The “religions of the Book,” Judaism, Christianity and Islam have a common origin. “From the Creation to the Last Judgment he [Mohammed] uses Jewish ideas.”[i]
“To Jewish theology, ethics, and ritual, and Persian eschatology, Mohammed added Arab demonology, pilgrimage, and the Kaaba ceremony, and made Islam.”[ii] The three aforementioned religions also have a common area of origination, the Middle East. They also have something much more important in common. They have all been usurped by the false self to be used for fulfilling its desire for plenty, pleasure and power.
Islam was the most peaceful of the three religions, at least in the beginning. “All in all, despite deprecating intimacy with them, Mohammed was well disposed toward Christians. ‘Consort in the world kindly with Christians.’ Even after his quarrel with the Jews he counseled toleration toward the ‘people of the Book’—i.e. the Jews and the Christians.”[iii]
From its founding Islam’s special attraction caused it to explode across the region. “It gave to simple souls the simplest, least mystical, least ritualistic, of all creeds, free from idolatry and sacerdotalism [priest mediating between the people and God]. Its message raised the moral and cultural level of its followers, promoted social order and unity, inculcated hygiene, lessened superstition and cruelty, bettered the condition of slaves, lifted the lowly to dignity and pride, and produced among Moslems a degree of sobriety and temperance unequaled elsewhere in the white man’s world. It gave an uncomplaining acceptance of the hardships and limitations of life, and at the same time stimulated them to the most astonishing expansion in history. And it defined religion in terms that any orthodox Christian or Jew might accept.”[iv]
From such a promising beginning, it is instructive to be aware of what can happen to an institution hypnotized by a continuously reactive false self emerging from a P-B worldview. “Muslims continue to live under dictators, autocrats, kings and authoritarian rulers—in grossly oppressive conditions. Having lost the ability to face the outer world, which is motivated by concern for human rights, multiculturalism, and tolerance, the Muslim social fabric has seen little beyond sectarian strife, tribal wars, and suppression of women and minorities. Nearly one-fourth of the human population—1.2 billion people, living in fifty Muslim countries—face a grim and uncertain future. The early Muslim civilization, heir to a rich and diverse intellectual stock—Roman, Greek, Indian, and Persian—accomplished a unique synthesis of ideas in all branches of knowledge. From the eighth to the thirteenth century, there were more religious, philosophical, medical, astronomical, historical, and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other language. And the religious code itself—that is, the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet—was a very liberal, forward-looking code of ethics. So I think this cultural impasse has to do with the current Islamic worldview, and we need a dynamic invocation that can play a pivotal role in breaking its grip on the Muslim mind and culture. And the future of Muslim identity in the twenty-first century and beyond lies with that vital cognizance, not with confrontation.”[v] (Emphasis added on key words worldview and identity).
We will use just one example in our short article on Islam to show the evolution of a single precept into a false-self driven strategy. One tenet of Islam is Jihad or “struggle.” Like many such precepts it means one thing in the context of P-B and something profoundly different in the context of P-A. In P-B Jihad means the holy war between Islam and the non-Muslim, the infidel. This is the meaning of Jihad for so-called Muslim extremists or the fear-driven Muslims.
Mohammed, being a mystic, understood Jihad to mean something very different and, of course, that meaning would involve compassion and distinguishing illusion from Simple Reality, reaction from response. The struggle in P-A is with the false-self conditioning and the attainment of the experience of our natural state of being, that is to say, living every moment in the NOW. In the language of Islam, which can mean “peace,” “surrender” or “submission,” Islam also means adhering to the will of Allah. That is why Muslims often use the phrase “Allah willing.” It is the will of Allah that we should all experience the deep inherent tranquility that the prophet Mohammed averred was possible for all of humanity.
[i] Durant, Will. The Age of Faith. New York. Simon and Schuster, 1950, p. 184.
[ii] Ibid., p. 185.
[iii] Ibid., p. 186.
[iv] Ibid., p. 183.
[v] Anees, Dr. Munawar. “What Future For Muslim Identity?” What Is Enlightenment? Lennox, Massachusetts, May-July 2004, p. 30.
