Islam in Armstrong's view

I received an SMS: A man in US sees a dog about to bite a lady. He kicks d dog 2 death. Newspapers report: Us citizen saves lady from dog. Man says he was not a US citizen. So report changed: Foreign hero saves lady from dog. Man says he was from Pakistan, Next days headline: Terrorist attacks local dog.

I found this is utter rubbish. How one held responsible an entire nation for few terrorists. I repeatedly asked this question to many but most of them have no satisfactory answer. People think Muslims or Pakistanis are terrorists by birth.

Yesterday's editorial in Saamana, Shiv Sena mouthpiece criticised slain ATS chief Karkare's family again for showing humanitarian approach towards Kasab, the only terrorist caught during Mumbai terror attacks.

Actually, frequent terror attacks are compelling people to spread such messages. But none of the religion especially Islam ever started with an aim to produce terrorists or Jihadis. This reminds me Karen Armstrong's book Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time, which gives brief biography of Islam and its founder Prophet Muhammad in a very balanced and in-depth manner. The book may reduce distortion and myths about the religion and of course "Islamophobia" in people’s mind. It was rewritten on the backdrop of 9/11 attacks on US.

Armstrong says the second largest faith in the World is Islam but people don't know much about it. In fact they have many myths and misconceptions about the religion and prophet Muhammad. After 9/11 attacks Muhammad was alleged of being a ‘terrorist’ and ‘pedophile’ which is nonsense.

The story starts in 500 century when Quraysh tribe was dominating in Arabia. Social atmosphere during the period was very unstable and the region was prone to internal conflicts. Though born and brought up in such atmosphere, Muhammad’s took first bold step when he was 25 and married to a widow Khadija who was 40 years old.

Soon after that Muhammad received revelations from God which he preached to close ones and then to all. This is known to be the first form of holy book Quran.

Islam was definitely more progressive compared to other religions of that time since it allowed widow marriage, care for orphans and the poor, belief in justice, equality and compassion. The most surprising was that it treated women equally by giving them property rights and right to divorce. Though the prophet promoted peace in the tribe, he also fought wars when inevitable, Armstrong says.

The meaning of Islam is surrender or submission (to God). Praying together, eating together, staying together were the simple lessons in Islam created to keep the isolated people binding in real sense. In fact, no activity was excluded from mosque like Churches, which were devoted only to worship.

There is also a misconception in western world that Prophet Muhammad was a womanizer because he married to five women. But in reality he was married to Khadija only. (Hindu hero Shri Krishna married to 18,000 women because their husbands were killed in war but we never alleged him.) All his other wives were political or social ties with his companions. None of them bore any children to the prophet except Khadija. He was also criticized for married was married to his daughter in law Zeinab.

But what I have understood is that Zeinab was not his daughter in law in first place. She was a wife of his servant. The servant was very loyal to the prophet and that is why he was adopted by the latter. As per the Quran, adopted girl or boy does not get any legal status. In that sense the servant was not his legal son and according to the revelation from God, the prophet married to Zeinab.

In this whole making and practicing of Islam, there is no encouragement or a single word on terrorism. Jihad has been mentioned as a struggle for survival. I think Islam was way ahead of the ancient religions of that time like Christianity, Judaism and even Hinduism. It was originated to emancipate the people from conflicts and provide them a stable life.

In my opinion, the origin of any religion has been always same except the Hindu religion, which started with an intension to exploit people (See the philosophy of Manu). New religions were created in the human history because the earlier religion was exploiting certain section of society.

Not withstanding the exploitation new religion was the way out for the people. This I believe an unending process, because the new religion also goes in the same manner of the old and starts exploiting people. Now it is interesting on my side to read further that why Islam became so radical and pushed its self centuries back.