Muslims contributions to correcting faiths of former nations

Thursday, 17 June 2010

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Written by Dr. Ragheb Elsergany

Introduction

An important part of Muslims’ contributions to human civilization is related to faith, thought, and literature, which indicates the originality and uniqueness of Islamic civilization in these fields. In these articles, we review the most important of these contributions.

Muslims’ contributions to faith

Muslims have always made unique and distinguished contributions on faith and religious conception. The former and contemporary nations and civilizations held different beliefs towards the creator of the universe and the god worshipped. But Muslims believed in the oneness of and worshipped only Allah. They exclusively associated Him with creation and commandment. That was the greatest contribution ever offered to mankind, particularly in the light of the important role of faith and its crucial impact on the development of civilization.

Truth of divinity according former nations

Before Islam, the world had a dark vision of the truth of divinity. It was an unclear vision that did not make a just estimate of Allah such as is due to Him. It was a cloudy, disturbed vision surrounded by illusions and ignorant views. The truth is that the different civilizations or former nations, as their history shows, did not have a correct knowledge of Allah, Exalted be He, and did not find their right way to the correct faith in the creator and planner of the universe. The former nations did not know the full truth of Allah, the All Knowing, the All Able, the Willful, the Most Kind, the Merciful. This was because the former nations did not have direct knowledge of the guiding prophethood and the unmistakable revelation. Therefore, the former nations went on their own on the road searching for (the first cause), (the prime mover), or (a necessary of existence).

So, the former nations failed and faltered and were dominated by illusions and whims.

Philosophers’ conception of divinity

The conception of divinity held by the philosophers who are described in the history of philosophy as (god-believers), namely who confessed to divinity in general, such as the great Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle who refused to deny the existence of god and rejected atheism, was not correct.

Their conception was incomplete and disturbed, surrounded by a lot of illusions and confusion. Let us take, for example, the concept of god held by Aristotle, the first teacher of the Greeks, to see which god was he? Was he the god we know, who created everything, who provides every living thing with means to live, who plans all affairs, who knows the past, the present and the future, and who does what he wills and has absolute power over everything? Or was he a different god from the one we know?[1]

Will Durant says in his (Mabahij al-falsafa, The Pleasures of Philosophy): “Aristotle envisages God as a self-conscious spirit. A rather mysterious, hidden spirit; for Aristotle God's never does anything; he has no desires, no will, no purpose; his actuality is so pure that he never acts. He is absolutely perfect; therefore cannot desire anything; therefore He does nothing. His only occupation is to contemplate the essence of things; and since He himself is the essence of all things, the form of all forms, his sole employment is the contemplation of himself.  No wonder the British love Aristotle; for God for him, clearly, is an exact replica of their king or their king is a copy of the god envisaged by Aristotle in particular.[2]

If God for Aristotle was helpless because he had no power in the universe, God for Plato, the father of modern Platonism, was more helpless because he did not contemplate anything even himself![3]

Paganism and polytheism in India

Paganism reached its zenith in the sixth century. In India only, for example, the number of gods hit 330 million. Everything became fantastic and attractive and everything in life was a god worshipped. Therefore, idols, statues, and gods were too many to count. They included historical figures, heroes in which God demonstrated himself, mountains on which some of their gods appeared, metals like gold and silver where a god manifested himself, rivers, war machines, proliferation tools, animals the greatest of which is a cow, celestial bodies and whatnot.

This way, religion had a fabric of superstitions, myths, hymns, doctrines, and aspects of worship that Allah did not permit and the sound mind did not accept at any time. Sculpturing spread in that era more than all past times. All classes of people, from kings to the impoverished, were bent on worshipping idols.[4]

This matter reached a point where humanity was of little importance to man who became a worshipper of stones, trees, rivers, and everything that has no ability to bring benefit or harm itself!

The split of the Christian Roman state

The Roman state carrying the banner of Christianity in the world split into two major branches; Catholics and Orthodox. The Orthodox had Melkite and Monophysite offshoots. There were fierce wars between them and they all distorted their religion and associated others as partners to Allah in worship, but they did this in different ways.  Bishops and monks were worshipped as gods besides Allah.

Conflict between the religious and worldly authorities in Europe

The history of Europe in medieval times was almost, in essence, a conflict between the religious authority and the wordly authority. The religious (papal) authority, which monopolized the right to talk in the name of God and was above human beings. Nobody had the right to bring the religious authority to book or monitor its behaviour. The religious authority was above kings who must submit to it in the end in the name of religion. The worldly authority was represented in rulers, kings, emperors, and princes who wanted to practise their authority, powers and despotism on their subjects without being controlled by anyone or body under any name or any pretext even if it was the papal authority under the guise of religion.

In 1073, Pope Gregory VII announced that the church had the upper hand in the entire world, taking its power directly from God, and, in turn, was providing kings and princes around the world with power. He also announced that the pope had a unique position in knowledge, as he was the one who appointed and removed bishops and had the right to unseat emperors because he was their master who, unlike them, was not to be asked about what he was doing. Based on this, popes used to announce the removal of emperors and kings  they were not happy with, as was the case with Emperor Henry IV when he was deposed by the pope in 1107, so he had to stand barefooted on the pope’s door under the snow and rain with no head cover for three days. When Pope Innocent III was angry at King John of England, he unleashed his wrath on the whole of England. He declared a crusade war against it and instigated the king of France to attack it and attach it to France. The king of England at the time had to ask the pope for forgiveness. He forgave him after he announced his subordination to him, swore allegiance, and offered a proper present. This influence reached its peak in 1198 when Pope Innocent III announced that he was the vicar of Jesus, the one between God and His worshippers, below the Lord and above human beings, and that he was the ruler of all and ruled by nobody![5]

There is no doubt that this deviation on the part of the Christian clergymen and their influence and sway made the modern West try to escape the tyranny and captivity of the church and then go to extremes in secularism and become more eager to escape from the control of religion and keep it out of all affairs of life.

Divinity for Arabs

In the beginning, Arabs worshipped and believed in the oneness of Allah. Arabs believed that He was the great God, the creator of the universe, the planner of the heavens and earth and in whose hands is the dominion of all things. {If indeed thou ask them who has created the heavens and the earth and subjected the sun and the moon (to his Law), they will certainly reply, "(Allah)".} [Al-Ankabut: 61]

But when the time became prolonged for them, Arabs forgot part of the warning they had received. Arabs associated others with Allah in worship and put between them and Him mediators with whom they besought Allah and joined them with Allah in supplication. Allah Almighty said: {We only serve them in order that they may bring us nearer to Allah."} [Al-Zumur:3]

Arabs observed some acts of worship towards them and the idea of intercession was established in their minds until it turned into a belief in the ability of the interceders to bring benefit and harm. Arabs went deeper in this as they associated other gods with Allah in worship and believed these gods had a similar role and participated in planning the universe and have the ability to bring benefit and harm and good and evil, and to give and withhold.[6]

Idolatry for Arabs

The worship of idols in the Arabian Peninsula was so widespread that every house in each tribe had an idol. Al-Kalbi [7]said:  Every family in Mecca had an idol in their house to worship. If a family member wanted to travel, the last thing he would do before leaving the house was to touch it for blessing. If a family member arrived home from travel, the first thing he would do after he entered the house was also to touch it.

Arabs did not take an issue with the worship of idols; some of them worshipped a house and some of them worshipped idols and those who could not afford an idol or a house would set up a stone in front of al-Haram (the Holy Mosque) and other places they liked and then walked around with it the same way they circumambulated the House and called them Ansab (stones set up).

If a man travelled and stayed in a house, he would take four stones and adopt the best of them as a god and use the remaining three to support his cooking pot. If he left, he would leave the stone.[8] Abu Raja al-Attaridi said: We used to worship stones, and if we found a stone better than the one we worshipped we would take it and throw the other away. If we did not find a stone, we would collect some dust and then bring a goat to put its milk on the dust and then walk around with it. [9]

There were three hundred and sixty idols inside the Ka’aba, the house that was built for the worship of Allah as the only god, and its courtyard. [10]

That was how the former nations conceived religion, faith, the god worshipped. There was idolatry and lack of monotheism, which resulted in the absence of the concepts of ability, divinity and creation. This led to the degeneration of mankind and degradation of the values of any civilization.