‘How my novel can promote religious tolerance’

Alhaji Dauda Ibrahim Tsoho has authored three books, ‘Wisdom Against Folly’ and ‘America’s Muslim President’ in which he predicts the coming of a first Muslim president for the US. But his first novel, ‘Muslim Dad, Christian Mom’, focuses on a mixed-faith couple and their son Jesus Muhammad. He tells Arts and Ideas what he hopes […]

Alhaji Dauda Ibrahim Tsoho has authored three books, ‘Wisdom Against Folly’ and ‘America’s Muslim President’ in which he predicts the coming of a first Muslim president for the US. But his first novel, ‘Muslim Dad, Christian Mom’, focuses on a mixed-faith couple and their son Jesus Muhammad. He tells Arts and Ideas what he hopes to accomplish with the novel.

 

Your new novel is out, called Muslim Dad, Christian Mom. Can you tell us what the novel is about?

 

My novel is about a newly married Muslim and Christian couple blessed with a baby boy who are at the verge of tearing their marriage to pieces because the husband wants his son to have only a Muslim name while his Christian wife protests that her son must have a Christian name too. At the climax of their argument, Muslim Dad found a Muslim name Isa which was Jesus pleasing to his wife; and that name restored peace in their home. The name of Muslim Dad was Muhammad; the boy’s name became Jesus Muhammad. At a tender age, Jesus Muhammad was gifted with in depth-knowledge of the Bible and the Qur’an, which helped him not only quench Muslim/Christian clashes wherever he found it, but to unite the sworn enemies into one family seed of Abraham through his sons Ishmael and Isaac.

 

The subject of interreligious marriages has been written about a lot but your approach is different in that you chose to express this union through this child called Jesus Muhammad. What informed this decision?

 

The name ‘Jesus and Muhammad’ is appealing to both Christians and Muslims. Hence, the best way to firmly hold the minds of my readers is to find a name that is attractive to both Muslims and Christians.

 

What informed the decision to write this novel?

 

Bitter experiences of Boko Haram and other religious clashes guided me to write this novel. I wondered sorrowfully why religious ignorance can incite good neighbours to kill each other at the slightest provocation. 

 

 

Boko Haram is physically degraded but their extreme ideology hangs in the air and can find its way into the vulnerable minds of young Muslims. My novel combines religious knowledge, life experience and wisdom to persuade young Muslims and Christians to see themselves as family members of Abraham and should live together in peace and harmony.

 

At a time when religious tensions are increasing in the country as a result of clashes between Muslims and Christians, how do you think your novel will address the differences between the two groups?

Certainly, my book provides a ladder of wisdom for Muslims and Christians to climb over their different religious ideological fences.

 

How did the idea of cramming the virtues of Islam and Christianity into the body of this character Jesus Muhammad occur to you?

 

Intuition has always been my guide. I imagined a situation where Jesus and Muhammad would appear before Christians and Muslims and tell them to their faces, ‘Don’t divide us, we are cousins from the seeds of Isaac and Ishmael. We were all sent by God to give you glad tidings of Heaven and to warn you of Hell fire.

 

In writing this book, giving the sensitive nature of religion and how people react to issues of faith, what were the primary considerations you had at the back of your mind while writing it?

 

My main focus was how to help Muslims and Christians change ‘hate’ into ‘love’, ‘ignorance into knowledge’, ‘war into peace’ and ‘folly into wisdom’.

 

You want the book to serve as a manual for religious tolerance. Is there any chance you think people might misunderstand your intentions and feel that you have insulted their faiths?

Naturally, there is no good deed or work on planet earth that can escape criticism. Man has even criticised the work of his creator. How then can my book please every man? Yet, in the face of criticism, I am consoled by this saying of Prophet Muhammad: ‘’Action is judged according to intentions.’’ My intention is to create peace and love; and that is good.

 

You copiously use verses from religious text in this novel. Do you think some people might think the book is too preachy?

 

Why not? It has to be preachy in order to attract religiously inclined minds.

 

When the idea for the novel came to you, did you consider writing it as an analytic text or discourse, like your previous books, or has the idea always been for a novel?

Analytic text and discourse were needed to open up the tomb of ancient manuscripts. Where Scriptural uncertainty occurs between adherents of two or more religions, it takes the grace of analytic text to bring their minds together.