Fervor

On the subway this morning, it wasn't very crowded. One of the few standees was a tall, slender woman, probably in her 20's or 30's, and very conservatively dressed (long dark skirt to her ankles, dark sensible shoes/boots, long, medium-gray zipped-up puffy coat, and a dark kerchief on her head). I spotted an empty seat, and sat down. Soon, I heard a low, rational voice, and I thought it might be the woman speaking to a friend, although I couldn't tell because her back was turned to me and she was a few yards away. Then it became clear that she was addressing her remarks to her fellow passengers. She was telling them how much she loved Jesus. Oh, great, I thought. Another of the crazies. But I was mildly surprised or even regretful, because I had thought, at first glance, that she was Muslim rather than Christian. I idly pondered the fact that crazy Christians tend to harangue strangers, while crazy Muslims tend to blow them up. But I decided to listen for more clues about the woman, whose voice was more than usually moderated in pace, pitch, and volume in her evangelical efforts.

As I listened (pretending of course not to notice anything in the traditional NYC subway rider manner), she explained further. She loved Jesus; she has no issues with Jesus. But he was a man (she said), although a prophet. So she and all Muslims (aha!) love Jesus, but they don't worship him. Just as they don't worship any of the other prophets, including (oddly) Abraham and David as well as Mohammed. (No mention of Elijah?) No, Muslims believe in only one God, they don't worship the prophets.

After proceeding in this vein for a while, she moved on to the next topic: Muslims are not violent. For example (she said), consider the World Trade Center. She explained that Muslims could not have been behind the attack on the World Trade Center, because there was a mosque there. I didn't quite catch who (if anyone) she thought was responsible.

Her theory was intriguing of course, but it doesn't really hold water in a world where Shiite and Sunni Muslims try to attack each other in or near their mosques on festival days.

On the one hand, it is heartening to see a Muslim go in for evangelism instead of jihad. On the other hand, subway evangelists need to have a very high tolerance for frustration (they will almost invariably be met by stony silence), and the kind of single-mindedness that allows them to persist in a course of conduct which is remarkably ineffective. I'm not sure subway evangelism will really catch on in that population.