| Posted By Abudllah Mujahid* August 8, 2008
Is it worth describing Islam as a religion anymore? With so many articles in magazines, newspapers and journals, think tank papers and government reports describing Islam as an ideological counterpart to western liberal secular ideology, let’s just call it what it is. Islam is an ideology, i.e. a belief in a creed which provides a view about personal, familial, communal and governmental matters. This means that Islam is a spiritual and political creed, so a belief in God (Allah) and recognition that Muhammad is the final Messenger provides details for a person’s life, from the cradle to the grave.
Personal in regards to hygiene, eating habits, prayer offered to God, and the recitation of the Qur’an. Familial in the way we marry and rear children and teach them the meaning of life, to be good, to honour their parents and elders, and how to believe and obey God. Communal in the way we should look after our neighbours and protect their rights and honour, and how we should look after those less fortunate than us, and protect them from harm and degradation. Governmental in that Islam provides a model for how its rules and laws should be implemented in society, whether societal, penal, judicial or economic etc.
How can a religion that originated more than 1000 years ago have any applicability in the modern world?
Perhaps one of the most common questions! Humans have not changed over the millennia. Yes, we get from A to B faster, we communicate with other parts of the world in a matter of seconds, and have found far more devastating ways of killing each other, but ultimately we have not changed. We still love, hate, cry, feel pain, jealousy, envy, sadness, happiness, mercy, joy and honour amongst others. We still eat, sleep, procreate and humans above all, still live with other humans. Islam has come to regulate all of this; only Islam is from the Creator who created humans, whereas western liberal secularism is founded on the human mind and thought, primarily as a reaction to corrupt Church practices and beliefs in early modern European history. Western society with all its technology has not solved many issues that affect society and the relationships between people and therefore are increasingly looking towards religion for answers.
Isn’t the point of religion that it be personal between man and God?
This depends what religion you’re talking about. Islam is per se not a religion which only focuses on your personal relationship with God, unlike other religions. Islam addresses your personal relationship to God, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with other people. It asks potent questions to humans: How did I get here? Why am I here? What is after life? And then answers them. We were created, to come to the belief of our Creator (Allah), and after this life is accountability and judgement. So Muslims must account for their relationship with God and with how they lived with others. This accountability includes actions in both public and private life.
Doesn’t the domination of religion lead to narrow mindedness and backwardness?
In mentality, quite the opposite. It actually frees the mind to deal with other things, as Islam has provided a code of laws so we do not have to do mental gymnastics on what is good and bad. We can concentrate on trying to be good people and creating a better society by using Islam in the way it was supposed to be used. So if a people do not choose to embrace Islam, this is their choice, but Muslims assert that we can make society a better place because of Islam. Medieval Europe 600AD to 1500AD may be to some a place of backwardness, but that same time in the Islamic lands was a time of science, culture, learning, knowledge, piety and understanding which western academics are beginning to rediscover. Islamic Spain; Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Iran in the 9th 10th and 11th centuries are examples of this. Istanbul in the 16th century offered sanctuary to the Jews as well as Muslims who were persecuted and tortured by Christians in the Spanish Inquisition.
Isn’t it just all down to interpretation?
In some aspects Islam is open to interpretation to people who have knowledge. If a man had learnt the names and functions of a surgeon’s tools, you still would not allow them to operate on another person the next day. Years of study and knowledge go into making a surgeon. Years of study and knowledge go into making a scholar who can interpret those aspects of Islam which are open to interpretation. In most things Muslims are agreed upon, but in a some issues, there is valid differences of opinion, but what all Muslims understand from the Qur’an is that Islam came from God, for humans in this life so that we may put ourselves in good stead in the afterlife, by the will and mercy of Allah. *Articles Of This Author Regularly Appear at UnjustMedia.Com |
