Some critics of Islam quote Quranic
verses whereby Muslims are
advised to slay infidels or those who
insult the Holy Prophet and
not to take Jews or Christians as friends.
Indeed by reading some of the verses in isolation or out of context one
can be mislead specially if one does not know the purpose and background
of revelation of the verses. When the Holy Prophet had started preaching
Islam he had to face stiff opposition. His own people who used to respect
him and called him trustworthy and honest man started ridiculing him. When
he did not deter they tried to bribe him and then started threatening him
and his followers. As the Islam continued to spread, they tried to stop
him with force and started beating his followers so much so that the Holy
Prophet had to migrate to Medina from Mecca. The infidels continued
to harass the Muslim by looting trade caravan or inflicting physical harm
on Muslims. When Muslim started repulsing the attacks with force that resulted
in different battles and wars. The verses relating to those incidents and
circumstances if read out of context give quite different meaning then
what can be understood when read with the entire surah and its background.
President George W. Bush gave a long speech
to explain how the war on terrorism will be waged and that it is not a
war against Islam. But if one picks up few sentences out of context that
can
be presented as declaration of war against
Muslims.
There is a general fallacy that Muslim
women are oppressed. That used to be the case in Arabia before Islam. Rights
for women and orphans were laid down by Islam. The policies that Taliban
Government adopted in Afghanistan in regard to women, music, dress, beard
etc. stemmed out of medieval Afghan values that existed since before conversion
to Islam. The concept of veil in Islam is to preserve modesty in
such a manner that identity is not hidden. But Afghan Burqa hides identity.
Similarly the men's
Afghani dress cannot be treated as Islamic.
Islam is not a closed religion.
The need for knowledge, research, progress and Ijtehad (deliberations)has
been emphasized up on time and again. We are advised to be kind, considerate,
understanding and courteous among other things. Therefore, to evaluate
all truths and good things as Islamic or unislamic may be of little consequence.
Holy Quran goes on to the extent of saying that all mankind is like a single
nation.
Islam as a religion has its roots in
the teachings of Abraham, Moses, Isa (Jesus) and other prophets of the
God Almighty who sent Mohammed as His last Prophet with complete guidance
to establish the moral, spiritual and material values and to show the right
path and how God Almighty will surely reward us for good deeds and/or
punish for our bad deeds and deficiencies not only in afterlife but sometimes
in this world also. However, what happens to us in this world cannot be
perceived by reason. Thus the faith of a true Muslim rarely waivers.
Generally the Weterners have a distorted
view of Islamic values. Everybody knows that the US is not only a super
power; they excel in many fields including sports, art and literature besides
science and technology. How it became the world's most powerful nation?
It is not merely because of their free economy and vast natural resources.
It is because of their constructive and practical attitude toward work,
conformity to laws and system of justice and governance.
Generally the Westerners do not realise
that the system of
governance in the United States, as compared
to most of the
other countries in the world, is closer
to the values of good
governance as laid down by Islam.
The attitude of Americans
toward pursuit of knowledge, research,
their approach to human
rights, fair play and justice and various
aspects of life conform to
the teachings of Islam. But their citizens
enjoy more freedom than
necessary for a clean and healthy society
and they have shunned
the values taught by the Holy Prophet
Isa (Jesus)
It is because the Western culture has drifted
toward materialism.
its evolution is seen by Raoul Vaneigem
(b. 1934), Belgian
Situationist philosopher as:
"Production and consumption are the
nipples of modern society.
Thus suckled, humanity grows in strength
and beauty; rising
standard of living, all modern conveniences,
distractions of
all kinds, culture for all, the comfort
of your dreams."
E. M. Forster, British novelist points
out that materialism
is not being handled properly.
"Our life on earth is, and ought to
be, material and carnal.
But we have not yet learned to manage
our materialism and
carnality properly; they are still
entangled with the desire
for ownership.
Materialism begets more worries, tension,
selfishness, greed and many other vices. The good Samaritans in the
West are worried over the moral decline in their society. The values for
social freedom are under constant strain due to explosive rates of illegitimate
child birth, adultery and ever rising graphs of social and moral crimes.
Spiritualism enables the individuals
to find inner peace and happiness and draw comfort in adversity. And
Islam enables us
to balance our moral, material and spiritual
values. How and why
Muslims have obscured these values and
drifted from their glorious past towards ignorance, bigotry and why some
Muslim stick to medieval traditions and why and how the moral degradation
in the West has acquired explosive rates and what will be its consequences
is another subject that will be dealt with in another article.
Shah N. Khan
