Children of the Dust (Essay Sample)

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Children of the dust
Introduction
Most children perceive their parents devotions to religion mechanically or methodologically with little or no much interest for deeper insights or understanding. Typically religion is complex. Its rituals affect a child’s desire to move around and play and interact with other age mates in the neighborhoods. However, this is very different with Ali Eteraz the author of the book children of the dust. He narrates the story of a child whose thinking is domineered by the Islam religion from birth. The parents of Eteraz made the Islam religion and its beliefs a centerpiece of his life, and he becomes entirely obsessed with it in his youth. This essay reviews the book children of the Dust by Ali Eteraz. The primary focus will be to enunciate the contemporary expressions of faith and their relevance to Islam, the central teachings and principles of the faith traditions and how they can be integrated into a person’s life.
The author successfully gives several illustrations of expressions of faith in his life narrations that are relevant to our societal experience as well as Islam. First, he is given the name Abir ul Islam, which a great person before Allah and men both after death and on earth (Eteraz 9). His parents are strongly devoted to the Islamic religion and profoundly influence his upbringing. He embraces the religion with all its stringent prayer regulations, anathemas to those against the worship of Allah and its social compulsions. Further, he adapts to women putting on chador that is covering the body below the eyes and face or niqab to hide their body and beauty as dictated by the Quran. Furthermore, he is sent to a madrassa to learn and memorize the Quran as well as get blessed by Allah on earth and even after death. Moreover, when the family moved to the US the family in 1991still maintains their faithful devotion to the Islam religion despite being in a foreign land. The US culture does not uphold bodily purity that is against the Quran (Eteraz 78). He is now surrounded by ladies flaunting their body openly in a charming way yet Quran upholds body purity where even a minute drop of urine on a person’s flesh or cloth makes the entire body unclean before Allah. To maintain his faith in his Islamic religion he reads several volumes of hadiths to guide his mental radicalism while growing. Similarly, his mother is also against all form of US secularism including plays, music, paintings, televisions, movies, dancing and even family portraits. She decides to dress in a hijab and argues that ladies or women who do not put on the scarf are not devoted to Islamic. Earlier, when Ali was growing, when they visited Mecca they had rubbed his chest against the sacred Ka’aba on a black corner, which is a dwelling place of Allah on earth and it is at this point that they named him Abir ul Islam (Eteraz 238).
The narration brings forth practices and principles of faith and significant teachings that can be integrated into a person’s life to contribute to a collective and personal edification. Readers can gain relevant knowledge about the Quran, Islam as well as the viewpoints...