12.
RELIGION AND BLASPHEMY (1)
Allah says addressing the whole
mankind, as follows:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ ذَكَرٍ
وَأُنْثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ
عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ (الحجرات:13)
O mankind! We have created you from a male
and a female, and made you into nations and tribes
that you may know one another. Verily, the most
honorable of you with
Allah is that (believer)
who has the most pious (Q. 49:13)
The Qur’ān commentator Mujāhid said that the
Arabs in the past knew each other by knowing their names, their parents’ names
and the names of the tribes to which they belonged. Sufyān al-Thawrī said that
the Ḥimyar people who resided in Yemen dealt with each other according to their
provinces, while the Arabs in Ḥijāz (Western Arabia) dealt with each other
according to their tribes. As every tribe has its own tribal language it is
estimated that up to 7,000 different languages are spoken around the world, and
about 90% of them are spoken by less than 100,000 people.
Knowing one another implies
learning from each other’s characteristics, traditions, cultures and religions.
The concept of religion is constituted
of three factors, namely, God, Universe and Man. These have connection with the
concept of salvation. Hence, former President to World
Federation of Islamic Mission and Islamic Centre in Karachi, Muhammad
Fazl-ur-Rahman Ansari in his lecture at
the Tokyo mosque in 1960 divided the world religions into two categories: (1)
Religions of Salvation, and (2) Religions of Fulfilment.
Religions of Salvations are generally all religions
with the exception of Islam, which belongs to Religion of Fulfilment. Religions
of Salvation are divided into two categories:
a. those
whose concept of salvation is linear, namely, the advance of human life is
linear, passing through the gateway of death, to continue beyond the grave,
until it reaches heaven or hell. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity
belong to this category.
b. those
whose concept of salvation is cyclic, namely, the continuous transmigration of
souls in cycle upon cycle until it reaches heaven (Moksha in Hinduism,
and Nirvana in Buddhism). Hinduism and Buddhism belong to this category.
On the other hand,
the concept of fulfilment in Islam is that the world is essentially good, God
is Absolutely Good, and all His actions are good, human personality are good
and social relations are also good. All human beings are born sinless which is
contradictory to Christian teachings that all human beings are born in sin
inherited from Adam and Eve. A person who
inherits any kind of defect or sickness is not a kind of condemnation, but a
test, he has to find a cure for it, and to be patient with it, and Allah would
reward him for his patience.
Allah has given human beings with certain
facilities and powers to be used in its utmost for their own prosperity and
welfare in this earthly life. This is also a kind of devotion besides
performing the five-daily prayers, fasting in Ramadan, etc. Allah has created the
whole contents of the earth for them (Q. 2:29), and neglecting them is therefore,
renunciation of worldly life is not the teaching of Islam.
Hinduism in the strict sense of the
word is more of a social order than a religion. A Hindu can be a person who believes
in one God, three gods, millions of gods, or even no god. It is said that it is
the most undefinable religion in the world, as it is actually the story of the
race of Aryans of Central Asia. When they conquered the northern plains of
India they brought with them certain beliefs of nature-worship and certain
principles of social organization, and at the same time they absorbed the
beliefs and social habits of their subjects. Their beliefs mixed together, and
conflicting beliefs and mutually fighting gods and goddesses were tolerated and
accommodated. Therefore, Hinduism is a number of religious systems, and the
only common doctrines are of the karma and transmigration of the soul.
Hinduism is for the Indians, like Judaism for the Jews.
Both are religions of their respective races. Unlike Islam and Christianity
which are missionary religions, Hinduism does not believe in conversion to
Hinduism. If a Hindu is born he is bound to racial and caste-system. He is born
either as a Brahmin (the highest caste), a Kshatriya, a Vaishya, or a Sudra,
and he cannot change his caste, no matter how great his achievement is in life.
A Brahmin remains holy, and the Sudra remains unholy, and this remains
unchangeable. Like in Judaism where a
non-Jewish is considered inferior, a non-Hindu is also considered inferior in
Hinduism.
The
word karma is originally from the Sanskrit word karman, meaning
“action, effect, and fate.” Karma in Hinduism as well as in Buddhism is (1)
“the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed
as deciding their fate in future existences.” It is also (2) “action, seen as
bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or
in a reincarnation; in Hinduism it is one of the means of reaching Brahman.” It
is also (3) “intentional ‘action’; the workings of cause and effect, whereby
virtuous actions lead to happiness and non-virtuous actions lead to suffering.”
In Theosophy[1] karma
is “the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or
punished in one incarnation according to that person's deeds in the previous
incarnation.” It is the rule of cause and effect: “As you sow, so you reap”
(Galatians, 6:7). Salvation in Hinduism is cyclic, namely, in order to attain
to Salvation the human being must undergo cycles upon cycles of rebirth. If a
person commits more vices than virtues in this life, he will be born again in
this world in a lower caste, or even in a lower category of existence, such as
animals and insects. This is a kind of punishment, until he breaks the cycles
of rebirth and enters the heaven (Moksha).
In rejecting these
views of karma and transmigration of the soul F.R. Ansari mentions three
arguments, as follows:
1. It
is necessary that every man has to have a complete picture of his previous life
in order to realize his suffering or benefiting on any occasion in this life,
but this does not happen. Therefore, the purpose of his rebirth would not be
acceptable. In other words, it is like a man is being punished without knowing
his mistake.
2. Like
an immature seed, we do not bring it back and paste it to its tree, but rather
we select the mature seed to grow a better tree. Similarly, a person who is not
pure or mature enough to achieve Salvation, should not be brought back to be
pasted in the earthly life, but rather he should be provided with conditions
whereby his impurity and immaturity may be put right, so that he might proceed
to the path of evolution.
3. Evolution
is an established law of the human personality and the universe which is always
linear, whereas transmigration of the souls is cyclic, and therefore it is
unacceptable.
Buddhism was born in India as a revolt against
some principles and institutions of
Hinduism, especially against caste-system and holding the idea of the
impersonal concept of God or of non-existent of God. The doctrines of Karma and
Awa Gawan were retained. No wonder that some scholars who incline to regard
Buddhism as one of many sects of Hinduism.
The founder of Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama, a Hindu prince who left
his house in search of solution for the human sufferings. After years of
contemplation and meditation he attained Buddhahood, namely, Enlightenment,
under a bodhi tree at Buddh-Gaya in the province of Bihar, India. He found the
solution to conquer suffering, namely, to negate all desires. The world in
unreal, like an illusion, a trap, and the wise person (Buddhist) has to cut off
all his relations with the world. His life should be a roaming beggar who has
no home, and no worldly duty. Even Gautama himself when he returned to his
naïve place he did not visit his wife.
The concept of Buddhism that everything is like an illusion means
that it appeared to exist in one way, but actually it exists in another way. It
is like the optical illusion where a line can look longer than another line,
but actually is shorter. Another example is that the ocean consists of a series
of separate waves that come and go. But if we look beneath the surface, we
shall find that the ocean is vaster and more mysterious than what we initially
believed.
There are three main sects in
Buddhism: (a) the Mahayana was so called, because they were the majority Group
at the Council of Patna; it allows social relations as a natural and necessary
evil. (b) the Hinayana, the minority group, the most orthodox, the most loyal
to the spirit and the teaching of Buddha, and they believed in asceticism; and
(c) the Zen Buddhism was a new version of Buddhist philosophy which permits and
promotes militarist aspirations among militarist Japanese.
The doctrine of transmigration
of souls or incarnation has no solid foundation in human experience. Many
people believe in some form of reincarnation. Testimony of people who claim to
recall people, places, things and events from what they believe could be their
past lives. Under hypnosis many people recall the detail of their previous
lives.
Stephen Wagner, the paranormal
phenomena expert in his article The Mystery of Past Life Recall related this
story:
“In 1824, a
nine-year-old boy named Katsugoro, the son of a Japanese farmer, told his
sister that he believed he had a past life. According to his story, which is
one of the earliest cases of past life recall on record, the boy vividly
recalled that he had been the son of another farmer in another village and had
died from the effects of smallpox in 1810….”
Stephen Wagner’s commentary on
this story is this: “Past life recall is
one of the most fascinating areas of unexplained human phenomena. As yet,
science has been unable to prove or disprove its genuineness. Even many who
have investigated claims of past life recall are unsure whether it is an
historical recollection due to reincarnation or is a construction of
information somehow received by the subconscious. Either possibility is
remarkable. And like many areas of the paranormal, there is a propensity for
fraud that the serious investigator must watch out for. It's important to be
skeptical about such extraordinary claims, but the stories are nonetheless
intriguing.”
(CIVIC, 2 October, 2015)
المصادر:
المكتبة الشاملة
تفسير الطبري (ت. 310 هـ(
تفسير القرطبى (ت. 671
هـ)
تفسير ابن كثير (ت.
774 هـ(
Ansari, F.R. Which Religion. Karachi: The World
Federation of Islamic Missions, Islamic Centre, 1969
Landaw, Jonathan, & Bodian, Stephan. Buddhism
for Dummies. Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/guide/languages.shtml
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/karma
http://paranormal.about.com/od/reincarnation/a/The-Mystery-Of-Past-Life-Recall.htm
[1] Theosophy is any religious or philosophical system based
on intuitive insight into the nature of the divine, but especially that of the
Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel H.S Olcott.
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