Some years ago I lived in a Muslim country. My little bungalow was situated on a beach next to a poor section of the city. I had many friends there, one of them being the local imam—the leader of the prayers in the mosque. Occasionally I would talk to this lovely gentleman about his religion to try to get a better understanding of it.
One day I decided that I would ask him how Islam defined God. I was certain that as a Christian Scientist I had the best definition—as if the definition of God were something one could possess rather than live by! As I strode across the beach to his very modest home, my state of thought must have been very close to that of the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican in the temple. See Luke 18:9-14
After the customary greetings, I asked my question. The reply he gave me became one of the great lessons of my life. "If you took all the branches of all the trees in the world as pens," he replied, using an image from the Koran, "and the water of all the lakes, rivers, streams, fountains, and oceans in the world as ink, you could not write out all the names, all the qualities, of God." In the moment of stunned silence that followed, he added, "You know, you are a better Muslim than most of the Muslims surrounding me." I took this to mean that my life style followed a pattern he approved of.
