September 26, 2008
Islam Gave the World Monotheism and Education
Section: WRITINGS | 133 reads
“Religion”: A Great Misnomer
I usually put the word religion in quotation marks – “religion.” There is a reason for that.
In the olden days, when the world used the expression religion, it meant some specific things. Everybody in the world understood it to mean certain specific things.
For example, religion had traditionally meant the division of human life – and the world – into sacred and secular, with the secular part of life being controlled by kings and tribal leaders and the sacred part of life being controlled by priests and the magic men.
One was “holy” and the other not so.
Life, the world, people, books, objects, acts and pretty much everything else was subjected to this division that I am here today so direly tempted to call “unholy.”
It was a practical mechanism that the world had developed for two competing kinds of aspirants to power and control over the lives, minds and souls of humans to co-exist in tolerable accommodation and adjustment in the same society. It was a mechanism for them – this division of the “holy” and what I call the “unholy” – to divide up, conquer, rule and exploit the world and its people together.
“Religion” was thus the prerogative of the priestly classes, of the lords and princes of the church – of the clergy – while the rest of the realm was under the authority of the royalty and the nobility – the kings, the lords, the barons and the nobles.
“Religion” thus became a set of “holy” rites, rituals and sacraments that needed “holy” men for their performance on “holy” occasions, in “holy” ways, using “holy” objects such as sacred water or fire, in “holy” places such as a temple or an altar using readings and chanting from the “holy” scripture.
That is what “Religion” meant to most people before Islam.
This represented a nice, neat and highly functional divvying up of the world of Allah, and the life of human beings, into two unequal parts – with the giant-size part going to kings, nobles and princes of the realm and the pint-size part going to the priests and the hierarchy of holy men – the lords, nobles and princes of the church.
This was the fractured and confused world upon which the Qur’an descended from heaven. The Qur’an came to set the world free from this artificial, unfair and unfortunate dichotomy of the sacred and the secular. And it came to set humanity free from the clutches and control of kings and nobles on the one hand and of the clergy and holy men on the other hand.
Qur’an Sets People Free
The fact is that for the first time in their life, the Qur’an set people free. It took human beings from the kind of chattel and personal property that the unholy alliance of the “holy” and the “unholy” men of the world had reduced them to and made them into real people – with full rights and control over their own lives except for the overarching control that God himself had over them.
Islam is none of that.
Islam is life as lived by people on a day-to-day basis, in all its richness and diversity, but lived according to the guidance and laws of God Almighty. Put simply, Islam changed the way religion was viewed, understood, followed and practiced in the world.
In doing this, Islam made religion much of what it is today – a central part of human life in all its aspects. Islam took it from obscure corners of life and made it a pervasive force in all of human life. Islam then took the multiplicity of gods that human beings worshipped and paid allegiance to and reduced them to all to one God Almighty.
Islam took superstition and blind belief out of religion and made it a rational enterprise based on sound scientific principles and careful analytical reasoning.
Islam abolished priesthood and punditry in all forms and shapes and made every ordinary human being a full participant and stakeholder in his or her own religious practice and experience. Islam removed all barriers and intermediaries between God and “Man,” with the exception of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and made every human being their own priest.
If ever there was a complete religious and social revolution in the world, this was it. But Islam did not stop there. It broke more new ground and made women full partners in the practice of their own religion.
Thus, Islam made the Qur’an, a real book of guidance for all, rather than present it as yet another “holy book” that was accessible only to the “holy” hierarchy of the clergy – the priests and the pundits.
With the clarion call of Iqra, a most powerful global call for universal education and empowerment that was contained in the command of the Qur’an, Islam demolished the foundations of priesthood and punditry for all time to come and erased forever all forms of tyranny over the mind of man, as Thomas Jefferson once put it.
Islam, thus, established the creed and culture of monotheism, the worship of one God, in the four corners of the world, after the Jews had been struggling with it for centuries. That means when it comes to religion and monotheism, Islam pretty much made the world what it is today. And Islam used the Qur’an to do it.
The Qur’an gave the world a new culture – the culture of Tauheed. Pre-Prophet world was a world given to the worship of any and any number of gods. The Qur’an changed all that to make the worship of one true God – monotheism – the dominant culture and belief system of the world.
All this summed up in the four words of La Ilaha Illa Allah!
So, that is my first illustration to show how the world since the Seventh Century on is a world made in the image of the Qur’an.
Religion: Monotheism Is Us!
If we knew the history of the world, we would know that this was also the core message of the teachings of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, and all the other Biblical prophets, May Allah bless them all.
Know that there is no God but God, says the Qur’an.
Thou shall take no God besides God, commands the Old Testament.
And the New Testament says that the most important commandment is: Thou shall take no God besides God.
But neither the Jews nor the Christians had the worldly means to make this creed prevail in the world – the creed of La Ilaha Illa Allah! – the creed of “No God but God!”
The Jews were mostly in bondage, exile or under attack and invasion. The Christians were hunted, persecuted and on the run for more than three hundred years till Roman emperor Constantine became a convert and made Christianity the religion of the realm. Moreover, the Christians had, during this period, replaced the original monotheism of Jesus with the idea of trinity that their later leaders had developed. Thus, to the later Christians God was not one, as he was to Jesus, but three in one.
Thus, neither the Jews nor the Christians had the political, economic and military means or might to make “No God but God!” – La Ilaha Illa Allah! – the dominant creed and culture of the world.
Only the Muslims did.
The Muslims, unlike Christians, not only had an uncompromising commitment to the message of monotheism – that Jesus, Moses and Muhammad all preached, may God love and bless them all – they also, unlike Jews, possessed the worldly wherewithal to move that message forward in the world.
And that is precisely what the Muslims did. They made “No God but God!” – La Ilaha Illa Allah! – the dominant creed and culture of the world. They made monotheism a household idea. And they did so within a few short decades – with the speed of a whirlwind and with the certainty of fate. And they did so from Egypt to China and from Arabia to Spain.
No One Can Force Anyone to Believe Anything
Not that, as some in this world would have us believe, they forced it down the throat of reluctant, resisting humans. Far from it! No one can really force a human being to believe or not to believe in anything. That is simply not possible.
Besides, the message of the Qur’an rang clear in their ears all the time: Laa Ikraaha Fid-Deen. It means: There is no coercion in Deen. That means, no one can or should force anyone to believe or not to believe in anything.
So, it is a total fabrication for some people to go about trumpeting the false charge that Muslims made people Muslim by force. For, they could not and they did not.
But there is no doubt that Muslims were a powerful military force – and they provided security throughout the world. And they gave the people of the world an opportunity – for the first time in their lives – to think freely and for themselves. And then to choose the kind of belief they really liked – belief that made most sense to them.
Given the opportunity, people – most of them – chose the creed and culture of No God but God – of La Ilaha Illa Allah! Given a choice, people chose Islam.
As the Qur’an puts it, they came in Allah’s Deen in waves upon waves – Yadkhuloona fee deenillahi afwaaja.
Thus, God Almighty blessed the followers of Islam with the global political, economic, cultural and military means, tools, reach and presence that enabled them to plant this central creed in the heart of humanity everywhere.
Not just 800 years of Muslim rule in Europe and not just the presence of Muslim educational, cultural and scientific institutions in that continent, but centuries of Crusades brought this creed home to Europe. It exposed Europe – in many ways for the first time – to a rich and complex culture and civilization founded on the core creed of La Ilaha Illa Allah! No God but Allah.
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