Islam And Muslim

Islam is an Arabic Word which means peace, purity, acceptance and commitment . The religion of Islam is the complete acceptance of the teachingsand guidance of God ( Allah being his proper name ). i.e. surrender to the Will of God.
A Muslim is one who accepts freely and willingly the supreme power of God and strives for total reorganisation of his life according to revealed teachings of God. He also works towards the establishment of a just and equitable social order which would totally reflect the guidance of God.

Continuity of Message:

Islam is not a new religion. It is, in essence, the same message and guidance which God revealed to all His Prophets ( May his peace be upon them all ).
"Say. We believe in God and that which was revealed to us and that which was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and that which was given to Moses and Jesus and to the Prophets from their Lord: we make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we submit. ( Holy Qu'ran ).
The message which was revealed to Muhammad ( May the Peace and blessings of God be upon him ), the Last Prophet, is Islam in it's comprehensive, complete and final form.

The 5 Pillars of Islam:

Every action which is done with the awareness that it fulfils the will of God is considered an act of worship in Islam. Nevertheless, the specific acts of Worship, termed the pillars of Islam, provide the framework of spiritual life.

They are the Following:

1. Shahada ( The declaration of Faith )

"I bear witness that there is none worthy of Worship except God, and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger"
The Prophethood of Muhammad ( SAW ) obliges the Muslims to follow his exemplary life in every way.

2. Salah ( Prayers )

Prayers are prescribed five times a day as a duty towards God. They strengthen and enliven the belief in God and inspire man to a higher morality. They purify the heart and control temptation towards wrong doing and evil. It should be stressed that while Allah does not need our prayers we cannot survive without His blessings and guidance.
"O you who believe! Seek help with patient perseverance and prayer, for Allah is with those who patiently persevere". ( Holy Qu'ran )

3. Sawm ( Fasting )

Fasting is observed once each year during the month of Ramadan. This means abstention from food, drink and sexual intercourse from dawn to sunset, and also from all evil intentions and desires. It teaches Love, sincerity and devotion. It develops a sound social conscience, patience, unselfishness and willpower. When we fast by choice, God remembers our sufferings. He appreciates it all :)

4. Zakat ( Charity )

Zakat payment annually of 2.5% of ones net savings as a purifying sum to be spent on the poor and needy. Zakat implies that everything man possesses belongs to God and therefore anyone in need has a share in it.

5. Pilgrimage ( Hajj ) to the Holy City of Makkah:

Once in a lifetime provided one has the means to do so. Hajj implies Man's temporary suspension of all worldly activities and his realisation of himself as a naked soul in front of God alone.

Oneness of God:

Islam enjoins faith in the oneness and sovereignty of God, which makes man aware of the meaningfulness of the Universe and of his place in it. This belief frees him from all fears and superstitions by making him conscious of the presence of Almighty God and of man's obligations towards Him. Belief in One God requires that we look upon all humanity as one family irrespective of colour class, race, or territory, under the Omnipotence of God the Creator and Nourisher of all.
Islam rejects the idea of a chosen people, making faith in God and good action the only way to HEAVEN. Thus a direct relationship is established with God. Open to all alike, without any intercessor.

Man, The Free Agent:

Man is the highest creation of God and chooses his own way. Created with the highest potentialities, man is left relatively free in his will, action and choice. God has shown him the right path and the life of Prophet Muhammad ( SAW ) provides a perfect example. Man's success and salvation lies in following them. Islam teaches the sanctity of the human personality and confers equal rights upon all without any distinction of race or sex.
The Law of Allah, enunciated in the Qu'ran and exemplified in the life of the Prophet, is supreme in all cases. It applies equally to the highest and the lowest, the prince and the peasant, the ruler and the ruled.

Life After Death:

The world according to Islam, is a place of trial and man is being judged in it. Man is accountable to Allah for all that he does herein. Life on earthy will, one day, come to an end; and after that a new world will be resurrected. It will be in this Life after Death that man will be rewarded or punished for his deeds and misdeeds. God will judge man on the day of Judgement and send him either to Heaven, a stage of existence which leads to further blessings, or to Hell, a stage of suffering and punishment.

Qu'ran And Hadith:

The Qu'ran is the last revealed Word of God and as such affirms and completes the total process of revelation which has come from the Divine, for the Guidance of the Human race. The Qu'ran is the basic source of Islamic teachings and laws and deals with the bases of creeds, morality, history of humanity, worship, knowledge, wisdom, God-man relationship ( He is our Master, Creator, and Lord, we are his servants ), and human relationships in all aspects. Comprehensive teachings on which sound systems of social justice, economics, politics, legislation, jurisprudence, law and international relations can be built, are important contents of the Holy Qu'ran.
Muhammad ( SAW ) himself was an unlettered man who could not read or write. The Holy Qu'ran was revealed to him over a period of 23 years and committed to memory and writing by his followers under his supervision during his lifetime. The original and complete text of the Qu'ran is available to everybody in Arabic, the language in which it was revealed. Translations of the meaning into many languages are widely used.
Hadith, the teachings, sayings, and actions of the Holy Prophet Muhammad ( SAW ), meticulously reported and collected by his devoted companions, explain and elaborate the Qu'ranic verses.

Concept of Worship:

Islam does not teach or accept mere Ritualism. It emphasises intention and action. To worship God is to know Him and Love Him, to act upon His laws in every aspect of life, to enjoin goodness and forbid evil and oppression, to practice charity and justice and to serve Him by serving mankind. Islam seeks to implant in man's heart the strongest conviction that his every thought and action are with God, Who sees him at all times and in all places.

The Qu'ran presents this concept in the following sublime manner:

It is not righteousness that you turn your faces to the East or the West, but righteous is he who believes in God and the Last Day and the Angels and the Book and the Prophets; and gives his wealth for the love of Him to kinsfolk and to orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those who ask, and to set slaves free; and observes proper worship and pays the Zakat. And those who keep their treaty when they make one, and are patient in tribulation and adversity and time of stress. Such are those who are sincere. Such are the God fearing ( Holy Qu'ran )

Islamic Way of Life:

Islam provides definite guidelines for all people to follow in all walks of life. The guidance it gives is comprehensive and includes the social, economic, political, moral and spiritual aspects of life. The Qu'ran reminds man of the purpose of life on earth, and his duties and obligations towards himself, his kith and kin, his community, his fellow human beings and his Creator. Man is given fundamental guidelines about a purposeful life and then he is left with the challenge of human existence before him so that he might put these high ideals into practice. In Islam man is a wholesome, integrated unit and not a collection of fragmented, competitive parts. The sacred and secular are not separate parts of man; they are united in the nature of human being.

oric Perspective: Muhammad ( SAW ) was born in the year 570 A.C. in Makkah in Arabia. He came of a noble Arab family. As soon as he started preaching Islam, he and his followers were persecuted and had to face severe hardships. He was therefore commanded to migrate to Medina, another city in Arabia. During a short span of 23 years he was put to rest in the city of Medina. He left no wealth or property. He had lead a perfect life and set an example for all human beings. His Biography illustrates in real life, the meaning and implications of the Qu'ranic teachings.

m's Rational Appeal:

Islam is a simple, rational and practical religion. The unity of God, the Prophethood of Muhammad ( SAW ) and the concept of life after death are the basic articles of it's faith. There is no hierarchy of priests, no complicated rites, and rituals. Everybody may approach the Qu'ran directly and translate it's dictates into practice Islam stands for the middle path and the goal of producing a moral man in the service of a Just Society.
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Status of Women:

No discrimination is made on the basis of sex. But Islam makes one realise that the spheres of potential capabilities and hence responsibilities of men and women are equally important in themselves but not exactly the same. The roles of men and women are complementary to each other.

Marriage and Divorce:

Marriage is a very important and sacred bond of relationship between man and woman and a step towards a better purer and happier life. Islam gives both man and woman full right to divorce. Nevertheless divorce is discouraged and is allowed as the last resort.
Islam allows limited polygamy only as a remedy subject to certain conditions.

Jihad:

Jihad ( meaning Struggle ) consists in exerting oneself to the utmost in order to personally follow the teachings of Islam. A Muslim therefore, expends all the powers of body and soul, his wealth, possessions, and even life in the fight against the evil forces of the world, in order that injustice, oppression, and contumacy are annihilated and God's just order is established.
Therefore to struggle in the path of Allah with the pen; speech; and his sword is Jihad.
"What has happened to you ? why don't you fight in the way of God in support of men, women, and children, whom finding helpless, they have repressed; and who pray, "Oh God ! liberate us from this habitation which is ruled by Tyrants". ( Holy Qu'ran )
Islam has come to liberate man from the worship of man and establish the worship of God.

Islam - The Solution For Modern Problems

The BrotherHood of Man:

A major problem which modern man faces is that of racism. The materially advanced nations can send man to the moon but they cannot stop man from hating and fighting his fellow man. Islam, over the last 1400 years, has shown in practice how racism can be ended. Every year during the Hajj, the Islamic miracle of real brotherhood of all races and nations can be seen in action.

The Family:

The family which is the basic unit of civilisation is disintegrating in all western countries. Islam's family system brings into a fine equilibrium the rights of man, wife, children and relatives. Islam nourishes human unselfishness, generosity and love in a well organised family system.
Human beings live according to their view of life. The tragedy of secular societies is that they fail to connect the different aspects of life. The secular and the religious, the scientific and the spiritual seem to be in conflict. Islam puts an end to this conflict and brings harmony to man's vision of life.

Issue on Islamic Government

Let me start with this article by asking which is better:  a government that allows individuals unrestricted freedom to do whatever they please and enjoy or to live under umbrella of government that imposes a strict law and order?  Which would be better:  to let teachers, business and private sector to choose their way of doing things or to pass laws that require them admit and serve everyone, regardless their race and sex?

For many of us, none of these options are appropriate as it pose a difficult scenario of choices. But the legitimate question can be what do we mean by a government? What is the purpose of government? Academically, according to Dahl, Robert (1989) government can be defined as the legitimate use of force –including imprisonment and execution- within territorial boundaries to control human behavior. All governments require citizens to surrender some freedom in the process of being governed.  By doing so, the citizens in return will enjoy benefits that governments gives them. 

The purposes of the governments are firstly, to maintain order and secondly to provide public goods and finally to promote equality.  In his focus on the life, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) saw the government as the essential mechanism for survival, he argued that without rules, people would live like predators, stealing and killing for personal benefits.  Other theorists, likes of John Lock believed that government must morally and legally protect the “unalienable rights “of individuals such as life, Liberty and Property. According to Lock if the government cannot protect and guarantee these fundamental rights, it loses its legitimacy and therefore, any upraising against it morally is justifiable. Indeed, Lock’s theory inspired many in America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

The government can pursue other ends when it is a position to handle the fundamental order. It can provide a public goods such as education, health, road buildings etc. these public goods are all in beneficial to all citizens. The another purpose of the government is to ensure and promote the equality principle between the individuals by redistributing income, and implementing justice to all in order to improve quality of the life for whole people.

Ideology and the scope of the Islamic Government

 People hold different opinions about governmental policies, based on their beliefs and values. However, Islamic ideology of governing incorporates activities in the Universe with those of Here After (Akhiro). Islamic conservative of thought relates to the government’s role in every sector of the society including education, business, labor, sports. This school of thought regulates every aspect of individual behavior through wide range of Islamic jurisdiction. The proponents of this camp base their argument on that only ALLAH is the creator, sustainer, and master of the universe and of all that exists in it. He alone has the right to command or forbid.  Hence, we must act according to ALLAH’s teaching, furthermore, Allah alone is the Ruler and his commandments are the laws that govern our daily activities politically, economically, and legally independence of human being.  Similarly,  they point at concept of prophethood(RISALAH) which states that Mohamed( PBUH) is the messenger of Allah and the authoritative interpreter of his BOOK(The Qur’an) and it is him- the Prophet -who give us a model for the Islamic way of life by implementing the law and providing necessary details where required. Also, conservative school of Islamic thought developed the concept of Khalifah as the only legitimate political body.  The Khilafah concept does not recognize the boundaries between nations as the boundaries of morality. Therefore, according to this camp in respect to the Khalifah principle, boundaries are arbitrary determinant to the answer of morality question.

Modernists school of  Islamic thought, in contrast contend that Islam does not ban every thing and that Islamic ideology can be divided into two possible distinctions; one distinction is that of static provision such as Prayer, Fasting, Zakah, and going to Makah for Hajj.  This type of Cibaada (worship) is straight and immune from human being thinking. They are explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an and Sunna and they remain unchangeable.  The other distinction is that type of dynamic provision which encompasses all other aspects of the life.  And although this school of thought acknowledges the fact that all our activities must be shaped in way that does not contradict with the origins of Qur’an and Sunna, nevertheless, they argue that Islam gave us ample room for decision making in respect to many issues, particularly, when it comes to restructuring of social order.

Most of that debate between the two camps, however, is mainly concentrated on the interpretations of the Qu’ranic verses and the narrated Hadiths from the Prophet (PBUH). To this point our discussion of jurisdictional ideology has centered on conflicting views about how islamically a government   can be pursued?

Profile of A Terrorist

"You can call me anything you like. Call me a monster or a murderer. Just note that I don't hate Arabs. On the contrary. Personally, I am much more at ease with them, and especially with the Bedouin, than with Jews. Those Arabs we haven't yet spoilt are proud people, they are irrational, cruel and generous. It's the Yids that are all twisted. In order to straighten them out you have to first bend them sharply the other way. That, in brief, is my whole ideology.

"Call Israel by any name you like, call it a Judeo-Nazi state as does Leibowitz. Why not? Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint. I don't care whether I am like Ghadafi. I am not after the admiration of the gentiles. I don't need their love. I don't need to be loved by Jews like you either. I have to live, and I intend to ensure that my children will live as well. With or without the blessing of the Pope and the other religious leaders from the New York Times. I will destroy anyone who will raise a hand against my children, I will destroy him and his children, with or without our famous purity of arms. I don't care if he is Christian, Muslim, Jewish or pagan. History teaches us that he who won't kill will be killed by others. That is an iron law.  

"Even if you'll prove to me by mathematical means that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don't care. Moreover, even if you will prove to me that we have not achieved and will not achieve any of our aims in Lebanon, that we will neither create a friendly regime in Lebanon nor destroy the Syrians or even the PLO, even then I don't care. It was still worth it. Even if Galilee is shelled again by Katyushas in a year's time, I don't really care. We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough. And do you know why it is all worth it? Because it seems that this war has made us more unpopular among the so-called civilised world.

"We'll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish morality, the moral lessons of the holocaust or about the Jews who were supposed to have emerged from the gas chambers pure and virtuous. No more of that. The destruction of Eyn Hilwe (and it's a pity we did not wipe out that hornet's nest completely!), the healthy bombardment of Beirut and that tiny massacre (can you call 500 Arabs a massacre?) in their camps which we should have committed with our own delicate hands rather than let the Phalangists do it, all these good deeds finally killed the bullshit talk about a unique people and of being a light upon the nations. No more uniqueness and no more sweetness and light. Good riddance."

"I personally don't want to be any better than Khomeini or Brezhnev or Ghadafi or Assad or Mrs. Thatcher, or even Harry Truman who killed half a million Japanese with two fine bombs. I only want to be smarter than they are, quicker and more efficient, not better or more beautiful than they are. Tell me, do the baddies of this world have a bad time? If anyone tries to touch them, the evil men cut his hands and legs off. They hunt and catch whatever they feel like eating. They don't suffer from indigestion and are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the world will then at last begin to fear me instead of feeling sorry for me. Maybe they will start to tremble, to fear my madness instead of admiring my nobility. Thank god for that. Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered - just one! That we might go wild and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East! If anything would happen to your child, god forbid, you would talk like I do. Let them be aware in Washington, Moscow, Damascus and China that if one of our ambassadors is shot, or even a consul or the most junior embassy official, we might start World War Three just like that !"

......We are talking while sitting on the balcony of the pretty country house belonging to C. which is situated in a prosperous Moshav. To the west we see a burning sunset and there is a scent of fruit trees in the air. We are being served iced coffee in tall glasses. C. is about fifty years old. He is a man well known for his (military) actions. He is a strong, heavy figure wearing shorts but no shirt. His body is tanned a metallic bronze shade, the colour of a blond man living in the sun. He puts his hairy legs on the table and his hands on the chair. There is a scar on his neck. His eyes wander over his plantations. He spells out his ideology in a voice made hoarse by too much smoking:

"Let me tell me [sic] what is the most important thing, the sweetest fruit of the war in Lebanon: It is that now they don't just hate Israel. Thanks to us, they now also hate all those Feinschmecker Jews in Paris, London, New York, Frankfurt and Montreal, in all their holes. At last they hate all these nice Yids, who say they are different from us, that they are not Israeli thugs, that they are different Jews, clean and decent. Just like the assimilated Jew in Vienna and Berlin begged the anti-Semite not to confuse him with the screaming, stinking Ostjude, who had smuggled himself into that cultural environment out of the dirty ghettos of Ukraine and Poland. It won't help them, those clean Yids, just as it did not help them in Vienna and Berlin. Let them shout that they condemn Israel, that they are all right, that they did not want and don't want to hurt a fly, that they always prefer being slaughtered to fighting, that they have taken it upon themselves to teach the gentiles how to be good Christians by always turning the other cheek. It won't do them any good. Now they are getting it there because of us, and I am telling you, it is a pleasure to watch.

"They are the same Yids who persuaded the gentiles to capitulate to the bastards in Vietnam, to give it in to Khomeini, to Brezhnev, to feel sorry for Sheikh Yamani because of his tough childhood, to make love not war. Or rather, to do neither, and instead write a thesis on love and war. We are through with all that. The Yid has been rejected, not only did he crucify Jesus, but he also crucified Arafat in Sabra and Shatila. They are being identified with us and that's a good thing! Their cemeteries are being desecrated, their synagogues are set on fire, all their old nicknames are being revived, they are being expelled from the best clubs, people shoot into their ethnic restaurants murdering small children, forcing them to remove any sign showing them to be Jews, forcing them to move and change their profession.

"Soon their palaces will be smeared with the slogan: Yids, go to Palestine! And you know what? They will go to Palestine because they will have no other choice! All this is a bonus we received from the Lebanese war. Tell me, wasn't it worth it? "Soon we will hit on good times. The Jews will start arriving, the Israelis will stop emigrating and those who already emigrated will return. Those who had chosen assimilation will finally understand that it won't help them to try and be the conscience of the world. The 'conscience of the world' will have to understand through its arse what it could not get into its head. The gentiles have always felt sick of the Yids and their conscience, and now the Yids will have only one option: to come home, all of them, fast, to install thick steel doors, to build a strong fence, to have submachine guns positioned at every corner of their fence here and to fight like devils against anyone who dares to make a sound in this region. And if anyone even raises his hand against us we'll take away half his land and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms. We'll go on until he no longer feels like it...

"...You probably want to know whether I am not afraid of the masses of Yids coming here to escape anti-semitism smearing us with their olive oil until we go all soft like them. Listen, history is funny in that way, there is a dialectic here, irony. Who was it who expanded the state of Israel almost up the boundaries of the kingdom of King David? Who expanded the state until it covered the area from Mount Hermon to Raz Muhammad? Levi Eshkol. Of all people, it was that follower of Gordon, that softie, that old woman. Who, on the other hand, is about to push us back into the walls of the ghetto? Who gave up all of Sinai in order to retain a civilised image? Beitar's governor in Poland, that proud man Menahem Begin. So you can never tell. I only know one thing for sure: as long as you are fighting for your life all is permitted, even to drive out all the Arabs from the West Bank, everything.

"Leibowitz is right, we are Judeo-Nazis, and why not? Listen, a people that gave itself up to be slaughtered, a people that let soap to be made of its children and lamp shades from the skin of its women is a worse criminal than its murderers. Worse than the Nazis...If your nice civilised parents had come here in time instead of writing books about the love for humanity and singing Hear O Israel on the way to the gas chambers, now don't be shocked, if they instead had killed six million Arabs here or even one million, what would have happened? Sure, two or three nasty pages would have been written in the history books, we would have been called all sorts of names, but we could be here today as a people of 25 million!

"Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don't care. And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal. Then you can spruce up your Jewish conscience and enter the respectable club of civilised nations, nations that are large and healthy. What you lot don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. True, it could have been finished in 1948, but you interfered, you stopped it. And all this because of the Jewishness in your souls, because of your Diaspora mentality. For the Jews don't grasp things quickly. If you open your eyes and look around the world you will see that darkness is falling again. And we know what happens to a Jew who stays out in the dark. So I am glad that this small war in Lebanon frightened the Yids. Let them be afraid, let them suffer. They should hurry home before it gets really dark. So I am an anti-Semite ? Fine. So don't quote me, quote Lilienblum instead [an early Russian Zionist - ed.]. There is no need to quote an anti-Semite. Quote Lilienblum, and he is definitely not an anti-Semite, there is even a street in Tel Aviv named after him. (C. quotes from a small notebook that was lying on his table when I arrived:)

'Is all that is happening not a clear sign that our forefathers and ourselves...wanted and still want to be disgraced? That we enjoy living like gypsies.' That's Lilienblum. Not me. Believe me. I went through the Zionist literature, I can prove what I say.

"And you can write that I am disgrace to humanity, I don't mind, on the contrary. Let's make a deal: I will do all I can to expel the Arabs from here, I will do all I can to increase anti-semitism, and you will write poems and essays about the misery of the Arabs and be prepared to absorb the Yids I will force to flee to this country and teach them to be a light unto the gentiles. How about it ?"

It was there that I stopped C.'s monologue for a moment and expressed the thought passing through my mind, perhaps more for myself than for my host. Was it possible that Hitler had not only hurt the Jews but also poisoned their minds? Had that poison sunk in and was still active? But not even that idea could cause C. to protest or raise his voice. After all, he said to have never shouted under stress, even during the famous operations his name is associated with.  

Errata 18th April 2002

We picked up the interview and checked as far as possible that it was authentic; the interview was published in the Davar paper as stated, and we took the assurances of people who know Amos Oz, the journalist who conducted the interview, that the person identified as "C" was Ariel Sharon. There has since been a lively discussion that some of the descriptions of the interviewee do not fit with Sharon, even though the opinions mentioned match his thinking. Many journalists took the claim that it was Sharon at face value, as did for example the editor of Rocky Mountain News who just issued the following statement: 

CORRECTION: A MEA CULPA 

By Holger Jensen, Scripps Howard News Service, 4/15/02 

This is a mea culpa. I made a grievous error in not verifying the authenticity of 20-year-old quotes attributed to Ariel Sharon that I  used in my April 12 column on the Israeli leader. As it turns out, they were made not by Sharon but another unnamed Israeli soldier who died 11years ago. The interview in question was conducted by Amos Oz, one of Israel's leading authors and prominent in the Peace Now movement. He had access to many Israeli generals and politicians of that era but identified some of his interview subjects only by letters of the alphabet, leaving it up to his readers to decide who they were...