U.S. Catholic says that it has a million readers, and those who don’t use each issue to line their bird cages are getting a bracing dose of leftist religion, as the magazine itself proudly boasts: “U.S. Catholic puts faith in the context of everyday life, with a strong focus on social justice. Since 1935, U.S. Catholic has been a courageous, forward-thinking forum for discussion among a broad range of voices.” Hey, if there’s anything we need, it’s more folks who are willing to be stunning and brave, and U.S. Catholic is happy to oblige with a new article about how much we can learn from the religion that leftists of all creeds seem to love best: Islam.
In “What Catholics can learn from Islam about the pursuit of happiness,” which U.S. Catholic published Thursday, a practicing Muslim named Zeyneb Sayılgan asserts that “Islam teaches that it is a sacred obligation to build trust and respect by nurturing human relationships.” She informs us that “as Muslim scholar Bediüzzaman Said Nursi put it, while solitude can be healthy, we are social creatures who fundamentally need each other.”
This is all swell, but the immediate question that springs to mind is why the top dogs at U.S. Catholic, in their wisdom, decided that they needed to go outside the Roman Catholic tradition, and indeed outside of the Christian tradition as a whole, in order to find someone who would remind their readers that we should be building trust and nurturing relationships with other people, and that it’s not wise to be alone all the time. The answer, of course, is that they didn’t, as any number of Roman Catholic thinkers, as well as sages from other Christian traditions, and others as well, could have been found who would have said essentially the same thing.
U.S. Catholic, however, is featuring it all as coming from a Muslim and the Islamic tradition in the spirit of outreach, to demonstrate how much Muslims and Roman Catholics have in common, and to emphasize how they should regard one another with love and kindness rather than suspicion. And so Zeyneb Sayılgan insists in due course that Islam and Catholicism see eye to eye on the need for human fellowship:
Catholic traditions similarly emphasize the need for human connection and the sacredness of communal life. In fact, in both Islam and Catholicism, as well as many other world religions, we find shared values around hospitality, communal meals, spiritual gatherings, and service to others. These are not just cultural customs; they are pathways to joy and healing in an increasingly disconnected world.
She emphasizes, however, that her own prophet is the go-to guy for the straight dope about all this: “In these challenging times, the teachings of Prophet Muhammad offer valuable lessons on nurturing community and joy in daily life that transcend religious boundaries. He offers a powerful model for cultivating trust, engaging with others, and creating a sense of belonging. His teachings on connection, compassion, and community can resonate with people of all faiths—Catholics included—because so many traditions share this sacred impulse toward togetherness. Inspired by Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, I try to employ several tools from my spiritual toolbox to cultivate healthy human connections,” which she then goes on to explain in detail.
Related: New York Man Says He ‘Has a Right as a Muslim to Punish Jews,’ Slashes Barber with Scissors
Now, leaving aside Muhammad’s well-documented thirst for violence and numerous calls for the subjugation of Christians and other non-Muslims, which in themselves call into question Sayılgan’s assertions and the wisdom of U.S. Catholic in publishing them, there is another problem with all this. Sayılgan’s article is yet another marvelous example of Roman Catholic outreach to Muslims, a gesture of good will that U.S. Catholic’s editors and readers are likely confident will be swiftly reciprocated. Yet it will not be. Have you ever seen an article in a Muslim publication entitled something like “What Muslims can learn from Christianity about the pursuit of happiness”? No, and you never will. For Muslims, Muslim-Christian dialogue is simply a means of proselytizing and bringing non-Muslims into Islam.
The renowned twentieth-century Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb made this clear when he said that “the chasm between Islam and Jahiliyyah [the society of unbelievers] is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other, but only so that the people of Jahiliyyah may come over to Islam.”
Is U.S. Catholic aware of that quote? Have its editors pondered its implications? The answer to both questions is almost certainly no. And it shows.
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