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Wahi: The
Supernatural Basis of Islam
Part VII -
Dealing with a mistaken religion
Dr. Koenraad ELST
Now that
science has spoken out on the true nature of Mohammed’s revelations, we
should explore the practical implications of this new and more
enlightened understanding of the Islam problem. How to deal with our
Muslim neighbours now that we realize they are the prisoners of a
gigantic centuries-spanning delusion?
(1)
Distinctions within Islam
The
first thing to do is to cultivate a correct understanding of Islam among
ourselves. Whenever something critical is said about Islam, non-Muslims
are always the first to come to its defence and to lambast the critics
as “prejudiced hate-mongers” or some such unthinking hate-filled smear.
Just as the so-called “anti-anti-Communists” provided the first line of
defence to Communism by countering or ridiculing every serious
anti-Communist argument, we are now faced with anti-anti-Islamism as the
first major roadblock on the way to a candid analysis of the Islam
problem. Many Hindus and other non-Muslims have a romanticized view of
Islam centred on Sufi poetry and vague reminiscences of civilizational
successes during the bygone Golden Age of Islam. For the sake of
argument, we may concede for now that these are indeed meritorious
contributions of Islam. The point is then to distinguish within Islam
its different components.
Charming achievements such as algebra, Arabic calligraphy or the basic
and most attractive ideas of Sufi mysticism are all external to Islam.
Arabic calligraphy, geometrical ornamentation on mosque walls and other
non-figurative aesthetic developments were stimulated by the Islamic
prohibition on the depiction of human or animal life; but they were no
more than variants on art forms which have existed outside and before
Islam as well. Algebra and other sciences were borrowed from India,
China or Greece, as the Arab conquerors readily admitted; the belief
that they were in possession of the true religion was enough to bolster
their pride, so they could honestly concede other achievements to other
nations. The central aim of Sufism, the self-extinction in the merger
with God, is obviously borrowed from Buddhist and Vedantic sources.
Initially the orthodox clergy persecuted outspoken Sufis who said
blasphemous things like “ana’l Haqq” (“I am the True One”, Arabic
translation of the Upanishadic dictum “Aham Brahmasmi”), because
they saw through its un-Islamic inspiration, but later they adapted and
domesticated Sufism into an acceptable Islamic form of devotion for both
the spiritual eccentrics and the sentimental illiterate masses.
At any
rate, all these attractive sideshows of Islam can be evaluated
separately without judging the defining beliefs of Islam. Even within
Islamic theology proper, a distinction must be made. Firstly, there is a
distinction between general religiosity or ethics and the specifically
Islamic innovations. Partly in order to gain respectability, Mohammed
included in the Quran and in his own sayings many elements of
traditional morality, injunctions against stealing, slander, child abuse
or marital infidelity. This can be compared with Moses’ Ten
Commandments, where his own theological innovations (monotheism, taboo
on idolatry, taboo on the God-name, keeping a weekly day of rest) are
coupled with age-old moral rules against lying, stealing, disrespect to
parents, adultery etc. In both Moses’ and Mohammed’s case, the intention
seems to be, to confer the authority of age-old morality upon the
prophet’s own innovative religious ideas. The net result is at any rate
that a believer in the Bible or the Quran can truthfully say that his
Holy Book has taught him morality. That much in the Quran deserves
respect: elements of universal ethics which are not specifically Islamic
but which nonetheless have come to form a part of Islam.
Even in
the theological core which defines Islam as distinct from other
religions, a further distinction must be made, one which practically
coincides with the two assertions of the Islamic creed: monotheism
(“there is no God but Allah”) and the belief in Mohammed’s prophethood
(“and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah”). Monotheism, the belief in the
oneness of the Divine, can be deduced from different sources of
inspiration, not merely the Bible or the Quran. One can discern a kind
of monotheism in Aristotle’s philosophy or in Stoicism, it has been
claimed for Zarathushtra’s religion of Ahura Mazda, and even Hindu
devotionalism is sometimes conceived as monotheistic. Within the
monotheistic framework, Medieval and Renaissance philosophers (al-Arabi,
Cusanus, Bruno, Galilei, Leibniz et al.) have developed profound
conceptions of consciousness and the universe. In principle, it is
possible to subscribe to monotheism without developing the typical
problematic features of the major monotheistic religions including
Islam. So, if your Muslim neighbour says “Alhamdulillah” (Praise
be to Allah) or some other Allah invocation, please don’t jump to
jihadic conclusions. He may well mean the exact same thing intended by a
Hindu who invokes Bhagwan.
The
real problem arises when he understands God/Allah as exclusively the
character revealed in the Quran, the collection of sayings which
Mohammed claimed to have heard from a supernatural source identified as
the Archangel Gabriel. The ultimate core of Islam is not Allah and
monotheism, but Mohammed and prophethood. Monotheism is a fairly
widespread idea, but Mohammed and his Quran are truly the defining
elements of Islam. If the oneness of God can conditionally be accepted
as a valid manner of speaking about the Divine, there can be no
compromise with Mohammed’s deluded belief in his exclusive telephone
line with Heaven. Here, we hit the radically irrational and unacceptable
core of Islam. Here, there is no room for sweet-talk, even if only
metaphorically or figuratively intended, of a “basic unity” or “equal
truth” of all religions. The defining core belief of Islam is wrong. It
is nothing but the paranoid delusion of an ordinary early-medieval Arab
businessman. Putting such vain self-delusion on a par with the profound
insights of a Yajnyavalkya, a Buddha, a Confucius, a Laozi or a
Socrates, is plainly absurd.
(2)
Speaking out
Speaking with Muslims about the deluded basis of Islam may initially
prove to be difficult. On the other hand, non-Muslims enjoy the benefit
of their unbeliever status. In the present world, Muslims have had to
accept at least the existence of unbelievers, and an unbelievers is by
definition one who doesn’t believe in Mohammed’s prophetic claims. After
all, if he believed in Mohammed’s claim to prophethood, he would accept
the validity of the Quran and hence the whole contents of the Quran, and
by accepting all that, he would by definition be a Muslim. So, in
private conversation, subject to rules of politeness and diplomacy, a
non-Muslim has a certain freedom to express his doubts about the core
belief of Islam. There is no need to be intrusive with your message, as
most Muslims spontaneously bring up the subject of the relative
superiority of one religion vis-à-vis another once in a while.
For
born Muslims, introducing critical questions about Islam is more
difficult, as it amounts to a statement of apostasy, a crime punishable
by death under Islamic law. Yet, it is mainly these enlightened
ex-Muslims who will do the job of opening the exit gate from Islam for
their Muslim-born brothers and sisters. It is helpful and meritorious if
we non-Muslims speak our minds about the fundamental questions of
religion, but our influence on Muslim audiences will always be much more
limited. We may work for the inclusion of properly scientific
information in all general textbooks of religious history, so that
Muslim children in state-funded schools will be exposed to a more
enlightened view of Mohammed’s prophecies; but we should expect many
Muslims to distrust and reject all such information emanating from
unbeliever sources. By contrast, born and bred Muslims who have shaken
off the veil of the faith and exposed themselves to the light of Reason
may have more impact on the Muslim masses,-- which is why it is also
much more dangerous for them to speak their minds.
However, I am confident that recent developments in communications
technology, particularly the entry of satellite television and the
internet in even the remotest harems of Arabia, will profoundly alter
the mental climate in the Muslim world. So far, the a lot of the
authority wielded by the orthodox clergy over their flock was purely the
result of ignorance about the world outside Islam. Most Muslims have
grown up with caricatured enemy-images of Western and Asian cultures,
which made it that much easier for them to identify civilization and
morality with their own familiar Islam. In the next decade, their mental
horizon is bound to widen dramatically.
Already, websites hosted by ex-Muslims centralize all the information
about the dark side of Islam, about persecutions of non-Muslims and
injustices to women, and more consequentially, about the irrationality
and unsustainability of the core beliefs defining Islam. Books can be
burned, speeches interrupted by the police, but the newer forms of
communication are very discreet and can penetrate into the private rooms
of every inquisitive Muslim.
(3)
The alternative
Experience in the secularized West has shown that apostasy from religion
can have unpleasant side-effects. On the one hand, people are better
informed and more open and honest about touchy subjects. On the other
hand, many people flush out ethics and self-restraint along with the
religion which they have come to see as irrational and obsolete. In this
sense, one can sympathize with those Muslims who fear that a weakening
of Islam will lead to immorality, hedonism, crass consumerism, flaky
quasi-religions (whether political, sex-centred or occultist) and a
general lowering of cultural standards. If the world of non-Islam gets
identified with Hollywood, McDonalds and Playboy, it is understandable
that Muslims will cling to the devil they know rather than expose
themselves to the intruding devils from the West.
This is
where Hinduism and other Asian spiritual traditions have a key role to
play. They have to show the Muslims that there is life after apostasy
from an irrational belief system. They have to prove that religion can
be something else than a silly acceptance of some prophet’s vainglorious
claims about himself. In the case of India, it is even very simple:
Muslims are surrounded by the heirs of one of the great spiritual
traditions of mankind. Hindus have to cultivate or rekindle the best in
their tradition, and Indian Muslims merely have to switch off a few
centuries of Islamic alienation and return to their native civilization
still alive all around them.
(Concluded)
[Born in Leuven, in the
year 1959, Koenraad Elst grew up in the Catholic Community in Belgium.
He was active for some years in what is known as the new Age movement,
before studying at the famed Catholic University of Leuven (KUL). He
graduated in Chinese Studies, Indo-Iranian Studies and Philosophy. He
earned his doctorate magna cum laude with a dissertation on the politics
of Hindu Revivalism.
He took courses in Indian
philosophy at the Benares Hindu University (BHU), and interviewed many
Indian leaders and thinkers during his stay in India between 1988 and
1992. He has published in Dutch about language policy issues,
contemporary politics, history of science and Oriental philosophies; in
English about the Ayodhya issue and about the general religio-political
situation in India.
A few of his latest
books are:
-
Who Is a Hindu? (2002)
-
Ayodhya: The Case against the Temple (2002)
-
The Saffron Swastika: The Notion of 'Hindu Fascism' (2001)
-
Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001)
-
Gandhi and Godse (2001)
-
Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam,
-
Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid, and
-
Ayodhya
and After.
While doing research in
Indian philosophy at Benares Hindu University, he started taking an
interest in the ongoing Rushdie and Ayodhya controversies and the larger
debate on secularism. He published several books on the historical
Ayodhya file. He is currently working
as a free-lance scholar and columnist.] |
