Belief was to be backed up by action -- almsgiving was centralized. But there were also ritual reminders of Islamic commitment. Five times each day Muslims were to adopt the position of a slave before Allah -- on believer's knees, prostrate, with forehead touching the ground. With all of this, it is no wonder that the first Muslims (like the first Hebrews and Christians) came from the poorer classes, with women more receptive than men.
Islam as conceived by Muhammad was inclusive and tolerant of other faiths -- especially the ones just mentioned. Along with the rest of the Arab world, Muhammad deeply admired Judaism and Christianity for having their own Sacred Scriptures. Now with the emergence of the Qur'an, Islam joined that club as well. The notion of converting sisters and brothers in faith was a foreign concept for Islam's great prophet.
Because of its counter-cultural thrust, the rest of Muhammad's story is one of rejection and persecution by the guardians of the status quo. Muhammad is driven into exile in Medina. But eventually he returns to Mecca. His trans-tribal faith succeeds in uniting the Arab world conferring upon it a unifying power that is subsequently used by others the way Christianity was used by Christendom's "Holy Roman Empire." Islam becomes the unifying force behind an Islamic order that stretches from the Himalayas to the Pyrenees.
All of this is to say that imperial Islam (like the imperial Christianity that began under Constantine in the 4th century) is out-of-keeping with the faith of its founding prophet. Social justice, care for the poor, and recognition of transcendent human community are not.
In the eyes of contemporary Muslims, all of this makes Muhammad particularly relevant to their situation in a world dominated by corporate globalization. As in the prophet's day, globalization's celebration of self-sufficiency contradicts Islam's basic values of community, compassion and care for society's most vulnerable.
As the leader and embodiment of the values that run so counter to Islam's basic thrust, the United States is viewed as "Shaytan" (which is often translated for us simply as "Satan"). For Muslims however, Shaytan is not the prince of demons as he appears, for instance, in Dante's Inferno. Instead, Shaytan is "the great deceiver," whose promises mislead, corrupt and immiserate those who believe them.
In fact, while promising peace, prosperity, and happiness, the elevation of commercial values to a position of supremacy in the moral hierarchy could not be (in Muslim eyes) more deceptive and disastrous. Without care for society's poor and vulnerable, commercial values lead to individualism, competition, war and unhappiness.
No wonder the U.S. is identified with Satan!
(Next: Islam and Violence)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
3
3
