Sohrab Ahmari: How did "Ahab the Arab" become a Trumphumper?
"Ahab" is actually Iranian. Born in Tehran. Left Islam at age 12, he says. Brought to America at age 13. Became a Marxist and atheist. Then suddenly in 2016, he converts to Roman Catholicism.
Very strange story and I don't believe a word of the RCC conversion business.Still a Shiite fanatic, I think.
Religion, I concluded right then and there, was little more than a ritual of public hypocrisy – one that I’d be expected to perform. In our roshan-fekr (urbane, intellectual) milieu, piety was a sign of backwardness. But we feigned piety in public to keep our heads in the Islamic Republic. The trick was to take care that one’s double lives didn’t intersect.
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Among friends I’d sometimes inject Christian themes into the conversation only to quickly add: “You know, I don’t take this stuff to be true – but it is all very beautiful, isn’t it? It’s been a civilising force, no?”
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But with Catholicism there was the added assurance that came with two millennia of continuous authority. The Church’s hierarchical character, which so repelled my Evangelical friends, was one of its attractions for me. It meant that, having seen off a thousand heresies, Rome would be less likely to permit the Christian idea to be distorted by the passing fads of the day.
catholicherald.co.uk |
