CHAPTER IV
ISLAM,
CHRISTIANITY AND UNBELIEVERS:
WAYS
OF MUTUALITY
1.
On the need of universal
values
In his book, Foundations of Religious
Tolerance, Jay Newman advances the hypothesis that "there are some
abstract, basic trans-cultural values" and that "almost all known
societies are built upon a foundation of a limited number" of such values.
Newman argues that those basic trans-cultural values "are essentially ends
and people in different religious or political or ethnic groups disagree as to
what the appropriate means to these ends are.”1 The author reasons:
If there
were no trans-cultural values, then we would be left with radical ethical
relativism and an empty concept of civilization. But if there are universal
ethical termini, no matter how
abstract... then intercultural dialogue on ethical questions is possible, and we
can learn from people in other societies about ways of more rapidly realizing
common ideals.2
Indeed, there are arguments in favor of the hypothesis that only justice,
peace and wisdom are trans-cultural values.
2.
Creativity: A Universal Principle
From an ontological perspective, people - just like all living creatures
- are, to a certain extent, a self-creating reality in the sense that they are
responsible for their own lives. They build their own lives since this is a
process sui generis and no one can replace them, no matter how skillful s/he
is or how much s/he wants to. People, just like all living creatures, must do
their own breathing, eating, growing, etc. Needless to say, people are different
from animals. They are producers. They have a particular way of life and can
invent a new one. This is an ontological fact. Trans-cultural values are
arguably easier to identify from the perspective of this philosophical idea. The
problem is to what extent a particular religion respects this basic ontological
reality of humankind.
3.
The Universality of Islam
In his paper, "Islamic Government," Ayatullah Ruhullah Khumayni
writes:
The
colonialists found in the Muslim world their long-sought object. To achieve
their colonialist ambitions, the colonialists sought to create the right
conditions leading to the annihilation of Islam. . . . Islam is the religion of
the strugglers who want right and justice, the religion of those demanding
freedom and independence and those who do want to allow infidels to dominate the
believers.3
Ayatullah Khumayni does not mean that the colonialists want to turn
Muslims into Christians "after driving them away from Islam." The
colonialists are not believers. Their sole objective is "control and
domination," and Islam appears to be the main obstacle to that. According
to Ayatullah Khumayni, that is why Islam was treated unjustly and was presumed
to have evil intents.
The hands
of the missionaries, the orientalists and of information media - all of whom are
in the service of the colonialist countries, - have cooperated to distort the
facts of Islam in a manner that caused many people, especially the educated
among them, to steer away from Islam and to be unable to find a way to reach
Islam.4
Khumayni wants to unite the Muslim nation and "the only means"5
of achieving this objective is establishment of Islamic government (ibid. p.
319). "The Islamic government is the government of the law and God alone is
the ruler and the legislator."6
Here is how the Mullah in a Shi'ite Iranian village responded to the
question about the responsibility of man in Reinhold Loeffler's 1970-1971 and
1976 surveys:
God's punishment for disobeying the rules is hell in the next world and
in this world it is whatever the Qur'anic laws prescribe: cutting off a finger
for stealing a small amount, the hand for more, death for murder.7
The problem is: How can people from different religions, and even
unbelievers, live together in peace and harmony? We will read the following even
in a holy book:
Verily I
am with you; wherefore confirm those who believe. I will cast a dread into the
hearts of the unbelievers. Therefore strike off their heads, and strike off all the ends of their fingers.
This shall they suffer, because they have resisted God and his apostle:
and whosoever shall oppose God and his apostle, verily God will be severe in
punishing him. This shall
be your punishment; taste it therefore: and the infidels shall also
suffer the torment of hell fire.8
The quote is from the English translation of the Qur’an. By comparison,
the Bulgarian translation is different, with "beat" instead of
"strike off."9 Since I do not know Arabic, I cannot comment
on the three versions of the same passage. Another English translation of the
Qur’an has "smite off" instead of "strike off."
Relations between Muslims and unbelievers are regulated by a
"declaration of immunity from God and his apostle unto the idolaters, with
whom ye have entered into league."10 Chapter IX says the
following:
Wherefore
perform the covenant which ye shall have
made with them, until their time shall
be elapsed; for God loveth those who fear him. And when the months wherein
ye are not allowed to attack
them shall be past, kill the idolaters wheresoever ye shall find them, and
take them prisoners, and besiege them, and lay wait for them in every
convenient place. But if they shall repent and observe the appointed times of
prayer, and pay the legal alms, dismiss them freely: for God is
gracious and merciful . . . This shall
thou do, because they are people which know not the excellency of the religion thou preachest.11
4.
Islam as a Threat
Muslim expansionism, the Islamic threat, is perhaps the main problem in
relations between Christians and Muslims. To quote John Esposito:
The Islamic ideal was to fashion a world in which,
under Muslim rule, idolatry and paganism would be eliminated, and all people of
the book could live in a society guided and protected by Muslim power. While
Islam was regarded as the final and perfect religion of God, others were to be
invited, through persuasion first rather than the sword, to convert to Islam.12
The Prophet's successors achieved the ideal of Muslim domination on a
grand scale, the following historical account shows:
Within
one hundred years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the successors
(caliphs) of Muhammad had established an empire greater than Rome at its zenith.
The shock to the international order and more specifically to Christendom was
incalculable. That the tribes of Arabia could be united, let alone spill out of
Arabia, overcome the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) and Persian (Sassanid) empires,
and by the end of a century create an Islamic caliphate extending from North
Africa to India, seemed unthinkable.13
To attain their objectives of Muslim expansion and domination in such an
impressive manner, Muslims obviously had to invent the appropriate methods. I
would say that one of those methods is the so-called "Declaration of
Immunity." The methods employed by the Ottomans in their conquest of
Eastern Europe are well documented:
Ottoman
power and glory rested upon the development of a system for training young men
for military and administrative service. It produced a first-class bureaucracy
and military which relied heavily upon the religious scholars (the ulama)
and a corps of elite slave soldiers and officials, the Janissaries. Young
Christian males were taken from conquered populations of the Balkans, and later
from Anadola, converted to Islam, and sent to special schools which trained and
produced generations of Ottoman officials.14
5.
Looking for Common Ground
If we consider what all religions have in common, we may argue that since
they all believe in God, all believers have the same feelings and are ready to
help each other, respecting the beliefs of others. Something of the sort has
been achieved in the new relationship between believers and activists. The
subsequent result may be qualified as political and could greatly contribute to
religious tolerance.
Certain authors assert that there is a difference between tolerating
someone's beliefs and tolerating someone as a believer. This sounds reasonable.
Yet, what about people who presume that unbelievers or believers in another god
are in need of help? Such people cannot tolerate seeing others harm themselves.
"They are worried about us, our souls, our spiritual lives. Sometimes they
will go to great extremes to save us; they will torture us, burn us at the
stake, deny us freedom or choice . . ."15
I propose that we look for an ontological common ground on the basis of
which we could understand each other and transfer meaning among Christians,
Muslims and unbelievers. I believe this common ground is the ontological
Subject-ness16 of all living creatures.
1. Newman, Jay. Foundations of Religious Tolerance. (University of
Toronto Press, 1982), p. 68.
2. Ibid., p. 69.
3. Khumayni, Ayatullah Ruhullah. “Islamic Government.” pp. 314-315.
4. Ibid., p. 315.
5. Ibid., p. 319.
6. Ibid., p. 317.
7. Loeffler, Reinhold. Islam in Practice, Religious Beliefs in a Persian
Village. (State University of New York Press), p. 23.
8. The Koran, Translated into English from the original Arabic by
George Sale. (New York: A. L. Burt Co.), Chapter VIII, pp. 165-166.
9. Sveshteniya Koran: The Holy Koran. Translated into Bulgarian from
the original Arabic by Tsvetan Teofanov. (Taiba al-Hairiya, 1997), chap. 8, p.
12.
10. The Glorious Ku’ran. Translation and Commentary by Abdallah Yosuf
Ali. (Libyan Arab Republic, May, 1973), p. 1393.
11. Sale, op. cit., p. 171.
12. Esposito, John I. The Islamic
Threat – Myth or Reality? 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1995) p. 39.
13. Ibid., p. 31.
14. Ibid., p. 44.
15. Newman, op. cit., p. 12.
16. Subject-ness: the ontological capacity of reality to self-create and to advance self-creation.