When I first started studying strictly Islam over a year and half ago, I was thrilled and amazed by the religion. It agreed so much with my personal beliefs. I loved the concept of one God and that all prayer was focused on Him alone. I love the way muslims pray, like a combination of yoga, meditation, and worship. Hijab fascinated me and I wanted to be a part of it. I got to keep Jesus, just the way I believed in him. I greatly enjoy the Qur'an and have found it to be incredibly easy to understand. I have had very little issues with it. The mosque felt right to me, churches never have. I felt like I may have found a place comfortable to pray in, outside of my own home. In this process I have become closer to God than I ever thought was possible for me again. I haven't been this close to God since I was a child and underwent major surgery. That surgery is how I found God to begin with.
Yet now as I am studying more of what I call the "rules and regulations" and the common beliefs I have become very frustrated. The common beliefs of many muslims do not agree with the Qur'an, they are cultural. All these hadiths, these "rules and regulations", are beyond confusing and often frightening. I was never frightened by the Bible, but these hadiths scare me because if they are hadiths that means there are people out there who believe they are fact just the way they are written. That may not be the right way to interpret them, but people tend to take everything literally. The Islam that I am studying now and the Islam I learned about from My Love and the Qur'an are quite different things. The Islam I learned from the Qur'an does not agree with women being inferior, killing non-muslims, or that only muslims (those that follow the religion of Islam) can go to heaven. But what I hear from people is that you should kill non-muslims, that only muslims go to heaven, that women are inferior. I don't know what to believe anymore. I'm becoming disenchanted with religion all together, much like I did after years of studying Christianity; that terrifies me too. That is not a good state of mind to return to.
The religion I started studying over a year and half ago was so beautiful and comforting. Now its become scary.
I want to give up and run away. I want to go back to believing that organized religion does not work and I will never find a community to which I belong. I want to go back to combining the belief in one God and Buddhism, which is what I was working on before discovering Islam. Life without the Islam I began with seems much sadder than a life with it. I still want the prayers, hijab, the mosque, the Qur'an. Just not all these terrifying hadiths. Not the terriorism type of jihad. Not the belief that only muslims go to heaven. I don't want those concepts in my life. The muslims I know do not have these concepts in their lives, they are against them. They say they are not part of Islam.
I don't know what to believe. I'm afraid I will become so disenchanted again I will loose God. I am lost and confused. Firmly stuck in religion limbo. I so desperately want out of that place.
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