Misunderstanding Islam

I have been given the theme "The Message of History" today. A message is
delivered to a place and time. Our Creator has delivered us to this day,
through centuries of history, to begin the year 2004 of the Common Era.  We,
our successes and our failures, are a message people need to take to heart.
I must be brief, and I want to talk about the most serious religious crisis
of our time. It is the rift that certain fundamentalists--Christians, Jews
and Muslims--are trying to open between Christianity and Islam, the two
largest religions on the planet. Sadly, some people are seeking to foster
hatred and religious war on both sides. The sort of misinformation that is
being disseminated among Christians and Jews is quite alarming and
distressing. Some of it is outright falsehood.

For example, one thing you may hear today is that Muslims do not worship
God, they worship something else called Allah. But Allah is simply the
Arabic word for "God." It is closely related to the word for God, Alaha, in
Aramaic, the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke, a language still
spoken in a few areas in the Middle East. If you are an Arab Christian, or
Arabic speaking Jew or Muslim, you pray to Allah. To question that is like
arguing that French speakers don't worship God, they worship something else
called "dieu." Muslims worship the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, and
anyone who opens an English translation of the Qur'an will see that.

Jerry Vines, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention, has described
the beloved Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, as a "demon-obsessed pedophile."
Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, who also gave the invocation at
President Bush's inauguration, describes Islam as "a very evil and false
religion." Jon Hanna, an evangelical minister from Ohio who edits Connection
Magazine in that state, also describes Islam as "false." He cited the 1st
epistle of St John (2: 21): "The one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he
is the liar. He is the Antichrist." Mr Hanna then concluded: "The Muslim
religion is an antichrist religion."

Yet this is a barefaced lie. The Qur'an, or Recitation of the Angel Gabriel
to the Prophet Muhammad, the holy book of Islam, always refers to Jesus as
"the Messiah." Christos or Christ is only a Greek translation of the Aramaic
and Hebrew word, "messiah." The Qur'an also refers to Jesus as the word of
God and spirit from Him, born of the sinless virgin Mary, "purified above
all women," and it gives more space to Mary than the New Testament does. I
know a number of Muslims who ask "our Lady Mary" for her intercession every
day. There are several shrines in the Middle East where Christians and
Muslims honor Mary side by side and ask her to pray for them. I have never
heard, and never expect to hear, any Muslim insult the name of Jesus. It
would be a rejection of what Islam has taught them, that he was the promised
messiah, that he ascended to heaven, and that he will come again before the
world ends.

Still another word you often hear is that Islam fosters hatred, violence,
and religious warfare.  I want to spend a bit of time on this, because it is
so widespread a misunderstanding. Jews are told to take an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth. Christians are told that when smitten, they should turn
the other cheek - although I have met very few of them who actually do that.
Muslims on the other hand are told in their revelation to resist oppression,
even at great personal cost, because otherwise one is only assisting the
oppressor to oppress, and God hates oppressors. This is basic to Islamic
ethics, and we need to understand it.

A related matter much misunderstood is the doctrine of jihad in Islam. It
means "virtuous striving," and that is a matter the Qur'an lays great stress
on. "Did you suppose that you would enter Paradise without God knowing 
who among you have striven and are patient?" (Qur'an 3: 147).

Living a good Muslim life, praying ritually five times a day, keeping the
hard fast of Ramadan, going on the arduous Pilgrimage to Mecca, giving
generously to the poor, rearing one's offspring in the fear of God, is all
of it a jihad.

"You shall believe in God and in His messenger, and strive with your
possessions and with your selves. That is better for you, did you but know"
(61:11). "O you who have faith, fear God, seek means to come to Him, and
strive for His sake; so may you prosper" (5: 54).

The early Muslims had to strive also in battle against attacks by their
enemies. The Qur'an states the circumstances in which and Islamic state
ruled by Islamic law, or an imperiled Islamic community, may resort to war.
These are:

1. When there is a grave and sudden threat to religion. "And if God did not
repel some people by others, then cloisters, churches, synagogues and
mosques wherein God's name is much remembered would have been pulled down.
And surely God will help one who helps Him, surely God is strong and mighty"
(22:40).

2. When Muslims are subjected to oppression. "And what reason have you not
to fight in the way of God, and of the weak among the men and women and
children who say, 'Our Lord, take us out of this city, whose people are
oppressors. Grant us from Thee a friend, and grant us from Thee a helper'"
(4:75).

3. When Muslims are forced out of their land. "And fight in the way of God
those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Surely God loves not
the aggressors" (2: 190). "Whoever retaliates with the like of that with
which they are afflicted and are again oppressed, God will surely help him"
(22: 60). "To fight in the Holy Month is a serious matter, but to bar from
God's way, and the Holy Mosque, and to expel its people, is yet more serious
in God's sight; the disorder is worse than slaying" (2: 217).

4. When political entities commit deliberate breaches of treaties and pacts.
"Those with whom you make an agreement, who then break their agreement every
time, and keep not their duty. If they break their oaths after their
agreements and revile your religion, then fight the leaders of unbelief -
because surely their oaths mean nothing - so that they may desist" (9: 12).

Can you understand that in the eyes of many Muslims, Palestinians (for an
example) have now been put in that position where they must resist? Suicide
is forbidden in Islam, and very rare in Islamic societies, but if one must
sacrifice one's life in order to help the oppressed (and when one reaches
that point is a matter of interpretation), most religions consider it an
heroic action.

Muslims are also explicitly instructed in the Qur'an that all acts of war by
them must cease immediately if their enemies sue for peace, pledge to end
persecution and oppression, and sincerely undertake to abide by their oaths
and covenants. "But if they desist, then surely God is Forgiving, Merciful"
(2: 192). "And if they incline to peace, then incline thou also to it, and
trust in God. Surely He is All-Hearing, All-Knowing " (8: 61).

The issue of deterrence is also discussed in the Qur'an. "And make ready for
them whatever force you can, and [have] horses tied at the frontier, to
frighten thereby the enemy of God, and your enemy, and others beside them,
whom you know not - God knows them" (8-60). Thus Muslims are ordered to be
ready for war, not in order to start it, but to keep their enemy from
disturbing the peace.

So far as war for the propagation of faith is concerned, such a thing is not
mentioned even once in the Qur'an. This fact should be a revelation for
those who think that Islam requires its followers to fight for the spread of
their religion.

This is something we and our statesmen need to be aware of: over a billion
Muslims believe that they are divinely ordered to refrain from aggression,
and also to resist attacks and oppression.  Islam is the world's
fastest-growing religion.  If Muslims continue to be misunderstood and
slandered, they can cause great pain to the world's societies.

Shahada states: La Ilaha illa Allah.

The proper translation is No god except God. Thus pointing out that God is
unique.

However if translated "No god but Allah", then it creates a terrible
confusion and a definite prejudice.

In the shahaadah or Muslim profession of faith, 'Laa ilaaha illaa Allaah',
'ilaaha' means 'deity' and could apply to a river god or any other god.
'Allah',  however, is al-Laah, "THE God (the Creator, the One God)."  In
English this would best be written "There is no god but God,"  since in
English 'God' with a capital letter refers to the Creator, while 'god' with
a small letter can be, for example, a river deity, a thunder god, etc.
Arabic has no difference between capital and small letters, so the
difference between the two is shown by 'ilaaha' and 'Allaah'.

The Koran abounds with verses that promise rewards to the "shaheed". 
The hadith (oral traditions attributed to the prophet) adds to those
rewards, hence the 72 virgins (I wonder how appealing this would be for
a heterosexual female suicide bomber!). The problem is who actually is a
"shaheed" in Islam. Anybody who reads the Koran regularly ( and
critically, I must say) would notice that first, a "shaheed" is someone
who lives out his/her faith in front of others (e.g. Qur'an 3:140),
attests openly to belief in God, or someone, as Christ said, who does
not put their light under a bushel. No where in the Qor'an, as far as I
know, is there an equation between being a "witness" and the act of
killing an enemy of the faith. Of course a Muslim who witnesses to God
might face persecution, just as early Christians were persecuted because
of their faith. This is also dealt with in the Qur'an, where anyone who
dies in the cause of God is rewarded by God. The point I am making so
far is that to unequivocally equate a "witness" or "shaheed" as used in
the Qor'an solely with someone who is killed or "martyred" is the result
of interpretation and is not obvious in the Qur'an.

Moreover, most of the verses (used by apologists of suicide bombing who
see it as a religiously sanctioned method of fighting the Isarelis) use
the verb "killed" (kutila) and not "who kills" (katala) in the cause of
God (Qur'an 2:154, 3:157, 3:169) . So, a suicide bomber in that respect
may not qualify for a reward in the afterlife (at least not
unequivocally), because such a person would be killing, rather than just
be killed for his faith in God! 

This does not mean, however, that Muslims are not ordered in the Qur'an
to "fight" and "kill" (kital) in the cause of God (3: 195, 4:74). Quite
the contrary. Actually, it is this condition ("in the cause of God")
which is the most problematic part when justifying suicide bombing on
religious grounds. Muslim believers who fight (their oppressors) and
strive with their person and belongings in order to be "witnesses" of
God and live their faith openly are indeed Shuhada (plural of shaheed)
according to the Qur'an. This cannot be said of Palestinian suicide
bombers unless they are fighting and being killed by Israelis because of
their faith in God. I truly do not believe that this is the case.
Palestinians are not attacked, oppressed, thrown out of Palestine, etc.
because of their faith. Christian Palestinians were treated in the same
way, and all Palestinians could be Buddhists or atheists for that matter
and they would still have been persecuted by Zionists. In other words,
the struggle is not a religious one, but a racist/political/nationalist
one. Since Palestinians are not oppressed because of their religion but
because of their land (which has nothing to do with God or belief in
God), their "fighting" against Israelis cannot be "rewarded" by God in
that sense. Actually, a verse from the Qur'an is clear in its forbidding
of suicide. Speaking to believers, the Qor'an says: ...do not kill
yourselves. God is merciful to you. If someone does so through
oppression or injustice, we shall cast him into Hell (4:29, 30).