By
Safi Kaskas
Following my previous two essays; “Reconciliation: The choice of peace makers” and “360 degrees love”, friends wrote and asked what is so urgent? Why so much focus on reconciliation? Who needs reconciliation? Who needs to be engaged in this effort and why? Are American Muslims ready for this and do they need it? And are the churches in the U.S. ready to accept Muslims as their neighbors when so many are saying that the enemy is Islam?
To an observer, the trend in the U.S. especially among church goers in general and Evangelists in particular is of growing anti-Islamic sentiments. “In a recent conference, the speakers participating in "Jihad: America's Third Rail," an "unofficial" panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), wanted their standing-room only audience to know that there's more to fear than jihad – it's Islam itself that is the threat.
"Everyone knows Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority," said Robert Spencer, sarcastically and to a great amount of applause and guffaws. Spencer, executive director of Jihad Watch and associate director of the Freedom Defense Initiative, which he recently founded with Atlas Shrugged blogger Pamela Geller, told his audience everyone believes that "like they believe in Santa Claus though no one has ever seen it."” Fox News, 19 February 2010.
In Small-Town, USA, loving one’s neighbors is nice. However, when Small-Town is divided and one half of its population is throwing rocks at the other half, reconciliation stops being a luxury and become an urgent need. Your neighbor becomes your enemy and it is more urgent to learn to love your enemy if you are to obey Jesus.
As an American Muslim, I saw and felt the tension experienced by all Americans after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and until this minute, Muslims in the States and beyond, are suspects. They were all put on the defensive through the media and they never stopped trying to prove their innocence. For them, explaining to others what Islam is all about became an urgent necessity especially in view of the hate theology preached by Islamophobics .
However, no one in the media ever pointed out that on September 11th, Islam in the USA was also attacked. Many Muslims died in the WTC tragedy and the rest of them became hostages to fear, intimidation and insecurity about their future . “All the progress they had made for the last 50 years is reversed and some immigrant Muslims even started to question whether they should go back to the country they came from. Of course, those American Muslims like my children who were born here have no place to go. This is their home” .
During that infamous morning my wife Eman was in our house in Fairfax, VA with my boys Omar and Yasser who were attending George Mason University. I was in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province doing a project for a Saudi Prince. My wife suddenly came on the Hotmail Messenger and asked me if I was watching TV. I didn’t know what she was talking about as I was busy, intently working on a business plan. She said, “Oh my God, a plane hit the World Trade tower and another plan is going to hit the second tower!” She sounded horrified, and she asked again, “Are you watching?!” I could tell from her voice I should stop what I was doing, so I asked what channel to turn to. She said CNN, or any station. I turned to CNN to see the most horrifying event I witnessed ever. A plane hit the second tower as I glanced at the screen. Suddenly it dawned on me this is not an accident, but a disaster of colossal dimension was taking place in front of my eyes. Additional disastrous events took place that day to make it one of the darkest days ever for American Muslims.
My wife and I spoke several times that day. We were confused, angry and scared. That evening my wife called to tell me that she was afraid and worried about the boys’ safety. Her friend Muna suggested that she join friends at the Cedars, a community refuge, for prayers. This was her first visit to the Cedars where she was welcomed and felt among friends but most importantly the group started praying and my wife was in for the surprise of her life. The group was praying for Ousama Binladen’s forgiveness. This was the first time this Muslim woman was exposed to the concept of loving your enemies. I remember the long conversations I had on the phone with my wife about that concept and about Jesus. Human sense teaches us to kill our enemies while Jesus teaches us to love them. Talking about Jesus and his teachings seemed to take our minds away from the tragedy that surrounded us to another dimension of love. While 9/11 was a disaster for many, it was my first exposure to love, Jesus-style. However, to know Jesus, to really know Jesus, comes with a heavy price. Once you know him and you decide to follow his principles, you need to be ready to put up with a lot of ignorance and hatred that surrounds you.
“Why did they do that?” is a deceptively simple question which sadly opened a key phase in the U.S. recent engagement with the Muslim world which began with the tragedy of 9/11. It is a distressing question because it immediately disclosed, through the simple use of the word “they”, an implicit and dangerous lumping together of Muslims in all their diversity with the perpetrators of these attacks. This move was made all the easier when a common denominator of Islam was specifically invoked by those who claimed responsibility. The fact that the perpetrators had invoked Islam in the justification of their violence made it all too inviting to commit the error of moving from the quantifier, “some”, to “all” and thus connecting all Muslims with the violence. Too many were sadly willing to take that which was committed by a tiny few and place the blame upon all. This error has again and again been refuted, but its effects clearly linger on and forging this linkage has sadly been one of the greatest successes of those committed to acts of terrorism.
But beyond this, it has generated a deeper difficulty, in that it has allowed the context of Muslim- West dialogue to be framed by disaster with a consequent tendency to focus the goals of dialogue in preventative and negative terms. Rather than beginning by asking what the ideal state of Muslim-West relations should be, the tendency is to ask merely what can be done to avoid further disaster.
In view of this threat, it seemed that Muslims needed to take the initiative toengage others. Thankfully, Muslims throughout the world have risen to this challenge.
In the wake of the devastating terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the Islamic world has openly sided with the United States against the terrorists. The misconception in the United States, that all Muslims hate Americans, is easily proven to be false by the outpouring of sympathy and cooperation offered by the Islamic world since September 11. This response is not solely confined to countries with which the United States gets along, but every state with a Muslim majority in the world, with only two exceptions (Afghanistan and Iraq). Even states that the United States views as hostile - Libya, Syria, Sudan, - have not only condemned the attacks, but have offered their resources on behalf of the United States led effort against international terrorism.
Every time a Muslim speaker stands in front of an American audience he will be eventually asked the obvious question: if you are against terrorism, why you don’t publically condemn it? “How many times does (one) need to publicly and unconditionally condemn violence and terrorism against innocent civilians? How many times does (one) need to state that more Muslims have been victims of Al Qaeda terrorism than members of other faiths. How forcefully do (one) need to say that my religion does not condone violence, by reminding myself and my audience of the Qura’nic verse that says: “if anyone kills a person—unless in retribution for murder or spreading corruption in the land—it is as if he kills all mankind, while if any saves a life it is as if he saves the lives of all mankind..” 5:32.
Why do I have to account for the despicable acts of fellow Muslims with whom I have no contact or relations? Why conversely, am I not rewarded or at least acknowledged for the thousand and one acts of kindness performed by fellow Muslims every day? I am not a lesser Muslim because of the acts of a few extremists who may profess my faith. Does it make you less of Christian with Timothy McVeigh and Adolf Hitler being Christians? Does it make you less of Jew because Dr. Baruch Goldstein--who massacred thirty Moslems in a mosque in Hebron, was a Jew”?
The predictable question that follows the first one will always be: If most Muslims are moderate, why don’t Muslim leaders condemn terrorist acts? Again I go through the list of Muslim leaders that condemned the 9/11 terrorist acts and all subsequent acts of terrorism. In fact, I personally don’t know any Muslims that condone terrorist acts.
‘The recent developments in the United States constitute a form of injustice that is not tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts.’ ---Chairman of the Senior Ulama’ Board in Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Abdulaziz Al-Shaikh, 9/15/01
We’ve identified, through simple research, several websites that carry condemnation of the tragic attacks of 9/11 from various Muslim leaders. This goes to illustrate the international reaction to the terror attacks of the fifty-one countries around the world in which Muslims constitute the largest single religious community. In many of these instances, the American press has not gone out of its way to show these state's responses, or the American reaction to these state's positions. Little attention has been paid to the detailed responses of most of the Islamic world. At the same time, the Western press has afforded disproportionate coverage of those tiny minorities who publicly praised the attacks, from the thirty children in occupied Jerusalem to the couple hundred demonstrators in Somalia and Nigeria. We recommend this site http://iir.internetactivist.org/for a comprehensive response by country. The purpose of this site is to set the record straight and to show that the United States does have the sympathy and cooperation of the vast majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims. For these moderate peaceful Muslims, the question is, do they have the sympathy of Americans – especially the conservative Evangelists and American churches in general?
A young Muslima (feminine) told me that “since 9/11, easily a million Muslims have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, directly or indirectly, as a result of the invasions. We mourn the “terror” attacks that killed 3000 people (including Muslims). But despite the injustice that is being perpetrated against Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan, we turn to the West and offer sympathy, empathy, support and cooperation. Are we receiving the same sympathy from Americans? Why not turn around and demand that they show the love they were ordered to show their enemies? Is a Muslim life less valuable than an American one? How can they condemn Islam and Muslims when they have been the cause of more destruction, sorrow, war than has ever been perpetrated by the Muslim world”?
Why not “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” Matthew 7:5.
Do American Evangelists need reconciliation with American Muslims and Muslims in general?
What do American Muslims want and what do American Evangelists want? Do they share enough common ground to build on the bridges of reconciliation?
Muslims are fairly new to the American scene. In general I don’t know if they share common views on domestic issues. Nor do they all have the same commitment to Islam. They are not that well organized and I cannot identify a leadership that claims to represent or speak for all American Muslims. However they all have the same concern about their constitutional rights. They came to the States for various reasons but chief amongst these reasons is the issue of freedom followed by the issue of opportunity; the freedom to express one’s self, to meet freely, to worship freely or not to worship; freedom from taboos and cultural inhibitions that limit one from reaching his maximum potentials. Constitutionally guaranteed liberties are essential to all American Muslims and equally important is to be able to fulfill your potential and to live the American dream. So why are American Muslims perceived as a threat? Usually, when invited to speak about Islam, I am asked about “Wahabies” and how strong is their influence among Muslims? An often heard comment is “you are nice, but what about those “Wahabies”, they support terrorism don’t they?”
I know the so called “Wahabies” in fact there is no such thing as Wahabies . But the American media insist on using this term to stereotype Saudis. The majority of Muslims at this time have realized that fanatic views and support of violence against civilians will result in catastrophes for Muslims in Muslim majority countries such as Saudi Arabia and in other countries such as the United States. The intellectual Saudis also realize that the only door open nowadays is the door of dialogue with the other. In addition King Abdullah, of Saudi Arabia, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, is personally and strategically for dialogue and reconciliation. So is there a real threat from Muslims? Yes. This threat is from those very frustrated Muslims that see the U.S. not as it is represented by President Obama but as a cartel of the Military Industrial Alliance along with the Neo Cons that went to Iraq under false pretenses, destroyed it, fragmented it and caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to lose their lives. They see the U.S. as the country that will back Israel right or wrong against Palestinians who are losing their houses, their land and their lives every day on live television, while consecutive American Presidents give lip service to the two states solution.
The Palestinian/Israeli problem and justice to the Palestinians are important issues to all Muslims whether Americans or not. Muslims see that Palestinians have the right to their land and to their own state, based on United Nations resolutions. This is the same official stand of the American government. The Palestinians’ rights issue is deeply rooted within the psyche of every Muslim. Muslims perceive what happened to the Palestinian people to be a great injustice and they perceive the United States’ unconditional support for Israel to be unfair and oppressive. They also perceive the Evangelists’ unwavering support to Israel to be theologically motivated and unfair to at least Christian Palestinians. The Muslim public does not necessarily understand why this is taking place. These views and the continuous oppression of Palestinians perpetrated so arrogantly by the Israelis settlers on live television, amounts to giving the fanatical Muslims a weapon to use against the United States. So what do Muslims want? The two States solution that President Bush called for in Annapolis and President Obama is calling for since he took office. This is thought to pull the rug from under the extremists and allow the moderates to engage in true reconciliation in the Middle East.
Traditionally, American Evangelists are known for their unwavering support to the State of Israel. The roots of Evangelical support for Israel lie in the long tradition of Christian thinking about the millennium.
As the year 1800 approached, John Nelson Darby (1800-82), a renegade Anglican priest from Ireland, popularized and systematized eschatological themes while simultaneously developing a new school of thought which has been called "futurist premillennialism."
Through Darby's influence, premillennial dispensationalism became a dominant method of biblical interpretation and influenced a generation of evangelical leaders, including Dwight L. Moody. Perhaps the most influential instrument of dispensational thinking was the Scofield Bible (1909) which included a commentary that interpreted prophetic texts according to a premillennial hermeneutic. Another early Darby disciple, William E. Blackstone, brought dispensationalism to millions of Americans through his best seller Jesus Is Coming (1882). Blackstone organized the first Zionist lobbying effort in the U.S. in 1891 when he enlisted J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Charles B. Scribner and other financiers to underwrite a massive newspaper campaign requesting President Benjamin Harrison to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Similar efforts were under way in England, led by the social reformer Lord Shaftesbury, who, like Blackstone, was so taken with Darby's eschatology that he translated it into a political agenda. These seeds of the Christian Zionist movement preceded Jewish Zionism by several years. Loni Shaftesbury is also credited with coining an early version of the slogan adopted by Jewish Zionist fathers Max Nordau and Theodor Herzl: "A land of no people for a people with no land." Both Lord Arthur Balfour, author of the famous 1917 Balfour Declaration, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the two most powerful men in British foreign policy at the close of World War I, were raised in dispensationalist churches and were publicly committed to the Zionist agenda for "biblical" and colonialist reasons.
The new generation of Evangelicals set as their goals to abandon a militant Bible stance. Instead, they would pursue dialogue, intellectualism, non-judgmentalism, and appeasement. They further called for an increased application of the Gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas. Not all conservatives are pleased with the new direction. One author has termed it "the apostasy within Evangelicalism."
Who else needs reconciliation? Do Evangelists and Muslims need it? Yes they do. Especially when Evangelists are at times more Zionists than the Israelis. The Muslim/Christian tension in the States is in many ways related to the Middle East Conflict. “One thing I can tell you, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is somewhat unique in America in that it is a foreign policy issue, with vital foreign policy and national security implications, but it functions more like a domestic political issue. I was serving at the State Department in the lead up to Annapolis and it was incredibly clear that we did not have a sizable, organized constituency in support of US leadership for conflict resolution in the Holy Land.
All this points to the importance of building a constituency in Western democracies to advocate for international leadership to support peace in the Holy Land ”.
Actually Todd Deatherage as a diplomat was very polite when he made this statement. He meant to say that there are forces in the U.S. that are opposed to peace in the Middle East. These forces are mainly Evangelist groups who understand that the second coming of Jesus is related to certain biblical prophecies that they understand in a particular dispensationalist perspective.
At this juncture, wrote Donald Wagner on November 4, 1998 it appears that the hard-line Likud position has the backing of both houses of Congress, the major Jewish lobbies, and the Christian Right. President Clinton and those who advocate the Israeli Labor Party peace formula, or the Oslo Accords, have little leverage with Likud. Palestinian Christians and their supporters fear that the Christian Right's alliance with Likud may in the end serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy, heightening tensions in the region and leading to a new round of conflict in the Holy Land, which the Christian Zionists will readily interpret as "the final battle."
So who are the main players in this human dilemma? They are the American Muslims in particular and Muslims in general, American Evangelist Christians and the Israelis. All of this points out toward a path for action. But before we talk about this path of action let us examine the field where all this action is taken place. In fact the players are all competing to influence the flow of a great river called the American public opinion. The flow of this river is affected by a major current called the conservative movement and inside this movement you will find the Evangelical Christians. But again if you look closely you will find a struggle to claim Jesus. Each one of these groups is fighting to claim Jesus for themselves except the Palestinians. Some of them already follow Jesus and are wondering why are they ignored by their fellow Christians.
Some Arabs want to defend the Palestinian rights by building a lobby in Washington similar to APAC, others hold the view that what was lost through force can’t be recovered except through force. As a peace maker I see the rights of the Palestinians attained when they stop being victims and become peace makers. Of course this sounds like a puzzle and it is until you listen to the teaching of the Prince of Peace who taught us how to have the ultimate victory against an aggressor. When faced with aggression, do not seek revenge and retaliation but seek forgiveness and reconciliation. When a person is faced with oppression, his reaction will either pull him down to the same level as the oppressor when he responds violently, or raise him above when he responds with love and forgiveness.
During the February 2009 National Prayer Breakfast, my wife Eman heard Sami Awad from Bethlehem talking about loving your enemy as a command from Jesus to all. Jesus, Sami said, did not ask us to consider loving our enemies or to think about it but he ordered us to love our enemies. I met Sami a few months afterwards and heard him speak about living and suffering under the Israeli occupation, yet he had to love his enemy. This is not someone living in Denver, CO thinking about how to sort intellectually the issue of loving your enemy, but rather someone just like Jesus living under occupation and suffering the wrath of the occupier yet having the ability to show love and compassion toward his oppressor.
How should the three main players of this triangle; Muslims, Christians and Jews, respond to this challenge they are facing at this time in history? One alternative is already being exhausted, the one that says maintain military superiority and subjugate the other. Israel is excelling in this role. But after sixty years of military superiority it was not able to achieve long sought after peace. The U.S. is following the same path, encouraged by forces that find it easier to accept the loss of the best of our American young men and women and a huge number of Muslims lives in a war of attrition and call it collateral damage, instead of following the teaching of the Prince of Peace that will lead to eternal success.
On October 13th 2007 in A Common Word Between Us and You , 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals unanimously came together for the first time since the days of Prophet Muhammad to declare that common ground exists between Christianity and Islam. The signatories to this message came from every denomination and school of thought in Islam. Every major Islamic country or region in the world was represented in this message, which was addressed to the leaders of all the world’s churches, and indeed to all Christians everywhere.
A Common Word Between Us and You was first presented at a conference in September 2007. In the letter, the authors and signatories suggest that the most fundamental common ground between Islam and Christianity, and the best basis for future dialogue and understanding, is the love of God and the love of neighbor.
While the message was mainly directed to Christian leaders, it did not go unnoticed by Jewish scholars. Many took a very positive stand and applauded this reconciliation movement:
“we noted, said the Joint Communique of the Chief Rabbis of Israel and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the recent letter from Muslim scholars and religious leaders to the Christian Churches. The 'Common Word', though addressed to Christian Churches, also makes clear its respect for Hebrew scripture in citing directly from the Book of Deuteronomy and in acknowledging the inspiration that this provided for their understanding of the Quranic teachings on the unity and love of God and of neighbour. In promoting these values we commit ourselves and encourage all religious leaders to ensure that no materials are disseminated by our communities that work against this vision.” .
In a letter to “A Common Word” Peter Ochs said: “The world, says Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, rests on three things: Hadin, HaEmet, V'Hashalom: on justice, truth, and peace (Pirke Avot, 1:18). God bless “A Common Word” and receive it as a powerful contribution to the peace, truth, and justice that uphold the world. This Word is worthy of the tradition of Aaron, and it enhances and extends the tradition of the sage Hillel, who taught that the “disciples of Aaron love peace and the pursuit of peace, love their fellow creatures and seek to draw them to the study of God’s word” (Pirke Avot, 1:12) .
“All too often, religion is associated with violence and intolerance, and the compassionate ethos, which lies at the heart of every major faith, gets pushed to the sidelines. The assertion of the principle of love, which is so central to both the Muslim and the Christian traditions, should be paradigmatic of the religious response to the fearful realities of our time. We must reclaim our traditions from the extremists. Unless the major faiths emphasize those teachings which insist upon the absolute holiness of the "other", they will fail the test of the 21st century. The coming together of Muslims and Christians, who have such an unhappy history of hostility, is a beacon of hope and an example to the whole of humanity ”.
Love is our only hope. It is at the heart of the teachings of Jesus and the Qur’an. In Fussilat (41:34), God says, “Good and evil cannot be equal. [Prophet], repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend.”
The Bible teaches: “You shall not avenge, but love your neighbor as yourself, I AM THE LORD” ( Leviticus 19:18).
This isn’t just about reconciling Muslim and Evangelicals; it’s about the future of faith in the United States. It is about whether people of faith can live together based on the best their religions have to offer. When our country is divided and one half of its population is throwing rocks at the other half, reconciliation stops being a luxury and become an urgent need. Your neighbor becomes your enemy and it is more urgent to learn to love your enemy if you are to obey God. So this is about whether we want to let God down and fight in His name rather than love each other in His name. It is your choice. I have already made mine.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Abrahamic Creed
“I believe in one God our Creator and the creator of this universe, a loving, compassionate and personal God Who created us with the ability to know and to choose. Hence, I choose to worship Him and to honor Him because He deserves to be worshiped and honored. Out of love to us He revealed a message of guidance about Himself, the reason we were created and how we should best honor Him and honor each other. Out of love for Him I choose to love all human beings and allow each to worship Him according to one's own traditions. I pledge not to abuse or oppress others and to promote peace, prosperity and freedom through companionate justice for all.
Out of gratitude to my Creator, I pledge to respect the planet He allowed us to inhabit and the universe at large. I pledge not to abuse our planet's resources nor to try to control the natural laws our Creator has put in place.
I pledge this out of deep gratitude to Him for the countless blessings He bestowed upon me and I look forward to the day I return to Him to account for what I have pledged”.
Out of gratitude to my Creator, I pledge to respect the planet He allowed us to inhabit and the universe at large. I pledge not to abuse our planet's resources nor to try to control the natural laws our Creator has put in place.
I pledge this out of deep gratitude to Him for the countless blessings He bestowed upon me and I look forward to the day I return to Him to account for what I have pledged”.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
360 degrees love
By
Safi Kaskas & Friends
The reaction to my essay Reconciliation: The choice of peacemakers encouraged me to shed more light about the reconciliation process. What is the next step? What should people do to get involved in a reconciliation effort? Who is qualified to engage in this kind of activity?
On October 13th 2007 in A Common Word Between Us and You , 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals came together unanimously for the first time since the days of Prophet Muhammad to declare that common ground exists between Christianity and Islam. The signatories to this message came from every denomination and school of thought in Islam. Every major Islamic country or region in the world was represented in this message, which was addressed to the leaders of all the world’s churches, and indeed to all Christians everywhere.
“A Common Word Between Us and You” was first presented at a conference in September 2007. In the letter the authors and signatories suggest that the most fundamental common ground between Islam and Christianity, and the best basis for future dialogue and understanding, is the love of God and the love of neighbor.
The hope is that this document will provide a common constitution for the many organizations and individuals who are carrying out interfaith dialogue throughout the world. Not only can “A Common Word” give us a starting point for cooperation and worldwide coordination, but it does so on the most solid theological ground possible: the teachings of the Qu’ran and Prophet Muhammad , and the commandments offered by Jesus Christ in the Bible. Despite their differences, Islam and Christianity not only share the same Divine Origin and the same Abrahamic heritage, but the same two greatest commandments.
In “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You” a response was drafted by scholars at Yale Divinity School's Center for Faith and Culture. It was endorsed by almost 300 Christian theologians and leaders.
“As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world.
What is so extraordinary about A Common Word Between Us and You is not that its signatories recognize the critical character of the present moment in relations between Muslims and Christians. It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities.
What is common between us lies not in something marginal nor in something merely important to each. It lies, rather, in something absolutely central to both: love of God and love of neighbor.
Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that "our eternal souls" are at stake as well. We are persuaded that our next step should be for our leaders at every level to meet together and begin the earnest work of determining how God would have us fulfill the requirement that we love God and one another. It is with humility and hope that we receive your generous letter, and we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose ”.
Hence, when I proclaimed the two love commandments to be basis for reconciliation, I did so with the theological backing of many Muslim and Christian leaders.
I also proclaimed that reconciliation is relational. An examination of this statement is necessary, so that we can better understand how to start the reconciliation process and how we should proceed.
The two commandments of love are the following:
“ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ / This is the first and greatest commandment. / And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ / On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40)
So the first commandment concerns itself with loving God with all one’s heart, soul and with all one’s mind. This commandment is about one’s relationship with his Creator. In that sense, it addresses a private relationship; one that is only known and fully understood and appreciated between the individual and his Creator. While this relationship needs nurturing, it will always remain essentially private. Though both Muslims and Christians worship the same God, it is not within the realm of reconciliation to discuss the nature of God.
Both Muslims and Christians accept the first commandment and all similar teachings. In the New Testament, Jesus said: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one” . "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. " The Qur’an similarly teaches: ”Say, 'My Lord has guided me to a straight path, an upright religion, the faith of Abraham, a man of pure faith. Nor did he associate anything with God.' 162Say, 'My prayers, my devotions, my very being and death are all in the hands of God, Lord of all the Worlds; 163He has no partner. This is what I am commanded, and I am the first to submit my will to Him.' 164Say, 'Should I seek a Lord other than God, when he is the Lord of all things?' Each soul is responsible for its own actions; no soul will bear the burden of another …. (Al-An’am, 6:162-164). Moreover, Prophet Muhammad said: The best remembrance is: ‘There is no god but God’…
Expanding on the best remembrance, the Prophet Muhammad also said: The best that I have said—myself, and the prophets that came before me—is: ‘There is no god but God, He Alone, He hath no associate, His is the sovereignty and His is the praise and He hath power over all things’. The phrases which follow the First Testimony of faith are all from the Holy Qur’an; each describes a mode of loving God and devotion to Him.
Getting involved beyond the point of accepting the oneness of God to a discussion of His nature should not be the task of those seeking reconciliation. One’s relationship with the Creator and the way He is worshiped should be personal. My proposal is that we leave it out of the reconciliation effort and focus upon the second commandment.
The second commandment addresses our relationship with our neighbor. But who is your neighbor? Jesus answered this question with the parable of the good Samaritan. This parable is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verses 25-37.
“One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus , “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus then replied with a story:
“A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Levite walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’ “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
In this parable Jesus is trying to say that the one you perceive as your enemy can, in fact, be considered your friend. In reality, everyone that you encounter on your journey through life is your neighbor and should be loved.
But how do you love your neighbor? Do we wait until we encounter someone on the side of the road who has been attacked by bandits? More relevant is how does an employee love his boss? How does he love his colleagues at work? How does a woman love her husband or her father-in-law? And how does her husband love her? Can one love others if he/she does not love themselves? How can you give what you don’t have? When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you like who you are? Are you at least happy with yourself? Have you made peace with yourself and accepted the unique person you are?
At the heart of all the elements that make up your life experiences - family, friends, intimate relationships, and work - is you. This is why the rules of love begin with a rule not about relationships with others, but rather about the one you have with yourself.
There is a distinction between "you" and your "self." Your self is the core of your being, the essential entity that exists irrespective of your personality, your ego, your opinions, and your emotions. It is the small, sacred space within you that houses your spirit and soul. "You" are the observer, coach, editor, and critic who survey your thoughts, words, feelings, and behaviors and determine how much of your essential self is shown to others.
The quality of the relationship between you and your self is paramount, for all your other relationships are based on it. This relationship acts as a template from which all the unions in your life are shaped, setting the quality, tone, and texture for how you relate to others and how they relate to you. It establishes a working model of how to give and receive love …
Each one of us has needs that are different from the hierarchy of physical and survival needs as defined by Maslow (1970). These are emotional needs and they are called Relational needs as they emerge out of our social connectedness, and help sustain and nurture our emotional attachments to others.
Relational needs are the needs that grow out of human interaction, and being aware of these needs in ourselves and in others can help develop and nurture human relationships. Being aware of these needs can also help us gain insight into the feelings, behaviors and motivations in ourselves and others. So loving your neighbor is about understanding your neighbors’ needs and meeting them to the best of your ability.
All people experience these relational needs and they are present in all components of our life, from cradle to grave. Often these needs are out of our awareness, but they push into our awareness if they are not being met.
When relational needs are not met, they become more intense, more pressing, and are experienced as emptiness, a longing, or a nagging loneliness. Some people may become frustrated, angry, or aggressive in the face of unmet needs, or they may become depressed, lose energy and hope. They may also develop beliefs about their life such as “There’s nobody there for me” or “There’s no use trying” or “Nobody can be trusted” as a way of explaining the inner distress they feel . Hence the importance of Prophet Muhammad teaching: “smiling when you meet your brother is an act of charity” and further, “the best among you when you meet is the one that first gives his salutation of peace”.
These needs are shared by all human beings; they are intrinsic characteristic of our God-given identities, an inescapable part of being human.
According to current studies of the subject of relational needs, there are five general characteristics of needs:
1- Needs are cross-cultural
2- Needs exist in all generations
3- Needs are lifelong and continuous
4- It is OK to have needs; Neediness is not a defect
5- We cannot meet our own needs; they can only be met in the context of meaningful relationships.
Beyond the five characteristics of general needs there are also specific relational needs that are shared by all human kind. As we will see, we each have the opportunity to both “receive” and “give” these relational needs as we live life to the fullest in our relationship with God and our neighbors. These ten relational needs can be demonstrated as follows:
1- Acceptance: The need for acceptance revolves around receiving others willingly and unconditionally (even when their behavior has been imperfect) and loving them in spite of any differences that may exist between you.
2- Affection: The need for affection revolves around expressing care and closeness through physical touch, actions that represent affection and through words such as “ I love you” or “I care about you”
3- Appreciation: The need for appreciation revolves around expressing thanks, praise, or commendation, particularly in recognition of someone’s accomplishments or efforts; appreciation has a specific focus on what a person “does”.
4- Approval: The need for approval revolves around building up or affirming another person, particularly for “who” they are (as opposed to what they do). It is also met by affirming both the fact and the importance of your relationship with another person.
5- Attention: The need for attention revolves around conveying appropriate interest, concern, and care. Addressing this need requires us to take notice of others and make an effort to enter into their respective worlds.
6- Comfort: The need for comfort is about caringly responding to a hurting person through words, actions, emotional responses and physical touch. Meeting this need requires us to truly hurt with and for another person in the midst of their grief or pain.
7- Encouragement: The need for encouragement is about urging others to persist and persevere in their efforts to attain their goal and by stimulating them toward love and good deeds.
8- Respect: The need for respect is about valuing one another highly, treating one another as important, and honoring one another with our words and actions.
9- Security: The need for security revolves around establishing and maintaining harmony in our relationships and providing freedom from fear or threat of harm. This process involves mutual expressions of vulnerability, the deepening of trust and the successful resolution of conflict.
10- Support: The need for support is about coming alongside others and providing gentle, appropriate assistance with a problem or struggle.
Though we obviously all have needs—one question still remains—why do we long for comfort, attention and security ? After all, God could have created us without any needs whatsoever. Should we then conclude that our needs represent flaws in our design? The answer must be a resounding “No!” So why do we have needs?
1- Our neediness encourages humility and valuing of relationships.
So far, we have seen that (1) everyone has needs, and (2) we cannot meet our own needs. Therefore, we can only conclude that, in order to have our needs met, we must look beyond ourselves. We are not to live as an “island” unto ourselves. Our relationships in life can provide meaning and fulfillment.
2- Our neediness encourages interdependence.
Just as our neediness and our inability to meet our own needs compels us to value relationships, so it should also motivate us to support and encourage one another. We cannot live our lives as if we were computerized robots on an assembly line, doing our own thing with no regard for the needs of others.
Fortunately, a number of relationships serve to promote interdependence and mutual fulfillment of needs. At the most axiomatic level, many of us have been granted the blessings of healthy marriages and other close family relationships, which serve as environments within which we both give and receive loving care in order to meet one another’s needs.
In addition, through friends, colleagues and community, we are challenged to look for ways in which we can give to the needs of others, as well as meet our own.
3- Accepting the reality of our needs helps us to develop a heart filled with compassion for others.
Our ability to respond effectively with care and compassion toward others is closely tied to our willingness to admit that we have needs.
The sad truth is that those who tend to deny their own needs often lack compassion for others who are in need. Having chosen to adopt an attitude of self-reliance, they are likely to respond to neediness in others by thinking, “Why should I care about their needs? If they have problems, they should take care of them themselves!” As we come to accept the reality of our own needs and to humbly receive care and compassion, we are in turn empowered to respond to the needs of others with genuine feelings of compassion and concrete acts of kindness.
4- Admitting our needs frees us to both receive and give care.
It is difficult to give others what we have not received. A woman who was never comforted as a child may find it incredibly challenging to offer words of comfort to her own children. A man whose parents failed to consistently display affection for him may struggle to adequately express his affection for his wife. An employer who has rarely received encouragement from others may find it hard to effectively encourage his employees.
By contrast, those who have had their own needs met are much better equipped to meet the needs of others. But in order to have our needs met, we must first admit that they exist. When we willingly acknowledge our neediness, we allow ourselves to receive care and we are better able to give more freely in return.
5- Meeting the needs of others expresses care and produces community ties.
If we desire to decrease the number of divisions within our families, communities, and cultures, we must begin by increasing care. Countless conflicts and breakdowns can be traced to a lack of trusting, caring relationships between marriage partners, family members, business and country leaders. How do we demonstrate that we truly care for one another? By meeting each other’s needs. As loving care is increasingly demonstrated through mutual fulfillment of needs, divisions are mended and unity is strengthened.
Knowing one’s self and emotional needs helps us understand how to satisfy these needs relationally. This, in my opinion, will produce healthy individuals, healthy families and healthy social networks and communities. Additionally there is accumulative social capital that will form through these interactive healthy relations.
Social capital is a sociological concept used in business, economics, organizational behavior, political science, public health and the social sciences, in general, to refer to connections within and between social networks. For the past decade, social capital has resonated strongly with communities across America attempting to improve residents’ quality of life and overall well-being.
The accumulated social capital forming out of loving God and loving neighbors might be measurable as suggested by a study done in November 2001 . The study argues that the idea that many sociological and economic outcomes are determined not only by market forces, but also by factors related to the nature and quality of people’s social, non-market interactions underlies the very active research program on “social capital”.
Sociologists and political scientists have long stressed social capital’s importance . And, a number of studies by empirical economists document correlations between social capital and positive economic outcomes across different communities and countries, and over time . One of these studies is the Social Capital Community Benchmark Study . It has enabled us to better quantify and measure social capital, and we are still exploring the most effective ways, settings and activities to build social capital and increase civic engagement.
Loving our neighbor is a command given to us by Jesus Christ and confirmed centuries later by the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad . Both the Muslim and Christian traditions have taught all along that this command falls into the realm of good ethics. However, Jesus Christ went further and proclaimed that to Love God and your neighbor summarized all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40).
I am proposing that there is more to the two commands than an order for simple good behavior. Perhaps they are the basis God gave us to build a healthy and a prosperous society. Their inherent value is significantly broader than the common conception of right and wrong. They might be the gateway to "the good life", the life worth living, which is held by many philosophers to be more important than traditional moral conduct.
Relationships are at the core of who we are as humans. From Greek dramas to the current top ten music charts, nearly every artistic expression is about relationship: songs of love lost and found, tales of our deepest longings and greatest tragedies. Whether it is an individual broken heart, or whole families and society's devastated by relationships gone bad, relationships reflect our deepest human struggles. They are the source of our most profound joy and pain. Relationships are what we are willing to kill and die for… what we long for most… what keep us up at night. It is in relationships that we find out who we are as humans, and what matters most in life.
Relationships are at the heart of faith, reflecting the fact that we as humans have been created as social creatures. Jesus identified the central message of the law and prophets relationally.
From love to hate, relationships are at the depth of sin and at the height of moral virtue. Compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, trust, betrayal, murder, adultery and revenge—each is rooted in relationship. It is at the heart of both ethics and worship.
A relational focus entails that we place love as our highest priority above orthodoxy, placing righteousness over being right. The mark of good doctrine is the fruit it bears. A relational faith cares more about relationships and people than it does about being right. In fact, according to Scripture, a theology that is unloving is not right. Of the necessity of love for the neighbour, Prophet Muhammad said: “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.”
One can go through life trying to be the best he can according to materialistic ends, the wealthiest, the most powerful, or instead, become what God has created one to be; a loving and humble servant to others. This is best expressed in one of the fondest prayers of the Prophet Muhammad “My Lord, I ask you for Your love, and for the love of everyone who loves You, and for the love of everything that will bring me closer to Your love”.
So what is the next step? Take a deep look inside and make sure your heart is reconciled to your Creator. Then you can then take a look around you and love your neighbors. This will include people that you don’t like at all. Liking likable people does not require any effort. It is the people that you don’t like that you need to pray for and ask God to forgive and to bring to the straight path. This is the true essence of the 360 degree love.
What is the end result that we should look forward to? To turn into a better person that loves his family, a servant to his community and a leader. You may also end up having a tender heart that brings tears to your eyes every time you remember God or see his blessings.
Who is qualified to engage in this kind of activity? You and I; everyone who has a personal relationship with God and everyone we have a relationship with. It is a vertical relationship with God and 360 degrees of horizontal relationship with others.
In short, all of us are qualified to engage in reconciliation. God loves us all, shouldn’t we do the same?
Safi Kaskas & Friends
The reaction to my essay Reconciliation: The choice of peacemakers encouraged me to shed more light about the reconciliation process. What is the next step? What should people do to get involved in a reconciliation effort? Who is qualified to engage in this kind of activity?
On October 13th 2007 in A Common Word Between Us and You , 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals came together unanimously for the first time since the days of Prophet Muhammad to declare that common ground exists between Christianity and Islam. The signatories to this message came from every denomination and school of thought in Islam. Every major Islamic country or region in the world was represented in this message, which was addressed to the leaders of all the world’s churches, and indeed to all Christians everywhere.
“A Common Word Between Us and You” was first presented at a conference in September 2007. In the letter the authors and signatories suggest that the most fundamental common ground between Islam and Christianity, and the best basis for future dialogue and understanding, is the love of God and the love of neighbor.
The hope is that this document will provide a common constitution for the many organizations and individuals who are carrying out interfaith dialogue throughout the world. Not only can “A Common Word” give us a starting point for cooperation and worldwide coordination, but it does so on the most solid theological ground possible: the teachings of the Qu’ran and Prophet Muhammad , and the commandments offered by Jesus Christ in the Bible. Despite their differences, Islam and Christianity not only share the same Divine Origin and the same Abrahamic heritage, but the same two greatest commandments.
In “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You” a response was drafted by scholars at Yale Divinity School's Center for Faith and Culture. It was endorsed by almost 300 Christian theologians and leaders.
“As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world.
What is so extraordinary about A Common Word Between Us and You is not that its signatories recognize the critical character of the present moment in relations between Muslims and Christians. It is rather a deep insight and courage with which they have identified the common ground between the Muslim and Christian religious communities.
What is common between us lies not in something marginal nor in something merely important to each. It lies, rather, in something absolutely central to both: love of God and love of neighbor.
Given the deep fissures in the relations between Christians and Muslims today, the task before us is daunting. And the stakes are great. The future of the world depends on our ability as Christians and Muslims to live together in peace. If we fail to make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony you correctly remind us that "our eternal souls" are at stake as well. We are persuaded that our next step should be for our leaders at every level to meet together and begin the earnest work of determining how God would have us fulfill the requirement that we love God and one another. It is with humility and hope that we receive your generous letter, and we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose ”.
Hence, when I proclaimed the two love commandments to be basis for reconciliation, I did so with the theological backing of many Muslim and Christian leaders.
I also proclaimed that reconciliation is relational. An examination of this statement is necessary, so that we can better understand how to start the reconciliation process and how we should proceed.
The two commandments of love are the following:
“ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ / This is the first and greatest commandment. / And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ / On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40)
So the first commandment concerns itself with loving God with all one’s heart, soul and with all one’s mind. This commandment is about one’s relationship with his Creator. In that sense, it addresses a private relationship; one that is only known and fully understood and appreciated between the individual and his Creator. While this relationship needs nurturing, it will always remain essentially private. Though both Muslims and Christians worship the same God, it is not within the realm of reconciliation to discuss the nature of God.
Both Muslims and Christians accept the first commandment and all similar teachings. In the New Testament, Jesus said: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one” . "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. " The Qur’an similarly teaches: ”Say, 'My Lord has guided me to a straight path, an upright religion, the faith of Abraham, a man of pure faith. Nor did he associate anything with God.' 162Say, 'My prayers, my devotions, my very being and death are all in the hands of God, Lord of all the Worlds; 163He has no partner. This is what I am commanded, and I am the first to submit my will to Him.' 164Say, 'Should I seek a Lord other than God, when he is the Lord of all things?' Each soul is responsible for its own actions; no soul will bear the burden of another …. (Al-An’am, 6:162-164). Moreover, Prophet Muhammad said: The best remembrance is: ‘There is no god but God’…
Expanding on the best remembrance, the Prophet Muhammad also said: The best that I have said—myself, and the prophets that came before me—is: ‘There is no god but God, He Alone, He hath no associate, His is the sovereignty and His is the praise and He hath power over all things’. The phrases which follow the First Testimony of faith are all from the Holy Qur’an; each describes a mode of loving God and devotion to Him.
Getting involved beyond the point of accepting the oneness of God to a discussion of His nature should not be the task of those seeking reconciliation. One’s relationship with the Creator and the way He is worshiped should be personal. My proposal is that we leave it out of the reconciliation effort and focus upon the second commandment.
The second commandment addresses our relationship with our neighbor. But who is your neighbor? Jesus answered this question with the parable of the good Samaritan. This parable is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verses 25-37.
“One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus , “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus then replied with a story:
“A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Levite walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’ “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
In this parable Jesus is trying to say that the one you perceive as your enemy can, in fact, be considered your friend. In reality, everyone that you encounter on your journey through life is your neighbor and should be loved.
But how do you love your neighbor? Do we wait until we encounter someone on the side of the road who has been attacked by bandits? More relevant is how does an employee love his boss? How does he love his colleagues at work? How does a woman love her husband or her father-in-law? And how does her husband love her? Can one love others if he/she does not love themselves? How can you give what you don’t have? When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you like who you are? Are you at least happy with yourself? Have you made peace with yourself and accepted the unique person you are?
At the heart of all the elements that make up your life experiences - family, friends, intimate relationships, and work - is you. This is why the rules of love begin with a rule not about relationships with others, but rather about the one you have with yourself.
There is a distinction between "you" and your "self." Your self is the core of your being, the essential entity that exists irrespective of your personality, your ego, your opinions, and your emotions. It is the small, sacred space within you that houses your spirit and soul. "You" are the observer, coach, editor, and critic who survey your thoughts, words, feelings, and behaviors and determine how much of your essential self is shown to others.
The quality of the relationship between you and your self is paramount, for all your other relationships are based on it. This relationship acts as a template from which all the unions in your life are shaped, setting the quality, tone, and texture for how you relate to others and how they relate to you. It establishes a working model of how to give and receive love …
Each one of us has needs that are different from the hierarchy of physical and survival needs as defined by Maslow (1970). These are emotional needs and they are called Relational needs as they emerge out of our social connectedness, and help sustain and nurture our emotional attachments to others.
Relational needs are the needs that grow out of human interaction, and being aware of these needs in ourselves and in others can help develop and nurture human relationships. Being aware of these needs can also help us gain insight into the feelings, behaviors and motivations in ourselves and others. So loving your neighbor is about understanding your neighbors’ needs and meeting them to the best of your ability.
All people experience these relational needs and they are present in all components of our life, from cradle to grave. Often these needs are out of our awareness, but they push into our awareness if they are not being met.
When relational needs are not met, they become more intense, more pressing, and are experienced as emptiness, a longing, or a nagging loneliness. Some people may become frustrated, angry, or aggressive in the face of unmet needs, or they may become depressed, lose energy and hope. They may also develop beliefs about their life such as “There’s nobody there for me” or “There’s no use trying” or “Nobody can be trusted” as a way of explaining the inner distress they feel . Hence the importance of Prophet Muhammad teaching: “smiling when you meet your brother is an act of charity” and further, “the best among you when you meet is the one that first gives his salutation of peace”.
These needs are shared by all human beings; they are intrinsic characteristic of our God-given identities, an inescapable part of being human.
According to current studies of the subject of relational needs, there are five general characteristics of needs:
1- Needs are cross-cultural
2- Needs exist in all generations
3- Needs are lifelong and continuous
4- It is OK to have needs; Neediness is not a defect
5- We cannot meet our own needs; they can only be met in the context of meaningful relationships.
Beyond the five characteristics of general needs there are also specific relational needs that are shared by all human kind. As we will see, we each have the opportunity to both “receive” and “give” these relational needs as we live life to the fullest in our relationship with God and our neighbors. These ten relational needs can be demonstrated as follows:
1- Acceptance: The need for acceptance revolves around receiving others willingly and unconditionally (even when their behavior has been imperfect) and loving them in spite of any differences that may exist between you.
2- Affection: The need for affection revolves around expressing care and closeness through physical touch, actions that represent affection and through words such as “ I love you” or “I care about you”
3- Appreciation: The need for appreciation revolves around expressing thanks, praise, or commendation, particularly in recognition of someone’s accomplishments or efforts; appreciation has a specific focus on what a person “does”.
4- Approval: The need for approval revolves around building up or affirming another person, particularly for “who” they are (as opposed to what they do). It is also met by affirming both the fact and the importance of your relationship with another person.
5- Attention: The need for attention revolves around conveying appropriate interest, concern, and care. Addressing this need requires us to take notice of others and make an effort to enter into their respective worlds.
6- Comfort: The need for comfort is about caringly responding to a hurting person through words, actions, emotional responses and physical touch. Meeting this need requires us to truly hurt with and for another person in the midst of their grief or pain.
7- Encouragement: The need for encouragement is about urging others to persist and persevere in their efforts to attain their goal and by stimulating them toward love and good deeds.
8- Respect: The need for respect is about valuing one another highly, treating one another as important, and honoring one another with our words and actions.
9- Security: The need for security revolves around establishing and maintaining harmony in our relationships and providing freedom from fear or threat of harm. This process involves mutual expressions of vulnerability, the deepening of trust and the successful resolution of conflict.
10- Support: The need for support is about coming alongside others and providing gentle, appropriate assistance with a problem or struggle.
Though we obviously all have needs—one question still remains—why do we long for comfort, attention and security ? After all, God could have created us without any needs whatsoever. Should we then conclude that our needs represent flaws in our design? The answer must be a resounding “No!” So why do we have needs?
1- Our neediness encourages humility and valuing of relationships.
So far, we have seen that (1) everyone has needs, and (2) we cannot meet our own needs. Therefore, we can only conclude that, in order to have our needs met, we must look beyond ourselves. We are not to live as an “island” unto ourselves. Our relationships in life can provide meaning and fulfillment.
2- Our neediness encourages interdependence.
Just as our neediness and our inability to meet our own needs compels us to value relationships, so it should also motivate us to support and encourage one another. We cannot live our lives as if we were computerized robots on an assembly line, doing our own thing with no regard for the needs of others.
Fortunately, a number of relationships serve to promote interdependence and mutual fulfillment of needs. At the most axiomatic level, many of us have been granted the blessings of healthy marriages and other close family relationships, which serve as environments within which we both give and receive loving care in order to meet one another’s needs.
In addition, through friends, colleagues and community, we are challenged to look for ways in which we can give to the needs of others, as well as meet our own.
3- Accepting the reality of our needs helps us to develop a heart filled with compassion for others.
Our ability to respond effectively with care and compassion toward others is closely tied to our willingness to admit that we have needs.
The sad truth is that those who tend to deny their own needs often lack compassion for others who are in need. Having chosen to adopt an attitude of self-reliance, they are likely to respond to neediness in others by thinking, “Why should I care about their needs? If they have problems, they should take care of them themselves!” As we come to accept the reality of our own needs and to humbly receive care and compassion, we are in turn empowered to respond to the needs of others with genuine feelings of compassion and concrete acts of kindness.
4- Admitting our needs frees us to both receive and give care.
It is difficult to give others what we have not received. A woman who was never comforted as a child may find it incredibly challenging to offer words of comfort to her own children. A man whose parents failed to consistently display affection for him may struggle to adequately express his affection for his wife. An employer who has rarely received encouragement from others may find it hard to effectively encourage his employees.
By contrast, those who have had their own needs met are much better equipped to meet the needs of others. But in order to have our needs met, we must first admit that they exist. When we willingly acknowledge our neediness, we allow ourselves to receive care and we are better able to give more freely in return.
5- Meeting the needs of others expresses care and produces community ties.
If we desire to decrease the number of divisions within our families, communities, and cultures, we must begin by increasing care. Countless conflicts and breakdowns can be traced to a lack of trusting, caring relationships between marriage partners, family members, business and country leaders. How do we demonstrate that we truly care for one another? By meeting each other’s needs. As loving care is increasingly demonstrated through mutual fulfillment of needs, divisions are mended and unity is strengthened.
Knowing one’s self and emotional needs helps us understand how to satisfy these needs relationally. This, in my opinion, will produce healthy individuals, healthy families and healthy social networks and communities. Additionally there is accumulative social capital that will form through these interactive healthy relations.
Social capital is a sociological concept used in business, economics, organizational behavior, political science, public health and the social sciences, in general, to refer to connections within and between social networks. For the past decade, social capital has resonated strongly with communities across America attempting to improve residents’ quality of life and overall well-being.
The accumulated social capital forming out of loving God and loving neighbors might be measurable as suggested by a study done in November 2001 . The study argues that the idea that many sociological and economic outcomes are determined not only by market forces, but also by factors related to the nature and quality of people’s social, non-market interactions underlies the very active research program on “social capital”.
Sociologists and political scientists have long stressed social capital’s importance . And, a number of studies by empirical economists document correlations between social capital and positive economic outcomes across different communities and countries, and over time . One of these studies is the Social Capital Community Benchmark Study . It has enabled us to better quantify and measure social capital, and we are still exploring the most effective ways, settings and activities to build social capital and increase civic engagement.
Loving our neighbor is a command given to us by Jesus Christ and confirmed centuries later by the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad . Both the Muslim and Christian traditions have taught all along that this command falls into the realm of good ethics. However, Jesus Christ went further and proclaimed that to Love God and your neighbor summarized all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40).
I am proposing that there is more to the two commands than an order for simple good behavior. Perhaps they are the basis God gave us to build a healthy and a prosperous society. Their inherent value is significantly broader than the common conception of right and wrong. They might be the gateway to "the good life", the life worth living, which is held by many philosophers to be more important than traditional moral conduct.
Relationships are at the core of who we are as humans. From Greek dramas to the current top ten music charts, nearly every artistic expression is about relationship: songs of love lost and found, tales of our deepest longings and greatest tragedies. Whether it is an individual broken heart, or whole families and society's devastated by relationships gone bad, relationships reflect our deepest human struggles. They are the source of our most profound joy and pain. Relationships are what we are willing to kill and die for… what we long for most… what keep us up at night. It is in relationships that we find out who we are as humans, and what matters most in life.
Relationships are at the heart of faith, reflecting the fact that we as humans have been created as social creatures. Jesus identified the central message of the law and prophets relationally.
From love to hate, relationships are at the depth of sin and at the height of moral virtue. Compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, trust, betrayal, murder, adultery and revenge—each is rooted in relationship. It is at the heart of both ethics and worship.
A relational focus entails that we place love as our highest priority above orthodoxy, placing righteousness over being right. The mark of good doctrine is the fruit it bears. A relational faith cares more about relationships and people than it does about being right. In fact, according to Scripture, a theology that is unloving is not right. Of the necessity of love for the neighbour, Prophet Muhammad said: “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.”
One can go through life trying to be the best he can according to materialistic ends, the wealthiest, the most powerful, or instead, become what God has created one to be; a loving and humble servant to others. This is best expressed in one of the fondest prayers of the Prophet Muhammad “My Lord, I ask you for Your love, and for the love of everyone who loves You, and for the love of everything that will bring me closer to Your love”.
So what is the next step? Take a deep look inside and make sure your heart is reconciled to your Creator. Then you can then take a look around you and love your neighbors. This will include people that you don’t like at all. Liking likable people does not require any effort. It is the people that you don’t like that you need to pray for and ask God to forgive and to bring to the straight path. This is the true essence of the 360 degree love.
What is the end result that we should look forward to? To turn into a better person that loves his family, a servant to his community and a leader. You may also end up having a tender heart that brings tears to your eyes every time you remember God or see his blessings.
Who is qualified to engage in this kind of activity? You and I; everyone who has a personal relationship with God and everyone we have a relationship with. It is a vertical relationship with God and 360 degrees of horizontal relationship with others.
In short, all of us are qualified to engage in reconciliation. God loves us all, shouldn’t we do the same?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Golden Rule, Metalaw, and the Maqasid al Shari'a: Toward a Paradigmatic Revolution
by Dr. Robert D. Crane
The history of humanity is one of expanding our horizons on earth as we bump into others like ourselves. As we “bump into” sentient beings from foreign planets, perhaps the shock will help us overcome our religious tribalism so that in awe we can in the future expand our vision beyond our own physical home and also to higher dimensions of reality.
We might even reverse the Golden Rule, which is enshrined in all of the world religions. Contextually designed for earthbound humans, it now reads, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Under the new moral guidelines of a still higher metalaw, the Golden Rule might read, “Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves”. Any other approach might destroy all life. This is the core of metalaw, which could provide the guidelines for new disciplines in the study of peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice both on earth and throughout the universe.
Islamic scholars centuries ago developed this metalegal perspective in what is known as the maqasid al shari’a, which is the science of ultimate ends. This is based on the common purpose of all sentient beings and even of every plant and animal in its own way, which, in turn, is based on study of their common origins.
In the Qur’an, Surah al Rahman 55:6, we read, wa najmu wa al shejaru yasujdan, “and the stars and the trees bow down to God”, but in ways you do not understand. As developed in my book, Rehabilitating the Role of Religion in the World, in the section on the shari’i principle or maqsad of haqq al mahid (environmental justice), this is developed further by reference to Surah al Nur 24:31: “Are you not aware that it is God whose limitless glory all [creatures] that are in the heavens and on earth extol, even the birds as they spread out their wings? Each [of them] knows how to pray unto Him and to glorify Him. And God has full knowledge of all that they do, for God’s is the dominion over the heavens and the earth, and with God is all journey’s end”. Allah tells us in Surah al ‘Isra 17:43-44, “And there is not a single thing but extols His limitless glory and praise. But you [O humans] fail to grasp the manner of glorifying Him”. The Qur’an summarizes all this in the simple phrase, “Wherever you turn, there is the face of God.”
The Qur’an speaks of an inner truth in Creation. Thus, in Surah al Hijr 15:85 we read: wa ma halaqna al samawat wa al ‘ard wa bainahum ille bil haqq, “and We have created the heavens and the earth and all that lives in between with an inner truth”. This is repeated again and again in different contexts, in Surah Yunus 10:5, Ali-i Imran 3:191, Hajj 22:18, and Sad 38:27, where the term batilan is used and best translated as “meaning and purpose”.
Introducing Surah al Hijr 15:85 is 15:75, which reads ina fi dhalika l’ayatin li al mutawasimin. “In this are messages for those who can read the signs”. The root word wasama in its fifth form tawasama means to watch or examine closely. Both of the classical commentators Razi and Zamakshari say that mutawasim means “one who applies the mind to the study of the outward appearances of a thing with a view to understanding its real nature and its inner characteristics”.
The Maqasid al Shari’ah
This search for the inner or higher truth of reality is the highest purpose of the maqasid al shari’ah as meta-legal guidelines for human responsibilities and rights, in accordance with the basic Qur’anic principle expressed in Surah al An’am 6:115: tama’at kalimatu rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “The Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and in justice”.
The theory is simple. All the revealed religions contain a universal paradigm of thought. Muslims call this Islam. It is based on an affirmation that there is an ultimate reality of which man and the entire universe are merely an expression, that therefore every person is created with an innate awareness of absolute truth and love, and that persons in community can and should develop from the various sources of divine revelation, including natural law or the Sunnat Allah, a framework of moral law to secure peace, prosperity, and freedom.
What is this system? Using current phraseology, the answer is simple. It is justice. This is the core message that activists of every religion should put front and center.
Within the last two or three years for the first time in decades of fruitless political activism in America, Muslims have finally begun to revive the necessary guidance of classical Islam in the universal purposes (maqasid) or universal principles (kulliyat) or essentials (dururiyat) of the maqasid al shari’ah as the applied essence of Islam in the world and as the only winning paradigm for America and for Muslims in America or anywhere else in the world or in the universe.
The Great American Experiment was founded on it. The Constitution of the United States of America starts with a Preamble that declares the priorities of its purpose. This starts with the pursuit of a unity through justice, national defense, domestic order, prosperity, and freedom. Freedom comes last because it is the product of justice. Only through leadership in promoting the natural law of justice can Muslims help America recover its lost tradition and become what its founders envisioned, which is to be a moral model for all of humankind.
The Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, strove to develop the believer’s conscience through adherence to principles and values, known as the Sunnat Allah or natural law. This became known later as the synergism of three sources, namely, Divine Revelation or haqq al yaqin, observation of the physical laws of the universe or ‘ain al yaqin, and human reason or ‘ilm al yaqin to understand the first two primary sources. The values and principles were just as important as their source. The Prophet and especially his follower ‘Ali, radi Allahu anhu, showed a way to transcend narrow and self-centered group allegiance in the tribalistic and negative form of asabiya in favor of primary loyalty to universal principles themselves.
These universal principles or maqasid were developed over a period of centuries into what became the world’s most sophisticated code of human responsibilities and rights. They are spelled out in three of my recent books. The first one is The Natural Law of Compassionate Justice: An Islamic Perspective, Read 1 Communications, 224 pages, released in January 2010. The second is a 560-page textbook, entitled Islam and Muslims: Key Current Challenges, The Center for Understanding Islam, February 2010, And the third, for release in the summer of 2010, is entitled Rehabilitating the Role of Religion in the World: Laying a New Foundation on the Natural Law of Compassionate Justice, which has a detailed discussion on the origin and historical development of the maqasid, as well as a lengthy chapter on each of the eight maqasid as I understand them. The most advanced study of Islamic normative law as an expression of Metalaw, however, is Professor Jasser Auda’s Maqasid al Shari’ah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach, IIIT, 2008, 347 pages.
The first universal principle or maqsad is known as haqq al din. This requires respect for religion. At a secondary level, known as the hajjiyat, this maqsad means that religion should be neither prescribed nor proscribed in public life, that is, neither institutionalized nor forbidden. This hajja, as developed by the first great successor to Al Shatibi, namely, Mufti Ibn Ashur of Tunisia in 1946, is basic to every level of metalaw.
The next universal principle, haqq al nafs, requires respect for the individual person. At the secondary level it requires respect for sentient life. At the still more detailed level, known as tahsinniyat, it teaches the limiting principles of the just war doctrine.
The next maqsad requires respect for the community, haqq al nasl, which is sacred because its component members derive their individual sovereignty directly from God. This is the other side or dimension of asabiya, which Ibn Khaldun distinguished from the negative form known as tribalism. This positive form of community loyalty permits authority and sovereignty to ascend from God through the human person upwards from the nuclear family to every higher level of community, including the nation and even all of humankind. This sacred form of sovereignty is the opposite of the positivist concept enshrined in Western international law as we were taught it at Harvard Law School. The Islamic concept of sovereignty turns the Western secular concept of the state on its head, because Western secularist jurisprudence declares that ultimate authority comes not from God but from whoever can impose order by force over fifty-one percent of any given territory. For example, this Islamic concept declares that the Palestinian people are inherently a sovereign nation, whereas Western international law declares that they do not exist.
The fourth maqsad, which has always been assumed but rarely spelled out as an irreducible principle of the Sunnat Allah is haqq al mahid (from wahada) or respect for the physical environment.
These first four of eight maqasid al shari’ah are what I call the transcendent or guiding principles. These are followed by four implementing maqasid.
Briefly, the first of the four is haqq al hurriyah, which requires governmental institutions adequate to promote the self-determination of persons, communities, and nations, based on the four hajjiyat known as khilafa, shurah, ijma, and an independent judiciary. This concept of political freedom is basic to the founding concept of government introduced in the West by the American Revolution, which in turn was based on the Scottish Renaissance.
All of America’s founders condemned democracy as the worst possible form of government, because by definition democracy, as exhibited in the French Revolution, vested ultimate authority not in God but in whoever could manipulate the masses to support elitist oppression. The opposite of a democracy is a republic, which by definition is based on the concept that the legislature is charged with seeking and implementing justice from the higher authority of God, that the Executive branch of government is charged with carrying out the will of the legislature, and that the Judicial branch of government is responsible to assure that both of the other branches are properly doing their job. In 1787, at the Constitutional Convention, when Benjamin Franklin was asked whether the Framers of the Constitution had created a republic or a monarchy, he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The second of the four applied maqasid is haqq al mal or economic justice. This requires respect for the decentralization of power through institutional reform, especially in the creation of money and credit designed to promote the universal right of access to individual ownership of wealth producing assets. This diffusion of capital ownership, while respecting the property rights of all existing owners, is key to reducing the growing wealth gap within and among nations, which is the primary cause of radicalism and has always been the primary cause of civilizational suicide.
The final set of maqasid requires respect for human dignity (haqq al karama), especially through gender equity, and respect for knowledge (haqq al ‘ilm or ‘aql) through freedom of thought, speech, and assembly.
These eight universal principles and purposes of sentient life are the key to the rise and fall of civilizations. Civilizations fall, usually in the midst of wars, when pessimists see growing inequities and fail to respond as agents of change or when they seek change through blind destruction. Both individual persons and entire civilizations die when they abandon the transcendent mission implanted in human nature and seek only to survive. Civilizations rise when optimists follow a higher vision and challenge the status quo by perfecting what is good but can be better. As brought out in my book Shaping the Future: Challenge and Response, Tapestry Press, 1997, 159 pages, it is a matter of challenge and response.
Unfortunately, most nations in our world have became at best bi-polar societies which alternate between seeking justice and seeking physical power as ultimate ends, without appreciation for the fact that the pursuit of justice is the most reliable road to security and peace. The goal should not be to empower only oneself but to empower others. Any perspective that raises an ideology of power, whether economic, political or military, to the level of an ultimate end and rejects justice as a guiding paradigm in either domestic or foreign policy inevitably will lead from cosmos to chaos.
The key to justice and to just governance, on earth or anywhere else, is education. Education should be designed to shape the paradigms of thought that govern public life. The paradigm shapers control the agendas as developed by think-tanks and the media. It is a truism, not absorbed by Muslim think-tanks, that whoever controls the policy agenda controls policy.
Thomas Jefferson, who drafted America’s Declaration of Independence and was its third president, taught that people can remain free only if they are properly educated, that education consists primarily in learning virtue, and that no people can be virtuous unless both their private and public lives are infused with awareness and love of God. In his days, the virtues were other words for what today are known as human responsibilities and rights, and these were considered together as the very definition of justice.
God, through his mercy, has given every person, as well as every nation, the freedom to become what they are intended to be. Their true identity is not what they may falsely try to construct, but rather what they in potential have been created to be. One’s purpose, both as a person and as a community, therefore is to become what one is, metaphorically speaking, in the eyes of God.
This search for the inner or higher truth of reality is the highest purpose of the maqasid al shari’ah as metalegal guidelines for responsibilities and rights, in accordance with the basic Qur’anic principle expressed in Surah al An’am 6:115: tama’at kalimatu rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “The Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and in justice.”
The motivation for seeking to become what God has created one to be is best expressed in one of the fondest prayers of the Prophet Muhammad, salla allahu ‘alayhi wa salam: Allahhuma, asaluka hubbaka, wa hubba man yuhibbuka, as hubba kulli ‘amali yuqaribuni ila hubbika, “O Allah, I ask you for Your love, and for the love of everyone who loves You, and for the love of everything that will bring me closer to Your love”.
The history of humanity is one of expanding our horizons on earth as we bump into others like ourselves. As we “bump into” sentient beings from foreign planets, perhaps the shock will help us overcome our religious tribalism so that in awe we can in the future expand our vision beyond our own physical home and also to higher dimensions of reality.
We might even reverse the Golden Rule, which is enshrined in all of the world religions. Contextually designed for earthbound humans, it now reads, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Under the new moral guidelines of a still higher metalaw, the Golden Rule might read, “Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves”. Any other approach might destroy all life. This is the core of metalaw, which could provide the guidelines for new disciplines in the study of peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice both on earth and throughout the universe.
Islamic scholars centuries ago developed this metalegal perspective in what is known as the maqasid al shari’a, which is the science of ultimate ends. This is based on the common purpose of all sentient beings and even of every plant and animal in its own way, which, in turn, is based on study of their common origins.
In the Qur’an, Surah al Rahman 55:6, we read, wa najmu wa al shejaru yasujdan, “and the stars and the trees bow down to God”, but in ways you do not understand. As developed in my book, Rehabilitating the Role of Religion in the World, in the section on the shari’i principle or maqsad of haqq al mahid (environmental justice), this is developed further by reference to Surah al Nur 24:31: “Are you not aware that it is God whose limitless glory all [creatures] that are in the heavens and on earth extol, even the birds as they spread out their wings? Each [of them] knows how to pray unto Him and to glorify Him. And God has full knowledge of all that they do, for God’s is the dominion over the heavens and the earth, and with God is all journey’s end”. Allah tells us in Surah al ‘Isra 17:43-44, “And there is not a single thing but extols His limitless glory and praise. But you [O humans] fail to grasp the manner of glorifying Him”. The Qur’an summarizes all this in the simple phrase, “Wherever you turn, there is the face of God.”
The Qur’an speaks of an inner truth in Creation. Thus, in Surah al Hijr 15:85 we read: wa ma halaqna al samawat wa al ‘ard wa bainahum ille bil haqq, “and We have created the heavens and the earth and all that lives in between with an inner truth”. This is repeated again and again in different contexts, in Surah Yunus 10:5, Ali-i Imran 3:191, Hajj 22:18, and Sad 38:27, where the term batilan is used and best translated as “meaning and purpose”.
Introducing Surah al Hijr 15:85 is 15:75, which reads ina fi dhalika l’ayatin li al mutawasimin. “In this are messages for those who can read the signs”. The root word wasama in its fifth form tawasama means to watch or examine closely. Both of the classical commentators Razi and Zamakshari say that mutawasim means “one who applies the mind to the study of the outward appearances of a thing with a view to understanding its real nature and its inner characteristics”.
The Maqasid al Shari’ah
This search for the inner or higher truth of reality is the highest purpose of the maqasid al shari’ah as meta-legal guidelines for human responsibilities and rights, in accordance with the basic Qur’anic principle expressed in Surah al An’am 6:115: tama’at kalimatu rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “The Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and in justice”.
The theory is simple. All the revealed religions contain a universal paradigm of thought. Muslims call this Islam. It is based on an affirmation that there is an ultimate reality of which man and the entire universe are merely an expression, that therefore every person is created with an innate awareness of absolute truth and love, and that persons in community can and should develop from the various sources of divine revelation, including natural law or the Sunnat Allah, a framework of moral law to secure peace, prosperity, and freedom.
What is this system? Using current phraseology, the answer is simple. It is justice. This is the core message that activists of every religion should put front and center.
Within the last two or three years for the first time in decades of fruitless political activism in America, Muslims have finally begun to revive the necessary guidance of classical Islam in the universal purposes (maqasid) or universal principles (kulliyat) or essentials (dururiyat) of the maqasid al shari’ah as the applied essence of Islam in the world and as the only winning paradigm for America and for Muslims in America or anywhere else in the world or in the universe.
The Great American Experiment was founded on it. The Constitution of the United States of America starts with a Preamble that declares the priorities of its purpose. This starts with the pursuit of a unity through justice, national defense, domestic order, prosperity, and freedom. Freedom comes last because it is the product of justice. Only through leadership in promoting the natural law of justice can Muslims help America recover its lost tradition and become what its founders envisioned, which is to be a moral model for all of humankind.
The Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, strove to develop the believer’s conscience through adherence to principles and values, known as the Sunnat Allah or natural law. This became known later as the synergism of three sources, namely, Divine Revelation or haqq al yaqin, observation of the physical laws of the universe or ‘ain al yaqin, and human reason or ‘ilm al yaqin to understand the first two primary sources. The values and principles were just as important as their source. The Prophet and especially his follower ‘Ali, radi Allahu anhu, showed a way to transcend narrow and self-centered group allegiance in the tribalistic and negative form of asabiya in favor of primary loyalty to universal principles themselves.
These universal principles or maqasid were developed over a period of centuries into what became the world’s most sophisticated code of human responsibilities and rights. They are spelled out in three of my recent books. The first one is The Natural Law of Compassionate Justice: An Islamic Perspective, Read 1 Communications, 224 pages, released in January 2010. The second is a 560-page textbook, entitled Islam and Muslims: Key Current Challenges, The Center for Understanding Islam, February 2010, And the third, for release in the summer of 2010, is entitled Rehabilitating the Role of Religion in the World: Laying a New Foundation on the Natural Law of Compassionate Justice, which has a detailed discussion on the origin and historical development of the maqasid, as well as a lengthy chapter on each of the eight maqasid as I understand them. The most advanced study of Islamic normative law as an expression of Metalaw, however, is Professor Jasser Auda’s Maqasid al Shari’ah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach, IIIT, 2008, 347 pages.
The first universal principle or maqsad is known as haqq al din. This requires respect for religion. At a secondary level, known as the hajjiyat, this maqsad means that religion should be neither prescribed nor proscribed in public life, that is, neither institutionalized nor forbidden. This hajja, as developed by the first great successor to Al Shatibi, namely, Mufti Ibn Ashur of Tunisia in 1946, is basic to every level of metalaw.
The next universal principle, haqq al nafs, requires respect for the individual person. At the secondary level it requires respect for sentient life. At the still more detailed level, known as tahsinniyat, it teaches the limiting principles of the just war doctrine.
The next maqsad requires respect for the community, haqq al nasl, which is sacred because its component members derive their individual sovereignty directly from God. This is the other side or dimension of asabiya, which Ibn Khaldun distinguished from the negative form known as tribalism. This positive form of community loyalty permits authority and sovereignty to ascend from God through the human person upwards from the nuclear family to every higher level of community, including the nation and even all of humankind. This sacred form of sovereignty is the opposite of the positivist concept enshrined in Western international law as we were taught it at Harvard Law School. The Islamic concept of sovereignty turns the Western secular concept of the state on its head, because Western secularist jurisprudence declares that ultimate authority comes not from God but from whoever can impose order by force over fifty-one percent of any given territory. For example, this Islamic concept declares that the Palestinian people are inherently a sovereign nation, whereas Western international law declares that they do not exist.
The fourth maqsad, which has always been assumed but rarely spelled out as an irreducible principle of the Sunnat Allah is haqq al mahid (from wahada) or respect for the physical environment.
These first four of eight maqasid al shari’ah are what I call the transcendent or guiding principles. These are followed by four implementing maqasid.
Briefly, the first of the four is haqq al hurriyah, which requires governmental institutions adequate to promote the self-determination of persons, communities, and nations, based on the four hajjiyat known as khilafa, shurah, ijma, and an independent judiciary. This concept of political freedom is basic to the founding concept of government introduced in the West by the American Revolution, which in turn was based on the Scottish Renaissance.
All of America’s founders condemned democracy as the worst possible form of government, because by definition democracy, as exhibited in the French Revolution, vested ultimate authority not in God but in whoever could manipulate the masses to support elitist oppression. The opposite of a democracy is a republic, which by definition is based on the concept that the legislature is charged with seeking and implementing justice from the higher authority of God, that the Executive branch of government is charged with carrying out the will of the legislature, and that the Judicial branch of government is responsible to assure that both of the other branches are properly doing their job. In 1787, at the Constitutional Convention, when Benjamin Franklin was asked whether the Framers of the Constitution had created a republic or a monarchy, he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The second of the four applied maqasid is haqq al mal or economic justice. This requires respect for the decentralization of power through institutional reform, especially in the creation of money and credit designed to promote the universal right of access to individual ownership of wealth producing assets. This diffusion of capital ownership, while respecting the property rights of all existing owners, is key to reducing the growing wealth gap within and among nations, which is the primary cause of radicalism and has always been the primary cause of civilizational suicide.
The final set of maqasid requires respect for human dignity (haqq al karama), especially through gender equity, and respect for knowledge (haqq al ‘ilm or ‘aql) through freedom of thought, speech, and assembly.
These eight universal principles and purposes of sentient life are the key to the rise and fall of civilizations. Civilizations fall, usually in the midst of wars, when pessimists see growing inequities and fail to respond as agents of change or when they seek change through blind destruction. Both individual persons and entire civilizations die when they abandon the transcendent mission implanted in human nature and seek only to survive. Civilizations rise when optimists follow a higher vision and challenge the status quo by perfecting what is good but can be better. As brought out in my book Shaping the Future: Challenge and Response, Tapestry Press, 1997, 159 pages, it is a matter of challenge and response.
Unfortunately, most nations in our world have became at best bi-polar societies which alternate between seeking justice and seeking physical power as ultimate ends, without appreciation for the fact that the pursuit of justice is the most reliable road to security and peace. The goal should not be to empower only oneself but to empower others. Any perspective that raises an ideology of power, whether economic, political or military, to the level of an ultimate end and rejects justice as a guiding paradigm in either domestic or foreign policy inevitably will lead from cosmos to chaos.
The key to justice and to just governance, on earth or anywhere else, is education. Education should be designed to shape the paradigms of thought that govern public life. The paradigm shapers control the agendas as developed by think-tanks and the media. It is a truism, not absorbed by Muslim think-tanks, that whoever controls the policy agenda controls policy.
Thomas Jefferson, who drafted America’s Declaration of Independence and was its third president, taught that people can remain free only if they are properly educated, that education consists primarily in learning virtue, and that no people can be virtuous unless both their private and public lives are infused with awareness and love of God. In his days, the virtues were other words for what today are known as human responsibilities and rights, and these were considered together as the very definition of justice.
God, through his mercy, has given every person, as well as every nation, the freedom to become what they are intended to be. Their true identity is not what they may falsely try to construct, but rather what they in potential have been created to be. One’s purpose, both as a person and as a community, therefore is to become what one is, metaphorically speaking, in the eyes of God.
This search for the inner or higher truth of reality is the highest purpose of the maqasid al shari’ah as metalegal guidelines for responsibilities and rights, in accordance with the basic Qur’anic principle expressed in Surah al An’am 6:115: tama’at kalimatu rabika sidqan wa ‘adlan, “The Word of your Lord is fulfilled and perfected in truth and in justice.”
The motivation for seeking to become what God has created one to be is best expressed in one of the fondest prayers of the Prophet Muhammad, salla allahu ‘alayhi wa salam: Allahhuma, asaluka hubbaka, wa hubba man yuhibbuka, as hubba kulli ‘amali yuqaribuni ila hubbika, “O Allah, I ask you for Your love, and for the love of everyone who loves You, and for the love of everything that will bring me closer to Your love”.
Monday, February 22, 2010
ACTION
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/action_2007_2008_2009_you_can_make_a_difference/0013227
TIME SPECIFIC (The most recently posted are at the top)
Contact your congressmen and tell them to choose wisely. Ultimately it’s up to Congress to decide if we spend our money on things like job training and food assistance, or on sending more soldiers into a war that terrorism experts say can’t be won by brute military force.
Send a fax to your congressman. The fax says: “I urge you to pass a constitutional amendment to stop unlimited corporate political spending and to support legislation for public financing of congressional campaigns.” MoveOn.org
Tell your members of Congress that it’s time to reform the Patriot Act. ACLU
Send a letter to your Members of Congress letting them know that you oppose $3 billion in military aid to Israel this year because of its human rights abuses of Palestinians and that you would rather see that money spent on domestic priorities in your state and Congressional district. Democracy in Action.
Sign the petition to take action against the Afghanistan war.
Urge Congress to Call for Independent Investigation into Shooting of Detroit Imam. MPAC
Ask your members of Congress to reject the president’s proposal to increase Pentagon spending. Ask them to find ways to reduce the military budget so that the government has money to spend to provide real security for people in the United States. FCNL
Sign petition to Pass Legislation to Get Corporate Money Out of Politics. change.org
Send an email to your representative thanking them for signing the letter to President Obama to lift the blockade on Gaza, or asking them why they did not sign. U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation
Send an email to to tell Congress not to clap when Obama proposes spending $100 billion on the war in Afghanistan while freezing spending on everything else. True Majority
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) urges you to recognize and thank the 54 US House Representatives who signed a letter to President Obama asking his Administration to lift the blockade on Gaza. Thank them for exhibiting leadership by contacting them. AA-ADC
Sign the petition for a FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE AMENDMENT to the Constitution. Public Citizen
Sign the petition to Pres. Obama and the U.N. to work to make this a nuclear free world.
Tell the Pentagon that the Use of Scripture on Military Weapons is a Misuse of Faith. Faithful America
Please write letters to Iranian officials to free Ibrahim Yazdi
Please send a letter to President Obama and send copies to your representative urging the U.S. government to immediately act to grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitian immigrants. FCNL
Those wishing to donate to Islamic Relief USA’s “Haiti Emergency” appeal may visit http://www.IslamicReliefUSA.org or call (888) 479-4968. Checks payable to “Islamic Relief USA” may be mailed to: Islamic Relief USA, P.O. Box 5640, Buena Park, CA, 90622.
Please donate to CAIR’s Spirit of Islam Fund to Help Rebuild Malaysian Churches
Send an email to Egypt to let the Freedom Marchers enter Gaza and stop construction of another Separation Wall.
Contact Dove World Outreach and let them know what you think of their Christmas message of hate (Islam is of the devil)
Send emails to the Malaysian embassies and consulates about the ban on Christians using Allah in their literature in Malaysia
Send an email to B’nai Brith of Canada about their Islamophobic ad published in the National Post.
Sign fax petition, no more escalation in Afghanistan (Peace Team)
Email Secretary Clinton: Stop Tensions From Flaring In Jerusalem (J Street)
Please sign on to the Interfaith Open Letter to President Obama - Build, Don’t Destroy in Afghanistan. Sojourners
Sign on to support the Goldstone Report. Jewish Voice for Peace
Please take a moment to fill out the form here (make sure to choose The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as your topic) to thank Jon Stewart for airing the interview with Dr. Barghouti and Anna Baltzer on the topic of a non-violent approach to middle east peace. They are getting a lot of angry emails.
contact your Representative NOW to co-sponsor H.R. 3845, the USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009. Introduced by Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Bobby Scott, H.R. 3845 provides for stronger civil rights, civil liberties and privacy protections against many of the surveillance powers of the current USA PATRIOT Act. ADC
Write letter and join ADC in Calling on Congress to Oppose H.RES 867. This is an Attack on the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
Write your senators to ask that they take action to end the Afghanistan war. Shalom Center
TIME SPECIFIC (The most recently posted are at the top)
Contact your congressmen and tell them to choose wisely. Ultimately it’s up to Congress to decide if we spend our money on things like job training and food assistance, or on sending more soldiers into a war that terrorism experts say can’t be won by brute military force.
Send a fax to your congressman. The fax says: “I urge you to pass a constitutional amendment to stop unlimited corporate political spending and to support legislation for public financing of congressional campaigns.” MoveOn.org
Tell your members of Congress that it’s time to reform the Patriot Act. ACLU
Send a letter to your Members of Congress letting them know that you oppose $3 billion in military aid to Israel this year because of its human rights abuses of Palestinians and that you would rather see that money spent on domestic priorities in your state and Congressional district. Democracy in Action.
Sign the petition to take action against the Afghanistan war.
Urge Congress to Call for Independent Investigation into Shooting of Detroit Imam. MPAC
Ask your members of Congress to reject the president’s proposal to increase Pentagon spending. Ask them to find ways to reduce the military budget so that the government has money to spend to provide real security for people in the United States. FCNL
Sign petition to Pass Legislation to Get Corporate Money Out of Politics. change.org
Send an email to your representative thanking them for signing the letter to President Obama to lift the blockade on Gaza, or asking them why they did not sign. U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation
Send an email to to tell Congress not to clap when Obama proposes spending $100 billion on the war in Afghanistan while freezing spending on everything else. True Majority
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) urges you to recognize and thank the 54 US House Representatives who signed a letter to President Obama asking his Administration to lift the blockade on Gaza. Thank them for exhibiting leadership by contacting them. AA-ADC
Sign the petition for a FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE AMENDMENT to the Constitution. Public Citizen
Sign the petition to Pres. Obama and the U.N. to work to make this a nuclear free world.
Tell the Pentagon that the Use of Scripture on Military Weapons is a Misuse of Faith. Faithful America
Please write letters to Iranian officials to free Ibrahim Yazdi
Please send a letter to President Obama and send copies to your representative urging the U.S. government to immediately act to grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitian immigrants. FCNL
Those wishing to donate to Islamic Relief USA’s “Haiti Emergency” appeal may visit http://www.IslamicReliefUSA.org or call (888) 479-4968. Checks payable to “Islamic Relief USA” may be mailed to: Islamic Relief USA, P.O. Box 5640, Buena Park, CA, 90622.
Please donate to CAIR’s Spirit of Islam Fund to Help Rebuild Malaysian Churches
Send an email to Egypt to let the Freedom Marchers enter Gaza and stop construction of another Separation Wall.
Contact Dove World Outreach and let them know what you think of their Christmas message of hate (Islam is of the devil)
Send emails to the Malaysian embassies and consulates about the ban on Christians using Allah in their literature in Malaysia
Send an email to B’nai Brith of Canada about their Islamophobic ad published in the National Post.
Sign fax petition, no more escalation in Afghanistan (Peace Team)
Email Secretary Clinton: Stop Tensions From Flaring In Jerusalem (J Street)
Please sign on to the Interfaith Open Letter to President Obama - Build, Don’t Destroy in Afghanistan. Sojourners
Sign on to support the Goldstone Report. Jewish Voice for Peace
Please take a moment to fill out the form here (make sure to choose The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as your topic) to thank Jon Stewart for airing the interview with Dr. Barghouti and Anna Baltzer on the topic of a non-violent approach to middle east peace. They are getting a lot of angry emails.
contact your Representative NOW to co-sponsor H.R. 3845, the USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009. Introduced by Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Bobby Scott, H.R. 3845 provides for stronger civil rights, civil liberties and privacy protections against many of the surveillance powers of the current USA PATRIOT Act. ADC
Write letter and join ADC in Calling on Congress to Oppose H.RES 867. This is an Attack on the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
Write your senators to ask that they take action to end the Afghanistan war. Shalom Center
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Reconciliation: The choice of peacemakers
Reconciliation: The choice of peacemakers
By
Safi Kaskas & Friends
Since 9/11Western and Muslim scholarship has characterized the political relationship between the Muslim world and the West as one full of tension and conflict. For evidence of this tension we need look no further than Barrack Obama’s recent speech at the heartland of Islamic scholarship, al-Azhar University in Cairo, in which he said “…a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world – tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate.” “Indeed Obama’s prime purpose was to open a pathway to bridging political alienation”, wrote Richard Shumack[1] in his article “Islam and the West: facing conflict for mutual gain?” [2]
Is the tension getting any better? Unfortunately, the answer is a firm no. Recent acts of terrorism within the United States continue to rekindle the tension and fear within both the Muslim and the non-Muslim American communities. In fact those recent acts of terrorism, especially those planned or committed by American Muslims, give legitimacy to comments such as the one that was made by Daniel Pipes in November 2001about the American government and its Muslims’ citizens[3].
In this environment of tension, working for reconciliation and peace is long overdue. In fact, if we are to prevent a much larger disaster from happening, we have no other alternative but to work for better understanding and reconciliation. It is no longer possible to depend solely on America’s long standing tradition of constitutional rights, tolerance and minority protection.
My Islamic faith has taught me that it is my duty and I hope the duty of every American of goodwill to try to work towards peace and true reconciliation. Obviously, there are no guarantees for success, as the agenda is often dictated by fanatics. Perhaps however, it is not that the fanatics are in control, but that we have failed to respond with the love that our Creator has commanded.
As for me, the only choice was always to work with my Evangelical friends for better understanding. It is a personal agenda that reflects my own faith. One day, when I stand in front of my maker to account for my time on earth, I will have this peacemaking effort to report.
After years of trying to build bridges toward others, I thought it would be useful for new bridge builders to have a few insights from my experience on what makes certain efforts qualify as reconciliation efforts.
True reconciliation requires one to identify and establish sufficient common ground with the other that will enable both to live together in peace. I would think it fair to describe the people engaged in reconciliation as peacemakers. When Jesus spoke of peacemakers, he noted that they shall inherit the earth – and perhaps it is the peacemakers that will help to prepare the Kingdom he spoke of? True reconciliation and peacemaking requires nothing less than sincerity of heart. It is never an effort to show that one faith is better than another.
For reconciliation to be successful, both parties involved in this effort should be willing to consider that both messages are from the same source, God Almighty, and they both include worthy inner values that can guide their followers to a life of peace with others. The absence of these basic assumptions will not lead to a successful effort.
To be clear, we are not talking about God reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus Christ as in the New Testament. Just as building peace is a cherished principle of Jesus, the reconciliation I am discussing here is a conscious effort to please God by establishing peace with our other neighbors that adhere to other revealed messages.
The first requirement is that one clearly understands their own beliefs before trying to find common ground with others from another faith. If neither has a deep understanding of their own beliefs, the reconciliation will inevitably be based solely on cultural or humanitarian grounds which usually leads to an agreement on general human moral values. While this is good, it does not address the root of a problem that is becoming deadly in certain parts of the world.
While we are talking about religion, faith and beliefs, one has to realize that reconciliation[4] is not theological but relational. At the heart of any successful reconciliation is God’s love and not doctrinal issues. I am engaged with you to show you that I accept you as you are, while I need attention from you and respect. These relational needs if placed at the foundation of the reconciliation effort will put the discussion on the right track that will help both to gain appreciation for each other. These relational needs are rooted in biblical teachings while for a Muslim they are based on verse 13 of Sura 49Al Hujurat:
49:13 People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into nations and tribes so that you should get to know one another. In God's eyes, the most honored of you are the ones most aware of Him: God is all knowing, all aware[5].
Reconciliation, by definition, is a conscious effort based on logic. If both messages are from the same source, it will make sense to find common ground for peaceful coexistence. However, faith is not necessarily logical. Therein lies the difficulty of engaging another that has deep commitment to his faith while hoping that he accepts a compromise by gaining appreciation for others. Usually the most productive reconciliation is done one-on-one and not in public. After all, you are hoping that God touches the heart of the other and this is not easy when an audience is watching. A good starting point is what is obviously common such as the belief in One Creator.
I have also learned over the years that no real productive Christian/Muslim reconciliation effort can take place unless both parties share a basic respect for the religious beliefs of the other. This takes a deliberate and sincere effort to walk in the other person shoes and see where they are coming from.
Another requirement of a real Muslim/Christian reconciliation is for one side to put a real effort to learn and understand the other’s beliefs in order to help expand his horizon enough to appreciate the other. Thus, if you are involved in a dialogue with a person from another faith but neither you nor the other are reading, experiencing and learning about and from each other, no meaningful reconciliation can truly take place. So let me be clear; if a Muslim continues to quote the Qur’an to a Christian thinking that the information in the Qur’an will suffice, he may be mistaken. For if the Christian believed that the Qur’an is the word of God, there will be no need to have the discussion in the first place. I believe that a Muslim needs to start by reading the Qur’an in order to understand his own religion but he also need to read at least the Bible in order to understand the basic teachings of Christianity.
Sometimes, under the guise of reconciliation, there is a veiled conversion effort on the part of some Muslims or Christians, although it is done with good intentions. Both usually start with the notion “if I only have a chance to make him hear “The Truth”, I will be able to change his heart”.
I’ve learned that there is a built-in inner logic that each religion has developed over the years. This has made its principles (doctrines) coherent, very appealing and a source of pride to its followers and made it defiant to naïf assailants.
I have also learned through experience that the aforementioned notion is silly. A committed Christian, like a committed Muslim invests a lot of time exploring and learning his or her religion. No one is going to convert another by simply talking to them about his side of the truth. The notion of converting another to your religion is a very egotistical notion and a misguided one at best.
If one is doing it in order to boast to his friends that he got one for the Lord, this will be as far from God’s teaching as one can get. For God has taught us that making one’s heart accept His truth is His doing. We don’t control guidance, He does. This necessitates that all we do is to present what we believe to be true to others and pray that God open their hearts to see it. If we want, however, to be true to ourselves we should pray at the same time that God open our hearts to the truth that others might be presenting to us.
This brings me to discuss the approach some of us use when presenting our faith to others. After the invasion of Iraq, the American forces were followed by an army of missionaries thinking that “Iraq is open now for Jesus” and they can now bring the good news to the Iraqis, to discover that many of those that they were calling on were, in fact, Christians while the other Muslims knew far more about Christianity than the missionaries knew about Islam. The missionary approach is a direct response to their limited understanding of the Great Commission. The most famous version of the Great Commission is in Matthew 28:16-20 where Jesus calls on his followers to baptize all nations. In Christian tradition however, it tends to be limited to the instruction of the resurrected Jesus Christ to his disciples, that they spread his teachings to all the nations of the world.
So what were his teachings that the disciples are to spread to all nations? The one I recall every time I think of Jesus is from a passage in Matthew where one of the Pharisees tested Jesus with a question, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" (Matthew 22:36 NIV). Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV). Here, let us heed Jesus’ advice and compare his highly civilized teaching to that of a young missionary from anywhere in USA going to the Middle East to convert people to Christianity. There is something wrong with a twenty-three year old missionary telling a God fearing fifty-five year old man that he has been wrong all of his life and that he, the young man, has been sent to bring him “The Truth”. “How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye, when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Luke 6:42) Isn’t the person that you are trying to convert your neighbor? Does he not deserve respect and understanding just like you do? Aren’t you required to love him and his family members like yourself?
I think we would all be wise to turn the critical lens on our own traditions before we attempt to show the negative in other traditions.
Now of course, the missionary zeal is not limited to Christians. You will find the same passionate dedication on the Muslim side. Muslims also want to convert the whole world forgetting that faith is a gift from God to those that He chooses and has nothing to do with our zeal, convincing logic, or need to convert others.
Islam, in fact, teaches his followers to set an example to others through the principle of “Demonstrated evidence ((أقامة الحجة ”. This principle requires every Muslim to live in a self evident way to others that Islam offers a better way of life. This is the only path open to Muslims at this point in time to call others to Islam. This principle necessitates that Muslim failure to establish such evidence will excuse others in the eyes of God from the requirement to follow an Islamic way of life.
So before my Muslims brothers judge others or condemn their beliefs or their way of life, it will be wise to turn the critical lens on our own shortcomings. We, at this time do not live up to God’s expectation of us. We, unlike our forefathers are not at the forefront of science and technology. We are not responsible for discoveries that advance human knowledge and worst of all, we import from the West all that is necessary to survive. How can we at this time present Islam to the West as the better way when we have not established the evidence for our case?
What is required, in my opinion, is a lot of soul searching, a critical look at our own values and our place on this earth. What is it that we want of ourselves and others? The Earth is getting smaller every day and it is getting very crowded. Hence, we need to rise to the occasion by presenting ourselves and Islam to our neighbors instead of fearing them and hating them. The self-glorification we have been engaged in for the last few hundred years will not bring peace to our world. We need to make ourselves known to our Christian neighbors in order for them not to continue to fear us. Let us humbly examine what the Qur’an requires of us when we engage others in this renewed discussion:
The Bees 16:125 125 [Prophet], call people to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful teaching. Argue with them in the most courteous way, for your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way and who is rightly guided[6].
The Spider 29:46 [Believers], argue only in the best way with the People of the Book[7], except with those of them who act unjustly. Say, 'We believe in what was revealed to us and in what was revealed to you; our God and your God are one [and the same]; we are devoted to Him[8].
It also teaches:
The Family of Imran 3:64Say, 'People of the Book, let us arrive at a statement that is common to us all: we worship God alone, we ascribe no partner to Him, and none of us takes others beside God as lords.' If they turn away, say, 'Witness our devotion to Him[9].'
On the other hand, Christians and Muslims should heed Jesus’ advice when they are reflecting on the second issue that we like to raise within the context of reconciliation. How can leaders on both sides minimize the danger of fanatics on one side and terrorists on the other?
The best way Christians can help “Muslims take on their more violent and extreme elements” is to address themselves to the “violent and extreme elements” within the Christian West. A case in point is Hal Lindsey’s book, The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Islam. This is nothing less than a diatribe by a Christian against Islam.
If Christians wish to be helpful to their Muslim neighbors, who are working within their Muslim traditions for greater peace and justice, they could do no better than to take on the Lindsays of this world who are promoting a distorted and hateful Christian attitude toward Islam. As a person that believes deeply in the principles of Jesus, I see uninformed Christian rants against Islam as providing fodder for reactionary elements within both religions.
Those who wish for war and not peace among religions are exact mirrors of each other, actually helping each other bring about what they each claim to fear; a state of permanent war. The good news is that enlightened elements in both Islam and Christianity can also help each other, by building bridges to understanding and long-term peace and stability.
At this time in history, the Christian West is far more developed than the Muslim East. It behooves the followers of Jesus to take to heart his teachings: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus raised this commandment dramatically when he said, (Mt 5:43) “You have heard that it was said, ’You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” He changed (Lv 19:18) “love your neighbor” to (Mt 5:44) “Love your enemies,” expanding the range of his followers’ love from the neighborhood to the world. Jesus said, (Mt 25:40) “As you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” This is the Jesus that I know and I love the same way I know and I love Mohammad and his message as revealed in the Qur’an which also teaches to love one’s enemy:
Fussilat 41:34 Good and evil cannot be equal. [Prophet], repel evil with what is better[10] and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend.
If Christians decide to live by the principles of Jesus, they should find ways to love, serve and honor their Muslim brothers. Find ways to show your love to Muslims in order for them to love you back. Do we need a think tank to study how to show love toward others? Isn’t feeding the hungry and healing the sick a sure way to accomplish this? Follow Jesus and you will find the way.
Reconciliation at the end is a journey that God puts you on and leads you through. It is neither for the fanatic nor for the faint of heart. It is for those that have the deepest faith in Him and the deepest love toward other human beings—those who are too humble to judge others and ready to extend a loving hand toward them.
In today’s world, I hold the view that it is of highest importance that people of goodwill and deep faith engage in reconciliation efforts in order to spare both Muslims and Christians the agony of conflict and alienation. For it is not enough to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, if we don’t love our neighbor like ourselves.
[1] Richard Shumack is a postgraduate student at Melbourne University connected to the National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity.
[2] Abc News reported on this article on Wed Jul 1, 2009 8:54am AEST.
[3] The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America, by Daniel Pipes, Commentary, November 2001
[4] 10 important relational needs: Acceptance, Affection, Appreciation, Approval, Attention, Comfort, Encouragement, Respect, Security, Support. See David & Teresa Ferguson.
[5]The Qur’an a New Translation by M.A.S.Abdul Haleem. Oxford Press
[6] The Qur’an by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem Oxford University Press
[7] Christians and Jews are called the people of the book in the Qur’an
[8] The Qur’an by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem Oxford University Press
[9] Ibid
[10] kindness, forgiveness, good manners, honesty, transparency, integrity etc…
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