Nabeel Qureshi, as it turned out, is a much more prolific writer than I had anticipated when originally planning this interview. With his new book Answering Jihad coming out shortly and another, No God but Jesus, coming out in August, there was clearly enough material for an article much longer than this. But alas, through forced restraint, here is my limited account of a fascinating conversation.

As any writer, he focuses on his own expertise – his is comparing Islam and Christianity. His conversion at the age of 22, after years of living a very devoted and strict Islamic faith (he was originally from the Ahmadiyya sect) provides a valuable perspective on the position of the two faiths in our society and how they should be understood. Seeking Allah, finding Jesus is his personal account. His aim was to help Westerners understand Muslims, particularly because of the fear which often defines relations today. He attempts to do this by describing his own childhood, providing a point of connection for those who view the Muslim faith as something ‘alien’. The book also attempts to explain Christianity to Muslims, and Islam to Christians, in the hope that they may understand one another. The third aim of the book is to help people understand the difficulties faced by converts, moving from one religious background to another. Indeed, in contrast to the individualism of the West, in many areas of the world people view their identity as part of a collective, where the decisions you make impact your family, your tribe and your nation. In consequence, there are tremendous ramifications for converts, as certain decisions can mean they are viewed as traitors.

He penned Answering Jihad because of the very polarised response to Muslims coming westward. He explains, “It addresses how to treat Islam as a religion versus how to treat Muslims as people, so that we understand accurately the religion and its systems, but we treat the people with compassion, because as a Christian I believe they are all image-bearers of God, whether or not we agree with them.”

No God but One he wrote as an explanation of the intellectual side of his conversion. It also presents the differences between Islam and Christianity. As he puts it, “There are analogous notions in both faiths, such as God, prophets etc, but those notions being analogous, does not mean they are the same.” In the second half of the book, he investigates the case for Islam and Christianity and asks whether either is worth sacrificing everything for.

We discuss the biggest misconceptions of Christianity, both from a Muslim and a ‘Western’ perspective. He highlights the particular postmodern relativist view of the world that the West appears to have chosen and claims that Muslims and Christians actually have much more in common by comparison. He claims, “A westerner would ask questions, such as why would God send people to hell? Who are Christians to say what is immoral?”

A Muslim issue with Christianity is much more specific, such as, “How can you believe in the Trinity”, or, “How can you expect an orderly world without a specific law such as Sharia?” He does, however, highlight that the arrival of many Muslims in the West has meant that many of these boundaries have become blurred.

But what actually is a Christian? As ever in these conversations, it is important to define your terms. He explains, “When I am talking about a Christian personally, I mean someone that intentionally follows Jesus, who worships only the God of the Hebrew Bible and Jesus as the risen Lord.” Sounds simple enough. He makes a point of excluding people who have been brought up in a Christian home, but who do not personally choose this way for themselves.

We briefly discuss the hypocrisy of a potential Christian superiority complex. He argues, “To be a Christian you have to admit that you are sinful, that you need God’s salvation unlike other perspectives where you can to some degree earn your way, work your way, enlighten your way into heaven or the equivalent. This perspective requires you to be completely humble and just receive”. He also highlights the benefits of the historical evidence surrounding the beginnings of the Christian faith and the fact that it is a faith grounded in love, through the eternal selfless relationship within the Trinity. From a personal angle, he claims, “If Christianity were just another message, I would never have accepted it.”

His favourite verse of the Bible is Mark 12: 30-31 because it reinforces the revolutionary notion that when considering love, the self should be third in line, if not further down the list. He claims, “If we all lived like that, this world would be a much better place.” We briefly discuss parts of the Bible that are often pointed to for their apparent discrepancy, notably the abrupt end to Mark’s gospel. Nabeel argues that the apparent cliff hanger is there to offer scope for first-hand witnesses to finish the story from their own experience. This turns out to be his intended doctoral thesis. I move away carefully.

Finally, I ask for one piece of advice for the average Oxford student. He replies, “Stop going through the motions of school, university, job, marriage, mortgage, retirement, death. Your life is powerful, you are a unique individual in a unique circumstance with a unique personality and skill set… If God exists, you can aff ord to die helping others because you live eternally and your life can be used for a great purpose. Even if not, see yourself as an individual of great potential.” His story in five words: “God rescued me from me”

I Flew – Lindsay Tocik

The first time I flew a kite without my father
Sky chose to tease Earth with sorrowful weather.
I walked with three others whom no longer know my name,
while we searched for open fields to launch our turtle tether.

Sky chose to tease Earth with sorrowful weather,
but Sun refused to give into Darkness. You should have seen her shine.
While we search for open fields to launch our turtle tether,
we shared chuckles, and Kite’s string became entangled with Vine’s.

As Sun refused to give into Darkness (you should have seen her shine),
I walked with three others whom no longer know my name.
We shared chuckles, and Kite’s string became entangled with Vine’s,
The first time I flew a kite without my father.

Note:

This week, in continuation of the theme of weather, Lindsay Tocik writes about sunshine. Lindsay is one of this term’s resident writers on Seven Voices, an online platform which features the work of seven new artists from around Oxford in response to weekly themes every term. Check out and respond to their creations at http://sevenvoices.weebly.com/

I don’t play ‘Minecraft’, so I admit that for this article I had a lot of help. In fact I barely ever made it past ‘Sims 3’, with a very thin smearing of ‘Runescape’. But whatever. I know a lot of people that do play it, and I have seen for myself the time and eff ort that goes into creating the games themselves and the hours put in by players, who experiment with the core materials to create beautiful structures of their own. Indeed, such commitment is easily comparable, and to some extent exceeds that of modern artists. However, can something created largely for its entertainment value be described as art?

The suggestion that video games can be art is not completely revolutionary. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has several video games now as part of its permanent Architecture and Design Collection. Of the selected list, the museum commented, “The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design…and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity. Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects – from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behaviour – that pertain to interaction design.”

According to your average bogstandard dictionary, art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Indeed, it is clear how the creation of the game can be considered art. But what about the players themselves? Are they artistic creators?

I briefly looked online at some ‘Minecraft’ creations. Many show an incredible level of skill and architectural engineering. With ‘Minecraft’ versions of the Taj Mahal, the Pokémon Grass Gym, the Tower of Babel and Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings, the creative scope itself is vast. Players have also added an educational element to the game; in 2014, a 1:1 scale recreation of Denmark was launched to teach urban planning and geography in schools. This reflects other formative attempts of art over the years. ‘Minecraft’ also has the advantage that it is not limited spatially like other art forms, as players are able to create whole cities. The potential for collaboration is also unprecedented.

Of course, there has been unavoidable controversy over the use of computers in the creation of art. But equally, there are many things in art galleries all over the world whose artistic qualities many struggle to understand. Just because something is popular, does that discredit its right to the title? Personally, I think it only enhances it.

I am instantly sceptical of any novel described as “warm-hearted.” I cringe away from a blurb’s claim that “a memorable portrait of two women, My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation.” Even the title blares dismal sentimentality. Yet if you can get past the occasionally nauseating summary of the main character’s relationship as a “not always perfect shelter from hardship” you will find that the delight of Elena Ferrante’s novel lies not in its universality, but its specifi city, its gorgeously precise detailing of the lives of Elena and Lila.

It is at times far from ‘heartwarming’ as you witness family lives disintegrate, fathers who beat their children, young men who beat each other. “You could die of things that seemed normal,” Elena remarks early on in the novel, setting up a world indiff erent to the fate of the two girls, as they attempt to escape the impoverished lives they are born to.

As we trail through the young girls’ lives, both the readers’ and the characters’ hopes are constantly frustrated. We witness Elena and Lila, as young, occasionally diffi cult yet endearing children, brimming with hope and ambition. Lila borrows books from the library under the names of every single one of her family members, and dreams of writing away her poverty through best-selling novels. But literature is inadequate at changing her life, provoking questions about its role. Neither this novel nor the books Lila read can change the sad economic reality she faces, yet they can bear witness to the richness of individual lives, even those of poor young girls. It is always emphasised that Lila is exceptional, yet perhaps undeserving of Elena’s feeling of quasi-hero worship. We watch as Lila’s potential is squandered and dreams are shown as a luxury for those who can afford them.

Both the myriad of characters and the Italian streets are detailed in clear and vivid prose. The novel is not hampered by translation; the fresh clarity of the prose gives Elena a voice which is sometimes wistful, sometimes frightened, and sometimes nasty. Throughout the novel, the girls hurt each other, each incisively plucking at the other’s weaker points. But they remain bound and care for each other deeply even if they appear to feed of the other’s vulnerabilities.

Ferrante casts Naples as a ruthlessly competitive city. Both girls cling on to what they think will change their lives, whether this be Elena’s constant desperation for perfection in her exam results, or Lila’s disappointed dreams which she reimagines into a more commercially-viable form, a new design for a shoe.

My Brilliant Friend’s most enjoyable aspect is not its didactic impulse to show how impoverished conditions can crumble dreams away, but Ferrante’s story-telling ability. Her vivid characters constantly entangle their lives together in the remarkably riveting plot. It is escapism, yet it is endearing and thoughtful escapism. There is heart-breaking alteration in the girls at the start and end of the book. Life inevitably disappoints, but this novel does not.

For those of you who don’t already know, Harper Lee died yesterday. Her loss is one that will be felt globally. The twitter response alone after the news broke is emblematic of the amount of lives she touched. As I write this article, there are currently 440 thousand tweets lamenting her death and while nothing in comparison to the current trend #FreeKesha, such support for the death of an 89 year old woman is moving.

At a fleeting glance, with the exception of a birthday and a couple of hours of English classes in year 10, me and Harper Lee appear to share very little. Yet the book To Kill a Mockingbird has succeeded in hacking away at my subconscious ever since I first opened its weary pages many years ago. For a novel which I read under the educational duress of GCSE English, this literary impact was unprecedented.

Much of the power of this book is found in the resonating power of individual lines, which stick in the psyche like a strong adhesive. Most are found in the words of the moral anchor of the novel, Atticus Finch, through the childhood eyes of the young protagonist Scout.

The two most significant quotes of the book are arguably as followed:

“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Both have appeared all over popular culture and have become staple cultural references in defining our collective morality.I think it is this ability to fix itself in the reader’s soul and refuse to budge which has granted the book it’s durability over the years. The moral instruction of this book is in many ways timeless, which explains the pervasive power of this novel on the English literature syllabus. Indeed when Michael Gove suggested changing the syllabus to include more British literature, it was this novel along with Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which were set up as paragons in defence of a more international education. The outrage that one could even suggest removing To Kill a Mockingbird from reading lists appeared universal. How else could children be expected to learn the value of empathy skills? How did anyone learn true courage before Harper Lee began to write? Such a reaction is a demonstration of the unchallenged position this writer plays on the literary scene.

But of course, To Kill a Mockingbird is not Harper Lee’s only published work. Go Set A Watchman was published in July 2015 and remains buried in controversy. Many readers felt let down by the new presentation of Atticus, which somewhat destroyed the perfect Christ-like figure to which many of us appeared to have become emotionally attached. Yet here for me lies its charm. No perfect hero in literature is ever completely credible and Harper Lee recognised that. She must have been fully aware of the reaction the book would create and thus it is interesting that the book was published so late in life; it was as if to point out, in her final years, that hero-worship is pointless, everyone is imperfect and will ultimately die. And so the author herself did. I cannot imagine a more conclusive end to her story.

On a final note, Harper Lee described the lifeblood of all book lovers everywhere:

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

Indeed all readers of the Cherwell book section, yesterday we lost a sister.