Islam

Islam

Source

The World’s Religions, 50th Anniversary Edition, Huston Smith (hereafter “Smith”); read p221-267 in Smith

2

3

Islam• ‘Islam’ means both ‘peace’ and ‘submission’; the peace that comes from submission to God

• Like Buddhism being named for ‘budh’, awakening, Islam gets its name from the attribute it seeks to cultivate –Smith, p222

•Not Muhammadanism• Muslims say Muhammad did not create the religion; God

did• While Christians think Christ was God, Muslims believe

Muhammad was merely a prophet (though the final and most important prophet)

4

Commonalities with Judaism and Christianity

•Muslims accept the New Testament of the Christian bible, and the Hebrew Scriptures, though not completely as they believe there are serious transmission errors (additions and or deletions of uninspired scribes)•God created the world•God created human beings (Adam & Eve)• Adam & Eve’s descendants led to Noah•Noah had a son, Shem … the source of ‘Semitic’ peoples (Jews and Arabs)• Shem’s descendants lead to Abraham• Abraham’s submission to God in willingness to sacrifice his son on an alter gives Islam its name: submission

5

Commonalities with Judaism and Christianity

• Abraham married Sarah, but she was barren and too old to have children.• Sarah suggested Abraham take Hagar, her Egyptian handmaid, for a second wife.•Hagar had Ishmael.• Sarah, surprise, gets pregnant, has Isaac.• Sarah demands that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away.• Isaac’s descendants are Jews.• Ishmael’s descendants are Arabs.

6

Departure from Judaism and Christianity

In Genesis, Hagar and Ishmael are made to leave and they go to live in Beersheba, which, at the time, was the southern most part of Israel.

In the Koran, Ishmael goes on farther south to live in the area of Saudi Arabia that will later hold the city of Mecca.

7

MuhammadUnder the title, “The Seal of the Prophets,” Smith, p223, tells us Muslims believe Muhammad was the final prophet through whom God speaks.

born, 570 CE, into a world of violence and crimea member of the leading tribe in Mecca (the Koreish / Quraysh)‘Mohammad’ means ‘highly praised’, and is now the most common male name in the worldfather died a few days before his birth, mother when 6, grandfather when 8raised by his uncle, well-loved and accepted in his familyat 25 began a caravan business, worked for Khadija, a wealthy widow 15 years his senior, whom he later married

8

Muhammad (cont.)became frustrated with wickedness in his world and began frequenting a cave on Mt. Hira for solitudewhile most Meccans were polytheistic and animistic, some, the hanifs, worshipped one god exclusively, ‘Allah’became convinced while meditating in his cave that Allah was the only God, The Godon the Night of Power, the angel Gabriel appears to Muhammad in human form and urges him to ‘proclaim’this is the beginning of the writing of the Koran

9

Muhammad’s MinistryFor twenty three years, Muhammad writes the Koran as it is

transmitted by GodAs he preaches, he and his followers are endangered as they make

enemies of the polytheists who1. earn a living maintaining the 360 shrines to various gods around Mecca2. enjoy, as Smith says, ‘licentiousness’3. maintain class distinctions Muhammad rejects

Converts from Yathrib (280 miles north; later called Medina) invited Muhammad to be their leader and escape the dangers in Mecca

His migration to Yathrib, in 622 CE, is called the Hijra, and is the turning point in world history for Muslims, who date their calendar from that year (using A. H., After Hijra, for subsequent years)

10

Muhammad’s MinistryIn Medina, Muhammad is pressed into the role of judge, general, and teacher

He lives frugally, though …• living in a clay house• milking his own goats • mending his own clothes, and • advising the humblest visitors personally

His role as a general emerges as he leads the Medinese against the Meccans• first battle his forces win a great victory over a much larger Meccan

force• second battle he is injured and Medinese lose• finally, after exhausting themselves laying siege to Medina, the

Meccans retreat and are later finally conqueredAlways merciful in victory, Muhammad accepts the Meccan’s conversion to Islam

11

The Koran (Qur’an)• ‘al-Qur’an’ in Arabic means ‘a recitation’ (see Smith, p231)• Written over 23 years, Smith emphasizes that Muhammad considered it the

only “miracle” associated with himself.• Illiterate as far as formal education, Muhammad wrote down the Koran in

fits and spurts, describing the experience of inspiration as hearing “the reverberating of bells.” Smith, p232

• The Koran is composed of 114 chapters, called Surahs (Sura, Surat, Sewar), arranged in order longest to shortest.

• Muslims believe there are, in a sense, two Korans—an uncreated, eternal Koran, and an instantiation of it, the written Koran.

• Smith, p232: “If Christ is God incarnate, the Koran is God inlibriate.”• As literature, Arabic speakers Smith mentions find the Koran poetic and

beautiful; English writers like Carlisle and Gibbon consider it, in translation of course, “wearisome,” “crude,” “a jumble.”

• See an example of devotion to reading it perfectly, in Arabic. (Begin at the 40:00 minute mark to experience a bit of the competition)

12

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

1. God2. Creation3. Human self4. Day of Judgment

In Islam God is an immaterial being. Smith, p236, considers analogies to invisible things that Arabs at the time had no trouble believing in (eg, wind).

Islam’s …“innovation was to remove idols from the religious scene and

focus the divine in a single invisible God for everyone. It is in this sense that the indelible contribution of Islam to Arabic religion was monotheism.” –Smith, p236

13

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(1. God)Jews have monotheism, but it isn’t unambiguously

worldwide:“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” –Deut. 6:4

Christians have worldwide monotheism, but they have the Trinity:

“They say the God of mercy has begotten a son. Now have you uttered a grievous thing … It is not proper for God to have children.” (Koran, 3:78, 19:93)

Islam eschews all “parental images” of God. They make God too human; they are anthropomorphic. –Smith, p236

Are ‘Son of God’ and ‘God the Son’ equivalent? __________

14

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(1. God)On page 237 Smith discusses the Muslim conception of God as

God’s awesomeness in terms of power and enforcer (and creator?) of morality.

Still, Allah’s compassion and mercy are mentioned 192 times in the Koran, wrath and vengeance 17.

What do you think of Smith’s argument, p237, mid-page: “Mistakes could be disastrous. Koranic images of heaven and hell are

pressed into service here; but once we come to terms with the fear that life’s inbuilt precariousness inspires, other lesser fears subside. The second, supporting root of the word islam is peace.”

What kind of peace is this? __________________________(Yes, I’m asking a serious question )

15

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(2. Creation)Rather than emanating from the divine as in

Hinduism, or from the Form of The Good (Goodness itself), as the Neo-Platonists held, nature exists because of “a deliberate act of Allah’s will.” –Smith, p238

Does Allah have to continue willing existence to all other things to sustain them? ______________

Smith notes two consequences of this view:1. The world is both real and important2. Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly

good and perfectly powerful, the world must be good.

Islamic thinkers were the first

Western scientists

16

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(2. Creation)2. Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good

and perfectly powerful, the world must be good.

“You do not see in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection. Return your gaze … It comes back to you dazzled” (Koran, 67:4) –Smith, p238Smith takes this statement to be an endorsement of “confidence in the material aspects of life”; notes that Christians and Jews share that confidence.

What does that mean? __________________________

Are nature’s imperfections ignored? _______________Recall Tennyson’s “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”

17

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(2. Creation)2. Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and perfectly

powerful, the world must be good.

Regarding the creation of the human self or soul, Smith extends the commitment to such being created ‘good’.

This could have been inferred, given its Maker, but the Koran states it explicitly: “Surely we have created humanity of the best stature” (Koran, 95:4) …The closest Islam comes to the Christian concept of original sin is in its concept of ghaflah, or forgetting. People do forget their divine origin, and this mistake needs repeatedly to be corrected….With life acknowledge as a gift from its Creator, we can turn to its obligations, which are two. The first of these is gratitude for the life that has been received. The Arabic word “infidel” is actually shaded more toward “one who lacks thankfulness” than one who disbelieves. The second standing obligation [is surrender … total commitment to God] –Smith, p238-239 (my brackets)

12

18

Gratitude ArgumentThe two obligations Smith identifies,

1. the duty to be grateful, and 2. the duty to surrender and be committed to God

are based on the “gift of life.”In creating humans (out of nothing?), God has given us a great gift, and at the same time acquired a sort of ownership of us. (See Smith’s reference to Islam’s language of being a “slave to Allah,” p240.)

(Ownership is traditionally determined by labor or work: if you did the work or made the effort to create something, you own it.)

Response:God can’t own our lives because we own them … we create ourselves … we

feed ourselves clothe ourselves educate ourselves etc.

It’s all work and working for something (labor) is the standard basis of ownership. We are self-made and so own ourselves.

On the contrary: God gives us life in the sense of existence and continued existence, the

pre-conditions for all other goods, including our ability to shape our own character; those form His basis for ownership.

19

Gratitude ArgumentReply: It is wrong to give people things that

1. they didn’t ask for, and (say, a diamond)2. are hard for them to return (say, a huge fish tank)

and at the same time demand something in return, like gratitude and or surrender / commitment.

That sort of giving creates no duty of gratitude, no duty to return what’s given, no duty to treat what was given according to the

wishes of the giver

So, if God exists and provides us with existence and or continued existence, we would have no duty to be grateful to God for it.

Is this reply right? _______________Is the gratitude argument in the Koran? __________What can be said in reply? _____________

Consider the common

theatre device of the starlet pursued by the admirer bearing gifts

20

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(3. Human Self)Smith explains the human self or soul in Islam by

contrasting it with the ‘no self’ of Buddhism and the ‘ecological’ self of Confucianism.

Why not compare it to the ‘ultimate self’ of Hinduism? Recall the question of whether, on dying, the soul

becomes one with Brahman or retains a bit of individuality so as to “taste honey, not be honey”?

Smith calls the Muslim self an “inexplicable center of experience that is the fundamental fact of the universe,” (p240) and so it is clearly not the empirical self.

Nonetheless, Smith rejects the comparison, apparently, because,

In India the all-pervading cosmic spirit comes close to swallowing the individual self. –Smith, p240

The Muslim soul retains its absolute individuality after death.

21

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(4. Judgment Day)The total individuality of the soul leads to its

complete responsibility for its choices. Whoever gets to himself a sin, gets it solely on his own

responsibility … Whoever goes astray, he himself bears the whole responsibility of wandering. (4:111, 10:103) –Smith, p241

Islam then provides a complementary picture of the afterlife.

When life is over, souls are judged by Allah …When the sun shall be folded up, and the stars shall fall, and

when the mountains shall be set in motion … and the seas shall boil … Then shall every soul know what it has done. (81, passim) –Smith, p241

22

4 Basic Concepts of the Koran

(4. Judgment Day)The imagery in the Koran of the afterlife … of heavens

and hells … is extremely sensuous. Lots of sex in the heavens for the virtuous … men and women … though, mostly men; for the wicked, the hells present “burning garments, molten drinks, maces of iron, and fire that splits rocks into fragments.” –Smith, p241

Do all Muslims accept this as a literal depiction of heaven.

The Koran itself says:Some of the signs are firm—these are the basis of the book—

others are figurative. (3:5) –Smith, p242

So, no, some Muslims think the imagery is sensuous in order to be compelling, but is literally false.

23

5 Pillars of Islam1. Faith. The Shahada: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad

is His Prophet.” This is to be recited at least once by all Muslims “slowly, thoughtfully, aloud,

with full understanding and with heart-felt conviction.” –Smith, p2442. Prayer. “Be Constant” … in prayer. Muslims pray 5 times a day,

facing Mecca. Read the story of how this injunction began with God’s requirement of prayer 50 times a day. See Smith, p245

3. Charity. Muslims are required to share a portion of their income and savings with the poor, according to their need.

4. Fasting. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims are required to neither eat nor drink (no smoking or sex, either) while the sun is up.

5. Pilgrimage. Muslims, if at all possible, must travel to Mecca once in their lifetime.

See Koller, p143; Smith,

p242-248

900 1300

Al-Farabi

Al-Ghazali801-873 CEAl- Kindi

24

870-950 CE

1058-1111 CE

Averroes1126-1198 CE

Avicenna980-1037 CE

Anselm1038-1109 AD

Aquinas1225-1274 AD

Ockham1287-1347 AD

*All images link to scholarly articles

1138-1204 AD

Maimonides

25

A painting by Giovanni de Paolo (1403 – 1482), entitled,

“St. Thomas Aquinas Confounding Averroes”Averroes looks pretty good for a dead guy.

26

ImagesAll images are taken from Wikimedia Commons. They are Public Domain images requiring no attribution for use.