The Road Not Taken 2

Reading Mosque (Jamia Masjid) Google Earth

In 1981 I was without work. I decided to do some volunteer English teaching in Reading. I was still reading voraciously and I moved to George Street to my own flat. I remember one particular book at the library. I would issue it again and again. It was about Islam and I had expected some sort of thumbnail theological guide - some pointers - as I had managed in Christian readings. It had none. There were drawings of a man in various postures, some very pithy ideas about God and very little actual discussion.

Christianity had boiled down, personally, to one 'stumbling block.'

After all the discussion, meetings and reading I found one obstacle standing in my way of acceptance of the Christian message: vicarious substitutionary atonement. This was the root of being 'born again.'

Reading Town Hall.

I went to a gathering of volunteer ESL teachers at the Town Hall. We were each given a 'target' and we were meant to arrange regular weekly meetings to practice conversation. When the Chinese and Malaysian and Europeans were being alotted, I was waiting.

"Mr. Furze?" said the man with the clipboard.

I raised a hand.

"You are to go to the mosque - you'll be teaching the Imam there."

"Oh."

I was given directions to the mosque in Alexander Road. Mohammad Ayub of Bannu, Pakistan, entered my life.

Reading Jamia Masjid.