Reposted from 6/10/07Today's NYTimes has a lengthy and thoughtful review of the Islamic philosophy of Jihad.
There is something wrong in this article. The pieces is an effort to find out how a religion of peace can justify killing. I am, however, bewildered by why anyone would consider Islam a religion of peace. The prophet was, after all, a general. He conquered Arabia and his immediate followers , presumably those best informed about the Quran, swept out of Arabia with the most successful effort at conquest over a very short time in all of history. Within a hundred years the Islamic rule had extended itself from Spain to India ... a span equal to that of the Roman empire but achieved in a far shorter time.
This does not make Islam a bad religion. Religious conquest in intrinsic to Christianity and I suspect more folks have died impaled on the sharp point of the cross shaped sword than sliced by the edge of the moon shaped scimitar.
What is new and different abut modern Islam is that murder has become form many a doctrine. Like the crusaders of a millennium ago, the modern Muslim, or at least a large number of them, sees killing of others as acceptable, even noble behavior. A recent pole in the US found that 25% of American Muslims feel this way.
Bush's disaster is that he has be incredible stupidity put the secular world into a religious conflict. Our, secular, world wide morality should reject islamo fascism as much as we reject National Socialism. We need to celebrate the tendrils of humanism In Islam as much as we can. Where are the liberal Muslims?
11 comments:
George Bernard Shaw:
"I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."
(A Collection of writing of some of the eminent scholars, 1935).
Lamartine on the Prophet of Islam:
"If greatness of purpose, smallness of means and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could claim to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?"
Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?"
(Histoire de la Turquie, 1854 Vol. II pp. 276-277)
Gandhi:
"I wanted to know the best of one who holds today undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind... I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life”.
(Young India, 1922).
EWolfgang Goethe:
"He is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as Divine Law and not as a book of a human being, made for education or entertainment."
[Noten und Abhandlungen zum Weststlichen Dvan, WA I, 7, 32]
Professor Hurgronje:
"The league of nations founded by the prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity and human brotherhood on such universal foundations as to show candle to other nations." He continues, "the fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has done towards the realization of the idea of the League of Nations."
Sarojini Naidu says:
"It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy; for, in the mosque, when the call for prayer is sounded and worshippers are gathered together, the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and king kneel side by side and proclaim: 'God Alone is Great'... I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes man instinctively a brother."
[S. Naidu, Ideals of Islam, vide Speeches & Writings, Madras, 1918, p. 169]
Diwan Chand Sharma:
"Muhammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him"
[D.C. Sharma, The Prophets of the East, Calcutta, 1935, pp. 12]
K. S. Ramakrishna Rao
The personality of Muhammad, it is most difficult to get into the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of it I can catch. What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes. There is Muhammad the Prophet. There is Muhammad the Warrior; Muhammad the Businessman; Muhammad the Statesman; Muhammad the Orator; Muhammad the Reformer; Muhammad the Refuge of Orphans; Muhammad the Protector of Slaves; Muhammad the Emancipator of Women; Muhammad the Judge; Muhammad the Saint. All in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike a hero."
("Muhammad the Prophet of Islam")
R. Bosworth-Smith:
"Head of the state as well as the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but, he was pope without the pope's claims, and Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue. If ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by a Right Divine, it was Mohammad, for he had all the power without instruments and without its support. He cared not for dressing of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life.
("Mohammed & Mohammedanism" in 1946)
Encylopedia Britanica on Mohamed The Prophet of Islam
"... a mass of detail in the early sources shows that he was an honest and upright man who had gained the respect and loyalty of others who were likewise honest and upright men." [Vol.12]
I have no problem with most of these claims with two exceptions:
1. Uniqueness
While Mohamed was obviously a great man, he is one of several people who have had a great influence, for the good or the bad on others. In that sense M belongs to a pantheon with Siddartha Gautama, Hillel, Paul, Confuscious, King, Ghandi, Marx, Castro, Jefferson, ... all of whom in one way or another can claim a unique historical role in moving the human tide toward a humanist shore.
2. Perfection
I believe M was a great teacher and that anyone who reaches the status of a great teacher should be studied, BUT that does not make their listen perfect ..much less divine. Confuscious taught an order that allowed men to live together fairly well for centuries BUT his disease did nto address equality. Spinoza offered a logically consistent replacement for religion that could, if followed, lead us to a better world ... but he failed to find a voice all could read, Paul built a religion around Jewish messianism BUT to accomplish this he laid fetid seeds of antisemitism and imperialism.
And Mohamed? He too laid seeds for hatred. Arabia has been free of non Muslim indigenes since the ethnic cleansing under this great man. He DID advocate an universal faith that may well have been the forst such faith to cross racial lines BUT he saw this as a reoplacement for race and established his new community as innately superior to all others. And yes, at Yathrib, he killed and enslaved hundreds of Jews for not being willing to conform to his teachings.
My belief is that one should approach the Prophet as a teacher. I do NOT condemn him for the marriage to Fatima at age 9 or the massacre at Yathrib, rather I ask what can I learn from this great man?
So, i f i had the opportunity to meet Shaw, I suspect we would agree that Christendoms' supremacy was horse manure, that ALL other teachings need to be treated equally. I ALSO suspect that the great skeptic would have had utter disdain for modern Islam's claims of exclusive truth.
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