Reciting the Qur'an

Originally posted at Conversation

We had a[nother] rather unique experience today. Since today is a big holiday here (Happy Women's Day!), we went to the cemetery with some friends of ours who recently had a death in the family. The Kyrgyz observe many traditions associated with Muslim death rites and mourning goes on for 40 days. The cemetery is often visited during those 40 days. I believe daily visits are ideal, but usually not possible.

As I've mentioned before, many Kyrgyz are not religiously observant. But reciting or reading from the Qur'an is still very common, and an important part of visiting graves. Although we were with a group that was mostly made up of Muslims, none of them knew the Qur'an well enough to recite anything. So it was up to my husband, a Christian, to recite from the Qur'an at each grave, then another man prayed in Kyrgyz.

There's always a balance between giving up old traditions and taking on new traditions when a person or family joins the church. Can you still have a traditional Kyrgyz funeral? Do you prepare tea and allow alcohol to be drunk in your home? How strict is your sabbath observance going to be? Is it a good idea to try to proselytize to your Muslim friends? These and similar issues can be sticky for any new convert, and often still can be difficult at any time. I hope that respect and tolerance are always encouraged. Throwing the Qur'an out the window isn't a good idea- I know that my husband's ability to recite from the Qur'an has gone a lot further toward mutual understanding than anything else we could have done for some people.

My husband and I have to figure out the right balance too. We don't want to encourage people to be part Muslim and part Mormon. There are many people we've known who think we're about ready to convert to Islam (we're not); the balance my husband and I find is going to be different from the balance many other families might find. But for now, it feels like reciting from the Qur'an, discussing Islam with Muslims (again, we often know more about Islam and Islamic law than they do), and many other similar things, are working. And I hope it's the right balance to encourage the members here.