Islam Today: One and Only Book and Other Books

There are more books written on Islam today than on any other topic affecting people living across continents. It has been a matter of heightened interest and expectation that such research and compilation of books would produce a critical mass that would lead to important changes. That changes are underway is a sure sign of the time. Marking the festival of sacrifice on December 19, 2007 the Saudi monarch king Abdullah pardoned “the woman of Qatif” for what would have been legitimate case of stoning to death had a conservative and fundamentalist interpretation been allowed to sway. She had an affair with a friend, might have been a liaison, in fact. She called another friend to chaperon her to her minion of yesterday to recover photographs which would have come in the way of marriage sooner or later now that she was engaged. Seven men way laid them and raped her as well as her male companion. This would have been in itself disastrous even for her male companion. Strict punishment would have been throwing sodomy practitioners down from the highest point on land, or from a flying plane or helicopter. The monarch must have considered all the aspects of the case, its impact on the relationship with the west, the weltanschauung or world view on Islam as well as the spirit of sacrifice on the festival day and pilgrimage.

Thank god the worse did not happen. Can not such holistic approach to matters of life vouchsafe a wiser interpretation of the holy book? The answer lies in what Tariq Ramadan, the descendant of the founder of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, says. “For Muslims the Koran stands as the Text of reference, the source and the essence of the message transmitted to humanity by the creator. It is the last of a lengthy series of revelations addressed to humans down through history. It is the Word of God — but it is not God. The Koran makes known, reveals and guides: it is a light that responds to the quest for meaning. The Koran is remembrance of all previous messages, those of Noah and Abraham, of Moses and Jesus. Like them, it reminds and instructs our consciousness: life has meaning, facts are signs. It is the Book of all Muslims the world over. But paradoxically, it is not the first book someone seeking to know Islam should read. (A life of the Prophet or any book presenting Islam would be a better introduction.) For it is both extremely simple and deeply complex. The nature of the spiritual, human, historical and social teachings to be drawn from it can be understood at different levels. The Text is one, but its readings are multiple.” If a monarch can exercise his individual right to one kind of reading why not others, including Mohammad Parvez of Toronto suburb, did the same?

Texts, precepts and injunctions are not the only things Islam has. As life is multifaceted so are the religious applications of the revealed truth. In his book “God’s Ccrucible:Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215”, David Levering Lewis describes Abd al Rahman the only Umayyad King who escaped the Abbasid assassins. While on the run he saw his brother cut down on the banks of the Euphrates by the Abbasids close on his heels. Abd al Rahman crossed the straits into Spain, on Aug. 14, 755. He was bestowed the Arabic sobriquet “al-Dakhil”; the term means not merely “immigrant,” as usually translated, but also “a guest among strangers” — in effect, an alien. He ruled 32 years. He could be the prototype of the Mughal emperor Akbar in India for he brought “a uniting vision of community” and a principle of “civilized coexistence that might have served as a model for the continent.” His civic harmony displayed in his 32 years of Umayyad Spain is just one of the many multifaceted ways of living with the revealed truth.
Muslims in Europe are often at odds with the new surrounding. Their status at first is not different from guests among strangers. Modern welfare state laws of citizenship should be rather taken to temper with the teachings of Islam not in the sense of interference but mutual understanding and togetherness. Without yielding space to all the sundry people of Europe for all the types of issues there is still scope for reaching out to each other and living in tolerance. Scarf, yes, but with mutual understanding and sans exaggeration or too much insistence. Guests among strangers then become fellow citizens.