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Islam & Christianity
Brother .Al Haj .A. D. AJIJOLA (Bar-at-Law)
Say, 'O People of the Book, I come to a word equal between us and you-that we worship none but Allah. and that we associate no partner with Him, and that some of us take not others for Lords beside Allah. But if they turn away then say, 'Bear witness that we have submitted to God (Holy Qur'an 3:64)
This verse means that there are many things that both, Islam and Christianity, have in common. Both of them advocate monotheistic religion, belief in the Unity of God and the brotherhood of mankind. Belief in God, according to both of them implies recognising Him only One, associating no partner with Him, His being able to do all things and being the only one who deserves to be worshipped. These form the fundamental principles of both faith.
Next to these fundamentals, is the belief in the Messengers of God and in the messages they carried, the message of goodwill which culminated in the scriptures. Islam and Christianity recognise Jesus Christ as a Messiah or a Messenger of God set by God to deliver His message of goodwill to mankind. Islam recognises Jesus Christ as one of the highly honoured Prophets who performed unusual miracles with the permission of God but not further than that. Modern Christianity recognises Christ much more than that. They regard him as the "son" of God, one of the three persons in the Trinity ; God, and one who died on the cross so that he may redeem the sins of mankind. Islam denies the divinity of Jesus Christ and other doctrines based on it.
The initial Gospels had nothing to say about the deity of Jesus. It had everything to say about his Messiahship and what this meant for humanity. The doctrines of the deity of Jesus is not supported by the Old Testament or any other revealed book of God.
I do not know any modern Christian writer of repute who now emphasises the deity of Jesus. As a matter of fact, many modern Christian divines have made some efforts at rethinking over the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ and have come to a conclusion along the lines of the statements in the Qur'an.
Modern knowledge is now beginning to lead the Christian laity to reconsider their teachings especially in those matters which have estranged them with the Muslims and put enmity between them. Today, it is misunderstanding and fallacies which is keeping their followers hostile to each other and one hopes that the relationship between the two will be improved. For today, any belief which readily inclines towards an assumption that magic and miracles was the only true explanation of the unusual and unexpected and insist that there must be appropriate phenomena to mark the inclusion of divine into human affairs. Where such patterns of belief are still indulged by religious conservatism, they are bound to influence its interpretation and such religion will come into conflict with modern thought and development of science.
Such a religion will lose its hold over the living world and will become a dead weight of obsolete rites. Its rituals and ceremonies and even its prayers will not be better than a repetition of meaningless incantation and such a religion in modern times is bound to meet with decay and death. Such religion will fall into the hands of priests who will interpret it but of its social context and reduce it to a mere set of dogmas, observances, festivals, ceremonies and symbols. With great respect, the writer believes Christianity has been reduced to this level because it is this grotesque presentation of Christianity which justifies the Communist charge that religion is an opiate of the masses. Islam stands alone among religions which discountenance the reliance on tradition without argument. It demands that its votaries should undertake the investigation of the great works of their faith from epoch to epoch.
Imam Malik, a great Muslim scholar, has epitomised his view on the question in these fine words :
I am a human being. I can be right and I can be wrong. Examines each one of my opinions, accept those which conform to Qur'an and the Sunnah, reject those which do not conform to Qur'an and Sunnah.
At a modern Churchman's Congress held at Cambridge, August 1920, reported in the GRAPHIC LONDON , August 20, 1920, three highly placed Theologians, all avowed members of the Church of England denied the Godhead of Jesus. They are Dr. Rashdall, the Dean of Carlisle, Dr Bethune-Baker, Lady Margaret, Professor of Divinity, the Rev. R. G. Persons of Rusholme.
"Christ was not divine but human" said Dr. Rashdall. " I do not for a moment suppose that Christ ever thought himself as God" said Dr. Bethune-Baker, "Jesus was a man, genuinely, utterly, completely , unreservedly human" said the Rev. Persons, "a Palestinian Jew who expressed himself through peculiar to his own time".
Rev. H. D. A. Major, Principal of Ripon Hall, at one time said,
"It should be clearly realized that Jesus did not claim in he Gospels to be the son of God in a physical sense such as the narratives or the Virgin birth suggest, nor did he claimed to be the son of God in a metaphorical sense such as was required by the Nicene theology. He claimed to be the son of God, in a moral sense in which all human beings are sons of God, as standing in a filial and moral relationship of God and capable of acting on those moral principles on which God acts"
The Dean of Carlisle, in one of his other lectures, also said, "
The glory of Jesus naturally does not lie his being a God, because he cannot be a God, but his glory and whole triumph lies in being a man, a perfect man, a holy man in words of the Holy Qur'an, a model for the people to whom he was sent". It is worthy to note that these men are not people whose opinions can be disregarded, even by the most orthodox of all Christians. They are men of the highest intellectual attainment, men of brilliant achievements in the world of theology :all of them men who, as lecturers and fellows and professors, have instructed scores of Anglican divines before and since their ordination.
The Islamic notion of Jesus Christ is that he was true servant and messenger of God, and one of His humble creatures; bur never as a God or Son. I cannot agree less with Rev. Robson when he says, "The doctrines of unity of God is so vital to Islam that anything which would seem to weaken it is abhorred. The Qur'an does not tally with the New Testament. To a Muslim this simply means that the perversity of the Christians has led them to change their scriptures. So, Islam persists in giving a picture of Jesus very different from that which we find in the Gospels". (Islamic Society and the West, M.W. Robson, pp 29 & 54)
Jesus is not God and he has never claimed any divine partnership and it has been the Church identification of Jesus with God that has created many of the modern problems. The Christian leaders must accept that no Divine incarnation has ever taken place attended by angelic appearance and prodigies. The record of such demonstrations were largely human intensification and overstatement of realties in the age of ignorance and superstitions.
Today, there is a widespread desire for a realistic rather than an idealised representation of Jesus. The traditional portraiture no longer satisfies the modern minds. It is too baffling in its apparent contradictions in terms of our earthly existence. The God man of Christianity has become incredible to civilized man. Yet, it is not easy for the Christians to break with centuries of fallacious authoritative instructions and devote faith but for the sake of Jesus and humanity. The Christian leaders must take steps to reject the deity of Jesus, for better knowledge and understanding of the real Jesus and the significance of his Messianic message will restore the real Jesus to mankind as a great prophet as has not been seen for nearly two thousands years by the Christian world.
If this is done, then there can be unity between the Jewish faith, Islamic faith and the Christian faith and all members of these faiths can then unite together in establishing the unity of God and the universal brotherhood of man. Christians talk about the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, which is in fact, nothing more than the establishment of universal brotherhood of man.
I am sure the Muslims will welcome such a unity based on the principle of One God and the universal brotherhood of mankind.
Mr. Hugh. J. Schonfield in his many works among which are, THE PASSOVER PLOT, THOSE INCREDIBLE CHRISTIANS AND THE POLITICS OF GOD, had not only demonstrated the fallacy of the deity of Jesus but has convincingly proved that Jesus Christ is not the founder of Modern Christianity and that authors of the New Testament whose names are attached to them are not their authors and that the New Testament contains only forgery.
In his, THOSE INCREDIBLE CHRISTIANS, Dr. Schonfield aims to show that modern doctrines of Christianity is not identical with Jesus or Nazareth or his immediate followers had thought, but presents a deviation from their belief. Up to date, no Christian Theologian has challenged this contention. One hope that the Christian leaders who now talk about Christian unity should read these books with an unbiased mind.
The Christian doctrine of deity of Jesus is inconsistent with the development in modern science. It is because of this that it has been predicted that religious belief will die out in Western Europe. Despite this, however, the majority of the people in the Western world continue to express a feeling of need for religion without being able to identify themselves with Christianity. Admittedly, there is great charge in the thinking and approach of modern Christian scholars, but the earlier the Christian authorities reject the deity of Jesus, the better for humanity. The Christian leaders must accommodate themselves to the plain facts that Jesus was a man of his time. It in no way detracts from the greatness of Jesus nor from the Messianic part he played in the providence of God.
Islam believes in the certainty of the existence of God and this leads to the probability that He might send prophets bearing His guidance to mankind as well as to proclaim the unity of God as the basis of their messages. Islam contends that the unity of One God which was revealed long ago to man is the basis of human existence.
Verily, We have sent thee with the truth, as a bearer of glad tidings and as a Warner ; and there is no people to whom a Warner has not been sent. (Holy Qur'an 35:24)
Therefore, Islam believes in the divine origin of all religious of the world and insists that the variety of forms and rituals which different religions presented, proceeded from the mercy of God, Who gave to each people in each particular time, a form of religion suited to its needs and susceptible to development along with the progress of the human mind. Thus, the mere fact that different people have followed different laws and customs, and adopted different modes of worship at different times, is not fundamental but the belief in One God is their fundamental base.
Islam is not a creed which originated with Muhammad (pbuh). Muhammad (pbuh)
held that from Adam downwards, all genuine theistic religious teachers are commissioned by God to preach and practice the truth for which the Arabic word is 'Islam'. Islam in this sense, means surrender to the will of God. The Qur'an says that Abraham was not a Jew. Similarly Christ was not a Christian. Their religion was the same primeval and eternal Islam, that is, the teaching of Unity and Oneness of God.
Muhammad (pbuh) proclaimed that religions had at all times and by the mouths of all the prophets been simply one, that in essence it has taught always the same thing, to hold God alone in His sovereignty, to submit to His will and obey His commandments as well as practising good and keeping away from evil.
According to the Qur'an, living a virtuous life or doing good to others is the essential aim of religious belief.
And everyone has a goal to which he turns his whole attention. Then vie with one another in good woks. Wherever you be, Allah will bring you together. Surely, Allah has the power to do all that He wills. (Holy Qur'an 2: 148)
Muhammad (pbuh), therefore, is always full of praise for other prophets and other scriptures and whenever he mentions an essential element of religion, he says you will find it also in the scriptures. He calls other scriptures light and guidance in which the essentials of religion are given and enjoins on all Muslims to revere all prophets who have anywhere preached the doctrine of One God and social justice.
Islam accepts and responds to the demands of reality, that all reality is one, and therefore all truth should be one. Islam unites humanity to the fundamentals of one faith which has no sectarian element in it.
There is no doubt that Islam organises society on a definite plan and creates its own conventions but it has the fullest appreciation of the lives of those who somehow have stood outside that system, but still have a hold on the essentials of the Unity of God.
Islam also believes in the unity of the human race. I have already said that the essential unity of all religions is a fundamental tenet of Islam and that this is the natural consequence of the unity of God. Islam derives another corollary from the unity of God and that is the unity of humanity. The Qur'an has repeatedly asserted that all humanity is one and has been created from one being, and God breathed His soul into Adam.
Islam does not contemplate making humanity uniform in every respect. On the other hand, it asserts that liguistic and other differences is the modes of life in different nations are significant signs of God, but it is emphatic in the assertion that fundamentally all humanity is one and all nations should try to agree in fundamentals, the most essential of which is that there is only One God and all men and all creatures are His family. The brotherhood of man is a direct corollary from the unity of God. However, nations may differ in their customs and modes of living, there must be one objective morality for all. Double standards of morality, one for one's own nation and another for the foreigners, should not be tolerated. Nietzsche talked of master-morality and the slave-morality and some people differentiate between the masculine and the feminine moral codes. Islam emphatically lays down that as all humanity is one, its moral code also must be one. The unity of morality follows from the unity of humanity, and the unity of humanity follows from the unity of God.
Thus, the Islamic concepts of liberty, fraternity and equality are unique. Islam says, that all men are creatures of One God, they are all equal. Division of colour, class, race or territory are sheer illusions ; and ideologies which are based on such distinctions are the greatest menace on earth. Humanity is one single family of God, there can be no sanction for these barriers. Men are one and not Bourgeois or Proletariat, White or Black, Aryan or Non-Aryan , Occidental or Oriental.
Islam gives the revolutionary concept of the unity of mankind and the equality of human beings. Therefore, Islam is based on the universal brotherhood of man and practices universal brotherhood of man.
Universal brotherhood of man in Islam has been a familiar thing about which so much has been written. But the importance of this concept is of a great value as it is the only solution to national and international problems. This is said to be an age of freedom and restoring unto every man his dignity and despite all the phenomenal changes in the political stage of the world, our age, is still unable to think in terms of human dignity and this is the dark spectre of social concern of our time. For, despite man's conquest of space and mastery over the forces of nature; man has not been able to rid himself of the primeval prejudice for race and colour. The stark reality of our time has brought in its trail a great desolation and frustration as we find ourselves face to face with chaos, wars, the miserable conditions of living of masses of mankind and the exploitation of one nation by another and this leads to selfishness, fear, hatred; class, tribe and race discrimination and subsequently the division of man against man is the order of the day. even in the so-called Socialist countries.
All these hold a constant threat to the world peace. Islam's greatest contribution to mankind was the abolition and extinction of all those who held a constant threat to world peace. Islam's greatest contribution to mankind was the abolition and extinction of distinction based on race and colour. The Holy Qur'an declared :
Mankind were one community, then they differed among themselves, so Allah raised Prophets as bearers of good tidings and as warners . .. . (Holy Qur'an 2 : 213)
O ye people! fear your Lord Who created you from a single soul and of its kind created its mate, and from them twain spread many men and women . . (Holy Qur'an 4:1)
O mankind , We have created you from a male and a female; and We have made you tribes and sub tribes that you may know one another. Verily, the most honourable among you, in the sight of Allah, is he who is the most righteous among you. Surely, Allah is All Aware. (Holy Qur'an 49 :13)
From the above verses, it is clear that the whole of humanity from its diverse races, was originally; one, deriving its existence from One Creator and that all barriers that separate humanity by race and colour must vanish and the superiority of a person be judged by his conduct only.
As a matter of historical fact, Islam came into existence as a unifying force between peoples of diverse races, colour and nationality. Islam transformed these people, steeped in ignorance and barbarity into noble souls par excellence and converted uneducated and uncultured people into masters of all sciences, temporal as well as spiritual .
Islam has laid down various principles for the formation of ideal societies and these rest on the principle that all men are equally sprung up from the same parents and are therefore brothers. A good Muslim considers himself a fusion of all races. Anyone who enters into fold of Islam become part and parcel of this fraternity, forgetting all pride and prejudices. On the basis of this principle, Islam seeks to build an intellectual, moral, ideological and international society, as against the existing tribal, racial linguistic and national societies, which have turned the world into a racio-coloured holocaust.
The Islamic idea that Allah created all men equal and free is the strongest foundation of the conscience of social responsibility capable of building hp a nation. The concept of unity and the spirit of universality form the core of Islam. Islam is one body, of which all Islamic people are part and parcel, wherever the may be. The Welfare of every single Muslim individual and group is the vital concern of the whole body.
These levelling forces of Islam have demolished all barriers of caste, colour and descent. Islam, thus, established a true universal brotherhood and delivered a death-blow to all ideas of aggressive nationalism, unjust colour and caste prejudices, usury and blood-fed capitalism.
Islam is the religion of peace, brotherhood, toleration, sympathy for the unfortunate and the universal co-operation of all mankind for increasing the sum total of general human happiness. If there is any one religion in the world which has obviously liquidated racialism, that one religions is Islam. Thus, there is no distinction between man and man on account of mere accident of birth in a particular family, particular profession, particular race or particular country and that man equals in their capacity as human beings.
Muslims are distinguished from each other, not by reason of birth or any other factor not connected with their personalities but only by their fear of God, their good deeds, their moral and intellectual qualities.
Islamic concept of liberty, fraternity and equality are far more real and progressive if properly understood and applied than anything the Capitalist and the Communist world has ever produced. The social and political structures of the Capitalist and Communist world are crumbling, shall we Muslims take the pattern of the house that we want to build for the new world from the structures that are sagging because they violated eternal laws or shall we go back to the Qur'an the book that does not wear out ? My answer is that we shall go back to the Qur'an.
It is to the Holy Book which has never been altered at the hands either of its friends or its enemies, by either the learned or the unlettered, the book that time does not wear out but which remains just as it was revealed by God to His Apostle, the last of all the Prophets. It is to this pure source that the Muslims will return. As they drink directly from this Holy Book, they will not fail to be a re-invigorated for it possesses the quality of continuous life. It yields healthy and life-sustaining fruit in all ages. What miraculous strength is hidden in this religion? What inner power of persuasion is blended in it ? From what depths of the human soul its appeal evokes a stirring response ? Indeed, Islam is a great believer in the continuity of human culture and the essential unity of its fundamentals.
In no previous century of which man has records have there been so many indications of a change, chiefly it has signalled the beginning of the space age. Man has been able to take to the air as a new environment of his movement and activities both to travel around his planet with increasing speed and facility and to eject himself beyond its pull to start to explore the solar system. He was landed on the alien surface of the Moon several times and his controlled instruments have reached Venus and Mars. His devices are revealing more and more of the universe, while in his world he can transmit information about events so that they can be seen and heard almost instantaneously in any part of the world. His penetration is extending to the beds of the seas and deep into the crust of the earth. He is probing into the basic facts of life and into his own unconscious.
This has been century of so many remarkable advances in science, technology and medicine, that the condition of existence have been altering with extraordinary rapidity. But had there been an inner wisdom commensurate with these other achievements, this could have been one of the most fruitful centuries in promoting the general good or mankind.
In fact, much good has been done in many ways. There has been a substantial enrichment and improvement of the human lot. Colonialism is on the way out and many countries have development plans. Many countries know that they have responsibilities for economic changes. The task of the government is not only that of proclaiming an ideal, it exercise its functions through democratic process in examining the reality and effectiveness of those policies which control the material life of man. Indeed, many government have made a positive contribution to the welfare of their subjects. But the basic world problems appear to be beyond solution, namely, racial inequality –Jews in Europe, the state of Israel and the Arab world, the black problem in the states, colonialism and poverty of the majority of mankind while few live in luxury and license.
In the political thought, there is a dearth of new imagination and enterprise. Those political doctrines that personified the state with its system to create group minds, took away correspondingly the desire for personal commitment and fostered an insidious and subtle invasion of human liberty. These doctrines consequently have led to increased doubt and uncertainty, frustrations and a sense of impotence of mankind and the worst of all in this age, great fear, fear of the third world war with the possibilities of using atomic weapon. Yet, fortunately the human spirit is not easily quelled and tyranny whether blatant or elaborately concealed, has never been able to have things all its own way. Revolt can be suppressed but not eliminated.
Many modern rulers must still be schooled in liberty and in the essential of human dignity. These enduring needs of mankind can never be satisfied by a philosophy based on human inequality and asserting that a race of masters should organize a subservient world.
Individuals and minority groups have never ceased to be aware that the power-structure of society is contrary to their real interests and well-being and has given rise to a world order in which conflict predominates with the consequent threat that political folly may go too far and bring upon mankind such ruin and disaster that a substantial part of the population will be extinguished and the survivors reduced to almost insupportable misery. They protest and demonstrate and break out into violence, especially the young : but they are like sheep without a shepherd who can do little more than bleat their unhappiness in ineffective and superficial slogans. They still expect that their clamour will force the powers- that be to think and act differently. Thus, relieving themselves of the obligation to harness their own energies to the drudgery of methodical reconstruction.
The world leaders are fearful of what tomorrow will bring. This desperately critical and chaotic hour when the entire world is engulfed with a spirit of revolution, millions of men and women are looking for a faith to follow and a cause to which they can give themselves with total commitment.
It is the hour of opportunity for those who are seeking to bring peace and fulfillment tour fragmented and frustrated world. But an opportunity is only an opportunity, a chance is only a chance. What counts is what one is able to make of it.
This is a day of crime, urban violence, racial strife and destructive demonstrations. All values are unsettled ; all norms are broken. Mental , moral, aesthetic and social anarchy reigns, Might is right and law of jungle prevails everywhere. The facts are before us as we look about us the hear the reports. Newspaper headlines tell the story.
Man has become a lowly creature of discouragement and defeat. There is racial discord, corruption in government, dishonestly in business and labour, and moral problems. There are millions of alcoholics all over the world. Every year the number increases. Over half the hospital beds in developed nations are filled with the mentally ill. Abortions are the order of the day. Yet, many abortions end in death. Suicide is the number two killer of teenagers in developed countries. These are all symptoms of a sick world.
There is a crisis on the university campus the seat of learning. The campus machine has failed. It could not give students the personal relationship which make life meaningful.
There can only be pain and guilt and despair here in this world. The fear of death and the unknown is far less terrifying than the prospect of the unbearable frustration, futility and hopelessness of continued existence.
Man is a stick fly taking dizzy ride on it. The basic fact about human experience is not that it is a tragedy, but, that it is a bore. It is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in any sense.
Recognising the danger of universal chaos, many sincere leaders in government and social service are attempting to extinguish the fire through poverty programs and improved industrial conditions. But, the basic problems of racial inequality, social injustice, illiteracy, poverty and war seem to be beyond solution. There is the current misunderstanding and fear which pits man against man, nation against nation, race against race.
Individual s make up society, and society cannot be changed until individual s are changed. Selfishness, prejudice, hate, greed and lust are all individual problems which become the problems of collective man and society as a whole.
The utopian dreams of political thinkers are but a prophetic voicing of a longing for a change in individuals and to establish a nation where love and universal brotherhood of man will be the order of the day. The formation of the United Nations and other international agencies is aimed at bringing international understanding but man is desolated with insistent even graver world crisis. All attempts at internationalism merely reflect the recognition of the need to have a united world and the need for man to have something which can command the allegiance of all humanity without distinction or discrimination.
No political thinker can give effective solutions. It is only a monotheist religion based on universal brotherhood of man that can provide this human need.
The problems of our age at present is that in the Western world, technological invention is far outstripping moral elevation. The soul has to soar as well as the rocket. Many without a religion cannot escape from this changes society. It establishes standards of purity and hygiene, provides industry , elevates womanhood , restrains anti-social customs, abolishes cannibalism, human sacrifice and cruelty and organises famine relief.
A Religion belief which readily inclines towards an assumption that magic and miracles was the true explanation of the unusual and unexpected, and even insisted that there must be appropriate phenomena to mark the intrusion of the Divine into human affairs are being rejected by the modern man. Yet, where such patterns of belief are still endorsed by religious conservatism, they are bound to influence interpretation of such a religion. This leads to the conflict between religion and science. Firmer convictions, values and belief s are in the melting pot. They are being challenged and tested to determine their worth and validity. There is a growing unwillingness to take anything for granted, and things once regarded as fixed and settled are now being ruthlessly scrutinized and frequently rejected. Those who are sentient, whether intelligently or instinctively, realize that we have to adjust to every great change and therefore we have to free ourselves from hidebound positions and examine every proposition afresh.
However, the traditionalists are alarmed and denounce the liberties that are being taken with their cherished ideas. Those who throw-off the yokes will come to no good. Defiantly, they cry out against new ways and new thinking and raise the flag of rally to the forces of conservatism and conformity.
This led to a decline of faith, not only in politics but in the teachings and practice of some organized religions. Religion, especially; Christianity, has seemed too much a part of the existing social order, whose policies it has so often supported or come to terms with, that in its traditional formulation, it is now viewed with disenchantment. As a consequence, millions are now in a spiritual vacuum, many have received a fresh impulse towards soul-experiences, including the psychedelic, which they are trying to acquire outside the churches, chapels and temples.
Many people are questioning for an earthly incarnation of the free spirit of man not only in individuals but also in groups. It is higher certainty, the wider comprehension, the fuller self-development and the consciousness of the fundamental oneness of all things at which they aim and by which they are invested with that dignity of which the enslaving spirit that now prevails would seek to deprive them.
In developed parts of the world, there has been a proliferation of community enterprises in the 20th Century because of unnatural character and conditions of modern life, its false conflicts. The community group sees itself not only as a protest, but as a rectification, a return to the grass roots of living, a reassertion of the true basis on which a harmonious and peaceful world order must be erected. It is a condemnation of the states, recognising that there is no possibility of any real world community or even national community, under predominant centralized government control. It stresses that where organization becomes too comprehensive and remote, essential fellowship, the sense of belonging, and self-fulfillment of personal participation is destroyed.
Only religion can bring about world unity of all races and climes. Peoples, tongues and nations will mingle their blood and manifest a common love of humanity. Religious unity rests upon the feelings of each member that they belong together. This is the type of union which exists between friends, and its original focus in human society is the family or the kinship group. Such groups cooperate, of course, but their cooperation is not based on a calculation of interest. It has a sacramental character because it expresses the sense of “fellowship or brotherhood”, the consciousness of inner, emotional unity. Such a group is not unified because it cooperates, it cooperates because it is already unified.
The brotherhood of man might be realizable if all men sincerely believed that they were created by the same One God and acted accordingly.
How can we create an inner spiritual unity that is not exclusive and universal ? Can there be found a comprehensive ideology to unit mankind, which permits and welcomes diversity within the kinship and does not have to act coercively ? In my view, there is no such political idea, only religion can provide the answer. Monotheist religion is designed to foster and forward a universalist outlook by achieving an inner unity and community without which any outward unification cannot long endure. But some monotheist religions have been play9ing obsolete doctrines while our world is aflame. A world that is threatening to disintegrate before our eyes is in need of the hope of a spiritual revolution which only Allah Himself is able to lead. Deep down in man’s hearts we know we have a glorious purpose to fulfill.
There are all kinds of moral detergents but all to no avail. Resolutions, reforms, social adjustment and therapeutic psychology all have failed to produce an improved man.
But, we can eliminate as out of the question that our world is on the brink of some overwhelming catastrophe. Looking back with informed judgment, it is very clear that much that was expected to happen did not materialise. Many of the prognostication were wildly fanatic. Some recognise the need for a religious revival but emphasize summoning Divine intervention to accomplish by supernatural happenings what it was the business of the designed human agency to achieve. This representation provided a self-satisfying excuse for inadequacy of commitment. God could do everything and therefore, he should do it all.
The Muslim and Christians still take comfort in leaving things to God. This is to apathy, complacency and blocks creative initiative. Men inclined to opt out of responsibility, hug the chairs and generally to accept subservience and reconcile to the inevitable.
The great errors of the previous eschatological age was that people were gazing up into the skies or seeking some abnormal leadership instead of enlisting the resources which would illuminate and fortify their own resolve.
It has now dawned on human minds that life is not so simple an affair as it used to be evening the recent past. Its complexities are so perplexing and its intricacies so puzzling, that it may well be described as “a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma”. Economics, politics, ethics and religion are not so many water-tight compartments but are the different facets of a social order. They act, interact and react upon one another and thus evolve a cultural pattern. Any maladjustment anywhere betrays itself in the birth of some evil or other.
The totalitarian doctrine of all hues and colours have been breathless endeavours to create cosmos out of chaos. But the paradise of social peace continues to elude the grasp of the political theorist. Fascism and Nazism offer a hectic career and have been eaten up by mars of their own creation. They possessed great social dynamics. But they lacked the stabilizing force of religion which creates inward earnestness and an instinct of self –mastery and thus ensues a lasting vitality. Communism has no doubt, survived the war crisis with the skin of its teeth. This is only establishes its superiority over the rival social gospels of the Italian and German brand. But its survival value is still highly problematical. Its vengeful denial of supernaturalism and its downright earthrottedness are its fatal handicaps. All this merely shows its central imperfections as a complete and comprehensive programme of life. Godless ideologies carry in them their own nemesis. They miss the inner life of man which is the fountain-head of his social activities. It means that life’s golden tree is denied of its nourishing sap, consequently it decays and dies out.
Thus, the irreligious ideologies accomplish precious little beyond launching a psychic onslaught of frustrated humanity. They are sadly inadequate to actualize human ambition and emotion. They evoke no echo or a resonant not in our soul. They do not, because they cannot transmute a pure intellectual concept into a living vibrant idea. Their sanctions are not sanctities. They envisage just some advance, but no genuine progress. They flog the social instincts seated in human hearts into some convenient form to achieve certain sordid ends.
Therefore, only religions based on the unity of God and the universal brotherhood of man can meet the challenge of the modern age. Islam is such a religion. It does so by giving a working and workable code of conduct, a demonstrable way of thinking and a unique blue-print for the structure and growth of society. It satisfies the soul of saint as well as the spirit of a scholar.
I believe that if Christians return to history and not Jesus of mythology, the Christians can then work in harmony with the Muslims to save mankind from the present chaos.
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(ICRA)