English is not a neutral language. Because it evolved in a Christian
civilization; it comes loaded with a slew of Christian concepts and assumptions.
If you find yourself asking questions like: "What do Muslims believe about
Jesus?", or "What is more important in Islam, faith or works?", or "Is the Koran
copied from the Bible?", you have got off on the wrong foot. You approach Islam
with cultural baggage imported from Christianity.
Try to discover how Islam looks like from within. As a start, Islam is not a bastardized (or heretical)
form of either Judaism or Christianity. There are enough differences that make
Islam a unique religion of its own, although theologically and culturally, it is
closest to Judaism. The monotheism that both assert is uncompromising. Daniel
Pipes, the alleged Islamaphobe,
remarks
that:
"Of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity appear far more closely linked to each other than either is to Islam. As the term ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ implies, these two faiths share deep bonds and a long history; in contrast, Islam seems alien.No religion is an abstraction. Adherents may claim that God inspired it, or even that He dictated its sacred texts and that it is valid for an eternity. But the texts have to be interpreted by people and implemented in the lives of people. At the most superficial level, Islam (submission) is the religion of Muslims.
There are many reasons for this. Theologically, the Old Testament is central to Judaism and Christianity, while Islam ignores the Bible in favor of the Qur’an. Demographically, the once-flourishing Jewish communities in Muslim countries have been decimated, and it is easy to forget that most Jews once lived among Muslims; for the last 500 years most Jews have lived in the Christian world. Culturally, Christians and Jews live at the vanguard of human experience, whereas Muslims had a harder time with twentieth-century life.
Notwithstanding these points, Judaism and Christianity differ profoundly in religious terms; the real resemblance is between Judaism and Islam."
“…there is not a single leaf that falls without His knowledge, there is neither a grain in the darkness of the earth nor any thing fresh or dry which has not been recorded in a Clear Book.” (Quran 6:59)Instead of Original Sin, Muslims believe that mankind is born with fitra. It is the natural religious state of humankind when left to their own devices. Fitra enables men and women to recognize the innate truth of submission when they confront it with open hearts.
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That’s a really good piece you have written
Adnan
A very interesting article, thank you.
I’m afraid I miss the point of language failing Islam.
In general, I tell others not to confuse Islam with the word Muslim because indeed, the Koran states that well over 2/3 of all ‘muslims’ are not fit to hold the title.
Yet still, what does your title have to do with your argument? There are so many good ones out there you know regarding the flexibility of Arabic and how this has led to a broad spectrum of dialects which are hard to impart in a universal way in schools, to students. Memorizing the Koran (which isn’t really done anymore because so many Arab states began indoctrinating children to State Based educational systems in the ’50s and ’60s (Nasserism)) is the only tool Arabs have to unify their societies against the influx of Americanisms, Russianisms and Neologisms derived from Kafr social contexts.
That is a discussion of language. Or perhaps, gematria. You could discuss gematric languages and their impact, history in the Middle East, etc.
The discussion of nasab or birthright in Islam being possessed by every single living thing (plant, animal, human and djinn) is one far more complex than simply reverting or not reverting. It is a clear arguement.
There is either no God or one God because: it is as it is. Pascal’s wager (did I spell Pascal right? I never seem to it seems) challenges a person’s logic on this.
If there were two Gods there would not be the overall unity of creation as we know it…there would be competing forces. Hence, the strongest God would eliminate the weaker Gods because that is how Gods are. God-ism does not tolerate competition.
Therefore, a baby (or other living thing) is born into a state of being under the supervision of one God until someone else chooses for him otherwise (or) he attains an age of choice and chooses otherwise for himself. This then necessitates what you have called the ‘reversion’ and what most muslims refer to as meaning ‘conversion’ in a religion that basically denies conversion and instead promotes the idea that God has already chosen those that will submit (which means any thinking creature who is willing and is exposed to oppropriate information regarding Islam). Those beings NOT exposed are under no contract to recognize their status as being muslim or kafir and are technically defined as being in a state of ‘ignorance’.
Actually, the religous language of Islam is quite clear in most respects. It is the West who fails to identify the similarities such as Articles of Faith i.e. judgement day (the most important article of faith in Islam imho).
Isn’t it canon that the Koran can only be understood in the original Arabic? If that’s true, Islam is the one that is inherently self-centered. The entire argument is one that is rooted in a racist belief that Islam is the only truth.