Qu’ran flushing.

Ahmed Bedier is a Muslim involved in inter-faith activities on behalf of Muslims in the Tampa Bay area in Florida. Ahmed (pronounced ach-med) recently got a phone call that stopped him cold.

One of his friends had called him to ask him if he had heard bout the man in the area who was holding daily Qu’ran flushings in his front yard.

Ahmed was in his car, and got the man’s address from his friend and made a detour to see if he could find out whether the story was true or not.

When he arrived at the address, sure enough, there in the front yard was a toilet. There was a sign that said, “Qu’ran flushing every day. 1 p.m. Public Invited.” Apparently, each day at the appointed hour the man who lived at this address would walk from his front door to the toilet, tear a few pages from the Muslim holy book and pitch them into the toilet bowl.

Ahmed could see that the front door of the house was open and that someone was obviously at home, so he walked up and knocked on the door. When a man came to the door, he told Ahmed that he was the host of the daily event. Ahmed asked him why he was hosting the flushings.

The man launched into the usual set of misinformation and lies about Islam, including the fact that no Muslims never denounced the acts of terrorism undertaken by crazed individuals in the name of Allah.

The man looked at Ahmed and said, “I’m not going to take the toilet down.” Ahmed assured him that he wasn’t going to ask him to remove the toilet or stop the Qu’ran flushings.

Ahmed then told the man that in fact lots of Muslims denounced these violent acts and actually worked for peace. He then invited the man out to his car and pulled up on his laptop computer some news stories that affirmed what he had just been telling the man about the peaceful nature of Islam.

The man looked and listened attentively.

Then he invited Ahmed to stay and have supper with him. Given the fact that no one knew where Ahmed was at the time, and also given the potentially violent nature of the situation, he sent an e-mail to his wife with the address and then joined the man for supper.

Ahmed made no attempt to argue with the man or to get him to remove the offending piece of porcelain or stop the flushings. But by the time they were through eating the man looked Ahmed in the eye and said, “You know, I think I’m gonna take the toilet down.”

They shook hands and Ahmed drove away.

Not all stories of potentially confrontational inter-religious interactions turn out this way, but Ahmed’s non-confrontational way of approaching this situation illustrates how a few kind words and an attitude of inquisitiveness rather than condemnation can lead to better understanding among practitioners of different religions.