Western Sophists Against Islam
WESTERN SOPHISTS AGAINST ISLAM
Recently a new book about the alleged scandals of Islam was brought to my notice. Suffering from and choking over a hundred prejudices against Islam the writer was repeating all the old wives tales against Islam circulated by the Medieval Christian establishment albeit in a modernised and artfully moderated form but both the message and the malice were clear enough. To look infallible and scientific the writer begins with a serial selection of Qur’anic verses which, in his prejudices-infested opinion demonstrate without a shadow of doubt that the Qur’an and therefore its God Allah is all about unadulterated malice and cruelty towards people. Is He saying “As for the unbelievers, whether you warn them or you never warn them it is the same for them- they will not believe. Allah has sealed their hearts and their hearing and on their vision is a veil. For them is a great punishment” (Qur’an, 2: 7), and, for example
“In their hearts is a disease and Allah increased their disease and for them is a painful punishment on account of their denial” (2:10)
And so on a so forth, supposedly proving that Allah and therefore Islam is all about illogical and ruthless condemnation and sadistic infliction of pain. On the one hand Allah assumes all the responsibility for preventing His servants from belief, like sealing their hearts and senses against the entry of faith and also increasing their any psychological illnesses (illness of the heart) and then He declares with relish that He will punish them very painfully indeed, in fact as said many times elsewhere, He will burn them in Hell forever!
He then among other utterly unbalanced statements he points out that fighting for this illogical and sadistic faith as he sees it is a constantly repeated and urged on duty of Muslims until the whole world become like themselves etc. etc.
To see what a sophistry is all this let us use a metaphor.
Suppose a man is desperately in love with a woman whose every wish he is prepared to grant if that is in his power. Both he and his beloved mistress know and the mistress accepts that the satisfaction of her demands is not always possible and when that is the case the lover is forgiven. This reflects the actual position of the Qur’an on man’s obligations towards Allah. Now a jealous and also evil man arrives and hating this love and the two parties to it takes the man aside and ‘proves’ him that his beloved is not worth the paper her name is written on. He proceeds like this:
He captures the woman and imprisons her in a torture chamber. He takes the man there and ties him to a post and makes him, on pain of death, to watch an expose’ of his beloved. He begins “You are madly in love with this woman, aren’t you? Well, her beauty is only skin deep. Now I shall rip her apart piece by piece and shall how you what ugliness and filth lie inside her. As he makes his first cut in the belly the woman gives out a hideous cry of terror and pain. The torturer shouts “Hear the ugly, squeaky, rat-like voice?”
Because the gut is cut an unbearable smell of decomposing food issues from the woman’s belly and fills the chamber. The odour is so bad that the watching man vomits and then faints. The enemy continues in this wise, dissecting the ever-horror-stricken woman and exposing a series of blood-dripping, helplessly quivering organs cut from each other and thrown on the floor like very dirty underwear. Will any beauty shine from the woman then? He eventually releases the woman’s emptied carcass and assured of the poor ex-lover’s total disappointment and disgust leaves him to die of his unbearable experience of shock and disgust. What did the bad man do? He employed sophistry to destroy a positive image and replace it with one which is disgusting. Where is he wrong? He is wrong in assuming that a system is a simple total of its parts. It is like saying a luxury car in perfect condition and perfect working order is the same as a heap of all its constituent parts in a scrap yard. To make the matter more clear let us use another metaphor following the mutilated woman metaphor. The shocked lover goes to court and demands compensation for his loss. The accused brings all the parts of the dead woman and offers them as the restitution of the lover’s rights. Will anybody be fooled?
I very much apologise for the too grizzly metaphors I employed but what is doing to Muslim believers by their enemies when the enemies, instead of taking the totally captivating beauty of Islam which shines from the entirety and integrity of the Qur’an begin to arbitrarily dissect it into its parts and also into random pieces and then putting the whole lot on a tray say “Look at your Islam, isn’t it disgusting?”
The sophists’ claim that a whole is the simple total of its part cannot be allowed to stand. A product is never equal to the sum of its parts or to the sum of the processes employed in producing it. Allah points to this fact when, for example He says:
“O people, if you are in doubt concerning the Resurrection then (consider that) We created you from the soil of the earth then from sperm, then from a clinger (a mass of cells clinging to the womb wall), then a piece of flesh part constructed, part unconstructed (one hardly knows what to make of or the logic of it except a biologist who can only admire ait) in order to demonstrate to you (from what humble sources through what brilliant processes We build you stage by stage)… (22: 4).
Aren’t the described sources and stages humble and unseemly enough in comparison to the end product a lovely baby and a powerful human being gazing at the stars with plans of reaching and conquering them?
Similarly:
“Is man calculating that he is left to fool around? Was he not a sperm ejected, then he became a (womb) clinger which He (Almighty) fashioned and organised and made from it the partners male and female. Is not This Able to revive the dead? (75: 36-40)
Where is dizzying and enrapturing true nature and message of the Qur’an and where is the image of the Qur’an constructed from the procedures employed in torture chamber dissections of the enemies of Allah?
As for the alleged irresponsibility and sadism of Allah, these dissection products can be discarded without a second look. We have more verses about Allah’s loving Mercy and even playfully concealed total forgiveness of Allah for all. To begin with the forgiveness He All-Merciful declares with full authority and explicitness:
“Say (on My behalf o Prophet:) ‘O My servants who exceeded all limits in abusing themselves- do not give up on Allah’s Loving Mercy. Verily Allah forgives all sins without exception because He is the Very Pardoning and Forgiving One” (39: 53)
The only thing Allah wants from us, after our committing so many offences is realising and admitting our mistakes and asking for His pardon and if possible also doing our best to compensate our victims. Is this too much to ask? Should we be less human than this?
Now what about the threats in the Qur’an, you may ask. Everybody with a minimum knowledge of psychology knows that human motivation is based on two opposite elements: carrot and stick which means promise and threat, reward and punishment. From mighty states like the USA to the weakest individuals like a toddler all human beings and human organisations are ruled by this law of motivation without exception. Even greatest prophets, top saints or most wise and virtuous of men need this mechanism to move and they better have it. Take a man of genius and wisdom who is suffering from a medical condition which his doctors tell him necessitates certain unsavoury changes in his food habits.
The doctors tell him “Abandon all saturated fats like contained in butter and meats and switch to vegetable oils. Similarly control your salt intake strictly. Otherwise your condition will worsen and you will die sooner than later”. Suppose that this good patient adores fatty and salty foods. If he stops eating them will it not be because of his fear of needless premature death which is a natural and necessary fear if we want to continue to populate this earth more successfully? In view of this infallible law of motivation is it not proper for the Creator of all laws and all subjects to those laws to use fear as much as hope, threat as much as promise to steer his creatures to a right course and keep them there? Can this writer of a horribly sophistic denigrating book about Islam run even an organisation or country populated by apparently most educated and enlightened men and women by only sweet promises without any need for some threats to go with the promises?
Recently and on the occasion of Christmas two smart ladies knocked on my door and offered me Jehovah’s Witness booklets while they also asked me “Do you believe that peace can come to this world of ours?”. I said “No!”. They asked “You are a Muslim?”. I said “Yes”. “Why you say that peace cannot come to this world?” they pressed. I said “Because human nature being what it is, this world has never enjoyed total peace and I am afraid it will never have it. Our world is made of us and we are what we are”. “But Jesus said that peace would come if we followed him”. “Yes, sure” I said “Also Muhammad said it; the catch is that ‘if we follow him. Did we? Can we ever fully follow God’s messengers fully?
If we could why is the Hell for then?”. They retorted triumphantly “Jesus never spoke of Hell”. “Hasn’t he? Why do we then read in the Gospel that he is warning a man looking at strange women ‘It is better for you that you pluck out your eye and throw it away than to look with it at strange women with lust and therefore burn in hell with your entire body”. They said “God is Love, isn’t He? Jesus never hated or cursed anybody but loved all”. I replied “Did he not hate the Pharisees and called them serpents and scorpions?” They looked at me with horror and embarrassment and walked away without saying another word. What these ladies were doing? Why, they were employing sophistry in an attempt to recruit into their tax-imposing lucrative and therefore fabulously rich and despotic church new subjects. They did not hesitate to distort Jesus in every possible way to give a totally pink, rosy and posy impression of him and not an iota of his wraths, vituperations, fears and threats which abound in every page in the Gospels. So let us see how the writer of the terribly Islamophobic book and these terribly Jesus-Jehova-boosting ladies are united in being sophists.
The fact is that Islam and the Qur’an, Allah and His Messenger (sws) are all here and here to stay in order to teach all humanity the most realistic and practical religion, the most science-friendly and the most realistically peace-promoting faith whose name Islam squarely means peace and the peace is through universal submission to our universal Creator of all creatures and the laws controlling them. We have no delusions that Islam will conquer the whole world at any future time under any circumstances however great human leaders appear among us. Allah makes sure that we do not fall victim and then victimise and perhaps also rob others on such pie-in-the sky promises which has always been the bread-and-butter capital of all spiritual crooks or the artificial sustenance of pious weaklings. Read if you wish:
“Had thy Lord willed He could make all mankind one nation (of believers). They shall never cease to be different except those whom thy Lord showed pity to. For this (very purpose) He has created them. Realised is the Word of thy Lord ‘I will fill the Hell with demons and humans all” (11: 119)
I fully realise that this last verse gives a lot of ammunition to the writer of the Islamophobic book. What however he does and many others also do not know and understand is that the Book of Allah is not about simplistic and formalistic logic or even scientific supposed fact although it has a lot of atruths to say about such facts and also enough logic at places where logic is appropriate and enough to drive home a spiritual lesson. By far it is a spiritual book skilfully webbed by mighty and wonderful metaphors and entirely truthful myths as befits a good religion (by a truthful myth I mean a myth which conceals and eventually injects a spiritual lesson into the reader or the listener without they instantly realising it). Above all else it is a Divine Instrument par excellence for delivering all the two sets of psychological motivators we need in finding and walking the path of God as none else can. As we tremble in front of its searing or blood-curdling threats or soar to ecstasy in front of its transporting and enrapturing Cosmic promises we feel that we are in front of a Power and Genius we never thought we could ever meet. As we become pleasantly puzzled and confused before its deceptively illogical-looking while perfectly soul-irrigating and fertilising statements we suspect that what we are facing is a depth of soul without a ceiling or bottom, a depth which we would love to take a plunge into without hesitation if we are real men or women, thirsting so much for the Infinite and the ‘Impossible’. And guess what: All is possible and Allah is True and Real, His Qur’an is True and Real and His messengers are true and real and we also can be true and real through the Qur’an and therefore the True Islam . Amen.
SPECIAL REPORT: ABUSE OF RELIGION AS POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
All social and/or economic success stories invite their imitators. Once upon a time pizza was little known in England. In about mid-1980s its name and fame began to mushroom. On top of international brands serving from standard designed luxurious shops smaller, individually owned pizza shops began to crop up on every major street. What made pizza so profitable was that in relation to more elaborate and costly ready meals pizza was very easy and cheap to produce while for some reason it could command a relatively astronomical looking prize. Just about a pound of flour and half pound worth grated cheese and chopped vegetables and a brief stay in an oven and a ready meal came out sizzling for which the naïve customer was prepared to pay anything from £3 to £ 10! (last pounds in .99p trick as usual).
By comparison kebab costs and the prices they could command compared too poorly against this new star in the firmament of fast food. Recently the mass swindle came up with a new star: coffee sold from shops called café which, to add insult to injury served almost anything as if they were full-fledged restaurants. Not only the humble coffee came in for over a pound per cup but the customer could be beheaded at the pocket for adding a muffin, a cake or the even more costly light meal the shop displayed in its glass display units. Nowadays shop after shop is closing for loss of business and each are re-opening as cafés. In my areas high street with about a total of fifty shops no less than twelve are cafes (and ten are banks and six are estate agents). What is more media reports are indicating that coffee is slowly but steadily replacing tea as the favourite English hot drink. Obviously America is here to stay. America is our modern era’s greatest success story and country after country is being Americanized lest they become unattractive backwaters of world’s enjoyment scene.
This is not to emit anti- American sentiment. Far it be from this humble author to demonise any particular person or nation. All are Allah’s servants and judgment belongs to their Lord as does their guidance. But one thing is certain: this ever faster spinning consumer culture is depleting our natural resources faster than they can recover (if at all) as well as deteriorating our environment both chemically and biologically. Allah has warned in no uncertain terms:
“Eat and drink but do not waste; indeed Allah does not love the wasteful” (#)
“Corruption has erupted both in sea and land because of what people are earning with their hands, and that in order that they taste the liability of their work” (#)
Like what? Like polluted soils and waters, degenerating and sometimes also disappearing life forms, degenerative illnesses like asthma, heart disease, malignancies and mental illnesses. In a world where even babies carry mobile phones and contribute to pollution as a result how long can the environment take the insults to its economy and integrity without hitting back? It is already hitting back and will do more as it is pressed more.
Imitating successful products, creating new products so as to be the first in the market and make a kill before others also move in substantially, in brief conquering more and more customers and amassing more and more wealth and influence… this is the modern competition. But tangible products are not alone in giving a chance for ambitious people to promote themselves and dominate others in many lucrative ways: Religion also is as good a product to exploit to great economic and political profit in the hands of businessmen masquerading as religious scholars and mystics.
What is more, religion as business is the oldest of all businesses. It was already thriving when there were no other economic activities than farming and hunting; its owners were called priests and its premises temples. Not that religion is useless. Like many products of the human mind it is very useful and in fact has proven to address a need which no known society in history has been without. In its best forms religion is our Creator’s greatest gift to us and that must explain its continuing popularity not only in poor countries but in the richest and most educated and advanced of all countries- United States of America.
But there is a catch. Success in the business of religion is like success in fast food business. People’s impatience with waiting and deception by gloss and spin must be exploited if a religious movement (read ‘business’) is to advance and grow fast and bring in great fortunes and often also subtle political influence. Many American cults have their political clout and any sensible politicians who want to win or keep political office should better cultivate one of them which looks more influential in his electoral area or nationally if he is after very high office. The cults can simply bankroll and canvass for a promising candidate licking its boots and catapult him into the mayorship or senatorship he is after.
Other businesses also can and do it, among them the media holding a special position. American religionists are the masters of amassing of vast membership (at times clandestine membership), amassing wealth and amassing and deploying political influence. But other nations and religions, among them Muslim nations are not lagging far behind.
What is more, religion as an economic and political investment business was already very highly developed among Muslims since after the martyrdom of our master Umar RA and became the main vehicle of political ascendancy and change after the martyrdom of Uthman RA. Ali RA lost to Muawiya simply because Muawiya, like most of his Umayyad tribe was a good businessman while Ali wasn’t. Muawiya thought pragmatically and moved with minimum scruples while Ali thought idealistically and was hampered by many scruples. His cousin ibn Abbas who was admiring and supporting him so much until he was elected under those inauspicious circumstances to the caliphate was soon disillusioned and exasperated with Ali’s political naivety. Almost the first act of Ali as the ruler was instructing ibn Abbas to go to Damascus and replace Muawiya as the governor. Ibn Abbas could not believe his ears. “What? You can be sure that the moment I set foot in Syria with your orders to replace Muawiya he will just arrest and put me in prison! The man is long established there as a king and the last thing he will do is to entertain fools” or words to the same effect. Over time even some cousins of Ali defected to Muawiya from under his nose because Muawiya was a better if less scrupulous paymaster than the too pious and just and spiritual Ali!
For about a century the Umayyad dynasty proved invincible; all attempt on the parts of Alids to displace them came to a bloody and tragic end for Alids. When the Alid’s gunpowder was exhausted it was time for the Abbasids (ibn Abbas’s clan) to try their hand and they succeeded. That was because they were as good businessmen as the Umayyads and their delay on the scene was due to the foredoomed yet emotionally invincible ascendancy of the Alid feelings. His admirers and votaries almost worshipped Ali and his sons but were also penetrated and manipulated by swarms of foolish fanatics and hypocritical self-seekers. The sons of Ali could not control such a rabble of squabbling supporters and gradually lost heart and withdrew from the political arena. The clan of Abbas then found the chance and the hope to deal with the Umayyad the same way they had dealt with the Alids. They resorted first to clandestine indoctrination, espionage and militant organisation. Their thesis was: Umayyads had usurped the caliphate unjustly and were retaining it by trickery and brutality. It was time Muslims rushed under the banner of the House of the Prophet (sws) (Ahl al Bait) and topple the impious usurpers.
This was exactly the Alid position but this time the difference was that it was not any son of Ali who was leading the movement but a member of the rival Abbasid clan, namely a certain Muhammad ibn Ali al Abbasi who was not a descendant of Fatima the daughter of the Prophet or at least of Ali only but one fully of the Abbasi clan who spread his name as Rida from the House of Muhammad the Prophet (sws), a false claim to begin with. He sent out his secretly recruited and trained emissaries all over the place and recruited more and more sympathisers and agents until the whole Islamic lands had their share of the branches of the political movement masquerading as religious revivalist. The movement found its most solid support in Persia and its ranks swelled so much and propaganda was so effective that it eventually succeeded. Umayyads were deposed and destroyed almost to the last prince and notable and the House of Abbas took over the empire of Islam. Although they remedied some of the injustices of the Umayyads they singularly refused to instal Alids to power but kept it to themselves. In anything they persecuted any Alid’s actually or potentially posing a danger to their rule and theirs was in fact a milder repetition of the Umayyad regime now run from Baghdad instead of Damascus.
Before them was an earlier the religious business enterprise rivalling the Umayad. It was founded by the some erstwhile votaries of Ali who had defected from his camp when Ali had consented to and deposed by the arbitrators after the inconclusive battle of Siffin. Charging Ali with blasphemy as well as all else including the Umayyads they were since clandestinely recruiting, brainwashing and deploying assassins to kill all and sundry they saw fit on top of engaging in full scale battle with any Islamic rival group outside themselves which included both Alids, the Umayyads and now the Abbasids. Since then conspiratorial Islamic business entrepreneurs have never been wanting all over the Islamic lands and today we still have more than enough of them.
There is no doubt that all political regimes in all Muslim countries suffer from various degrees of inadequacies and corruption but what government East or West doesn’t. Human nature being what it is neither any persons nor any societies can be perfect even when we can agree on what perfection in such cases mean (which we can’t). Surely the Prophet’s own Medina society was not perfect; it housed many hypocrites and each and every sincere Muslim had their own personal imperfections except the Messenger of Allah whose any human imperfections were not within the field of piety and morality. In faith and moral qualities he was the human perfection, in judgment and wisdom likewise he had no peer. But that he was not knowledgeable in jewellery or carpet making or farming did not matter at all. He was created and sent as the Messenger of Allah (sws) and as far as that was concerned he was perfection itself and that was enough. But no such man has ever come after him and it is unlikely that anybody like him ever comes.
This being so, we must be tolerant of people running government and other jobs and not accuse them too readily with incompetence and corruption. Time and again history showed that governments who replaced others rarely did better in the long run than whom they replaced except that in the short term some gave the impression that they were doing better. Worldly power is very tempting and corrupting and if a saints who is thought to be incorruptible comes to rule a country he will either eventually become less incorruptible or be overthrown by conspirators who cannot wait for their turn to plunder the state funds and enjoy their totalitarian fantasies.
So what make some religious groups pursue national and at times even global aims and as a result move conspiratorially and clandestinely to subvert their national government, prepare cadres to take over and sometimes also armed fighters to force the change of government they are desiring? All historical evidence and tangible results are showing that power corrupts almost everybody and every organised power group and both bloody infighting and ‘outfighting’ eventually erupt. The first victim of the Abbasid revolution was none other than its fighter force’s brilliant commander Abu Muslim who was instrumental in the Abbasid takeover. That was not the last act of brutality by the new Abbasid regime; they continued to assassinate any and everybody whom they perceived as posing a threat to their throne. The victims status like being a saintly grandson of the Prophet or piety and even loyalty did not matter; the Abbasid state machine did not take risks and despatched anybody who they thought should better be eliminated to be on the safe side.
All government including today’s most ‘democratic and law-abiding work like that: each have their secret services which will stop at nothing at eliminating any possible threat to their rule as they see it without reference to any legal process. Certainly the brutal acts is sometimes justified: ours is not an ideal world but a complicated one and at times we feel we have to act for the sake a higher good to eliminate an evil and even an innocent lesser good. But dirty our hands we sometimes have to and personally that is why I never warmed up to politics despite my great desire to help reform the society by excellent government. They won’t let one much.
But many religious people are too interested in shaping things and controlling others, in other words playing God. Whatever their level of knowledge and apparent piety they cannot help wanting to control others, convert them to their world-view with a view to being their ruler and seeing that those already in power will not like or tolerate their rival ambitions and seem to holding all the cards they fell they have to resort to patient and well-organised conspiracy. The best known and longest standing modern conspiracy of this kind is the Freemasonry followed by religious brotherhoods each of which come under a charismatic leader and a cadre of his lieutenants organised hierarchically. In the West Moonies and the Scientiologists head the list of religious conspiratorial brotherhoods and are long established as behind the scenes and manipulators of politics. In the Islamic world Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey head the politico-religious vast national groupings while Iran has already achieved an openly Islamic dominated government with a Shia ideology. How long it will last is a moot point but like all too religious governments it is unlikely that it becomes permanent.
Turkey’s is the most cautious if no less ambitious Islamic political movement. Because the Turkish system is strictly secular and supported by a long established secular lobby with a mighty military secular mindset and tangible power behind it politically ambitious religious groups must move with great concealment and caution. All the same infiltrators and informers are everywhere and so far each religio-political group gained only limited success in politics. When a religiously-minded government looked to close to re-Islamise the country or too dangerously playing the tunes of the religious public the military moved in and restored secularism. But neither the military and their civilian allies could be successful enough in their determination to keep religion out of public domain, especially in legislation. The two sworn enemy camps are playing a game of seesaw; now one side rises and sends the other down, then the other. That is because their public support is roughly equal. Although Turkey boasts of being a nation 99% Muslim the actual proportion of seriously believing and practicing Muslims is far less than half of the total population. Alcohol is very much consumed, impious acts and pastimes are rampant and in any case the ‘Muslims’ are not all of the same persuasion.
There is a large Alawi minority for example which is very happy with the secular system. No love is lost between the Sunnis and the Alawis while the Sunnis for their part are too divided among themselves, even those boasting of Sufi credentials. It is this last Sufi section of the Turkish society which is the politically most active however and also most divided. Isn’t Sufism about love of Allah, commitment to social unity and solidarity and otherworldliness? Nothing of the sort the Turkish Sufi brotherhoods entertain. Each group is boastful of its spiritual credentials, elitist and eclusivist, equally conspiratorial and nationally as well as internationally organised, fabulously rich and vociferously self-promoting. Each is run either by an unashamed dynasty or a closely-knit clique around a leader whose mouthpieces and enforcers of decrees they act as. All aim at political power following a long-haul conspiratorial recruitment and fund-raising and indoctrination. Some have a string of elitists schools across the five continents while other more concentrate on Turkey itself with a view to gain at least a higher representation in politics and other crucial Turkish institutions like the army, the judiciary and the academia.
Although such aims seem pious at a superficial away something gives away the game summarily: the utter lack of unity and the sheer size of the jealousy and rivalry between them. The sign that a religious-looking movement is not God- but world-oriented is its reluctance to unite and make one common cause and form one integrated structure with its rivals. Each group is cock-sure of its absolute correctness and superiority and cannot contemplate for a moment to compromise with others in order to form a seamless united organisation.
That is not the only woe of these groups. Their idea of Islam is also wholly out of date and they cannot update themselves. Their discourses consists of modernised parroting repetitions of classical rulings dating from the first few centuries of Islam and as a result while they may have no answers to modern problems they are only too happy to repeat rulings on matters long extinct among the Muslim society. For example a list if what does and does not annul a fast cites acts like eating clay one is habituated to (who on earth eats clay now?) while modern acts like a medical injection or inhalation (like in asthma) may go unmentioned. Lastly, each group has its distinctive way of dress and grooming and even their prayer times may not agree. The only thing in which they are the same is their dogmatism, arrogant pride and fabulous wealth. No wonder they are getting nowhere except more brainwashed slavish recruits and more income handled more secretively.
To their credit however the Turkish religious conspiratorial groups hardly dabble in acts of terror and that cannot be said about their rivals in other countries. With peaceful means each is creating a lot of good in a qualified and sectarian sense and among the good may be quoted their educational achievements and relief of poverty.
May Allah guide all to a more Godly and unitive path and crown their efforts with a united front entirely producing more healthy happiness for more people until one day their common nation, be it Pakistani, Egyptian or Turkish (and all others) can both modernise socially and technically and Islamise fully spiritually with no acts of conspiracy or terror contaminating their record. Amen.
SATAN’S LAST RESORT- HIS ULTIMATE (SUPPOSED) SUBVERSION OF ALLLAH’S WILL
Allah the Most High wants us His servants attain utmost happiness by attaining His Face (Wajhuhu). Since Allah is not like us with a body and body parts His Face does not mean something like the human face, but the term ‘face’ is used metaphorically and means ‘approval, pleasure and loving friendship’. This is so sure that it can be applied even to human situations. When the brothers of Joseph AS were planning, under the influence of the Satan, to get rid of Joseph AS they explained their reasons thus: advising each other they said “Kill Joseph or throw him to some far place so that your father’s Face is confined to yourselves. You then repent and become good persons” (12: 9). How clever isn’t it? You commit any crime to get a bigger share from this world and notwithstanding the mortal injustice done to your innocent victims you just babble the words of repentance and lo and behold you become a saint! From where such brilliantly clever advice come? Why, surely from none other than the Satan.
What did the brothers of Joseph intend by stooping to this lowly atrocity? Why, they intended to frustrate Allah’s Will to the effect that Joseph was Allah’s elect to whom all his family had to bow just like Adam was Allah’s elect and all the then existent family of heavenly beings had to bow to Adam. Just as Iblis Satan resented, rejected and refused this command of Allah the brothers of Joseph resented the election of Joseph and rather than one day bowing to him they planned to eliminate him and force their father to turn his favours to themselves. Their teacher Iblis was similarly coveting the position of Adam as Allah’s deputy and to get his way had planned to ‘prove’ to Allah that He had made a wrong and bad choice. Surely Allah knew better and won and will always win. The only thing is that He is not in a hurry, He has all the creation under His thumb and all the time up His sleeve and will teach the lessons every person needs in His Own Good Time. For a while He appears to be losing but that is His Divine Trick (kayd al Ilahi) which makes Allah’s victories all the more impressive. He created not one but two worlds, the later world is infinitely better than the earlier world and that is where people following the Satan make their big mistake: they mistake their worldly victories against Allah’s elect as final and bask in their boasts and dirty worldly satisfactions.
The Satan, as the master and archetype of all worldly ambitious treacherous sinners could not explain himself better:
“Because You (o Allah) frustrated and enraged me I am vowing I shall be sitting on Your Path and then coming from their fronts and from their backs and from their rightsides and from their leftsides as a result of which You shall find most of them ungrateful (to You for Your wrong preference” (7: 16- 17)
“Sitting on Allah’s Path” for the Satan can only mean sitting in ambush or under disguise on the path of a man and trying to divert the man walking towards his Lord from the Path of his Lord. The Satan will assume any disguise and resort to any lie and trick to poison the man’s heart and mislead his thoughts and acts. This must be plain enough. But there is an even deeper and more direct aspect to this: Why not the Satan play or pretend to be a prophet, a saint, a religious savant and hit the man hardest as a result? This is conquering the castle from the inside and this is the preferred method of the Satan in his business of misleading and destroying both men of religion and those less bright and less learned persons following them. How?
We learn from the Holy Qur’an that very many men of religion, that is to say men who appear to be natural resorts for people seeking religious guidance, are especially targeted by the Satan who deceives them by a thousand tricks and temptations and employs them as his lieutenants and agents, often unbeknown to them. Only the most sincere among Allah’s religious servants can notice such activities of the Satan and steer clear of the Satan’s fold. Read if you wish Allah’s response to Iblis: “Indeed as regards My sincere servants you have no influence and authority on them whatsoever. Only those worldly too ambitious will follow you” (15: 42). Here we are! We have all the answers: The only reason why some people play the game of the Satan is because they love this temporary world too much and are prepared to pay any sinful price they think they can get away with to gain their lustful and greedy objectives in this world. Only sincere faith in and worship of Allah can block this self-degradation- therefore the Satan, when faced with religious people (who are not too many) tries either to corrode and evaporate their faith or contaminate their acts of worship with hypocrisy or both. And what better victims for this latter, i.e., religious case than trap the very scholars of religion as well as the very practitioners of asceticism.
Allah calls the scholars ‘al ahbar’ and the ascetics as ‘al ruhban’ and about them He says:
“O believers (in Islam), no doubt the (jewish) religious scholars and (Christian) ascetics (monkish priests) consume the wealth of people on many false pretexts and block the Path to Allah. Those who hoard the gold and the silver and do not spend them in the Way of Allah! Give them the good-news that for them is a painful punishment. These (gold and silver pieces) shall be heated in hellfire and their foreheads, their flanks and their backs shall be branded with them: this is what you used to hoard for yourselves- taste ye what you used to hoard” (9: 34- 35)
Because in this verse Allah is addressing us the Islamic believers he is implying that some of our religious scholars and ascetics may also be similarly abused and employed by the Satan and our history demonstrates and proves nothing less. We have even had several false prophets some of whom succeeded to some not insignificant degree. Such false prophets flourished and became a headache as early as the last years of our Prophet Muhammad sws and only after his demise could Muslims, under Abu Bakr RA could put these frauds down. More recently we have had two ‘prophets’ since about two centuries each enjoying about some ten million tax-paying subjects and presenting themselves as successors to Muhammad sws and boasting of the persecution they initially suffered in the hands of true Muslims remaining true to Muhammad sws as the Last and Final Messenger of Allah!
But not all self-seeking fake religious leaders dared to claim prophethood. Overspecifying the genuinely Islamic term ‘wali’ which means a ‘friend’ (of Allah) they raised it to a non-Qur’anic concept of some specific pious person whose status is only next to the Prophet sws and that is formally. Some even dared to compare ‘wilaya’ (state or rank of being a wali) to ‘nubuwwa’ (state and rank of being a prophet of Allah) and found wilaya a higher rank! They conveniently forget that nubuwwa necessarily includes wilaya while wilayya does very very rarely include nubuwwa and after Muhammad sws it never does and did and can. They also forget that Allah calls all His believers His ‘awliya’ (friends, awliya being the plural of wali) and never in His All-inclusive Qur’an did He All-Knowing define and prescribe a class or rank of believers who, apart from the rest He Almighty calls His awliya. The term ‘wali’ simply and fully applies to all sincere and practicing believers whom Allah calls ‘al salihoon’ (the good). It is a mutual relationship and not one-sided: Allah is the wali of the believers and the believers are the awliya of Allah. Read if you wish the verse where Allah makes His Prophet sws declare:
“Indeed my friend (waliyyi) is Allah Who sent down the Book and He befriends the salihoon (the good)” (7: 196)
Still we have one string of terms to consider: Allah says: “Whoever obeys Allah and the Messenger- they are together with whom Allah favoured: the prophets (al nabiyyin), the sincerely faithful (al siddiqeen), the martyrs (al shuhada) and the good (al saliheen). What excellent companions are they! (3; 69).
The usual commentary is that these four terms, namely nabi, siddiq, shahid and salih are separate grades of Islamic spiritual rank and in the case of nabi this is fully valid. But in the case of the rest, namely siddiq, shahid and salih they really overlap. A siddiq is prepared to die for Allah and whether he attains that or not he remains very dear to Allah. A shahid is not a true shahid unless he fought only for Allah’s Sake and for no other objective which fact makes him a siddiq (sincere) servant and a good believer is good because he has both sincerity and is prepared to die for Allah if it comes to that. All these qualifications are aspects of being the friends of Allah and to confirm this Allah speaks only too plainly:
“Allah is the Friend of those who believe: He takes them out of darkness into light” (2: 257). Full stop! We must remember that we cannot become friends of Allah unless Allah is our Friend; the handing down of favours is always one way from Him! Why are we remembering and reminding this? It is because we need humility; fantastic and bombastic claims are incompatible with Islamic faith. Allah the Most high warns any claimants to great personal powers:
“Never think (o Muhammad sws) that those who boast of what they did and love to be praised for things they never did will be escaping punishment; on the contrary for them is a grievous punishment” (3: 188)
The trouble with the over-inflated concept of ‘wilaya’ (unnecessarily and un-Qur’anically identical with the Christian concept of sainthood) is that it goes completely against the grain of Islam’s genuine matrix and essence as reflected by Allah’s Book and His Messenger’s most reliably reported and preserved Sunna: This Islamic ethos is totally based on praising Allah to infinite extents while inspiring humility, anxiety and fear in Allah’s servants which emotions become bearable by being more than balanced by hoping for Allah’s Mercy. Notwithstanding this we find in a lot of wilaya lore atrocious claims and boastfulness infusing sayings and stories; some analyse Allah as if He is a chemical substance or physical system and pontificate about Allah’s Nature and and then imply their or their heroes’ sharing in Allah’s powers until the distinction between Allah and the ‘saint’ disappears, at the worst cases disappearing in favour of the ‘saint’. One pontificates “Allah is none other than the saint himself, for He says ‘Allah IS the wali and He guides on to the right path” (). As a result it is enough for a saint to gaze at some unbeliever and convert him instantly into a believer. Not only this verse is obviously misinterpreted but its conclusions fly in the face of verses like “You (o Muhammad- certainly the greatest friend/wali of Allah) cannot guide whom you love but Allah can guide whom He will” ().
Unfortunately for such self-styled, megalomaniac ‘saints’ no amount of correct Qur’anic quotations have any authority against their personal beliefs and claims: by all standards of psychiatry theirs is a form of euphoric delusion perfectly reproducible by psychedelic drugs like cannabis, opium, mescalin etc. Theirs is an excessive asceticism and too ambitious wishful thinking-induced self-poisoning and like all mad people they can never suspect let alone accept that they are mad. Unknowingly they prove to knowledgeable observers that they are mad by their insistence that what matters is their experiences and not even what the Qur’an says!
Despite this grave discrepancy between what Allah revealed in His Book and what these partially deranged persons claim to be revealed to themselves by Allah some of these persons otherwise display decent and charitable behaviour as expected from best Muslims. It is on this basis that ulema and more sober Sufi masters excuse them on the basis what the law calls ‘diminished responsibility’; after all it is not uncommon for many mentally deranged people to display quite sweet attitudes and behaviours- not all mildly madmen need be locked up or even treated medically. We must remember also that Allah is even more tolerant and merciful as well as more loving than us towards His servants and so long a drunken saint conducts himself according the Shariah his drunken words can kindly be indulged seeing that he is innocently ill. He cannot be argued with but he can be helped by pointing out to the others than the man is partially beside himself and must be excused on compassionate grounds. Only when signs of Satanic possession appear they need be restrained and only when they commit legal crimes like murdering someone they need be confined to a safe space like a psychiatric hospital. After all the society cannot be the play ground of madmen however well-meaning or mentally innocent they may be.
Aftre this digression we may go to the subject of deliberately evil usurpers of Divine or prophetic prerogatives. Here also some madness factor may play a role but far more often the case is one of spiritual pretension and pious fraud often for commercial and sensual reasons.
It is the case that in all religious popular (not scripturally supported) traditions some figures are described in divine or almost divine format and to them are ascribed powers and feats only Allah should be entitled to; yes, some extraordinary knowledge and powers may be and have been granted to some servants of Allah but these never amounted to any total or absolute discretions on the part of the favoured recipients- they have been always partial, often occasional and never on a Cosmic level like moving the heavens or the earth or killing with one signal all the living or raising all the dead with one signal. Yet some have been known to claim such powers and when there was a vacuum and an opportunity these some declared themselves as gods or even ‘the God’ or were declared by their partisans as a god or ‘the God’! We can be assured that this very day there are hundreds of ‘gods’ all over the world claiming any amount and degree of cosmic powers and as a result being worshipped by gullible masses numbering from in tens of thousands to many millions. They lavish on their god fabulous gifts of wealth, unquestioning obedience which at times leads to criminal or stupid excesses as well and even in some cases sexual licence and favours and gratefully so! Some are caught out and destroyed, some maintain their fame a nd prosperity for generations and unfortunately some of these madmen or frauds arise from among Muslims.
There is one thing very common among all religious groups based on fraud and exploitation: they work like governmental and commercial projects. The leader, and if he has one, his family become a dynasty and the believers in the leader become his tax-paying obedient subjects. As and when knowledgeable and brainy fellows join in they are employed to expand, empower and enrich the unofficial government of the leadership. As the group get more numerous, richer and more sophisticated it begins to parallel and at times rival the political legal government and since we have two governments now these two begin relate to each other sometimes as rivals, sometimes as allies depending on their respective evaluations of their needs and prospects. Both the political and the spiritual government can behave imperialistically; while the political government engages in espionage, warfare and diplomacy to add to the lands and populations it can control and exploit for profit so can the spiritual government.
All history except mainstream Islam’s (not Shia) depicts to us a rival and parallel church government alongside a political one in all developed, urbanised societies from the Sumerian, Egyptian and Babylonian downward. The government parallel to the political government was the temple or the priesthood; its last and enduring example is the papacy which in fact is not only a government but unashamedly a state also: Vatican has its ambassadors and embassies, its diplomatic relations and even empire- through its worldwide bishoprics it collects taxes from its subjects and legislates for them although its legislations are not as enforceable as those of its rivals the political governments. Less powerful than the Catholic Church are other main Christian churches like the Protestant and the Greek Orthodox. Although none of these priestly governments can usually over-rule the political, as we go back in time their power and influence become stronger. Both in Egypt and Babylonia some kings were brought down by the priesthood. Pharaoh Akhenaton was removed from power by poisoining by conspiring priesthood because he had abolished polytheism and idolatry in Egypt. The Catholic Church has its own past victories over some kings; the power of organised superstition is sometimes more effective in winning political aims than the armed forces of kings. Lastly, in the later times of the Ottoman Empire the corrupt Janissary army staged several revolts and coups and forced sheikh-ul-Islams (grand muftis) to issue rulings to depose and sometimes also execute the sultans.
In our times unofficial religious groups are called cults although such unofficial groups have been known since oldest times and competed for the hearts, minds and also the taxes of the faithful.
All these show that voluntarily set up religious groupings distinguishing themselves from the mainstream believers pose a lot of problems. Islam experienced all levels of problems as a result of such self-styled elitist groupings which often (not every time) came under the name of ‘tariqats’. Tariqats which purely aimed at improving the piety of their members through reputable Islamic and social education did an excellent job while other tariqats and political party-like groupings performed less laudable services. Mainstream Naqshibandis, Qadiris, Shadhalis, Chistis, Maulawis etc are among the beneficial voluntary pious associations while many others in the past and many upstarts in the present age cast a darker shadow. In a lot of these there is a secret political agenda as a consequence of which taxing the members and encouraging large donations from the richer members go hand in hand with large building and indoctrination projects, sometimes on a massive international scale. In certain cases their aim is grabbing the national government by infiltration and then to impose their version of Islam which serves as a cover to legitimise the group’s crass political ambitions. The phenomenon is not entirely new though. In the past the Shia, especially the extremists of the camp founded secretive revolutionary brotherhoods which in due time rose against the government of the day took place as a result of which brutal bloodshed and at times indiscriminate slaughter for terror’s sake. This habit survives today in many a modern Islamic Jehad claiming illegal groups.
In between the beneficent, law-abiding and reputable tariqats and these revolutionary quasi religious and fully political movements lie a grey area of undecided groupings sharing some aims of both sides of this spectrum of three types of groupings.
As regards the subversion of these three types of groupings by the Satan we can note that the seriousness of Satanic subversion increases in that order: Least in reputable, beneficent tariqats which stick to a totally non-political agenda, more in confused groupings which are undecided between a purely pious agenda and a brazenly religio-political one and most in the brazenly political-conspiratorial groups which sometimes also employ violence.
In reputable tariqats the Satan can only hope to incite some impressionable members to plot for any of the following four things: one, for ascendancy in the consideration of the leader (called a ‘sheikh) for which reason the plotter will not shirk from using lies and slanders about those he consider rivals, two, receiving the largest possible share of money from the donations to and collections by the tariqat; and three plain corruption that often involves embezzlement on the part of some greedy members employed by the tariqat and it happens in the course of counting and handling of the collections, purchases and granting and execution of projects like building, catering, travel etc (and here a lot of jealous accusations and counter-accusations as well as feathers fly about and reporting to the authorities and litigations at courts come), and four, crass and gross criminal plots and coups may be attempted which sometimes end in injury to or even murder of some envied or economically rival member.
One very instructive historical example has been the assassination of Shams al Tabrizi, the incomparably favoured companion of Sheikh Jalaluddin Rumi; in his assassination the illustrious sheikh’s own son was implicated! We also have an example from the Qur’an: Joseph son of prophet Jacob was eliminated from the scene by his brothers similarly sons of the same prophet because they feared that he would be the future leader of their family and tribe in both worldly and spiritual capacity. Obviously it is no bar to the success of Satan at subverting men his victims being the sons of prophets or saints. Basically only prophets are almost totally secure from his manipulation- he may briefly and insignificantly disturb them like a mosquito would disturb a man with an occasional but basically harmless bite. The Satan can never do harm to a prophet in the prophet’s prophetic capacity or by way of making him committing a shameful act; prophets are innocent of any errors in spirituality and piety.
The opportunities for and roles of the Satan in the temptation of religious group members and the consequent subversion of the religious people in general are legion. It is entirely to the subversions of the Satan that many religions lost their original nature and purpose- Jews, Christians and Muslims have been subverted by the Satan until many divisions and strife rose among them and have been troubling them since. The Satan success can be explained by one and only one thing: failure of men fallen by him to curb their egos. Read if you wish:
“When the affair (of Last Judgment) is settled the Satan says (to those who ended up in Hell) ‘Indeed Allah had promised you the true promise while I also made a promise to you by which I deceived you. In fact I had no power whatsoever over you- I just called you and you just came to me. Therefore do not blame me but your egos” (14: 22).
Can there then be any doubt whatsoever that every sin is committed because of the desires of the human ego and the Satan is no more then a powerless tempter? What do we want, Allah assures us that this is the case and His sincere servants are immune to the Satan’s call:
“(O Satan), indeed on My servants thou hast no authority whatsoever” (10: 42) and the Satan admits as much “I will mislead all of them except Thy sincere servants” (15: 40)
The Messenger of Allah sws informs us “The enemy of enemies is your ego between the two sides of your ribs”.
We must therefore know and admit that we fall and fail in moral matters just because we have been unable to tame our egos and for no other reason whatsoever. Muslims are no less fallible than non-Muslims in moral matters so long as they remain at the (non-existent) mercy of their egos and the ego’s adviser and prompter Satan will miss no opportunity to hunt and cut us down morally all the way to most shameful acts and spiritually all the way to the bottom pit of blasphemy. We take refuge in Allah from all such outcomes.