On understanding Islam

The interesting article by Dr Joseph Fava on "Understanding Islam" (The Sunday Times, March 12) opens one's eyes to the political and social situation surrounding the birth of Islam in contrast to that when Christianity came into the world, and it points out reasons why, whereas in Christianity we have a division of state and religion, in Islam the religion is the state to a very large degree.

A main reason for this difference is that Christianity was born under the iron rule of the Roman Emperors, while Islam came into being in a "no-man's land" outside Roman frontiers. It might be added that Christ was born into a fairly sophisticated culture of Jewish and Roman law. Granted, it was in decline, but still modes of thinking, of art and reason were quite high and dominant.

Mohammed, on the other hand, came into a barbarian culture where families regarding women as without soul often killed their daughters; a society, if you could call it that, which was tribal and war-like in the extreme and governed by no higher authority at all.

However, this reply to Dr Fava's informative article is to encourage readers to understand that the belief of the writer will influence his viewpoint. As a believer in the Baha'i faith, whose founder Baha'u'llah (the Glory of God) fully embraced the truth of both religions, my view is that each Messenger was sent from God and is therefore equally 'right' for his time and place. Putting belief into the mix removes the primary focus from the political, social and historical, and places it on abstract and very powerful concepts that unite and bind together human beings and their societies.

Jesus's primary point was love, not necessarily that he rendered unto Caesar the material world - though through the primacy of love, the pocketbook must give way to the heart. Jesus's message of love was earth-shattering. As well as asking the believer to detach himself from the worldly, it asked him to forego the revenge principle inherent in Jewish credo to take an eye for an eye.

Obviously, Caesar was not going to rule on these abstract principles and the Jewish priests were not going to change their traditions, so the full burden of behavioural change was at first put on the individual, and it must have been extremely difficult with no role model other than the Son of God himself. In fact, it was only through him that one could find the courage and example to try to transform the world by love.

These feeble words can only scratch the surface of this mental, behavioural, emotional and spiritual revolution. The point is that once Love was brought into the world, all else changed from that point - and had to change. That it is still a struggle one can easily see.

Mohammed's primary message was submission. This is what Islam means. From a cursory glance at the Koran one can see that the Day Star of Truth and Seal of the Prophets, Mohammed, embraced and accepted all of Christ's dispensation. Suras on Mary, Joseph and the Nativity bear witness to this. They are included in His Holy Book much in the same way that the Holy Christian Bible embraces the Old Testament, which was the Book of the Jews of Mosaic times. So the challenging message of love was brought to humanity by Jesus Christ, and Mohammed accepted that as a foundation for his new dispensation. However, Mohammed's audience was far different, as Dr Fava describes so well.

How do you teach Love of God to scattered, savage tribal people who have no one concept of God to begin with and as well are all at each other's throats as fickle winds blow them here and there, and who have the lack of sensitivity to bury their own offspring alive?

That was Mohammed's God-given task. How did Mayor Rudi Giuliani clean up crime in New York? By strict discipline. How are armies made strong? How do the best higher institutions of learning, of sciences reach new heights? By intrinsic discipline, which is what submission is, submission to a higher order.

Mohammed accepted love and he furthered the message by means of the cardinal principle of submission to God. When Moslems bow down en masse five times a day they are illustrating their submission to a Higher Power, to detachment from self. When they fast for 30 days a year with no food or drink from sunrise to sundown, they are doing the same. When they pray, they are submitting themselves to God and recognising their own nothingness before His Holy Face.

The (to us) strict social laws that they accepted under Mohammed - and that in the present state of decline have in some areas gotten so out of hand today - are all manifestations of this submission. In time Islam built up the most sophisticated civilization of science and knowledge that the world had ever seen, and which was the foundation and inspiration to our own Renaissance.

One can go on about these fascinating things for a long time and also find reasons for and against the divinity of the Prophets, Christ as well as Mohammed, but it is very important to realise where we stand in history, all of us, not just one or the other of us who may give forth our views. It has been a long time since the initial outpouring of both these sacred beliefs and impure water has tainted, often badly, the pure water of these fountains.

We do not see love today. We do not see justice in the West. Is it justice or love to let a rapist off easy? Is it love or justice to let art dwell in the sewer? We see how in the separation of the secular and the divine, the secular is winning out in a very big way. Are we showing God's love in Africa?

In the same way, when we look at Islam, no value is to be seen in rabid, fanatic mobs who desecrate with murder and violence the name of their beloved Prophet, who embraced the love of Jesus and enshrined it in submission to God.

There is no need to belabour these negative things, but it is good to look at them with clear eyes and see that it behoves everybody to make a leap of faith not only towards one's "own" Prophet but towards our neighbour's (as if one can "own" a Prophet!). Christians can see that if Jesus had come after Mohammed, certainly Mohammed would have appeared in the Holy Bible along with Noah, Abraham and Moses. But He didn't, and Mohammed did embrace Jesus and was called the 'Seal of the Prophets'.

However, happily for all believers, the chain of God's divine Messengers has not stopped. Both the Bible and the Koran prophesy a Second Coming, a Promised One, a bright future of peace, delight and the unity of all of God's dear children.

If we believe in anything, we cannot believe that God would ever forsake us and leave us alone to face a desolate and disrupted future.