Embrace but Understand

Guest post by Jasmine Rustogi

I recently traveled to Morocco for the final course of my MBA program. Initially, I felt nervous about going abroad, especially with all of the recent alerts on global terrorism. I had never been to a predominantly Muslim country and to say the media didn’t cause me fear and apprehension would be a lie.

That’s the funny thing about fear. We often fear what we don’t know or understand.

During my trip, I was humbled and overwhelmed by the authenticity and hospitality of the Moroccan people. In Casablanca, I was fortunate to visit the Hassan II Mosque, the third largest in the world, where up to 25,000 can pray at once. The energy and emotion I felt inside the Mosque cannot be attributed to a single element. Perhaps it was the granite pillars or the handcrafted ceilings made of Cedar wood from the Atlas Mountains. Perhaps it was the attention to detail given to every archway and every wall worked on by over 1000 local artisans. Maybe it was the sheer solitude that I felt from the stillness of the building, which sat so peacefully yet so resilient on the edge of the Atlantic. Places of worship always exude energy that is indescribable yet so palpable that you can feel it in your heart.

I appreciated learning about Muslim rituals like washing oneself before prayer and praying five times a day. As a Christian, I embrace my faith. I haven’t read the bible in its entirety or been to church every Sunday but I embrace my beliefs and my spirituality.

It was moving and inspiring to see how a group of people live their life based on their own set of beliefs that are different from mine. While we don’t embrace the same beliefs as others, it is vital for us to understand them.

As I walked through the vast space within the Mosque I overheard someone say something so simple yet so profound, “You cannot begin to understand a group of people, until you begin to understand their religion”.  I think this is something we all need to remember the next time we feel that twinge of fear or uncertainty about someone who is different from us. Although the differences seem insurmountable, if you look a little deeper you will realize that we all bleed the same blood and want the same thing: happiness.