The
Observatory

You know,

something about their Islam

that unites most muslims today

would seem to be their inability to ask questions,

let alone challenge traditional viewpoints and understandings.

So many people see their Islam

not as a life enhancing way of life

so much as an oppressive obligation,

a set of rules that has no purpose in this world,

personally or socially,

something passive,

where the vast majority sit and listen unquestioningly to a tiny minority,

afraid to disagree,

even when they are clearly listening to nonsense.

The result, of course, is that they just tend to ignore what they hear,

and do something that seems to make more sense.

Anyone of note who shows any interest

in even examining their Islam in a different light

faces the risk of accusations of apostasy

and demands for their execution on God's behalf.

Write a novel exploring the muslim condition?

give him a death sentence.

Apply Islamic understanding to western knowledge?

stab them to death.

Re-examine the principles of Shari'ah?

hang him.

At the local level, this can be seen in a lesser way in virtually every mosque,

the suggestion that being tied to historical precedent,

more restrictive and more severe,

is somehow more Islamic.

Around the globe, any number of muslim groups

happily urge the slaughter of those they don't consider to be sufficiently muslim,

or the right kind of muslim,

and of course this is not a new phenomenon.

The Islam of Muhammad was born in the Jahilliya,

where violence was seen as the solution to most problems,

and it is hard to imagine that those lifelong habits

just evaporated from everyone overnight,

especially considering the murders and civil war

that so quickly followed the death of the Messenger,

and the bloody power struggles that determined

the early history of the muslim community

The community split into factions

before the Messenger's body was cold,

the community's direction became a free for all,

and quickly tore itself apart from there.

From the moment of his death,

the muslim community was at war with itself,

and bizarrely some of those wars are still being fought today,

wars being fought over who has the right to the Messenger's authority.

But no-one seems to consider

that the idea of such a transition of authority was not possible.

It was a Message that contained authority,

but did not bestow it.

The Qur'an says “Obey God and the Messenger”

and doesn't name anyone else,

and if Muhammad had thought succession was possible

you can be sure that he would have made it so clear

that everyone would have understood.

In fighting over who was to be in charge,

the fight could only ever be over earthly power.

And yet virtually the entire structure of Islamic thought

is traced back through those warring factions

via the innumerable warring factions that followed them.

So how is it possible to disentangle Islam from its history

without destroying the faith itself?

The revelation of the Qur'an was an extraordinary event in human history,

a time and place when God's existence was shown clearly to those involved.

But there were such events before it,

as during the time of Moses and of Jesus,

and muslims have no problem accepting

that what Jews and Christians have now

is not truly representative of those Messengers.

That is not to say that Judaism and Christianity are worthless,

they are the People of the Book,

who carry an understanding of the Divine in their traditions.

Yet somehow muslims believe that this time

they have an infallible and eternal link to the Will of the Divine,

that their Islam is somehow

not just Divinely inspired, but also Divinely guided.

Is it really possible that the Islam we see today,

despite the obviously huge differences

in its external form and social context,

is somehow representative of the Islam that the Messenger taught?

Surely the only way to reshape Islam

to be truly relevant to this time and to the future

is to see its history in the same way that we see

that of the People of the Book,

an event in time and space that came and went with its Messenger,

since when all that we have is the mythos of Islam,

an Islam constructed by believers

built upon the communal memory of that event.

It could be said that the impoverished and powerless situation of the world of Islam today

is due to muslims spending their time looking backwards,

rather than focusing on the here and now

and looking to changing the future,

looking to reshape the muslim world

in a way that makes it relevant both personally and societally

in a way that might be approved by God and the Messenger.

But to see how Islam fits into the here and now,

we need to ask questions,

especially the difficult ones,

and question without fear.

Truth will not be found by letting preferred answers

define what questions can be asked.

Without questions there are no answers,

and if it has no answers that are relevant to our times,

there is no point to our Islam.

And if it seems that there is no point to our Islam,

then what we are talking about cannot be Islam.

It seems that Islam needs us to question

previously accepted certainties

if we are to find that Islam of inner relevance,

which gives meaning and purpose to our lives,

an inner truth that enhances every individual life experience.