The Origin Of Jewish And Christian Rejections
THE ORIGIN OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REJECTIONS
When Jesus (peace be upon him) arrived as the expected Messiah of Israel the humble, spiritually-minded people among the commoners embraced him. The proud however, especially the Jewish priesthood organized around the Temple soon became hostile. They thought by sticking to the letter of the Law they were the guardians of orthodoxy and the heavy moral and spiritual emphasis Jesus insisted on pressing upset them. Taking into account some stray remarks and reading between the lines the four gospels give us a picture like this: Jesus (pbuh) had come with spiritual power and authority and his knowledge of the Torah was second to none while his understanding it was well above everybody else’s. He was a spiritual genius of the first order as well as a genuine miracle worker. Had he had enough support he stood a good chance of liberating Israel from Roman rule and become their prophet king, their Messiah. But he was soon to be disappointed. Having achieved and established a working modus vivendi with the Roman occupiers and having come to fear Roman power and prowess, the last thing the Jewish Temple Establishment wanted was some powerful charismatic to come rocking the boat. So, after some hesitation and confusion they went all out to confront and challenge and ultimately condemn and sacrifice him. Although he had empahically declared that he was a prophet sent exclusively to (the lost sheep of ) Israel, if we are believe the gospels, he extended his mission by proxy to the gentiles once he realized that his winning over the Muslimry had ended up a losing battle and his time was nearly up.
After him his original disciples founded the Jerusalem Church and preached and proselytised in rather a low-profile, underground manner. It was an entire outsider and ex-persecutor of Jesus followers named Saul who, after grafting himself precariously among the church elders by some self-reported miracles and arguments that the seed of a really new religion was sown. Increasingly alienated from the real disciples Saul turned Paul took his brand of ‘Jesuism’ which was called Christianity to lands far beyond Palestine and Syria, into Asia Minor, Greece and eventually Rome making converts and founding local Pauline Christian communities like in Ephesus, Galatia and Thessalonica. Many modern Biblical scholars conclude that Paul’s Christianity is a new religion and he and not Jesus is responsible for it. But be as it may, both Jesus and Christianity were rejected by the representatives of Judaism and Christians returned the insult by declaring the Jews enemies and killers of God. The intense mutual hostility always worked against the Jews, they being a very small and dispersed nation in an ocean of gentiles. Until they were burnt alive by the millions by the Nazis. Jewish-Christian relations, until very recently, have been sickeningly evil and ugly to the extreme and only nowadays, after the disgrace of the Holocaust Christians relented and Jews found a degree of comfort, security and honour.
What a pity that two great religions sharing so much in common clash like this for two millennia before the evil and the folly was realized. The same with the third Abrahamic religion Islam and its two elder sisters Judaism and Christianity. Again Muhammad (sws) came with the claim and message that he was the successor of all prophets before him and more relevantly Moses and Jesus. He produced a book which basically reiterated what was put forward in the Torah and the Gospel and took especial pains to glorify these two scriptures and the two prophets behind them, namely Moses and Jesus. He was met by ridicule by both the Jews and the Christians to whom he extended a protected and honoured status anyhow. So, when Islam conquered much of the previously Christian-held lands Muhammad’s (sws) pupils did not follow in the footsteps of their Abarahamic predecessors the Christians and torment either Christians or the Muslims. They accorded them ethnic and cultural autonomy with the right of being ruled by their own religious leaders and princes as the case may be. As a result an infinite number of Christian and Jewish communities and kingdoms lived under Muslim rule as freely and prosperously as they would when independent only at the cost of a light poll tax and political loyalty to the Muslim state. Ideally this extremely enlightened treatment should be enough to demonstrate the two elder sisters that the Cinderella that was Islam was a good young sister and a reasonable degree of mutual affection and respect should prevail. And what could be more natural considering the fact that all three religions enjoined warm humanism which included good neighborliness.
It is very sad to see time and again that world religions claim and ask for something truly beautiful but their professed adherents almost always do the ugly opposite. Yes, there have been some doctrinal and creedal differences but that did not mean that we could not be mutually respectful and civilized neighbors if not too loving. For my part I would also include love without prejudice. So all in all our advice to our elder sisters would be this: “Let’s put an end to the blind and unkind attitudes of the past. Let Muslims take pride and joy for having two younger sisters sharing some of their spiritual genes so to speak and the Christians do the same toward their youngest. In this matter Muslims are as pure and innocent as Cinderella because in the Qur’an they are taught to believe in and keep in absolutely great esteem the Torah and Moses and the Gospel and Jesus whom they also call the Christ (al Masih). What more could they do to play their part in the building of bridges of respectful relations? Which means if Muslims and Christians want to be real Muslims and Christians they should stop insulting Muhammad (sws) and denigrating and dismissing the Qur’an which in fact is the most comprehensive and to-the-point of all scriptures- it consists of an interminable serenade to the absolute unity of God and of mankind and highest glory and praise to Him Almighty and All-Kind. So why the hatred and the venom so unbefitting of a true follower of Jesus Christ or Moses (upon them be peace)?
Very simple. In this world there are two basic kinds of people- a majority of sheep and a minority of wolves. Sheep, if left alone, are peacefully disposed and can get along with anybody. In nature films we see thousands of herbivores of all species grazing peacefully side by side. While elephants tear branches from trees to devour gazelles nibble the low grass in peace and zebras jump and play as if they are alone in the prairie. But soon the peace and security comes under a dark cloud. A lion or a pack of hyenas converge on the arena. You know the rest. Among humans some charismatic, spiritual leaders show up every now and then to invite them to God, which in psychological terms (and not ontological) means inviting them to the potentially very best values and character and morality traits in them. Weary of the frequent misunderstandings, suspicions and clashes and injustices among them some men and women like the call made by these holy men.
Soon a large and devout following gathers around the holy man and some sort of organisation and funding may eventually be necessary. Organization means hierarchy and authority and funds mean worldly goodies. As soon as this stage arrives the wolves also begin to arrive in sheepskins, i.e. pretending to be believers. Some of these may well be the ex-persecutors. Given their singular aims, natural greed and foxy predatory skills these fakes begin to climb in the community and occupy the higher positions. To this end they always pretend to be the most devoted and devout members of the community but given their self- and power-seeking natures they unconsciously end up as extremists, fanatics and fascists!
No matter how much the new faith emphasizes love, compassion, humility and charity our friends with some lip service pass these over in a hurry and land and stand where they like best- at the top- issuing authoritarian and totalitarian demands and formulating chilling creeds with ultimatums and anathemas attached, inquisitors and tax-collectors fielded and soon regal trappings and paraphernalia like palaces and palatial temples, thrones and gold-brocaded robes, fantastic crowns and hats, multitudes of attendants and dazzling pomp and ceremony become the hallmarks of spiritual authority. So was created the Church for example and so it is maintained. In total contrast to the poverty, humility and asceticism of prophets (like Jesus), religious establishments supposedly built in their honour burst with grandiosity, luxury, worldliness and tyranny! Only very intelligent wolves of men can do such a feat and hijack a prophet’s legacy in its entirety to serve their self-seeking, self-aggrandizing nefarious ends. This of course doesn’t mean that some exceptionally good souls cannot take root and prosper among the community in or outside the priesthood. They do but all trumpets are blown by the wolves and the pious must await the next world to get what they deserve.
This is priesthood, it runs and ruins all spiritual traditions except Islam. The Prophet of Allah abolished priesthood and their base a temple organization. But earlier traditions were all hijacked by a priestly class tightly kinit and hierarchically structured. This class had everything to lose in case Islam won. If their flocks defected to Islam because it was appealing they would lose all the taxes, other revenue and the homage they provided. If the priests themselves embraced Islam they would lose the status and luxuries and privileges it fetched. So the only solution was to distort and smear Islam and its prophet as badly and mortally as possible. What is more, like every false claim to and precarious hold on power it was necessary for the power-holders to invent enemies both within and outside the faith and incite the flocks to hate and fight these invented enemies. Do not extremist ideologies and great dictators of modern times us the same tactics, same demonology to hold on to peoples minds and bodies in their secular ways?
This explains why the older sisters persecuted the younger and why Islam, despite its sterling qualities, ended up as the Cinderella- good in herself but suffering from a bad press; slandered, despised and insulted for no fault of her own and despite it being the loveliest on top of the youngest. La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah!
Lastly, we may observe this fact: Left to their own, ordinary Muslims, Christians and Muslims get along perfectly well like as neighbors, colleagues and fellow travellers (except some odd men out who are too impressed by their leaders provocative inculcations). Ordinary Irish and English and ordinary Turk and Greek and ordinary Arab and Muslim just relate normally and may become good pals, sometimes exceptionally so. It is the priesthood and the demagogue politician who deceive and incite the commoner, land all sides into trouble and pick up the ‘honors’ and prizes after any resultant carnage. How interesting, sobering and depressing!
The initial offer of Islam through the Qur’an and the Sunna was an olive branch to Judaism and Christianity. Muslims and Christians could embrace Islam and get a double reward from God for twice heeding His call or they could keep to their own tradition and co-exist with Muslims as friendly fellow monotheists sharing many similar, beliefs, laws, traditions, prophets and scriptures. That offer, that olive branch is still there.
MISUNDERSTANDING AND DISINFORMATION
Islam’s image with some people suffer from two distortions caused by two factors. The first of the two distortions is the erroneous perception of it by both Muslims and non-Muslims. The second is caused by plain semi-conscious misconstruing and plain slander for which both non-Muslim theologians and athesists are to blame.
As for the first: Each Muslim has a temperament of his own whose dictates he seeks to justify by looking for its endorsement by Islam. So, somebody who has a stern and ruthless and perhaps also domineering temperament subconsciously pick up and out those statements in the Qur’an, the Hadith and their commentaries which he thinks satisfy his tastes and justify his ambitions. These people are every where, they are quixotics whose narrow minds and hysterical restlessness drive them to look out at the world with the eyes of ideological ‘correctness’ without doubting their ideas’ validity- an almost psychotic outlook. For the main feature of psychosis is the inability to realize that one may be wrong. These populate the ranks of those described as fundamentalists in all religions and fanatics in all ideologies. In the case of Islam it is these who are Islam’s unaware internal corrupters and scandalizers and historically their prototype were the Kharijites who accused of blasphemy and assassinated the great Ali. This fault-line continues to this day and produces bigger or smaller tremors in the form of ferocious fringe factions from the Famous Assassins of Hasan Sabbah (13.C) to some ‘Islamic’ terrorist groups of more recent times. Their diagnosis, as already indicated, is psychosis but with logic mainly functioning and intelligence bright. It is as if everything is in order except one crucial plank or screw. Real Islam on the other hand is understood and represented by those sober, suave and charitable Muslims who get along well with almost anybody yet display a character of uprigthness in all their dealings and heroism without violence except in legitimate warfare and then only when it is called for.
Erroneous perceptions on the part of non-Muslims are again caused by temperaments involved but additionally they are caused by disinformation disseminated by the enemies of Islam. The main enemies are among the narrow-minded fanatics or cynical beneficiaries of of the privileges of rival religions who are only too ready and quick to misconstrue innocent remarks in the Qur’an and Hadith or events of history which should have other better explanations. The greatest opportunity for and the most fertile area of misconstruing Islam is its principle of settling for the lesser of two evils when the best is simply impossible in practice. For example Islam allows some polygamy within some strict limits simply because the alternative is illicit sex with all its multiple dangers. Polygamy means supporting more than one wife and their children simultaneously which is beyond the powers and means of the great majority of men including most of the rich. Never in Islam it has been practiced by more than a tiny minority. Its benefit has been the almost total absence of adultery, fornication and veneral illness among Muslims and the many terrible crimes that are caused by jealousy. It simply absorbed any surplus women in a less evil way than prostitution and rape. In fact, within its already narrow limits it is so natural and necessary that many animal species and ALL ancient cultures INCLUDING THE ABRAHAMIC/MOSAIC practiced it with Divine blessings.
Yet, such a natural and partially unavoidable practice is misconstrued by the victims of the only sexophobic culture in world history as the result of excess and dirty sexual desires. Such an excess and dirty sexual desire finds better grazing grounds in a post-sexophobic, neo-sexolatrous (sex-worshipping) culture as the modern West’s where sex is both a promiscuous pastime and one of the great industries and certainly the greatest means of commercial seduction. What is more there is more real polygamy among the Western powerful men than anytime it has been among Muslims. Many successful men maintain more than one woman as if all are his wives- which they de facto are. Islam has at least been honest and damage-limiting about the whole affair.
Another fertile field of misconstruction and disinformation is the field of corporeal and capital punishments. Again this is an example of Islam’s settling with the lesser evil. Despite the false claims of the critics corporeal punishments which include imprisonment are deterrents and without them the victim and casualty amounts are far higher than with them. Still, in almost every verse that the Qur’an prescribes them it also pleads the reader to consider forgiveness as the better alternative and in addition throws in lifeline to the offender something like “If he repents, then let him be spared”. To increase the chances of going free it also offers an alternative to the offended: Acceptance of the payment of damages. THIS EVEN SORTS OUT MURDER! The murderer then only faces long imprisonment. Pontificating about Islam’s penal prescriptions without knowing about or considering such glaring anti-violence incentives and climbouts can only amount to misunderstanding in the least case.
We throw in this challenge: Let those who keep accusing Islam learn about Islam and debate it with a proper Muslim scholar and consider the textual and historical proofs the scholar presents and come out unbeaten. All who took this challenge to this day lost. Islam is such a perfection that it can deal with any imperfections one way or another so that its evil is abated if not entirely wiped out. It is sheer goodwill qualified by what is possible, doing the best possible, being realistic and therefore effective rather than being quixotically idealistic and getting nowhere. That is perfection. That is what God only allows. Evil can never be totally wiped out for there is an amount and degree of evil that leads to a lot of unexpected good. Pious realism wipes out and abates more evil than pious idealism which is often frustrated at the first attempt or whose apparent successes often backfire so badly that things become worse than before. This has been the main mistake of synods and sects Christianity (not real Jesus and his real teachings) and is responsible for almost all backlashes in the modern West.
Both the West and the East need some curing. So.
THE ONLY CURE IS GODLINESS
As soon as the sense of self arrives in the infant selfishness also do. This core self however should not remain the same raw core but accumulate around it images of other friendly selves to add to it a group self, a group identity. The first friendly addition to the core self is certainly the mother’s with whom the infant strikes up a most wonderful nd mutually satisfying friendship. Other relations soon come on board to materialize the joint family identity enjoyed by all members of the family. They stick together in the obtainment of many benefits and in the defence of many interests. Then keep coming on other wider and paler rings of additional group identities which towards which the core self feels profitably bonded. Extended family, neighborhood, town, nation, co-religious community and humanity in general… But still wider rings may be added until the whole world becomes a field of interest and affection for the developing and maturing self. At all levels however the I against you and we against them sense remains. In any conflict I is tempted to feel it must win; ‘we’ wants to win against ‘them’. Sometimes conflicts get out of hand and lead to violence and even casualties. So it is in a small brawl as well as in a war. So some very great souls were inspired by a powerful idea. Why not identify with a Single Universal Personal Power with highest and best spiritual and moral qualities and see all beings through His loving and caring eyes?
The inspiration could not come except from the Creator of everything whoever or whatever he or it might be. If seriously and fully taken on board it gave a man an incomparable, unbeatable spiritual and moral advantage on all the rest: the glory and satisfaction of loving and caring for everybody and everything as God would! Of course this is not a simple care and simple love. The lover, as his or her God would, has the best interests of the beloved in heart. Take a mother. She sometimes has no alternative but deny the child its certain wants and even punish it for doing wrong. No matter how much the child hurts and resents the mother has to be firm because the alternative may cause to the child much worse pain and even ruin. The child realizes how kind mum had been once it grows up enough to see the light. He or she then cares for his or her children with the same wisdom.
So, the first and most essential quality a true lover must have is love and compassion with wisdom. An unwise person’s love for somebody may cause more harm then good to the loved one. Such are some parents who, out of love without insight or wisdom, tolerate and pamper their children so excessively that they remain brutally selfish core selves and offend everybody else with painful backlashes resulting. The same mechanism works also in the opposite direction- some individuals are both too sensitive to pain and too unwise to understand and respond constructively.
For example, some females develop festering wounds from the treatment they received from their male acquaintances (like father) and end up as bitter and vehement male-haters and hysterically committed feminists. Being immature characters themselves (while perhaps also being intellectually brilliant) they project their experiences to the whole womankind and come up with the chilling conclusions that the male half of the human race need be put down! The same with all extremist ideologies like Faschism (rabidly anti-black, anti-Jewish, Fuhrerist) or Marxism ( rabidly anti-bourgeoisie, anti-imperialist, anti- American, pro- dictatorship of the proletariat…). All such deluded and misguided hysterics are profound neurotics over-impressed by life in a slanted way and desperate to play God in order to create a world to their liking. Yes, a true religion like Islam also wants to reform the world but its premise is singularly healthy: All loving, all caring God making us godly servants so that we can love and help each other, including tolerating and forgiving each other. Nobody is excluded, nobody is demonised, nobody is beyond salvation in a true religion. Yes, sometimes even war becomes necessary but the motive should always be the noble one: Making love and care win. War to stop anti-love, anti-care mentalities and forces from prevailing. War as a last resort, ready to stop as soon as the enemy puts hands up. Ready to forgive and include if apologies are made.
Sadly however, even high quality religions like Islam and Christianity are hijacked by similarly profound neurotics whose main motivation is hatred and revenge. The scripture the likes of Rumi as a Muslim saint and Jesus as a Jewish prophet quote only in the service of love the profound neurotics among Muslims and Christians quote in the service of hatred and revenge. In other words the initial and core attitude determines whether the revealed word is put to good use or abused for horrible ends.
In the latter case the result is a religiosity which pretends to serve God but in actual fact it serves the Devil. It is this very abusing of the otherwise noble religions that gave religion a bad name. But this cannot stop the Godly from using it the right way, righteously for God which means for love and care for everybody and everything except the evil and its agents. The cure for the damage done by the abuse of religion is not banning religion but using it rightly. But how?
COME TO THE PROPHET, COME TO ISLAM
If there is one religion which strikes the right balance of things determining man’s life so as to enable him to attain his highest potential in godliness it is Islam. We are aware that the majority of Western people are either atheists or only slightly religious and would not give a farthing for the claims of Christianity let alone Islam. And Muslims aren’t setting an enviable example either. In fact the West is to be forgiven if it points out that had there been good in Islam the Muslims, including their apparently pious and practicing sections, shouldn’t be in the mess they are. But there is an actual and a potential to every supposed means of improvement. Let’s take medicine. In incompetent hands it becomes more a curse than a blessing. The same medicine, with the same body of knowledge, the same sets of operations and the same list of drugs becomes a huge blessing in the hands of competent doctors and nurses and administrators. Among all religions Islam has the highest potential for persuading the modern mind with its rational simple faith and utterly reasonable and utilitarian rules of living. It is also the one with the most embracing outlook.
That is because Islam is equally open to and adores all messengers and messages from God. It embraces Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses… as lovingly and respectfully as the most devout Muslim, it embraces Jesus Christ as lovingly and respectfully as the best Christian would. It invites all these to come together in the worship of the same God and the adoration of the same prophets. It explains and corrects the mistakes made by the former religious communities and offers them either coming on board together or failing that at least remain friends. It also has a couple of incomparable assets it offers to all interested: A true and great prophet and messenger of God, namely Muhammad (sws) the great great grandson of Abraham the Friend of God through his elder son Ishmael and a revelation vouchsafed to him called the Qur’an.
These two have a unique quality found in nowhere else- the Prophet’s (sws) biography and sayings (Hadith) and conduct (Sunna) are known and came to us in such great detail and with such accuracy that, unlike any other prophet before him, we can recreate an effective image of him so clear and detailed and genuine that we become almost as good as his actual disciples in benefiting from his guidance. All serious scholars in east and west know that this is the case. The same merit applies even more to the Qur’an: It is the very same statement in text form as the one revealed to the Prophet verbally by God through the Archangel Gabriel fourteen centuries ago. An open-minded, objective study of Islam and its great prophet will not fail to greatly and perhaps conclusively impress the mind and heart of any intelligent and conscionable person whatever his or her background.
LITTLE KNOWN BUT VITAL SUNNAS
INTRODUCTION
Presently and perhaps for ages as well instuction in Islam revolves mainly if not entirely around the technicalities like the manner of ablutions or shares from inheritance as if Islam basically consists of laws and material techniques of salvation. It is often forgotten or at least ignored that the ultimate aim of Islam is enhancing both the material well-being as individuals as well as society and ethical success of muslims. In fact the latter IS the more ultimate because the Messenger of Allah sws described his mission in the following words:
“I have not been sent but for me to complete the noblest traits of character”.
Before we say anything else we must notice that no prophet or other reformer could say such a thing about his aim or mission and none equated religion so completely and unequivocally with the building up of noblest character in men. As always Muhammad (sws) hits the nail on the head and proves himself the wisest and noblest soul to have ever visited this earth. Compared with the clarity of his vision and nobility of his aim other prophet’s and reformer’s teachings look like confused and garbled utterings of piety lost in myth and detail from which no such clarity and nobility could be distilled with such purity. May Allah’s greatest blessings and grandest peace be on him.
This does not exclude the devotional obligations like salat because these reflect our acknowledgement of Allah’s merciful laws of hygiene, spiritual comfort and nourishment and most importantly the best way of personally thanking him. To be a useful and not burdensome member of society we must stay healthy and to improve in our morals we must cultivate an as constant as possible consciousness (zikr) of Allah- hence the Islamic forms of worship.
But leaving Islamic teaching at objective (exterior) laws and technicalities is largely missing the point. Hence the chronic problem of imperfect morals and often boorish manners among the musilms. Had Allah and His Messenger sws not given us all those great varieties and details of high morals and beautiful social manners we could be excused for taking Islam literally, legally and technically. But that isn’t the case. The Qur’an contains very many and enough number of moral-spiritual ennoblers while the Hadith explodes with them. For example we find in the Qur’an:
“Return evil with good; then you will see that the one between whom and you there is hostiliy becomes like a warm friend. None can attain this except those who are forbearing; none can attain this except those with a big share of spiritual light (*).
For his part the Prophet sws said “Forgive the one who wronged you, give to the one who deprived you make up with the one who broke up with you”.
If we look at most of our written history (which necessarily mostly tell about the powerful and the famous) and also the present you hardly find examples like the above. What you mostly find instead is ‘people doing Islamic devotions like angels but then quarrelling and fighting like the wolves around a kill or carcass. About them the Prophet sws said “This world is a carcass and its desirers are like dogs”. Not the majority of our historical figures (including many of the religious) escape this description.
In this tract we shall give some examples of the reflections of the Prophet’s character and manners in which we believe the full practical reality of Islam find its definitive description.
CARING ABOUT ALL- BEGINNING WITH THE NEAREST AND DEAREST.
The Messenger of Allah sws thoroughly exemplified for and firmly instructed us to keep in touch and care for our parents, children, spouses, neighbors and all rings of community surrounding us, from town or clan to nation and the whole mankind. In this duty of care and concern neither race nor faith mattered. For example a son is under the obligation to keep in touch, look after, love and respect and also obey a parent even when the parent is an enemy of the son’s faith. The only exception he can take to his parent’s request is when the parent asks him to go against his convictions. What is more the parent may have any level of loose morals or bad habits- the child must ignore all except perhaps trying politely to persuade the parent otherwise and keep lovingly caring for his parent.
Although he was orphaned very young he treated his surrogate father his uncle perfectly obediently, lovingly and caringly despite the uncle remaining a polytheist to his last. His another uncle, namely Abu Lahab, became his implacable enemy once the Prophet sws proclaimed his mission from Allah and this hapless uncle actually swore at him and subjected him to torments but Muhammad (sws) never stopped to speak softly to him and never retaliated. In the end Allah criticized Abu Lahab and condemned him and not long after he perished from a horrible illness especially made bitter by his learning that Muhammad had succeeded in his mission.
He reported from his Lord “The (word) ‘Rahm’ (womb, blood relationship) derives from ‘Rahma’ (loving compassion). Whoever regards it highly Allah regards him highly. Whoevers cut it off (abandons blood relations’ rights) Allah cuts him off”. Then the Prophet sws goes on and emphasise the importance of neighbourly rights so much that he suspected the Angel of Revelation “would bring from Allah the law that would make neighbors to inherit from each other”. Again the neigbor could be anybody- no muslim, no relation no nothing in common.
Lastly Allah and His Messenger sws extended the obligations of egalitarian and equitable civilized relations among all mankind. Thus He Almighty said:
“O mankind! We have created you from a single male and female and made you into tribes and races in order that you recognize each other and exchange civilized relations. As for the who is the noblest among you it is the most pious among you” (*).
What a full and final blow to claims of high class or racial or other superiority and what a fully egalitarian unification of mankind under One God! Again Muhammad sws comes up with the best of everything. Please compare this with the alleged sayings attributed of Jesus like “I am but sent to the lost sheep of Israel” and “The bread of children are not given to dogs” meaning that the Samaritan woman who begged for his blessing was not entitled to it because she was not of Israel the ‘master race’!
Can you imagine Muhammad sws to say such words? He instead said “In the sight of Allah all men are equal like the teeth of a comb” and qualified it by saying “Arab is not superior to non-Arab and non-Arab not superior to Arab (just because of race). The noblest among you is the most pious among you”. Something not even early American democracy could say and implement. It took a civil war to declare equality between the white and the black American; and the prejudice goes on today. Against this we may view the spectacle of early muslims; all classes and races were indiscriminately represented, intermarried and prospered together. To this day class and race prejudices have not make any significant headway among muslims, they simply mix and work together as if they are color and features blind. Not a single civilization before Islam’s could even theorize this let alone realize it! It took the noble character traits of Muhammad sws to conceive and practice it to per-fec-tion!
The net result has been that muslims believed in their inalienable obligations of caring for their blood (and marriage) relations first, then their neighbors, then their community at large (say, nation) and all mankind as and when opportunity arose. As a result members of other faiths were fairly accommodated in muslim lands with total cultural autonomy granted while no other developed cultures like the Christian could tolerate any non-christians amidst them and even in today’s post-christian, secular West foreign races and cultures are not too welcome.