Islam, The Way of Submission

God Is Not One: Islam, The Way of Submission o Intro • • • • • • • Muslims took Jerusalem from Christians in 637 i.e., crusaders took it back in 1099, Saladin seized it on behalf of Islam in 1187, and the British recaptured it on behalf of Christianity in 1917. Iranian revolution of 1979 Religion of peace vs. Religion of war Judeo-Christain tradition to Judeo-Christain-Islamic tradition Belief in one god, angels, scriptures, prophets, Judgement Day, and destiny Islam- “submission” or “surrender” Islam is the path of submission, and Muslims are submitters who seek peace in this life and the next by surrendering themselves to one true God o Prayer • Pray five times a day • Adhan- always done in Arabic because it is believed that God delivered it that way to Muhammed • Roughly one fifth of the world self -identity as Muslim2. • Hijab- worn by Muslim women to cover their heads • Relations between westerners and Muslims are “generally bad” • Ancient choreography of prayer: hands move from behind their ears to their torsos, they bow forward at their waists, hands on knees, back flat, stand up straight again, prostate themselves into a position of total and absolute submission to Allah, planting their knees, hands, foreheads, and noses on the ground, they then rise to a sitting position and ticktock back and forth between sitting and prostration as their prayer proceeds. • Five daily prayers of salat are said aloud at dawn, sunset, and night and in silence at noon and the afternoon, start with Allahu Akbar: “God is great”, bless and exalt Allah above of pretenders. They call Muhammed His prophet and messenger. They ask for peace upon “the righteous servants of Allah”. They offer blessings to angels. They ask Allah to bless “Muhammed and the people of Muhammed”, just as God has blessed “Abraham and the people of Abraham”. Recite Fatiha. o The Five Pillars • • • • • Central pillar: Shahadah: “I testify there is no god but God, and Muhammed is the messenger of God”. Salat (prayer) Zakat (charity)- obliged to give 2.5% of most of their assets above a subsistence level known as nisab Sawm (fasting)- month of Ramadan, abstaining from eating, drinking, smoking, and sex from dawn until sunset, reciting the Quran instead Hajj (pilgrimage)- go once in life on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Occurs every year during the last ten days of the twelfth lunar month is only open to Muslims. Celebrates and reinforces unity of all Muslims by the fact that all men were similar white garments. Most celebrated event is praying at Kabah shrine, the most sacred place in the Muslim world. o Jihad • • • Means to struggle and Muslims have traditionally understood it to point to two kinds of struggle: the spiritual struggle against pride and self -sufficiency and the physical struggle against the house of war namely the enemies of Islam. “Treating me with respect is jihad” Quranic passages commands Muslims to fight, slay, and expel in the course of just two sentences (2:190-91) and another says that fighting is prescribed though it be hateful to you (2:216). o Allah • • • • • Allah is the Arabic word for God This God is singular, and the word Muslims employ to underscore this singularity is tawhid or divine oneness For Muslims, God is absolutely and totally transcendent- far beyond all human conceptions of Him Allah is referred to as All Compassionate and All Merciful, Forgiving, Generous, Loving, Powerful, Eternal, Knowing, Wrathful, Just, Sovereign Lord, the Holy One, Peace, The Kepper of Faith, The Guardian, the Majestic, The Compeller, and the Superb. Shirk refers to any practice or belief that ignores the unity and uniqueness of God. o Muhammad • • • • • • Founded Islam Prophet through whom the Quran was revealed Hadith- scriptural collection of his sayings and actions second in authority only to the Quran has provided a basis for Islamic law A great political and military man- legislator, diplomat, and general Nine wives Muslims have always insisted Muhammed was only a human being. There is one and only one Allah in Islam, and He does not take human form o Quran • • • • Perfect, unaltered, and untranslatable word of God ▪ Written by Allah, not Muhammad – Allah gave its words to an angel who gave them to Muhammad, who recited them to people ▪ Never wrote them down himself – not written down until long after his death Scripture only in Arabic – translations do not count Quran means recitation Today only about 20% of Muslims can read the Arabic Quran, more about the sound than the meaning • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Hafiz (male) hafiza (female): children able to memorize sounds of the Quran Muslims believe the Torah of Moses and gospel of Jesus were revealed by Allah through His prophets – these scriptures are corrupted A relatively short book – can be read in a single day and if the New Testament No storytelling – doctrinal and legal 14 suras (chapters) presented by longest to shortest ▪ Only division but scholars divide them into Meccan and Medinan depending on when they were revealed • Timing of revelation matters b/c of Doctrine of abrogation (states suras can overturn earlier revelations Muslims believe Quran combines spirituality and law ▪ Meccan: spiritual matters ▪ Medinan: social, political, and economic matters (marriage, war, and gambling) ▪ Therefore, Islam is a way of life as well as a religion Big theme = justice and poverty ▪ Preferential option for the weak – speaks out on behalf of the blind, lame and sick ▪ “give food, for the love of Him, to the needy, the orphan, the captive” (76:8) Islam emphasizes life after death ▪ Horrors of hell, splendors of paradise, procedures of the Day of Judgement, and rewards awaiting martyrs ▪ Hell, and Paradise are described in greater detail than heaven and hell in Christian bible • Hell: fire and thirst, roasting skin & cactus thorns • Paradise: garden of cool shade, comfortable couches, full-breasted virgins, abundant fruit and rivers of water, milk, wine, and honey Warns of horrors to come for those who refuse to submit to Allah Everyone is born Muslim but we grow older, become “wax proud” (16:23), and forget our true nature ▪ Forgetfulness is considered the sin Similar cast of characters - Mary appears more often in the Quran than the new testament No doctrine of original sin and no savior sent to earth Quran justifies & command making war on non-Muslims Ethics is there all religions align the closest except on ethics of war ▪ Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, Quran tells us “whoso commits aggression against you, do you commit aggression against him” (2:194) ▪ Many Muslims were conflicted on what to do after 9/11 due to Quran war ethics Reads like a fire-and-brimstone sermon o Shariah • • • • • • • • o • • • • • • Means the right path The term Muslims use for law, and Shariah law, as it is referred to redundantly in the west, has been adopted in some measure in recent years in Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic countries, including Afghanistan under the Taliban Fiqh, or interpretation of Shariah, is based on both the Quran and the Hadith, a secondary body of scripture comprising thousands of accounts of the words and deeds of Muhammed. Not all Hadith are equally authoritative Each comes with both a chain of transmisson,isnad, and content, matn and the authenticity of any given Hadith can be challenged on either basis If content contradicts Quran it can be rejected The Shia centralize religious authority, in their case the Imam Sunnis decentralize religious authority, placing it in the Muslim community as a whole Sunni and Shia Sunnis constitute about 85 percent of the world’s Muslims Shias account for the remaining 15 percent Ali (prophet’s son in law) supporters are Shias Abu Bakr (Muhammed’s father in law) supporters are Sunnis Imam means leader Twelvers are the largest shia group- they believe there were 12 imamas, the the 12th went into hiding (occultation) in 873 c.e. and that this “hidden” imam will return at the end of times as a messiah figure of sorts, leading an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil o Islamism • If Islam is a religion, Islamism is a political project, revolutionary in aim, utopian in spirit, and radical in all senses of the term o Progressive and Moderate Musliams • • • • • • • • “ the male is not like the female” Men and women are typically seperated in mosques Sons usually receive inheritences twice as large as those of their daughters In Islamic courts it takes two female witnesses to count as one male witness The Quran refers to god exclusively as “He” when a third person party pronouni s needed The Quran and the Hadith, while patriarchal in many respects, represented at the time a quantum leap for women in terms of property rights, inheritance, divorce, and education. Women have become heads in at least seven Muslim majority countries Practice of veiling is contradicted in many countries • • Symbol of Islamic identity “Islam is justice and equality” • Real Islam, he said, has nothing to do with law and everything to do with experience. It is about a heart and soul connection between the individual believer and God “The thickest veils between man and Allah,” he wrote, “are the wise man’s wisdom, the worshiper’s worship, and the devotion of the devout. Sufis emphasize the ways in which human beings resemble God, who is as near them, as the Quran puts it, as the jugular vein” Every place is equally sacred, you don’t need to go to Mecca or a mosque to find God. The medium for drunken Sufi writers is poetry and the Metier emotion Sober Sufis are ever aware of God’s power and wrath Drunken Sufis, emphasize the mercy and beauty of God, approaching Him in love and ecstasy more than awe and fear Sufism- Ihsan or doing what is beautiful Two types of knowledge: a second knowing which springs from direct personal experience of God and secondhand intelligence of a child memorizing facts delivered through books and teachers What they crave is Islam but not Allah, not paradise in the by and by but the presence of the divine here and now, not the secondhand report but the firsthand experience. o Sufism, Drunk and Sober • • • • • • • • •