumables that are haram, there's no alcohol, no cigarettes or drugs. With that nothing addictive either. So no gambling or lotteries.

Preston Meyer  37:55  
Did you know coffee is considered haram by many Muslims?

Katie Dooley  37:59  
Interesting. But then there's like Turkey where quite a huge deal and a quite a Muslim country.

Preston Meyer  38:07  
Yeah, so when coffee first became a really popular thing, it caused all kinds of arguments, because coffee is a stimulant. And being a stimulant is actually the issue that a lot of people felt that it was inappropriate to consume.

Katie Dooley  38:27  
Now, you know, asterisk on this conversation, every,

Preston Meyer  38:32  
There's, there's gonna be loads of variety...

Katie Dooley  38:34  
Every person is going to be on a different scale. We'll get into clothing briefly, but I know a ton of Muslim ladies that don't cover their hair. I have one friend who won't eat pork but will drink alcohol. I know some who aren't too concerned if meat's halal they'll have it, you know, they'll go to Popeye's and have a sandwich and not worry that it's halal or not as long as it's not pork. So there's there's with all of this asterisk spectrum,

Preston Meyer  39:04  
Right? There's loads of variety and practice. We're all people we tend to do things differently from the people around us. An awful lot of things.

Katie Dooley  39:14  
So other things that are haram, certain clothing is haram. Islam encourages modesty, just like Christianity, just like Judaism. Again, that looks different for everyone. We have like you said women who don't wear hijab, they want to do wear hijab, we have women who wear niqabs and burqas and everything on that scale, but generally includes shouldn't be tight fitting and skin is covered

Preston Meyer  39:38  
Don't deliberately entice sexual fantasy.

Katie Dooley  39:43  
Eye roll, but yes

Preston Meyer  39:48  
That is part of the philosophy behind it.

Katie Dooley  39:51  
But there's an eye mega eye-roll here. Another piece of clothing at clubs Yeah, another piece of clothing that is haram. And asterisk is not not ostentatious makeup or jewelry. Not that you can't wear makeup or that you can't wear jewelry but you gotta decide where the overdoing it line is. And with that as well in sort of the decor, ostentation they even say that your home should be decorated modestly and not overdone.

Preston Meyer  40:30  
But what if I love having a golden bejewelled doorknob?

Katie Dooley  40:34  
Then you're probably Persian.

Preston Meyer  40:39  
But I'm not

Katie Dooley  40:41  
Are you a Kardashian

Preston Meyer  40:43  
No,

Katie Dooley  40:44  
I say that with all the love in the world and appreciation for the opulence of Persian decor.I really liked the point you made about the burqa earlier. And I would love for you to if that would make sense to talk about now.

Preston Meyer  41:03  
A previous attempt to record this episode, I had mentioned a little bit about where that burqa comes from, or at least how it's validated. It's not a strictly religious garment, though, we do pretty much only see Muslim Muslim women wearing it. It's more of a localized cultural feature. You'll see Muslims all over the world who don't wear it. So it's clearly not explicitly prescribed in the Quran or the Hadiths.

Katie Dooley
Oh... we were gonna talk we should talk about the Quran and the Hadith we forgot.

Preston Meyer
Yeah, we will, don't you worry. We'll get back to that. All right. And so in the writings of Islam, which we'll get to in greater detail here in a minute, there is a Hadith that Muhammad said that a woman should not be alone in the same part of a tent with a stranger more or less. I'm summarizing, for sake of speed. And that there is this covering of the whole body is meant to be that separation when a woman goes out in public, because they're strange men everywhere. Men historically have sucked have been bad neighbours, bad to men, bad to women. And so that protection for women as much is protection because women have had bad experiences with men, regardless of what they're wearing. Choosing not to promote the feelings that would cause more bad things to happen.

Katie Dooley  42:42  
Eye roll

Preston Meyer  42:43  
Is, I mean, it sucks to have it forced upon you. That's, that's reality. But to elect to wear it, as many women do, is their choice and can be helpful for meeting the standards of the community.

Katie Dooley  43:00  
Now, we don't often see burkas in North America there, there are slight variations on on these. So we if you see a woman who has her, the lower half of her face covered, chances are it's in a niqab. Burqa is literally like a vent over your eyes.

Preston Meyer  43:19  
It's a whole tent.

Katie Dooley  43:21  
So if you see someone head to toe in North America, or you know Western Europe, chances are it's just just a niqab. And I would argue more often than not, it's elected. I mean, of course, lots of women have dick husbands regardless of your religion, so I'm sure some of them are forced to but most women that wear niqabs, if you ask they've chosen to for modesty reasons, and and same with the hijab and then you know, we were talking earlier, you said what do I think of when I think of the burqa, I think the Taliban in Afghanistan where it absolutely was enforced by law. And, and honestly, some of its cultural you'll, you'll get Muslims all over the world that don't cover up in that way. And it really just depends on on how you were raised. I know a devout Muslim man and he thinks hair is sexual and we had this conversation during the Judaism episode Preston thinks hair is sexual too. So

Preston Meyer  44:24  
You make it sound like I'm so bad for thinking that way. The burqua it's, it's a localized regional thing. It's a lot more of a cultural identity than it is a religious.

Katie Dooley  44:48  
Preston was saying it's a regional cultural thing. And there's, you know, places in the world that are predominantly Muslim. I think Indonesia is one where you wouldn't see women in hijabs at all. Oh, Okay, so yeah, especially here in North America, you I mean, obviously wearing a hijab, you're probably prescribed Islam, but I'm sure there's dozens of women, hundreds of women that don't that prescribe to Islam and you'd never know.

Preston Meyer  45:15  
Yeah, for sure.

Katie Dooley  45:17  
The... there was another point I was gonna make....

Preston Meyer  45:23  
Men are also required to dress modestly. It's not just a women thing. Absolutely. However, the standard is different. Because, yay, men!

Katie Dooley  45:33  
Oh, I remember what I was gonna say. So the hijab is worn for modesty. But it's also a reminder of God's presence, just like the yarmulke. And women, whatever their choice of garment is, will cover up for men that don't belong to their family. So the so when they're home, their husbands will see them their sons will see them, their brothers will see them their dad will see them and, and other women and any other women, right. So if you went to a friend's Muslim wedding, and not a single hijab was to be found, because it was all women. We all the women's, I mean, at her actual wedding, there were hijabs, but oh man Muslim wedding, what a party and the events leading up to the week before the three events I went to in addition to her wedding, that we're all women only there was not a there wasn't a scarf in sight

Preston Meyer  46:37  
Kind of nice.The freedom to choose when to wear it is a very real thing. And it's a thing I can appreciate.

Katie Dooley  46:48  
Now, we danced around, we should have talked about the Quran earlier and the Hadith, but you brought it up and now it seems like a good way to

Preston Meyer  46:56  
Not sure how we talked about it earlier, when you're talking about Muhammad kind of a big deal.

Katie Dooley  47:00  
Well, we talked about the Quran being divinely revealed to him.

Preston Meyer  47:04  
Yeah. So the angel Gabriel brought to Muhammad the message of Allah. And, of course, that included many instances of how to correct the course that these people were on either away from, well, no, no, just pretty much mostly away from traditions of regionalized idols, and also other ways on how to be better Muslims, once they had accepted that faith. And in addition to the Koran, which is the singular authoritative volume of Scripture, there is also the Hadith, which are, I mean, they're collectively described as a thing, but it's several Hadith they are saying, of mostly Muhammad, that are reported through a chain of authoritary figures, authoritative figures. And then eventually written down. And so usually, when you read it, you'll have Muhammad said to so and soo who said to so and so and it was eventually recorded by so and so. And that that chain is actually really important within the religion to measure the authority of one saying over another, and how important a thing is. And those Hadiths are often used in the interpretation of the Quran. They're used to guide the Sharia, and definitely referred to when composing fatwas. And they're just the sayings of the Prophet, mostly things that didn't make it into the Quran for one reason or another, when the Quran was also not written by Muhammad, but also written by his companions, as they remembered what Muhammad had taught.

Katie Dooley  49:08  
Now, the only other practice I can think of that we didn't touch on would be their religious service. Now, we have Christians on Sunday and then the Jews on Saturday. So Muslims get Friday, that's the day that they would typically go to the mosque to have their public worship.

Preston Meyer  49:30  
Absolutely. There's another word that is also used sometimes instead of mosque, Masjid.

Katie Dooley  49:37  
Oh, I've seen that word. I've just never.

Preston Meyer  49:40  
Yeah, I think the nearby mosque actually says Masjid before the name of it. So it's a reasonably common word that you might more likely see written out in public

Katie Dooley  49:54  
Than spoken. I've only ever heard people saying the word mosque.

Preston Meyer  49:57  
I've only ever heard the word masjids spoken when I was in New Jersey, where people would talk about going to the masjid, and nobody ever said mosque, but here we say mosque. And it seems to be a regional preference thing. It's like

Katie Dooley  50:16  
Like pencil crayons versus coloured pencils.

Preston Meyer  50:18  
Exactly. Because they are the same thing as far as I've been able to find.

Katie Dooley  50:23  
Pencil crayons.

Preston Meyer  50:25  
Sure, sure. Why not? Yeah, okay. Yeah, they're pencil crayons here. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  50:37  
Now you know where we live based on what we call them!

Preston Meyer  50:41  
It's a toque, not a beanie

Katie Dooley  50:43  
Oh, they're narrowing us down. They're gonna find us.

Preston Meyer  50:45  
Oh, no, it's a hoodie. Not a bunny hug.

Katie Dooley  50:48  
Well, I mean, that just tell them we're not from Saskatchewan. But we know how to say Saskatchewan, so they know we're Canadian. How about you tell us about the differences between Shia Sunni and Sufi Muslim?

Preston Meyer  51:06  
All right. So. So most Muslims are Sunni. Sunni, basically means traditional following the four caliphs that were elected to take over leadership duties after Muhammad's death, the Sunni Muslims make up a little over three-quarters of all of the Muslim population, an awful lot of Muslims

Katie Dooley  51:29  
one, probably 1.5 million, then no, my math is wrong.

Preston Meyer  51:35  
Your math is wrong. But that's okay. I'm not gonna worry about the exact numbers definitely more than a million

Katie Dooley  51:40  
Over a billion.

Preston Meyer  51:43  
Yeah, it is more than a billion. There's several groups within Islam and the Sunnis are at the largest by a longshot, the second largest being the Shia. So Sunni Muslims who make up the vast majority of the Islamic, the Islamic umbrella, if you will, are a lot more comfortable with democracy that their leaders are elected, that they follow those colleagues who were elected following Muhammad's death. And so they're a lot more similar to what we're familiar with in the West, I think, than a lot of people give them credit for. They're also really concerned with the Hadith, those sayings recorded by the companions of Muhammad. And there's also four schools of legal thought within the Sunni tradition, each kind of having a friendly-ish competition with one another, in a lot of the same way as the old Jewish Pharisees and rabbis. That they would argue an awful lot, all the time, about literally every point of law, and understanding the value of Scripture and determining how to live one's life. And having those arguments within the Sunni tradition isn't typically problematic. You just argue it out. And an argument to last generations, as long as both sides are willing to continue defending their position, using reliable and authoritative sources. The Shia tradition, named for those who followed Ali, who was Mohammed son in law. They see him as his true divinely appointed successor. So a little less democratic there. But when you have somebody divinely appointed, it just makes sense that you follow them. So if you believe it, then that's the way you go. And the most visible feature of the Shia tradition that makes it different from from the Sunni tradition is the need to put down everything that they do differently from the Shia tradition. It's it's super visible, but there's also a lot of anti-rejection rhetoric among Shia Muslims as well. Just basically a lot of the scholars saying "Don't be a dick." They're still Muslims countering those people who say they're not good Muslims. Like you mentioned the No True Scotsman fallacy. So often it's that's the deal with Islam. You can be a Muslim and disagree. And that's okay. You don't you're not going to fit into the little cookie cutter every time. That's nonsense.

Katie Dooley  54:34  
Now I know Sunnis pray five times a day and Shia is typically pray three times a day.

Preston Meyer  54:41  
Yes. And they both always face Mecca. They agree on that.

Katie Dooley  54:46  
Don't we all

Preston Meyer  54:48  
Face towards Mecca when we pray?

Katie Dooley  54:49  
I mean, yeah, we're pretty darn close.

Preston Meyer  54:54  
I mean, you don't pray. I don't make a point of facing one direction or the other.

Katie Dooley  55:01  
Most churches face east towards Jerusalem and at that point converging, like you're pretty you're basically...

Preston Meyer  55:09  
At this distance from the Middle East. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  55:12  
Maybe if you were in Dubai, it'd be a little more specific.

Preston Meyer  55:15  
Yeah, the closer you are, the more you have various directions to Mecca

Katie Dooley  55:18  
But this far away, we're all facing Mecca. I am literally facing east, right now, as we record this. So yeah.

Preston Meyer  55:31  
Very nice. Very nice. I think if you point in any direction and go long enough, unless you've set it up exactly, right because you're always going to screw up and divert a little bit by a degree or another by by your 100 step that you're not going to make a perfect rain around the planet. At some point, you're gonna hit Mecca. I mean, you might take several laps, but

Katie Dooley  55:57  
There's got to be some sort of online simulation for this.

Preston Meyer  56:01  
Probably. For the if you occasionally vary by degree, I think you'll eventually get there,

Katie Dooley  56:07  
Like the screensavers where you like watch them. And you just wait for it to hit the corner. Eventually it'll...

Preston Meyer  56:16  
Exactly. Of course, that's not good enough. You do actually have to face towards Mecca when you pray. Yes.

Katie Dooley  56:22  
That was the divergent. There was the tangent...

Preston Meyer  56:26  
Everyone's back, we're gonna be okay.

Katie Dooley  56:27  
He got us to Mecca.

Preston Meyer  56:33  
The hajj is complete.

Katie Dooley  56:35  
I don't think we count you're not actually allowed in Mecca unless you're Muslim.

Preston Meyer  56:39  
That's right. And it's actually interesting that I've heard many Muslims use a much looser definition of what Islam is to describe people who don't subscribe to the Islamic faith as Muslims. For example, if I believe in Jesus, that's a pretty good step. If I want to be peaceable and worship the true God, there are Muslims who think that that's enough to call me a Muslim. But the guys guarding the doors at Mecca are not likely to be satisfied with that. They'll want to know that I believe Muhammad is a prophet, divinely called and inspired by God. And yeah, that's that's kind of the deal. There's, there's a whole spectrum in Islam just like there is in every other faith tradition. Another sizable enough for common people to know the name group within Islam is the Sufi tradition, which is a lot more interested in understanding, both internal and mystical, I guess, portions of the universe and God and theology. It's not incompatible with either as far as I'm able to observe, but it's given its own label as being its own thing.

Katie Dooley  58:14  
Ah, yes. A notable Sufi is Rumi. And he was known for his poetry and I guess commentary on on Islam and I was gifted,

Preston Meyer  58:27  
I was looking at that a little bit.

Katie Dooley  58:29  
My little book fo Rumi. Yeah, I was gifted that when I was in university and taking religious studies, and it's just got a little poems and passages, but he was a Sufi mystic. So check it out. It's an easy little, like you said, it's just poetry on Islam. There's little gems in there, and it's easy and non-committal. So yeah, he's a well-known Muslim, Sufi, Mystic guy.

Preston Meyer  58:57  
Yeah. And there's several much smaller groups in Islam, especially visible in North America. A lot of them come from traditions of African Americans remember, callbacks of their grandparents talking about their religion before they were forced into slavery under Christians, Christians in air quotes. And so when they received their freedom, a lot of them reverted to a form of Islam that may not necessarily be recognizable to somebody who is part of one of the bigger traditions. But if they believe in God, that God is God and that Muhammad was His Prophet. That's the first step in that direction. So we have leaders like Louis Farrakhan, who has quite a sizable following in the United States as leading one of those sects. What else we got?

Katie Dooley  1:00:01  
I think the last thing we have to cover is being Debbie Downers, because we really can't have an episode on Islam. And we'll go into greater detail in another episode. But we really can't talk about Islam without the rise of Islamophobia in our world, especially here in the West.

Preston Meyer  1:00:21  
Especially in the last 20 years or so after the Twin Tower attacks of 2001. We have seen a growing voice that occasionally wavers and quiets down, which is nice, but the sentiment is not gone yet that Islam is a terrible force in America.

Katie Dooley  1:00:46  
It's not a violent religion.

Preston Meyer  1:00:48  
It's all nonsense. People are either violent, or they're not. And I don't think religion has anything to do with it. Two, or about 100 years ago, the Ottoman Empire was one of many countries who lost the First World War. And they were splintered by the Allied governments to make sure that they would perpetually weaken themselves and each other by constant in-fighting. And the one thing they happen to share is the Islamic religion. And so it's easy to paint the enemy is Islamic. But that's a really terrible lens to look at all through. And when they rise up and say, Hey, we're tired of Americans screwing us over. So many people just see them as Muslims from the Middle East, when we could just say people from the Middle East are tired of Americans, screwing them over.

Katie Dooley  1:01:49  
I... we've had this conversation before, I think religion definitely exacerbates socio-economic-political issues, I don't think it makes it better. I think it's definitely fuel to a fire because now it's a divinely sanctioned fight.

Preston Meyer  1:02:13  
Well, and it validates the perspective of good versus evil in your conflict.

Katie Dooley  1:02:17  
Yup. But that being said, you've also, every time I bring a religious conflict, you're like, No, here's the socio-economic is the reason behind it. And I don't disagree. So there's a great podcast called The road to 9/11. By NPR, based off of a History Channel, documentary, and it goes into how the how 9/11 was set in motion decades before the event actually happened. So you know, if you talk to people in the 90s, about what Islam was, most people couldn't even tell you, and it was already in motion. So I had a to point to that, but it's gone.

Preston Meyer  1:03:00  
It's not one thing that just popped up by a couple of Muslim extremists, it was political people motivated politically, and trained by the American government to do the same thing to other governments. And all of that, to have the effect of unifying some of America. It's, it helps to have a common enemy. But to make a religion, an enemy is nonsensical, in my opinion.

Katie Dooley  1:03:34  
I guess the point I'm trying to make is like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. If you weren't scared of Muslims, which you shouldn't be, then why are you scared of them? Post 9/11? Because like I said, the it was already in motion. I mean you're, right? You can go was horribly back as the Ottoman Empire. So it's been in motion for a very long time. Yeah. So if you weren't scared of them before, why are you scared of them now?

Preston Meyer  1:04:02  
And if you are scared of them, why aren't you scared of Christians? Christians tend to be very awful to other Christians if they don't go to the same church. Not that it's a rule, but that's a thing that's super observable. And speaking on just in terms of terrorism, there's an awful lot more Christians bombing government buildings and medical stations

Katie Dooley  1:04:30  
Storming capitols...

Preston Meyer  1:04:31  
Right? There's a lot more of that than there is Muslims doing it.

Katie Dooley  1:04:36  
And I mean, part of that could be

Preston Meyer  1:04:38  
It's socioeconomic

Katie Dooley  1:04:40  
Right. Muslims know in North America, not that they have any claim any inclination to but the the repercussions are tenfold of what a brown Muslim would experience and what a white Christian would experience for any act of violence or terrorism. Right? I mean, we bombed the entire Middle East because of 9/11. But we've let tens of thousands of people die from Coronavirus. So it's just you know...

Preston Meyer  1:05:12  
It's a mad world.

Katie Dooley  1:05:13  
It is a mad world. There's a song about that. I think if you view Christianity is peaceful, you have to view Islam as peaceful. I don't think it's fair to look at it through different lenses. There are peaceful, peaceful chunks of the Bible and peaceful chunks of the Qura. There's violent chunks of the Bible and violent chunks of the Koran. And there's hateful Christians and hateful Muslims and hateful atheists and there's loving, Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever fill in, fill in the blank. Like Preston said, it's people in general, people are garbage, and you're gonna find garbage people in every group.

Preston Meyer  1:05:53  
But with any luck, you'll find the good ones in every group too.

Katie Dooley  1:05:59  
If you're willing to let go. And I would say if you're feeling wary or concerned about Muslims in your community, I would just encourage you to have conversations with them. And online mosque would be more than happy to have you for an afternoon and teach you some stuff and show you around. But if that's too far out of your comfort zone, then find someone in your communities that's a bank teller, library worker or whomever that is accessible to you. They're happy to answer questions. And that's our most of my knowledge on Islam. Obviously, we've done a lot of supplementary reading, but a lot of my foundational Islam is just from asking friends, questions about their lives and what they believe and why they do what they do. And they will give you the best answers, and they're happy to teach and feed you, too.

Preston Meyer  1:06:58  
Yeah, honestly, most people are happy to feed you if you're willing to talk to them for any length of time. And don't be a dick about it.

Katie Dooley  1:07:09  
I mean, yeah, I think people love to talk about themselves. So if you go in with an open mind, then you'll learn some good things.

Preston Meyer  1:07:17  
Absolutely. I want to lean into some positive things before we close actually had her a little downer moment. There's a lot of great things that Islam was brought to us that I alluded to, as we just opened up that mathematics. We use Arabic numerals in math. And it's not just because they took over a huge chunk of Europe ages ago. It's because their numbers are way more sensible and way more useful for math than the Roman numerals. And the even the Greek numbers system that use their alphabet and the Hebrew number system, they use their alphabet, the Arabic came up with numbers that are super easy to look at and do math real quickly, instead of counting out what four x's and a V

Katie Dooley  1:08:11  
45! Yeah, so if you're super Islamophobic and or "get back to your country" kind of person, please go back to using Roman numerals or else you're a poser.

Preston Meyer  1:08:23  
I love it.

Katie Dooley  1:08:25  
It bothers me to no end if that's if you're like,

Preston Meyer  1:08:30  
I don't want to be forced to learn Arabic numerals. That's what you were forced to learn growing up that's already happened. It's mysterious to me that Arabic has actually developed a different set of numerals that is now commonly used as opposed to what we're familiar with now. But what we use is the Arabic numbers set.

Katie Dooley  1:08:55  
Okay, this is why I found it.

Preston Meyer  1:08:58  
Oh, that's a lot more curls on the nine than I was expecting.

Katie Dooley  1:09:03  
So I don't know. I this is like a super fun fact and press and Preston called me out on it. But Arabic numerals are super cool because the number of angles is is the number so the one you have to and you have to draw this the correct way. But the one with the draw with the hat on top has one angle and a two if you draw it this picture is like a Zed but you know some people curve or curl it it's got two angles and so he has three angles and a for this you have to draw the sailboat four though the closed four has four angles and the five has five angles. It's like super cool. I don't it makes me so happy.

Preston Meyer  1:09:43  
Now that I see it far more willing to accept it

Katie Dooley  1:09:46  
And you have to draw the seven with the cross and the foot like so there's a whole foot Yeah, so they we've gotten lazy and how we draw things and or stylized how we draw things as someone who likes fonts but they original way of drawing was that it was based off of the angles in the number is, yeah, it's really intuitive. But in your back pocket, that's your trivia for this week with your family.

Preston Meyer  1:10:12  
Yeah. And also, early Christians really had no interest in the Greek classics. I'm not sure why that's the case, modern Christians seem to love them. But they were almost completely buried by the Christians. And Muslims are-- Muslim scholars were way ahead of the Christians of their time. And that's true in many cases, throughout history. And we can thank Muslim scholars for the Greek classics that we enjoy today, including the Homeric poems.

Katie Dooley  1:10:49  
Islam definitely had a, like a word for it like a high period, an enlightened period.

Preston Meyer  1:10:57  
And it was way before the, for everyone else.

Katie Dooley  1:11:00  
And we owe so much science and math, in particular, astronomy too, to Islamic culture. And then also really cool art, as I mentioned earlier, said Go away, go away. And then the Holy Wars started

Preston Meyer  1:11:17  
And the Dark Ages, and like crusades, an awful lot of fighting, because much like the Bush era, Dick measuring was there was a huge problem of white people who thought that they were superior for some reason, saying we're not comfortable with these smart brown folk. That that mindset is still very common in some parts of America. But yeah, Islam has brought us all kinds of great things. And I don't think they can be blamed for even half of the awful things that people like to blame them for. So I'mma celebrate Islam as one of those religions that's worth preserving.

Katie Dooley  1:12:15  
Wow. I...

Preston Meyer  1:12:20  
Not that we have any power to do anything.

Katie Dooley  1:12:22  
I mean, neither of us are Muslim. So we're not actually helping the cause. But I really don't want any religion preserved. But I see your I see you seeing the merits.

Preston Meyer  1:12:43  
People have to grow up with some sort of moral teaching. They have to go with some sort of moral teaching.

Katie Dooley  1:12:48  
I turned out just fine. His name was Mr. Rogers

Preston Meyer  1:12:54  
I'm okay with that.

Katie Dooley  1:12:55
He was a pastor.

Preston Meyer  1:12:57
Yeah. Okay. didn't know that. But I'm okay.

Katie Dooley  1:12:58  
Um, so that concludes the Abrahamic religions that we've talked about. So Judaism, Christianity, Islam, we are going to spend the next four episodes covering air quotes, Eastern religions. As you know from past episodes, we don't love that term. So we will be starting with Hinduism in two weeks' time and then Buddhism, Sikhism and Shintoism. And that will cover all the all the big ones, and then we can dive into some more gritty topics once we're all on the same footing for for the world's religions. If you like what you're listening to follow us

Preston Meyer  1:13:47  
on Instagram and Facebook. Feel free to email us

Katie Dooley  1:13:52  
become a loyal congregant @hollywaterm- @holywatermelo- @HolyWatermelonPod for Instagram and Facebook and [email protected].

Preston Meyer  1:14:05  
If you want to email us

Katie Dooley  1:14:06  
If you want to email us. concerns, suggestions, commentary, hate mail, join the conversation in the conversation. We'll read your email on air.

Preston Meyer  1:14:21  
Yeah, I would love to.

Katie Dooley  1:14:24  
Also, if you have stuck with us this long please share this with a friend if you share with a friend that we can double our listeners and put out more great content.

Preston Meyer  1:14:36  
Thanks for joining us.

Both Hosts  1:14:37  
Peace be with you!