" A pernicious
tenet has been imputed to the Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating
all other religions by the sword. This charge of ignorance and bigotry
is refuted by the Koran, by the history of Musalman conquerors, and by
their public and legal toleration of the Christian worship."
Jihad, in Islam, means the spiritual
struggle against evil.
The struggle can be by the heart, the tongue,
the hand, and the sword. These refer to the inner, spiritual
war of the heart against vice, passion, and ignorance; spreading
the word of Islam with one's tongue; choosing to do good and avoiding evil
with one's hand. Jihad also means a full fledged war as declared by the
state to defend the sovereignty or repulse threat to the state's freedom,
security or religion.
The concept of Jehad is still misunderstood
not only in the West but also by a few Muslims -specially those
struggling for freedom or who have been victim of human right
abuses by their rulers.
Although sucide is prohibited, martyrdom
in the course of Jihad is matter of great honor to be rewarded
by Allah by a special place in paradise.
Volunteering for suicide
squads is not unique to Arabs. In many other countries
like Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia etc such spirit is seen.
It would be observed that the countries
that are worst affected by terrorism are those whose record of human rights
abuses is bad or those who give aid to or favor the countries using brute
state power to crush freedom movement.Desperate people burning with the desire of vengeance but having little
means to fight with the State power resort to terrorist acts. But Islam
does not permit such brutalities whatever the cause may be
and killing of innocent people is prohibited.
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 his own people who used to call him trustworthy and honest man started ridiculing him. They wanted him to give up preaching Islam and when
he did not deter they tried to bribe him and then started threatening and persecuting 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 Afghani dresses for men and women 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 Un-Islamic 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 Westerners 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 good governance.
Generally the Westerners do not realize 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 Prophets Moses and
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 properly; they are still
entangled with the desires 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
