Balance in Islam

IT has become a common practice in the West to malign Islam or its Prophet (peace be upon him) in one way or another. Unfortunately, all this is being done under the garb of the so-called right to freedom of expression.

Although the motives for such acts are not very clear but if it is done as a joke or for the sake of fun or pastime, then the one doing it should know that he is inviting unprecedented global reaction for nothing as the recent events has proved. By now every one in the world must have realised that the faith which the Muslims profess has unlimited vitality. It is as much alive today as it was 1400 years ago. Rather it gets new vigour with every jolt, stroke or storm.

Muslims have kept their faith through innumerable historical vicissitudes as rightly pointed out by Robert Fisk in a recent article on the subject. To Muslims, their Prophet is dearer to them than their self and his insult is considered even more heinous than their own insult or the insult of their parents. It will, therefore, be more advisable for the person committing the above-mentioned acts as joke or for the sake of fun, to seek some other subject for the purpose.

If he is maligning Islam or its Prophet on account of inter-faith jealousy then he is grossly mistaken. Islam is a religion that in no sense of the term is likely to generate jealousy in the followers of other religions in general and among the followers of monotheist religions in particular. In the first instance, it accepts and confirms all monotheist religions to be the Divine inspired religions. As the Quran says “It is He Who sent down to thee in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it, even as He revealed the Torah and the Gospel” (3:3).

Secondly, the Quran enjoins the believers to have faith in all the Prophets alike and neither make any distinction between them nor separate Allah from His prophets in matter of faith (4: 150,151). The Muslims believe as much in Moses and Jesus Christ as they believe in Muhammad (peace be upon him), as the Prophets of Allah. Then why should Christians or jews envy or be jealous of some one who believes in Muhammad as the Prophet of Allah which automatically implies belief in Allah and all His Prophets. This fact has been more beautifully elaborated by Duncan Greenless thus: “the nobility and broad tolerance of this creed which accepted as God inspired all the real religions of the world will always be a golden heritage for mankind.” In fact, misunderstanding about the teachings of Islam usually occurs when some of the Quranic verses are read in isolation or without taking into consideration the historical facts and the objective conditions in relation to which those verses were revealed. For example, one of the Quranic verse says “if any one desires anything other than Islam it will not be accepted from him.” (3:85). This gives the impression that according to the verse all the religions on the world except Islam stood abrogated.

But, if we have a look at the preceding verse (3:84), it will follow that the religions of all the Prophets as mentioned in that verse, have been termed as basically one and the same. Islam literally means submission and in the Quranic sense it implies submission to the will of Allah and that is why as a religion it is not tied to any particular name, place or any worldly entity. This has been explicitly explained in another Quranic verse which says “He laid down the same religion for you as He enjoined on Noah, that which he revealed to you which he enjoined on Ibrahim, Moses and Jesus Christ.” (42:13)

It means that reference to Islam in the verse (3:85) is to be understood as reference to the religions of all the Prophets, including Muhammad (peace be upon him), as mentioned in the verses (3:84) (42:13) and by implication to the religions of all the Prophets sent by Allah.

This fact is more explicitly manifest from another Quranic verse which says “To each among you, We have prescribed a Law (Shariah) and an open way. If Allah Willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He has given you. So strive as in race in all virtues. (5:48). This verse clearly tells us that it was not in the Divine scheme of things that all the people shall follow the same law (Shariah). Although all the religions are to be the same in so far as the basic element of faith is concerned, which could only be the Unity of Allah, the followers of every Prophet have to follow a different Law (Shariah) so that they are tested in what has been given to them.

That’s why the Quran says “whosoever among the Muslims, or Jews or Sabaeans or the Christians believe in Allah and the last day and do righteous deeds will have no cause of fear or grief” (5:69). Belief in Allah in this verse has to be understood as belief in Allah and all His Prophets including Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The verse (5:48) tells us about another factor of fundamental importance when it says “so strive as in race in all virtues”, which completely eliminates any tendency towards jealousy or rivalry. According to the verse if the followers of various religions compete with each other they should only compete in virtues. Jealousy or rivalry occurs when people compete in the acquisition of power or any worldly gains but not when they compete in virtues which in the ultimate analysis promotes cooperation. Rather the spirit of cooperation for achieving something good could be a virtue in itself.

If he is maligning Islam because he thinks it is violent or retrogressive religion then he is in complete darkness about the true spirit of Islam and its teachings. The first thing that the Quran highlighted when it was being revealed was the need for acquisition of knowledge (96:4,5) followed by other verses emphasising the acquisition of more and more of knowledge (20:114). Besides, Islam is a religion that is expressly based on the principles of balance and justice. As the Quran says “He raised the heavens height and set the balance. Therefore, do not upset the balance” (55:7,8).

The verse tells us that after creating the heavens and other celestial bodies Allah placed them in proper order so as to maintain the requisite balance, a principle that we too should follow in our own sphere of activities.

The Quran says again “We sent the Messengers with clear signs and sent down with them the Book and the Balance so that the people stand by justice” (57:52). At the same time it expects the believers to be people who are justly balanced (2:143) and exhorts them to keep to moderation in every walk of life (31:19). It enjoins them to repel evil with goodness (41:34), to be kind even to non-believers (60:8) and to be just even to enemies (5:8).

How can a religion that lays so much emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge, maintenance of balance, doing of justice and observance of moderation be a retrogressive and violent religion. Given the nature of human beings, the Quran allows reprisal but at the same time it says that if the person wronged forgives the wrongdoer, he will have his reward from Allah (42:40). It specifically prohibits the crossing of limits if at all the person wronged takes resort to reprisal (16:126).

The practical example of these teachings was manifest in the way the Prophet treated the people of Quraish tribe after the conquest of Makkah. They had treated the Prophet (PBUH) in the most inhuman ways for full 13 years, yet he pardoned them all when he was in a position to avenge easily for what had been done to him.

Confirming the stereotype

THERE can be nothing more demeaning than living down to the expectation of others. The recent mayhem here in Pakistan, in Syria, Libya and Iran ostensibly against the blasphemous cartoons has confirmed the worst fears of our detractors. In their eyes, we Muslims — no matter how modern we may be — are unpredictable, volatile, unstable, and violently reactive to the point of being reactionary.

We agitate noisily in streets, we torch buildings, we scorch parked motors cars, we barbecue branches of fast food joints, we loot US-owned banks, and with every unbridled act of vandalism, we deliver ourselves voluntarily into the hands of our critics. Gratuitously, we put ourselves where a tactless Danish cartoonist and his equally culpable publisher ought to be — in the dock of international censure.

There are many today who wish that the reactions in different countries had been only against those infamous cartoons. Had that been the case, the furor would have died down as quickly as it had flared up, for daily cartoons like most such insults have a short-shelf life.

The 11 offending cartoons appeared originally five months ago, on September 30, in a Danish-language newspaper — the Jyllands Posten — in a country that is physically and metaphorically the appendix of Europe.

Whatever might be the readership of that paper, it surely cannot be much larger than the entire population of Denmark (5.5 million), which in itself is less than the population of just one city where such riots occurred — Lahore (5.9 million).

When in September the cartoons did not evoke the required response amongst Muslims, they were reprinted quite deliberately and with seemingly provocative intent in Norway on January 10, in Germany on February 1, and then carried like some insidious strain of bird flu across the rest of Europe. A sacrilege committed became a sacrilege compounded. If the Holy Prophet (PBUH) had been alive today, he would have simply turned the page. And that is what the rest of the world should have done.

Every rational son of Adam must deplore the wanton assault on religious sensitivities, ostensibly in the name of freedom of expression, especially when it is so violative of the right of its Abel sibling — the freedom of faith. Every son of Abraham who has a deeper understanding of the origins of the three great religions of the present world — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — must regret the palpable deterioration in relations among the three. Their inability to bond together despite millennia of common contact and uneasy coexistence seems a poor augury for the future millennium.

Is it because there is some genetic flaw in that patriarch’s progeny, a missing gene whose absence renders his descendants congenitally unable to live together in communal harmony? Has it something to do with Christianity and Islam being sequential to Judaism? Might they have been different, had their origins been contemporaneous, as those of Buddhism and Jainism were, rather than improvements on earlier beliefs? Who knows? What is happening for sure is that, despite the efforts of reasonable people such as the present Archbishop of Canterbury, who speaks less of inter-faith contact and more about multi-faith accommodation, the schism between the followers of the three religions is widening rather than narrowing.

Anyone who is not a Muslim standing outside the tent of Islam must wonder at the inability of the ummah within it to function with better coordination and be dismayed at the disparity in behaviour between Muslim communities even when they reside in the same region. Cartoons published in Europe could in Pakistan make young school-children storm the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, easy-rider motorcyclists attack the provincial assembly in Lahore, beardless youths pillory the police in Peshawar, and yet fail to evoke neither a blow nor a bruise amongst Muslims in India.

The disparity between the reactions of Pakistani Muslims and Indian Muslims has not gone unnoticed in circles that determine US policy towards South Asia. Gradually, India is being acknowledged not simply as the world’s largest democracy but as a pluralistic society in which Muslims — if contained — can be neutralized. India, they argue persuasively, does not breed Islamic terrorists. India, they assure the IAEA, is a responsible nuclear power that can be trusted to differentiate between innocuous civilian nuclear facilities and those that require monitoring and inspection. They might at this moment be reassuring the White House that India can be relied upon to support any US-led coalition against Iran.

This could explain why Indian foreign policy has shifted from independent non-alignment to pragmatic re-alignment, to a complete alignment with US thinking on the growth of nuclear capability in our region. The most telling indication of this pendulum swing is the recent endorsement by the BJP of the Indian government’s vote against Iran at the IAEA. Ordinarily, opposition parties in India would, as a matter of habit if not from conviction, take a view contrary to the actions of the government in power. On such a potentially explosive issue, however, the BJP has behaved as did the British Conservative party — its counterpart in Westminster. When called upon to take a stand over the Iraq war, the Conservatives swallowed their conscience and voted with Blair’s Labour government.

In New Delhi, the BJP has publicly endorsed the decision by the Congress-led government to vote against Iran, ostensibly because national unity is deemed more important at the moment than solidarity with a nuclear underdog. By doing so, though, the BJP may have swallowed with its conscience a dose of electoral hemlock, for it is not impossible that the Muslim vote (once strongly anti-BJP) which it has been courting since it was ousted from power, may turn against it in future elections.

President George W. Bush’s forthcoming visit to South Asia will have differing levels of significance for the two countries vying for his attention. For the Indians, his longer visit will be an overdue, hopefully irreversible recognition of India’s economic maturity, its dependable stability and its claim to pre-eminence in the region. The legatees of the Mauryan and the Mughal empires expect to be confirmed as the local satrapy by this latest of empires.

President Bush’s visit to Pakistan will be brief and business-like. President Musharraf hopes that it will erase the memory of Bill Clinton’s visit when as president, he flew from New Delhi to Islamabad in March 2000 soon after Musharraf had ousted Nawaz Sharif. On that occasion, Clinton had refused to be seen in public with Musharraf. Six years later, on February 17, Clinton re-visited Islamabad; this time he sought to be photographed shaking Musharraf’s hand.

This was not because Clinton is no longer president and Musharraf is. It had more to do with Musharraf’s achievement in demonstrating to Clinton’s successor George W. Bush, his indispensability to US interests. Like his military predecessor generals (Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and then Ziaul Haq) Musharraf has earned his spurs — that shining, sixth-star soubriquet that distinguishes him as the “most allied of allies” of the US.

When they meet, both Bush and Musharraf will undoubtedly discuss presidential elections. They will talk of the Pakistani presidential elections in 2007, but more of the presidential one scheduled in the US for 2008 when Bush’s successor makes his or her bid for the White House. Until then, Bush will ensure that Musharraf feels as secure as any friend of a pro-Indian United States can be expected to feel.

It is a pity that President Bush will not stay long enough here to have the opportunity that other visitors to Pakistan do, of seeing a country outside the Utopia called Islamabad, of meeting people who care as much about the safety and security of their own country as he does so demonstrably about his own. It is a shame that he will not be allowed to gauge for himself that the majority of Muslims in Pakistan are rational human beings, co-religionists in faith, with a respect and a reverence for life.

We are not the caricatures stencilled by the western press, nor the cartoons extremists make of themselves and of us by their aberrant behaviour.