A-ManESL
Well-Known Member
When one hears the word Islam, one associates it with a faith and a set of practices and rituals, practiced by roughly one fourth of the world. As such it is classified as one of the world religions. As is typical human nature it is then thought of as just one of a type, a belief system like the others. In this article I propose to show that such an understanding of Islam is incorrect. It is also my contention that in many cases, even when what the word Islam stands for is understood, it presents a flawed and incomplete picture of what was intended. Finally I will give my views on the fundamental unity of all religions. I am far from someone resembling a scholar and hence if the reader feels that I am saying something which is wrong, I ask that (s)he forgives me.
It is interesting to first examine the literal meaning of the word Islam. The word Islam literally means "surrender" or "submission". Surrender to what and by whom? The answer is surrender of a person's self or Ego to the will of God. The aim to crush the ego and self-importance within an individual. Wherever the word Islam is used in the Quran, it is used with this meaning. So verses such as "Quran 3:85: If anyone desires a deen other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him" are more appropriately translated as "If anyone desires a deen other than submission never will it be accepted of him".
Now we come to the more general understanding of Islam. Should it be treated as a separate religion as such which is superior to others. In sofar the rituals and traditions practiced the Prophet are concerned they can be treated as distinct from other faiths. To my mind, this is however only an apparent difference, and the real teachings of the Prophet never denounced the practices of other faiths. (The polytheists of Mecca were denounced because their faith was superficial and illusory, they therefore need not be classified with other faiths; as their's was a faith in name only.) The chapter "The Cow" in the Quran condemns Jews and Christians for propogating religious excluvism, for saying that we are the chosen people etc. It is reasonable to conclude, as Maulana Azad has done so in Tarjuman-ul-Quran, that this Quranic censure also applies to believers in any religious system, including Muslims.
A side issue challenges our theory in the form of Quranic verses such as "Quran 3:85: If anyone desires a deen other than submission, never will it be accepted of him" The problem is resolved by noting that the translation of the word deen as religion is incorrect, the correct translation should not contain the term religion; a better translation would be way of life. In fact Arabic does not have any word which might be substituted fully for religion. The word deen being translated as religion here differs from the modern understanding of the word religion in a significant number of respects. (Reference: The Meaning and End of Religion by Wilfred Cantwell Smith.)It is clear that thus properly understood the verse does not present a rigid and inflexible stand towards other faiths but is a reference to surrender of the ego, something all faiths talk about in various ways. Similarly many other such verses, once properly translated and understood, can be seen to be propogating no real religious excluvism. It also stands to reason that while the Prophet taught a new way of life to his contemporaries he did not start a new religion where the word religion refers to an entirely new concept having no precedence. In fact, in the above referenced book there is a suggestion that the Prophet, would have been, above all others perhaps, profoundly alarmed at any suggestion that he was starting a new religion.
The question then arises, if the Prophet never treated Islam as a separate religion, what exactly was the teaching of the Prophet. The answer as appealed to me by my conscience is this (I will also show evidence in the Quran/Hadith): The Prophet was trying to bring people to the right path; he was a reformer, not merely of social ills but of the ills of the soul as well. The methods used by him were conditioned by the society and culture in which he existed. The Middle East had a culture heavily influenced by Semitic traditions, and those, suitably modified, were used by the Prophet to affect this reformation. The traditions later got solidified by the name of Islam and people started referring to them as the totality of the Prophet's message. For the purpose of safeguarding their identity and due to self-pride people started referring themselves as following Islam. They forgot that the focus of the Prophet was never Islam, the focus was God and his relationship with an individual. The fine tuning of this relationship was the real goal of the teaching of the Prophet and the rituals, activities etc was the ladder used to reach the goal. A clear indication of this is the number of times the word God occurs in the Quran, i.e. 2697. Compare this with the number of times the word Islam occurs, i.e. 8. (Even in these 8 cases as I explained before, Islam either means way of life, or it means inner conviction). Clearly the Quran is concerned, or rather God is concerned primarily with something that people do, and with persons who do it, and not with abstract entities. It can also be observed that this ratio is almost reversed in many modern Muslim writings, they usually contain an overdose of the word Islam.
An argument may now be posed: You are treating Islam as a mere set of rituals and traditions. It is something more then that. Perhaps originally the word referred to surrender, but now it means the beliefs and practices combined.
My reply would be: No doubt, this approach may be taken. But we will see in a moment that making such a redefinition leaves certain questions unanswered. We will see that there is a third dimension besides belief and practices to consider, and that third dimension is not distict from other faiths and hence cannot be lumped in this new redefinition of Islam. For the moment leaving that question aside let us first consider another problem. When the Quran itself propagates religious inclusiveness, as discussed above, and for example through this verse: "Quran 2:62:Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."; then what is the relative position of Islam with regard to other faiths? How do the Prophet's traditions and belief systems compare with other faiths? If the Prophet's traditions are better off then what does Quran 2:62 convey. To think they are inferior seems absurd. Some people take the view that all religions are theologically the same, and hence try to settle the issue. I believe that if such a view is obtained through studies based on reason and logic, only after putting undue emphasis on the points of common agreement can one arrive at this conclusion. It is precisely for this reason that this answer is at times termed unsatisfactory.
The real answer, which I propose to give now ties in why I considered Islam as just referring to traditions and rituals practiced by the Prophet (and do not include beliefs etc). It starts in understanding that there is a serious structural flaw in thinking that traditions, rituals and even beliefs are the only essential part of any religion. Hence to think of Islam as beliefs and faiths combined is not a satisfactory idea. Once the fact that only they are not the cornerstone of deen is established, observing a fundamental unity is not very difficult.
A tradition of the Prophet, is relevant here:
'Umar(RA), has narrated, "While we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, one day a man came up to us whose clothes were extremely white, whose hair was extremely black, upon whom traces of travelling could not be seen, and whom none of us knew, until he sat down close to the Prophet, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, so that he rested his knees upon his knees and placed his two hands upon his thighs and said, 'Muhammad, tell me about Islam.' The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, said, 'Islam is that you witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and you establish the prayer, and you give the Zakat, and you fast Ramadan, and you perform the hajj of the House if you are able to take a way to it.' He said, 'You have told the truth,' and we were amazed at him asking him and [then] telling him that he told the truth. He said, 'Tell me about Iman.' He said, 'That you affirm Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and that you affirm the Decree, the good of it and the bad of it.' He said, 'You have told the truth.' He said, 'Tell me about Ihsan.' He said, 'That you worship Allah as if you see Him, for if you don't see Him then truly He sees you.' He said, 'Tell me about the Hour.' He said, 'The one asked about it knows no more than the one asking.' He said, 'Then tell me about its tokens.' He said, 'That the female slave should give birth to her mistress, and you see poor, naked, barefoot shepherds of sheep and goats competing in making tall buildings.' He went away, and I remained some time. Then he asked, 'Umar, do you know who the questioner was?' I said, 'Allah and His Messenger know best.' He said, 'He was Jibril who came to you to teach you your deen'."
It is clear from this Hadith that Islam is but one the three dimensions of the deen, or the way of life, taught by the Prophet. It refers to the activity part or the practical part: giving of alms, charity, obligatory prayers. The other two dimensions, Iman and Ihsan refer to the thought part (what one believes as a matter of faith, i.e. the beliefs) and the heart part (where one's heart is inclinced and what is his/her level of closeness to God). While the jurists (or the scholars of fiqh) concentrated on the first dimension, the theologians and the Sufis concentrated on the second and third dimensions respectively. It stands to reason that to treat the Islam dimension as subsuming everything the Prophet taught, is an absurdity. In other words to talk of Islam while ignoring the other two dimensions is not correct. Hence Islam, as originally intended, only presents a partial view of the deen. Moreover it seems reasonable to conclude, at least to me it does, that the activities and practices instructed to were conditioned by the culture and situation of the Prophet. As such they are not absolute but relativistic. The real truth of God, comes through Ihsan, viewed through the spectrum of Iman built using the practices of Islam.
We may now return to the question involving the relative positions of various faiths. Since Islam can now be safely regarded as the rituals, which I believe common sense tells us to be conditioned by situations, it is relativistic and may vary from faith to faith. Iman being the principles of faith also varies, its permissibility is seen through the religious tolerance of the Quran and also by specific Quranic verses such as "Quran 18:109: Say, If the ocean were ink for the words of my Lord, the ocean would run out, before the words of my Lord run out, even if we double the ink supply.". Ihsan ultimately leads to mystic ideas and has absolutely no issues of compatability with other mystic ideas of other faiths. This has been attested by many mystics who have experimented with various methods. Since Ihsan is the verifier of the Truth (in the sense that it refers to seeing the Lord), which is absolute, compared to Islam and Iman whose focus is relativistic, and this reasoning may be extended inductively to other faiths, so the fundamental unity of the faiths is established.
It is interesting to first examine the literal meaning of the word Islam. The word Islam literally means "surrender" or "submission". Surrender to what and by whom? The answer is surrender of a person's self or Ego to the will of God. The aim to crush the ego and self-importance within an individual. Wherever the word Islam is used in the Quran, it is used with this meaning. So verses such as "Quran 3:85: If anyone desires a deen other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him" are more appropriately translated as "If anyone desires a deen other than submission never will it be accepted of him".
Now we come to the more general understanding of Islam. Should it be treated as a separate religion as such which is superior to others. In sofar the rituals and traditions practiced the Prophet are concerned they can be treated as distinct from other faiths. To my mind, this is however only an apparent difference, and the real teachings of the Prophet never denounced the practices of other faiths. (The polytheists of Mecca were denounced because their faith was superficial and illusory, they therefore need not be classified with other faiths; as their's was a faith in name only.) The chapter "The Cow" in the Quran condemns Jews and Christians for propogating religious excluvism, for saying that we are the chosen people etc. It is reasonable to conclude, as Maulana Azad has done so in Tarjuman-ul-Quran, that this Quranic censure also applies to believers in any religious system, including Muslims.
A side issue challenges our theory in the form of Quranic verses such as "Quran 3:85: If anyone desires a deen other than submission, never will it be accepted of him" The problem is resolved by noting that the translation of the word deen as religion is incorrect, the correct translation should not contain the term religion; a better translation would be way of life. In fact Arabic does not have any word which might be substituted fully for religion. The word deen being translated as religion here differs from the modern understanding of the word religion in a significant number of respects. (Reference: The Meaning and End of Religion by Wilfred Cantwell Smith.)It is clear that thus properly understood the verse does not present a rigid and inflexible stand towards other faiths but is a reference to surrender of the ego, something all faiths talk about in various ways. Similarly many other such verses, once properly translated and understood, can be seen to be propogating no real religious excluvism. It also stands to reason that while the Prophet taught a new way of life to his contemporaries he did not start a new religion where the word religion refers to an entirely new concept having no precedence. In fact, in the above referenced book there is a suggestion that the Prophet, would have been, above all others perhaps, profoundly alarmed at any suggestion that he was starting a new religion.
The question then arises, if the Prophet never treated Islam as a separate religion, what exactly was the teaching of the Prophet. The answer as appealed to me by my conscience is this (I will also show evidence in the Quran/Hadith): The Prophet was trying to bring people to the right path; he was a reformer, not merely of social ills but of the ills of the soul as well. The methods used by him were conditioned by the society and culture in which he existed. The Middle East had a culture heavily influenced by Semitic traditions, and those, suitably modified, were used by the Prophet to affect this reformation. The traditions later got solidified by the name of Islam and people started referring to them as the totality of the Prophet's message. For the purpose of safeguarding their identity and due to self-pride people started referring themselves as following Islam. They forgot that the focus of the Prophet was never Islam, the focus was God and his relationship with an individual. The fine tuning of this relationship was the real goal of the teaching of the Prophet and the rituals, activities etc was the ladder used to reach the goal. A clear indication of this is the number of times the word God occurs in the Quran, i.e. 2697. Compare this with the number of times the word Islam occurs, i.e. 8. (Even in these 8 cases as I explained before, Islam either means way of life, or it means inner conviction). Clearly the Quran is concerned, or rather God is concerned primarily with something that people do, and with persons who do it, and not with abstract entities. It can also be observed that this ratio is almost reversed in many modern Muslim writings, they usually contain an overdose of the word Islam.
An argument may now be posed: You are treating Islam as a mere set of rituals and traditions. It is something more then that. Perhaps originally the word referred to surrender, but now it means the beliefs and practices combined.
My reply would be: No doubt, this approach may be taken. But we will see in a moment that making such a redefinition leaves certain questions unanswered. We will see that there is a third dimension besides belief and practices to consider, and that third dimension is not distict from other faiths and hence cannot be lumped in this new redefinition of Islam. For the moment leaving that question aside let us first consider another problem. When the Quran itself propagates religious inclusiveness, as discussed above, and for example through this verse: "Quran 2:62:Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."; then what is the relative position of Islam with regard to other faiths? How do the Prophet's traditions and belief systems compare with other faiths? If the Prophet's traditions are better off then what does Quran 2:62 convey. To think they are inferior seems absurd. Some people take the view that all religions are theologically the same, and hence try to settle the issue. I believe that if such a view is obtained through studies based on reason and logic, only after putting undue emphasis on the points of common agreement can one arrive at this conclusion. It is precisely for this reason that this answer is at times termed unsatisfactory.
The real answer, which I propose to give now ties in why I considered Islam as just referring to traditions and rituals practiced by the Prophet (and do not include beliefs etc). It starts in understanding that there is a serious structural flaw in thinking that traditions, rituals and even beliefs are the only essential part of any religion. Hence to think of Islam as beliefs and faiths combined is not a satisfactory idea. Once the fact that only they are not the cornerstone of deen is established, observing a fundamental unity is not very difficult.
A tradition of the Prophet, is relevant here:
'Umar(RA), has narrated, "While we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, one day a man came up to us whose clothes were extremely white, whose hair was extremely black, upon whom traces of travelling could not be seen, and whom none of us knew, until he sat down close to the Prophet, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, so that he rested his knees upon his knees and placed his two hands upon his thighs and said, 'Muhammad, tell me about Islam.' The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, said, 'Islam is that you witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and you establish the prayer, and you give the Zakat, and you fast Ramadan, and you perform the hajj of the House if you are able to take a way to it.' He said, 'You have told the truth,' and we were amazed at him asking him and [then] telling him that he told the truth. He said, 'Tell me about Iman.' He said, 'That you affirm Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and that you affirm the Decree, the good of it and the bad of it.' He said, 'You have told the truth.' He said, 'Tell me about Ihsan.' He said, 'That you worship Allah as if you see Him, for if you don't see Him then truly He sees you.' He said, 'Tell me about the Hour.' He said, 'The one asked about it knows no more than the one asking.' He said, 'Then tell me about its tokens.' He said, 'That the female slave should give birth to her mistress, and you see poor, naked, barefoot shepherds of sheep and goats competing in making tall buildings.' He went away, and I remained some time. Then he asked, 'Umar, do you know who the questioner was?' I said, 'Allah and His Messenger know best.' He said, 'He was Jibril who came to you to teach you your deen'."
It is clear from this Hadith that Islam is but one the three dimensions of the deen, or the way of life, taught by the Prophet. It refers to the activity part or the practical part: giving of alms, charity, obligatory prayers. The other two dimensions, Iman and Ihsan refer to the thought part (what one believes as a matter of faith, i.e. the beliefs) and the heart part (where one's heart is inclinced and what is his/her level of closeness to God). While the jurists (or the scholars of fiqh) concentrated on the first dimension, the theologians and the Sufis concentrated on the second and third dimensions respectively. It stands to reason that to treat the Islam dimension as subsuming everything the Prophet taught, is an absurdity. In other words to talk of Islam while ignoring the other two dimensions is not correct. Hence Islam, as originally intended, only presents a partial view of the deen. Moreover it seems reasonable to conclude, at least to me it does, that the activities and practices instructed to were conditioned by the culture and situation of the Prophet. As such they are not absolute but relativistic. The real truth of God, comes through Ihsan, viewed through the spectrum of Iman built using the practices of Islam.
We may now return to the question involving the relative positions of various faiths. Since Islam can now be safely regarded as the rituals, which I believe common sense tells us to be conditioned by situations, it is relativistic and may vary from faith to faith. Iman being the principles of faith also varies, its permissibility is seen through the religious tolerance of the Quran and also by specific Quranic verses such as "Quran 18:109: Say, If the ocean were ink for the words of my Lord, the ocean would run out, before the words of my Lord run out, even if we double the ink supply.". Ihsan ultimately leads to mystic ideas and has absolutely no issues of compatability with other mystic ideas of other faiths. This has been attested by many mystics who have experimented with various methods. Since Ihsan is the verifier of the Truth (in the sense that it refers to seeing the Lord), which is absolute, compared to Islam and Iman whose focus is relativistic, and this reasoning may be extended inductively to other faiths, so the fundamental unity of the faiths is established.