News of Yusha Evans’ talk, “My journey to Islam” Saturday at Memorial Union spawned in me a lot of immediate questions and prompted me to attend with a very open mind.

Having a firm conviction that God in it entirety is “one” and diverse religions are nothing but different means to reach the very same God, I went to attend his talk with a lot of inquisitiveness as well as a desire to comprehend how one route (Islam) to reach God is more favorable then the another (Christianity). My knowledge of Evans is limited to the 2 hours he had at Memorial Union on Saturday. I am writing to you to let you know, without any bias and prejudices, how I felt firsthand about his talk. I may be totally wrong about my perception but this is just how I felt as a layman in that room. I felt Evans was an individual who had tried to make it through an identity crises by being a Muslim convert. I found his arguments against the Bible, quiet, meek and feeble. There is no religion in this world which does not at some point demand “faith” — in some form or another — instead of “proof” for every aspect of it to be believed. Faith, in any religion will forever maintain its indispensable place.

Evans probably inadvertently portrayed that his biggest perceivable strength seemed not to be his current Muslim faith, but his strong Christian past. As an individual, this was the first time I have ever witnessed a critical one-sided evaluation of the Bible. Evans said that his story cannot be understood unless he touches the sensitive issues in the Bible. It did not escape my thoughts during his talk, that unlike many nations in the world, America remains a proud nation, the vigor of which remains in tolerance to diverse religions in a predominantly Christian society. I wonder if one can critically and openly evaluate or question the authority of the Koran in predominantly Muslim societies andcountries.

Having said that, believing in your faith is fine, but I do not know if it is worth it to project the apparent flaws in the Bible or other religions to understand one man’s journey to Islam. Islam is too great a religion in its own right to need the scaffolds of anybody’s Christian, or any other religion’s past to justify or promote itself. I wonder what would become of Evans if he projected himself as just a Muslim and not a Muslim convert, and also why his talk was so promoted a strong Christian background and a very American upbringing. I found his presentation very demeaning to both religions. It would have been more apt if his talk was titled “My journey out of Christianity.”

Ashish Sachan is a graduate assistant in biochemistry/biophysics and molecular biology at Iowa State University.