faith and beliefs

Salam

hey there!
i know i havent written anything for quite sometime
there are things that i wanted to share but seemed to trivial write on
but i really, really wanted to share what happened tonight to you, my dear readers and also as a good reminder to myself

it's been an eye opening experience

a wake up call

at least, for me.

today we went to palmerston north to bring a friend of us from auckland.

at The Square (where there's a clock tower) we saw a christian preacher talking to no one in particular.

we walked pass him and well, just ignored him.

it was a common sight anyway.
we went ahead, taking some photos at a corner near him, on a tripod

using self timer

as God has destined it, a fierce wind passed by and well, the tripod fell.

alhamdulillah the camera is still ok.

as soon as the tripod fell down, the preacher and his wife came by

they offered to take our photos. we politely declined his offer but he insisted it and so we let him take our photo.

and a casual conversation followed by.

u know "where are you ladies from? what are you doing here etc etc etc"

and suddenly he asked us "what do you think of jesus christ?"

which is relatively easy to answer
and then followed by a range of questions on jesus, Muhammad, Quran, the validity of the Quran, the historical inconsistencies he found in the Quran etc etc

challenging questions.

he wasn't provoking us or anything

we had a calm dialogue regarding our faith.

my point is not his questions.

my point is how he presented and based his arguments on.

he came fully prepared.

with evidences. with proves.
some "archeological artefacts" or something.

which i have no idea of.

my point is that

it was embarrassing not to be able to rebut his "facts" coz we have no knowledge of it.
it was really embarrassing when at the beginning i have to say "i'm not in the position to say this blablabla coz i'm not exactly sure myself"

and what strikes me the most is when he asked whether i read the Quran?

i said i do. but deep inside, i know, that i just read on the surface.
without knowing the whole content by heart.

unlike this preacher, who memorized the bible and also studied the Quran.

picture this:

there i was

proudly parading my hijab, a symbol of my faith

but when being asked to discuss about this faith,

i was speechless.

what kind of message am i sending exactly?

what kind of muslim am i?

am i a good muslim?

what do i really know about my beloved faith?

why couldnt i answered all the questions on my religion?

if do read the Quran, why can't i presented evidences from the Quran?

the common excuse is that we dont know.

that we dont have enough knowledge on that.

that we didn't learned those kind of stuff.

that we are not ustaz or ustazah.

but how long do we have to remain ignorant?

have we done anything to change that?

why aren't we searching the knowledge ourselves?

(btw, the preacher had a master in bible studies)

it's humiliating to discover that i know all the trivial facts on celebrities

who dated who,

who appeared in which movie and so on

but i have little idea on sirah

and the lives and histories of our prophets

there's so many things that i have heard before but unsure of

the thing is

we always take things for granted

and take things on the surface

so we know the names of the 25 prophets

but do we know their whole stories?

so we pray 5 times a day
do we know the meaning of each prayers?

so we read the quran and read the translations
do we really understand the meaning of the translations? have we ever asked or seek information from those who are more knowledgeable?

praying, reciting quran etc without in depth understanding, without really thinking, are somewhat absurd, no?

what the preacher said tonight does not make my faith waiver at all

i was not moved at all. alhamdulillah.

but it does make me reflect on myself, as a muslim.

what kind of muslim am i? what do i really know about my faith?

why am i not seeking any knowledge to strengthen my faith.

knowledge in general.

thank you mr preacher.

i don't believe in the religion that you've preached.

but i do agree with you that we have to seek knowledge
and challenge ourselves.

don't believe and accept everything blindly.