Ali Eteraz – Children of Dust
Different religions and their practices have a strong influence on the thinking and the actions of the people who follow them. Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity are the religions that are practiced in different parts of the world, yet with close similarities in some aspects. The practices of these religions are said to be different in some terms but also similar in various expressions. Ali Eteraz’s book Children of Dust is rich in the scope of Islamic religion and can be used to make references as well as learn what a hassle or a blessing the spiritual journey can be. The book helps to learn how traveling can be a common motif as far as spiritual writings are concerned, the family experience of religion, and the perception of Islam by different people in the United States, and also allows one to reflect on the experience of their own religion.
Children of Dust has been broken down into five informative portions where Eteraz describes his journey as a Muslim confidant from Pakistan to the United States and back to Pakistan again. Every part of this book shows the developments undergone by Ali as he fully forms into a Muslim, including several changes to his name. The first part of the book is referred to as “The Promised: Abir Ul Islam”. It clearly describes the hopes and the promise of his parents to God about their unborn child. His father dedicates him to be a man who shall serve the Lord as a leader and a servant of Islam. This shows that a spiritual journey can be predetermined and can be a result of family scrutiny and early guidance that they want a person to take up. Immediately after Ali was born, his mother takes him to Haji so that he could be blessed by Allah as she rubs the Wall of Ka’ba on his chest in Mecca. The covenant made by his mother goes on to guide him through over 30 years as he traverses from different places.
Ali, being a boy growing up in a tiny village in Pakistan, proudly enjoys his young life under the guidance and the constant presence of his mother and father in it. The father is known as Pops and the mother is called Ammi. The boy is trained in the strict virtues of Islam in a devout house and also in a committed country. He also grows surrounded by his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who are as devoted to Islam as him. He continues to grow in great understating of the Koran in rural Pakistan where his mother weaves various intensive lessons from the Holy Book and other folk stories of Islam. His mother also narrates about the Jinn, the story of a mythical creature that becomes a part of his daily living. This dominated the reality of his young world and mastered his thoughts and way of life until he matured. This shows that family members can be very significant when it comes to shaping your spiritual life.
Soon after a short-lived Madrasa education, his life takes a different course as his father obtains a visa to work abroad, in the United States. The family moves from Pakistan into their new home in Alabama. This begins to show the effect of a different culture on someone’s religious beliefs. The family constantly moves as they look for opportunities and luckily settles in Bible Belt. Due to his teenage sexual anxiety and shyness, he decides to change his name through a legal means so that he may separate himself from his parent’s fundamentalism which had continued to grow relative to his. Tension goes on increasing between him and his family even more as he changes his name to Amir. The experience in America weakens Ali’s spiritual commitment to Islam and distances him from the religious practices that he used to learn and follow. The relationship between him and his mother is not the same anymore but now he pursues his own dreams of adapting to the new American culture. Therefore, this shows that a new culture can easily change someone’s spiritual and religious inclinations.
When he joins a college in Manhattan, he potentially changes his name again after discovering that he originated from the ancestral line of Abu Bakr Ramaq. Abu Bakr Ramaq was known to have been a prophet and also the first Islamic Caliph. This majorly influences his understanding of religion and forms the basis of his own fundamentalism and hence he becomes Abu Bakr Ramaq. He explores the Islamic faith and confronts some of his opponents – the representatives of secularism and extremism. He goes ahead to do away with Osama Bin Laden as he described him to be a man with a misplaced messianic agenda and also named him an opportunist. Also, his careful reading to Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses really convinces him that real battle is between reason and Islam. Therefore, this shows that personal study can influence your spiritual journey and maturity.
The book continues to describe that after Ali had grown a beard and experienced some hilarious misadventures with women, he journeyed back to Pakistan with his mother and younger brother so that he could find a good Muslim wife as well as trace his ancestral lineage. Along the way, he discovers that he was not related to Abu Bakr but instead, he descended from a Hindu convert. The Taliban group threatens him on the basis of his American lifestyle. The group wants to escort him completely out of the town by his uncle’s military unit. This shows that people rarely have positive attitudes towards those who desert their culture.
From Eteraz, it can easily be learned that it is good for someone to stick with the study of his or her religious norms and practices. This would help one to be established in faith and to have a common transcendence toward a spiritual understanding. Also, Ali had a misconception about his origin while associating himself with someone who had nothing to do with him. This means that we should always conduct proper background research to understand our spiritual foundation so that we can grow in a proper manner. For someone to develop spiritually, they must be devoted to spiritual matters and ways just like Ali. For him to discover the truth, he had to go back to his origin and carry out a study of where he had originated from. Therefore, for someone to advance in spiritual terms and come to maturation, a clear and intensive evaluation of such matters should be carried out.
In conclusion, spiritual growth and maturation is a personal journey that someone should undertake with a lot of care. The guidance of experienced people such as parents is very important in the comprehension of the foundations of a certain faith. Also, in pursuit of spiritual understanding, no one should allow foreign cultures to deter them from the course finding of the truth. Therefore, spiritual growth and maturation are grounded on a personal devotion to knowing the actual truth about the origin and the fundamentals of your faith.
Assessment of the phenomena taking place in society based on the collection and processing of various data according to the research of a sociologist at Jason Taylor and a marketer at https://qualityessay.com/
Children of Dust has been broken down into five informative portions where Eteraz describes his journey as a Muslim confidant from Pakistan to the United States and back to Pakistan again. Every part of this book shows the developments undergone by Ali as he fully forms into a Muslim, including several changes to his name. The first part of the book is referred to as “The Promised: Abir Ul Islam”. It clearly describes the hopes and the promise of his parents to God about their unborn child. His father dedicates him to be a man who shall serve the Lord as a leader and a servant of Islam. This shows that a spiritual journey can be predetermined and can be a result of family scrutiny and early guidance that they want a person to take up. Immediately after Ali was born, his mother takes him to Haji so that he could be blessed by Allah as she rubs the Wall of Ka’ba on his chest in Mecca. The covenant made by his mother goes on to guide him through over 30 years as he traverses from different places.
Ali, being a boy growing up in a tiny village in Pakistan, proudly enjoys his young life under the guidance and the constant presence of his mother and father in it. The father is known as Pops and the mother is called Ammi. The boy is trained in the strict virtues of Islam in a devout house and also in a committed country. He also grows surrounded by his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who are as devoted to Islam as him. He continues to grow in great understating of the Koran in rural Pakistan where his mother weaves various intensive lessons from the Holy Book and other folk stories of Islam. His mother also narrates about the Jinn, the story of a mythical creature that becomes a part of his daily living. This dominated the reality of his young world and mastered his thoughts and way of life until he matured. This shows that family members can be very significant when it comes to shaping your spiritual life.
Soon after a short-lived Madrasa education, his life takes a different course as his father obtains a visa to work abroad, in the United States. The family moves from Pakistan into their new home in Alabama. This begins to show the effect of a different culture on someone’s religious beliefs. The family constantly moves as they look for opportunities and luckily settles in Bible Belt. Due to his teenage sexual anxiety and shyness, he decides to change his name through a legal means so that he may separate himself from his parent’s fundamentalism which had continued to grow relative to his. Tension goes on increasing between him and his family even more as he changes his name to Amir. The experience in America weakens Ali’s spiritual commitment to Islam and distances him from the religious practices that he used to learn and follow. The relationship between him and his mother is not the same anymore but now he pursues his own dreams of adapting to the new American culture. Therefore, this shows that a new culture can easily change someone’s spiritual and religious inclinations.
When he joins a college in Manhattan, he potentially changes his name again after discovering that he originated from the ancestral line of Abu Bakr Ramaq. Abu Bakr Ramaq was known to have been a prophet and also the first Islamic Caliph. This majorly influences his understanding of religion and forms the basis of his own fundamentalism and hence he becomes Abu Bakr Ramaq. He explores the Islamic faith and confronts some of his opponents – the representatives of secularism and extremism. He goes ahead to do away with Osama Bin Laden as he described him to be a man with a misplaced messianic agenda and also named him an opportunist. Also, his careful reading to Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses really convinces him that real battle is between reason and Islam. Therefore, this shows that personal study can influence your spiritual journey and maturity.
The book continues to describe that after Ali had grown a beard and experienced some hilarious misadventures with women, he journeyed back to Pakistan with his mother and younger brother so that he could find a good Muslim wife as well as trace his ancestral lineage. Along the way, he discovers that he was not related to Abu Bakr but instead, he descended from a Hindu convert. The Taliban group threatens him on the basis of his American lifestyle. The group wants to escort him completely out of the town by his uncle’s military unit. This shows that people rarely have positive attitudes towards those who desert their culture.
From Eteraz, it can easily be learned that it is good for someone to stick with the study of his or her religious norms and practices. This would help one to be established in faith and to have a common transcendence toward a spiritual understanding. Also, Ali had a misconception about his origin while associating himself with someone who had nothing to do with him. This means that we should always conduct proper background research to understand our spiritual foundation so that we can grow in a proper manner. For someone to develop spiritually, they must be devoted to spiritual matters and ways just like Ali. For him to discover the truth, he had to go back to his origin and carry out a study of where he had originated from. Therefore, for someone to advance in spiritual terms and come to maturation, a clear and intensive evaluation of such matters should be carried out.
In conclusion, spiritual growth and maturation is a personal journey that someone should undertake with a lot of care. The guidance of experienced people such as parents is very important in the comprehension of the foundations of a certain faith. Also, in pursuit of spiritual understanding, no one should allow foreign cultures to deter them from the course finding of the truth. Therefore, spiritual growth and maturation are grounded on a personal devotion to knowing the actual truth about the origin and the fundamentals of your faith.
Assessment of the phenomena taking place in society based on the collection and processing of various data according to the research of a sociologist at Jason Taylor and a marketer at https://qualityessay.com/
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
