In the run up to Women's Equality Day last week, Ismaili Gnosis ran a mini-series on "strong Ismaili women" which included a short piece on Mata Salamat, 4th wife of Imam Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III.
In an intriguing excerpt from his memoirs, the Imam describes how his wife converted from Christianity to Islam, but that this was not necessary:
"As a good Muslim I have never asked a Christian to change her religion in order to marry me, for the Islamic belief is that Christians, Jews -- and, according to some tenets, Zoroastrians and reformed Hindu unitarians -- may marry Muslims and retain their own religion. With no attempt on my part at influencing her mind, my present wife had already been converted to Islam while she lived in Cairo. Perhaps each of several motives and impulses played its part in her conversion: the quiet fervor of Muslim believers in their Friday prayers; the complete absence of snobbery, prejudice and racial pride that is fundamental to Islam's practice and preaching; and no doubt the serene, consolatory beauty -- a beauty that seems spiritual as well as physical -- of a mosque like that of Sultan Hassan in Cairo."
It's a matter of debate whether Mata Salamat - or Yvonne Blanche Labrousse as she was known before she married - was more than a cultural Christian.
Did she really believe that Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, was God-become-man, the mazhar or image of God, sent by the Creator to restore the bond that should tie each man and woman with the Ultimate Source?
Did she really believe that "salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" except Jesus? (The Bible - Acts 4:12)
Nevertheless, this excerpt from the Aga Khan's memoirs raises some interesting questions:
- Is it OK for an Ismaili to marry a Christian?
- Is it OK for an Ismaili to marry a Zoroastrian or a Hindu unitarian?
- Should the children be raised Ismaili or a different religion?
- If it doesn't matter, are there any meaningful differences between these religions?
- If they aren't, what is it that makes Ismailism special? What do you identify with?
Image credits: Top, via Ismaili Gnosis.
Originally published September 2015