The Purpose of Life

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by Elisabeth Strout

As I read through Surah Al-Mu’minoun (Chapter of the Believers) in the Qur’an the other Saturday evening, and read for the hundredth time the promise of heaven to the believers and hell for the disbelievers, the following thoughts came to me, tumbling over themselves all in a rush.

As human beings, the single purpose of our existence is to worship our Creator. That’s it. The Muslim worldview could be said to consist entirely in this single ordinance. Every last thing about Islam revolves around it. When you take this concept, and start applying it to each aspect of Islam, each teaching of the Qur’an, spoken by God, and each teaching of His final prophet, everything falls quickly into place, and moves slowly into view as a comprehensive system which takes every aspect of life on earth, and fits it into our singular purpose, the worship of our Creator.

Yet in my discussions with Christians, I’ve often heard expressed the concern that with the Qur’an’s apparent over-emphasis on the horrors of hell and the sensual pleasures of heaven as the goal of the afterlife rather than God Himself, and with the description of sin as “merely” the failure to worship God (as opposed to the Christian view of sin as some evil force which, without outside redemption, holds us all in its grasp and doom us all to hell, believer or unbeliever, righteous or unrighteous, in its infinite offense against God), Islam is missing the mark. As Thabiti Anyabwile, an Evangelical pastor who flirted with the Nation of Islam (a black supremacist movement founded in 1930) during his college years, puts it in his book, The Gospel for Muslims, “Sin rests lightly on the Muslim conscience because Muslims… fail to see how it dishonors God” [1].

The implicit claim of this statement, is that Christians do understand how deeply sin dishonors God, perhaps because they, unlike us, have the brutal crucifixion to look to. If someone had to suffer such excruciating pain in order to deal with sin, then sin must be an awful thing. But I’d beg to differ. Christianity can’t have a more accurate understanding of sin, nor does the Qur’an’s emphasis on heaven and hell detract from its emphasis on the worship of God. And the reason for both is one and the same.

The Christian frame of reference for the gravity of sin lies in atonement by blood. In brief, sin is so horrible, that it demands eternal death [2], and can only be forgiven if blood is shed [3], and the only satisfactory blood is God’s own blood [4]. The reasoning seems to be that sin is infinitely offensive, and therefore requires infinite punishment – either by the infinite suffering of our finite selves (in hell), or the finite suffering of an infinite individual (Christ’s ostensible crucifixion).

The problem with this, beyond the absurdity of God Himself being punished for our sin, effectively stripping the word ‘justice’ entirely of any meaning, is that while it appears to make sin a very grave thing indeed – infinitely grave – by the same logic, we are finite and therefore cannot comprehend the infinity of our offense against God. So we’re right back where we started – unable to grasp the weight of sin, of not fulfilling the purpose of our existence.

The difference in the Islamic perspective, is that it gives a frame of reference that we can relate to – not the vicarious suffering of another that took place 2,000 years ago, but the very personal and future experiences of our own selves. It speaks of heaven and hell, not as our ultimate goals, but as our ultimate destinations. The vivid Qur’anic descriptions accompanying these destinations are not there to scare us or motivate us to worship, but to enable us, as physical, sentient beings, to grasp the weight of our actions.

The detail with which the fires of hell are recounted and ascribed to those who disbelieve and work evil, and the wonder with which the gardens of paradise are described and promised to those who believe in God and His messenger, and fulfill their salah and zakaah, are not meant to take the focus off God. Rather the pleasure of heaven speaks to our senses of the beauty of worshiping God, and the pain of hell speaks of the foulness of dishonoring Him.

Again, the distinction is clear: the outcomes assigned to our actions are the natural results of them, and therefore frames of reference, while the goal to which we aspire is our Creator and the unfathomable privilege of gazing upon His face. [5] Surah Al-Qiyamah, the chapter of the Resurrection, is a short and eloquent testimony to this, telling us “some faces that day will be brilliant, gazing at their Lord”. [6]

But God did not simply inform us of the purpose of our existence, and leave it up to us to figure out how to fulfill it. Islam provides a clear set of guidelines for doing so, starting with five pillars, and reiterating those constantly in the Qur’an, as the foundation of our life of worship.

The first, the ‘shahada’, or bearing witness that there is no deity but Allah, and that Muhammad is His messenger, set us apart intellectually from those who fail to accomplish the purpose of their life, by attributing divine attributes to other than God, or by attributing human attributes to Him (known as ‘shirk’), or by denying His existence outright (known as ‘kufr’). Even Thabiti Anyabwile recognizes this. Contradicting his earlier statement that Muslims fail to see how sin dishonors God, he ascertains that, “the highest blasphemy in Islam is… making partners with God. To the Muslim mind nothing could be more foul and dishonoring to God.” [7]

The four remaining pillars are equally important. Time, sleep, money, food, sex, and social status – these are fundamental needs and desires we have as human beings, and each pillar helps purify and re-focus them, so rather than becoming idols, they can be turned into acts of worship. ‘Salah’, the five daily ‘prayers’ at dawn, midday, mid-afternoon, evening, and night, and the second of the pillars, governs the time and the sleep we consider so precious, reminding us that they also belong to God. We are forgetful beings – the very word for mankind in Arabic comes from this root – and we need frequent reminding of our purpose. Salah is this constant reminder, refocus on the glory of God.

The three remaining pillars, ‘zakah’, ‘sawm’, and ‘hajj’, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage, govern our worldly desire for money and social status, and our earthly need for food and intimacy. Just like the call to prayer at dawn reminds that “salah is better than sleep”, zakah reminds us that God is more worthy of our desire than money, by enjoining on us generosity, giving from what God has provided us, to those who have less. Sawm reminds us He is more worthy of our desire than food or sex, by reining in those desires from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan. And hajj reminds us that we are all equal before God, rich and poor, brown and white, king and servant, by bringing us all together in the same location, in the same dress, in the same language, in the same state of ihram, performing the same acts of worship, bowing shoulder to shoulder before our Creator.

These pillars are a daily, monthly, and yearly reminder that we are not the sum total of our physical needs and wants, our ultimate goal here is not to fulfill them. But Islam doesn’t stop there. Through the Qur’an, the final revelation of God, and through the example and teaching of Muhammad, His final prophet, Islam reaches out to all aspects of life, from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night, from giving birth to choosing a spouse to preparing a body for burial, from going to the bathroom to eating food, in health and sickness, and provides guidance, so that there is a right and a wrong way to do everything.

In this way, “Islam provides a means of turning each and every human act, no matter how insignificant or mundane it may seem, into an act of worship.” [8] In fact, any act, “consciously done for the pleasure of Allah alone and done according to the sunnah of the messenger of Allah, can turn into an act of worship and man’s whole life can enter completely into the service of Allah.” [9] Hence the vast and far-reaching body of regulations in Islam, are not an interminable list of arbitrary rules assigned by God merely to test us, but wise guidelines designed by Him that fulfill a purpose, and at the same time, make us more peaceful, successful, happier individuals.

 

[1] Anyabwile, Thabiti, The Gospel for Muslims, p. 45-46

[2] Romans 6:23

[3] Hebrews 9:22

[4] Romans 3:25

[5] Al-Munajjid, Sh. Muhammad, http://islamqa.info/en/ref/14525

[6] Qur’an 75:22-23

[7] Anyabwile, p. 27

[8] Philips, Dr. Bilal, The Fundamentals of Tawheed

[9] Ibid.

Missionary Mishaps: Threatens to Disable my Account for Exposing a Misquoted Hadith

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

A little back story. The missionary made some erratic claim about a hadith found in a collection not available in English, it’s called the Musnad of Abu Dawud at-Tayalisi. I asked the Missionary to provide the original source and he then stated he didn’t know it and that he’s never seen it, but rather this alleged English version of the hadith was just taken from a website. So I procured the ahadith collection, screenshotted the hadith and posted it. I even gave him the link to the text. Turns out he didn’t like that and flipped out. Here he threatens to have my account disabled by ‘mass reporting’ with his many ‘fake accounts’. Later he turned up in the School of Oriental and African Studies’ group (SOAS) and he was promptly banned for his petulant behaviour. This was his threat to me:

cc-2013-missionarymishap

 

What an angry man. I can understand his frustration though. Here he is, doing the Lord’s work, trying to convert Muslims with some spuriously research garbage and all of a sudden, someone comes with actual research and study. It can be infuriating. My sympathies are with him.

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

Ergun Caner Does It Again

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

The sheer absurdities coming out of this impostor’s mouth are absolutely mind blowing. I’m not sure whether to laugh at him or cry for him. Either way, Ergun Caner is back and he’s making himself more of a laughing stock to the Muslim community. Enjoy:

Much thanks to Br. Yahya Snow.

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

Jewish Misogyny?

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

In Islam, women are allowed to pray at our three holiest sites. The Kaabah in Makkah, the Masjid an Nabawi in Madina and Masjid al Aqsa in Al Quds (formerly known as Jerusalem). However, in Judaism, in Jerusalem, in the country that calls itself the only “democracy in the Middle East“, women are not allowed to pray at their holiest site.

What would FEMEN, the UN or the American Government say about Saudi Arabia, if women in buses were stoned, spit on, attacked by thousands of men for wanting to pray? The international world would explode in a joint effort to condemn Islamic misogyny. Yet, when its Jews or Israel, we hear silence from the “defenders of democracy“. According to this report from the BBC (UK), we read:

Three men have been arrested after police held back hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protesters trying to prevent a liberal Jewish women’s group from praying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. It follows a recent court ruling that backed the women’s right to pray using rituals ultra-Orthodox Jews believe should be for men only.

Last month, police detained members of the women’s group for allegedly breaching a ban at the wall. The large group of demonstrators was at the wall when the women turned up to pray in the hours before Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. They threw rubbish, water and chairs at the women, and stoned their buses. Three ultra-Orthodox men were arrested for disorderly conduct, police said.

Where are the condemnations from Pamela Geller or David Wood? How ironic is it that the ultra-conservative Kingdom of Saudi Arabia affords women the right to pray at Islam’s holiest sites, but the democractic Israeli secular government in tandem with the Haredi Jewish population refuse women that same right? It would almost seem as if Israel is some 1434 years behind Islamic law. So far, the liberal and Christian world is silent. Be rest assured though, if this were Muslim men doing this to Muslim women, those same ‘fighters for equality‘ would be having a field day with this story.

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

The War on Modern Intellectualism: Sh. TJ Winters and Stephen Hawkins

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Two recent events have called into question the delimitations of academic freedom in the ‘free world‘. Western educational institutions have always lauded themselves on being the bastions of modern intellectual thought, rationalism and research. Yet, there seems to be some sort of a ‘morality mob‘ or ‘political oligarchy‘ being practised within these institutions. For those who are unaware:

1. Sh. Abdal Hakim Murad (TJ Winters) was put to task for statements he made several years ago on homosexuality.
2. Dr. Stephen Hawkins was vilified for boycotting an Israeli academic seminar due to Israeli apartheid.

Why is there a need for Sh. Abdal Hakim Murad to be sacked for statements he made years ago? One anti-Islamic ignorant, Douglas Murray of The Spectator called the Shaykh’s statements bigoted, “Students, LGBT groups, unions – everyone wanting to make a stand against bigotry – would be screaming about this.” As far as I am aware, the Shaykh did not call for violence, abuse, hatred of, or mockery of homosexuals. He merely expressed his academic opinion on why he disagreed with homosexuality:

‘Stretch your imagination as you might, you cannot conceive of any abuse of the form which Allah has given human beings which is more extreme, more blasphemous, a denial of its manifest created purpose than the crime of the people of Lut.’

Where in this was a call for violence, hatred or abuse? Nowhere. In any culture, we have a standard of living referred to as norms and values. Academically speaking, it should be considered an ‘expected’ act of intellectualism, to challenge modern day norms and values. The Shaykh and Professor (by right of his educational standards) did no wrong by bringing into question the legitimacy of homosexuality as something which is ethical and moral in light of his religious beliefs. Moreso, his beliefs were not expressed on the Cambridge University’s platform, but on a religious platform, in which ethics and morality are bound to be discussed. Therefore, on what grounds are the Shaykh’s statements bigoted? They are obviously not. If the Shaykh had perhaps said that homosexuals should be banned from his classes, or refused the right to be educated, then perhaps then I can understand the furor, but for merely shunning a sexual act he considers to be gross abuse, I do not understand the outcry. If he were to have said that ‘incest was blasphemous‘, would there have been the same outcry? The same crusade against him? That in itself is also a sexual act which by today’s norms and values are okay in some parts of the world, but because the Shaykh disagrees with such an act, does he deserve to be persecuted? Rather, it is bigoted and spiteful to call for his sacking because he has voiced his opinion on a contentious matter. It is bigoted to want to have someone fired because they do not share your views or accept your personal code of ethics and morals. Britain’s Muslim Debate Initiative’s Br. Abdullah al Andalusi’s article is also a quite revealing read on the topic.

Another popular academic, Dr. Stephen Hawkin faced a mountain of abuse and mockery because he decided to join the boycott of the apartheid state of Israel. In a public letter, he stated:

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign later released the full letter from Hawking to conference organisers, which read: “I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the West Bank.

“However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

According to several tweets via the social media website, Twitter, Dr. Hawkin was mocked about his illness which has crippled him for some time. The Huffington Post (UK) says on this issue, “Some of the ugliest responses to the boycott came on social media, with several accusing Hawking’s singling out of Israel for boycott as “anti-Semitism” and making distasteful comments about his disability.” One person even tweeted: “Just die Stephen Hawking #team #Israel.” You can view the abusive tweets via images on the Huffington Post’s website. When does it become acceptable and okay for abuse towards an academic because he does not share prevailing political views? If governments were to punish academics because of their political views, wouldn’t this be intellectual barbarism akin to the violent suppression of the Catholic Church towards European enlightenment? On what grounds is it okay that an academic cannot express his right to disagree with the violent, apartheid, inhumane actions of the Israeli government? Dr. Hawkin made no reference to the ethnicity of the Israeli people or to their religion, therefore why the cries of anti-Semitism? I do not hold it to be ‘anti-Semitism‘ when a secular government, consisting of European migrants is the antagonist.

Where does this leave us? Have the bastions of modern intellectual thought fallen prey to their own dogmatic and popular cultural prowess? Surely, none of the statements of either the Shaykh or the Prof. are bigoted in any manner, however the statements directed towards these two individuals because they do not succumb to the views of a few, cannot be tolerated. Such intellectual bullying, harassment and abuse are perhaps signs of a rising political-cultural oligarchy overcoming the field of contemporary academia.

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

 

What will Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and David Wood say about this?

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

In the following video, a gang of Hassidic Jews, attack and berate numerous non-Jewish people, hold a man against his will, subvert American laws and berate a woman, her child and her husband:

If this were Muslims, what would have been the outcome? Wouldn’t this make front page news on the aforementioned personalities’ websites? Here we have a group of Jews clearly acting in a thug like manner, enforcing their own rules and ideas upon goyim (non-Jews). If it were Muslims, wouldn’t it be ‘Muslim gang enforces Shari’ah – Abuse woman and children‘. I don’t expect a response from any of these despots, but this is just another case of their hypocrisy and hate.

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

Michael Licona: America is no Longer a Christian Nation

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Are you a Christian conservative and proud American? Do you belong to the Republican Party, the Tea Party or simply identify yourself as a Christian American? If so, then I may have bad news for you. The following is Michael Licona’s view on ‘America as a Christian nation‘:

It is anachronistic to think of America as a Christian nation. It is not and has not been for probably half a century or even longer. While the majority of Americans would profess to being Christian, for most, that means they attend a church service once in a while, such as Christmas and Easter. For Jesus, to be one of His followers meant far more than that. The point I would like to make is one made earlier: When the U.S. bombs a country in the Middle East, it is not a matter of “Christians” bombing “Muslims.” Rather it is the U.S. bombing a country in the Middle East. I say without apology that I am a follower of Jesus before I am an American. I don’t always agree with the course my country takes.

Wonder what the neo-conservatives, David Wood and Robert Spencer would have to say about such a declaration from one of their own apologists?

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

Brazilian Pastor Arrested for Alleged Rape

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

A leading evangelical Christian pastor has been arrested in a Rio suburb for the alleged rape of six women, including three minors, police said. Marcos Pereira, who has been head of Brazil’s Assembly of God of the Latter Days church for the past 20 years, was detained late on Tuesday.

“He is accused of raping six women, including three under the age of 18,” police inspector Marcio Mendonca Dugubras on Wednesday. The pastor, who made headlines by practicing collective exorcisms of drug addicts and prisoners whom he later converted in Rio jails in the 1990s, was jailed in a maximum security penitentiary in northern Rio.

Dugubras said that Pereira would tell his victims that they were possessed by the devil and therefore needed to have sex with a “holy” person. The victims, all of them poor, consented, thinking that by doing so they “were ridding themselves” of their sins, Dugubras told reporters.

Police had been investigating the pastor for a year and said he might have raped 20 other women since 1998. One of the victims, a member of Pereira’s church, was said to have been sexually abused from the age of 14 to 22. Police said the pastor was also being probed for alleged involvement in drug trafficking, money laundering and homicide.

Get the full scoop from Al Jazeera News.

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