Eternity Book Series
Part 3 – Islam and Fundamentalism

Eternity Book Series: 4 Books – 8 Parts
Part 3 – Islam and Fundamentalism
(Book 2: Semitic Religions)
Anwar Shaikh
1st Edition: September 20, 2014
2nd Edition: August 28, 2016

Jihad of Arabo-Muslim Warriors against the None Muslims

Eternity Book 2: Semitic Religions
______________________
Part 2 – Judaism and Christianity
Introduction
Chapter 6: Judaism
Chapter 7: Christianity
Part 3 – Islam and Fundamentalism
Chapter 8: Islam
Chapter 9: Horrors of Fundamentalism

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Part 3 – Islam and Fundamentalism

Chapter 8: Islam

Nobody has ever exploited more successfully than the prophet Muhammad, the human mechanism of fear and favour. He knew that death is man's worst dread and eternity is his greatest desire. He presented these two opposite concepts with the mastery that has remained unsurpassed until our time. Further, as a patient in pain feels relieved to see a doctor irrespective of whether or not he can cure him, mankind is hypnotised by the person who claims to possess a supernatural remedy for all human ills. His promises of protection carry a hope value. The prophet provided that hope through his own agency as the divine messenger.

For hope of everlasting life, man will frantically catch any straw to save himself from drowning but when the straw is presented as the oar of eternity under the dazzling hues of revelation, he holds it with the tenacity of faith which defies reason and rules of normal conduct. The stronger his faith the more exclusive his loyalty to the revelationist - at the expense of humanity. The revelationist who seeks personal glory through the imagination of his followers usually projects himself as a prophet or an incarnation of God.

Significance of viceroyalty

Every prophet encounters a good deal of opposition from the people whose liberties he tries to curb by imposing new rules of conduct on them. He protests his innocence by declaring that he is only a vicar and claims that the message he delivers is not his, but God's. Therefore, he has no axe to grind in it. People find it hard to believe on rational grounds because they know that the vicar or the messenger is not asking them just to believe in God but is stressing emphatically that unless they believe in him as well, their belief in God alone is of no avail to them because it will not save them from the leaping flames of hell.

Cult of divinity

However, every community has a certain number of individuals who possess high moral, intellectual and administrative abilities but are credulous. The credulity of such persons is not unlimited; it is usually confined to a particular bias or susceptibility and may be the foundation stone of one's personality. This bias or susceptibility may be the inclination towards a faith or fallibility to the particular charm of its presenter. When such people are converted to the new faith, they rank as Apostles or Companions of the revelationist and mobilise their intellectual, political and administrative forces to drum up the divinity of their leader with tales of supernatural performances and sparkling miracles for creating a divine legend to enhance the emotional appeal that forms the crux of every religion. As time marches on there emerge new followers who seek divinity for themselves but lack the courage and inspiring skill of their founder to set up a new faith. However, they follow the same course of action: as he (the founder) projected himself the Vicar of God, they declare themselves to be his lieutenants. They are more easily accepted by the people who already believe in what they preach but with a greater fervour. Thus these new gurus invent more uncanny tales about the miraculous powers and nominous accomplishments of their founders to intensify the existing emotional appeal for the masses who become pawns in the chess game of their faith.

Muhammad, the pivot of salvation

The Prophet Muhammad of Arabia, declared at the age of forty that he was the Messenger of God; he was sent by the Almighty as a warner to frighten people so that they should believe in Him and do good works. However, belief in God alone and righteous deeds did not possess sufficient power to save them from hell because for the belief to be effective it must include Muhammad who had been appointed by God as His sole source of guidance which can be achieved through revelation only, and human deliberation and efforts play no part in it:

Say: "Bring a Book from God that gives better guidance than these, and follow it, if you speak truly . . . Surely God guides not the people of the evildoers . . ." (The Story 50).

Here the belief in Muhammad takes precedence over Allah (God) because those who do not follow Muhammad are evildoers and Allah does not guide them despite the fact that it is only the evildoers who need guidance!

Reality of hell and heaven

Having instituted his paramountcy as the foundation of the Moslem faith, it became easy for the Prophet to establish the credibilty of hell. One must remember clearly that both hell and heaven are an Islamic reality, and not metaphorical statements because their descriptions are graphic and entry into these places as a reward or punishment is a binding promise on Allah. Muhammad activate' human instincts of fear and favour with a masterly description of heaven and hell:

". . . Therein they shall have what they desire dwelling for ever; it is a promise binding upon Allah, and of Him to be required" (Salvation: 15).

Description of Hell

What is Hell?

a. The roaring fire of God lit over the hearts in stretching columns (The Backbiter).
b. "Surely those who disbelieve in Our signs - We will roast them at a Fire; as soon as their skins are completely burned, we shall give them in exchange other skins, that they may taste the torture. Surely God is All-mighty, All-Wise" (Women: 55).
c. The dweller of hell:
"is given to drink of oozing pus, the which he swallows, and can hardly follow and death comes upon him from every side, yet he cannot die; and still awaits him a grim torture" (Abraham: 20).
d. ". . . As for the unbelievers, for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatsoever is in their abdomens and their skins shall be melted; for them await hooked iron rods; as often as they desire in their anguish to come forth from it, they shall be restored into it, and: "Taste the torture of the burning!" (The Pilgrimage: 20).
e. The dwellers of hell shall eat of the Tree of Ez-Zakkoum
What is the Tree of Ez-Zakkoum,
"It is a tree that grows in the root of hell; its spathes are as the heads of Satans and they eat of it, and it fill
their bellies, then on top of it they have a brew of bong water then their return is unto hell". (The Rangers. 60-65)
The theme of the Ez-Zakkoum is further continued in "Smoke: 45"
"Behold the Tree of Ez-Zakkoum is the food of the wicked, like molten copper, bubbling in the belly like the bubbling water."
"Take him, and thrust him into the midst of Hell, then pour over his head the torture of boiling water!'
f. "Faces on that day humbled, labouring, fatigued, scorching as a boiling fountain, no food for them but cactus thorn unfastening, unsatisfying hunger". (The Enveloper)

Retributive punishment

This description of hell hardly needs any comment from me except that the civilised man has come to the conclusion that punishment cannot be retributive; it must be reformative. Allah is the least interested in reforming the unbelievers. He is obsessed with revenge yet He calls Himself the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, All-pardoning, All-forgiving, All-gentle, All-Clement, and so on. These are His frequently repeated attributes though He also calls Himself "All-terrible".

What will you call the person whose desire for vengeance surpasses the wildest flight of imagination? What will you call a person who enjoys torture and is delighted by extreme severity? What will you call a person who is glad when other people feel sad?

Divine unstability

It proves one thing beyond a shadow of doubt: Allah is subject to the spasms of happiness and unhappiness; when He is believed He is happy and when he is not believed He becomes extremely unhappy. He, obviously has a very unstable personality and thus cannot form the proper object of worship and adoration.

What is Islam?

Islam means "surrender", that is, Allah wants man to submit to Him under all circumstances. To secure man's total obedience, Allah is prepared to bribe when the threat of violence proves abortive. This is the reason that He offers man the choice between hell and heaven. Having studied the description of hell, we may now cast a glance at heaven:

Description of Paradise

a. Paradise is offered to a Moslem in exchange for total surrender:
"God has bought from the faithful theirselves and their
belongings against the gift of paradise; they fight in the
way of God; they kill, and are killed . . ." (Repentance: 110).
b. Life in the paradise shall be as physical as it is on the
earth, and carries a special fascination to the Arabs living in
torrid and treeless surroundings:
"See, the inhabitants of Paradise today are busy in their merriments along with their spouses, reclining upon couches in the shade; therein they have fruits, and whatever they desire." (Ya Sin: 55).
c. What will the believers find in the Paradise?
". . for them is reserved a definite provision,
fruits and a great honour in the Gardens of Bliss
reclining upon couches arranged face to face,
a cup from a fountain being passed round to them,
white, a pleasure to the drinkers,
wherein no sickness is, neither intoxication
and with them wide-eyed maidens
flexing their glances
as if they were slightly concealed pearls" (The Rangers: 40-45).

Wide-eyed beautiful women

This is a highly poetic description of the female beauty whose intrinsic appeal is intensified by its ability to coax and allure with delicate bodily gestures. In fact the wide-eyed, pearl-like and ever-young houris (paradise women) versed in the art of flexing their glances present a spectacle of charm which is often dreamt of, but seldom found on earth.

Maidens with swelling breasts

The fascination of the paradise is further augmented by the assurance given to the believers:
"Surely for the God-fearing awaits a place of security,
gardens and vineyards
and maidens with swelling bosoms . . ." (The Tiding: 30).

A view of paradise

Even more alluring details of the beautiful houris with wide-eyes and springing breasts are to be found in "The All-Merciful" (45-75). For the sake of brevity and better understanding, I may paraphrase its contents: The Paradise is the sign of Allah's mercy. It is a garden of delight which abounds in trees, shade and gushing fountains where Lord's bounties consist of "reclining upon couches lined with brocade", and where the fruits of the gardens are nigh to gather. The good and comely houris who are as lovely as rubies and as beautiful as coral, are virgins: they have not been touched by any man or jinn. They are cloistered in pavilions where they recline on green cushions and attractive carpets, and the pavilions themselves are surrounded by green, green pastures profusely studded with fruit-bearing trees such as palms and pomegranates.

The splendour of the Paradise becomes even more dazzling when wine is made a part of the paradisiac habitation:

"Surely the pious shall be in bliss,
upon couches gazing;
you find in their faces the shining bliss
as they are offered to drink of a wine sealed
whose seal is musk - so after that let the strivers strive
and whose mixture is Tasnim
a fountain at which to drink those brought nigh". (The Stinters: 20-25).

Vessels of silver and beautiful immortal boys

Attractions of the Paradise keep multiplying themselves to assure the believers of the tremendous rewards which await them:

". . . God has . . . provided them radiancy
and delight
and recompensed them for their patience
with a Garden, and silk;
therein they shall see neither sun nor
bitter cold;
near them shall be its shades, and its clusters hung
meekly down,
and there shall be passed around them vessels of
silver, and large drinking cups of crystal,
crystal of silver measured
very exactly,
And therein they shall be given to drink a cup whose
ingredient is a ginger;
therein a spring whose name is Salsabil
Immortal youths shall go about them;
when thou seest them, thou supposes" them
dispersed pearls
when you see them then you see the divine happiness
and a great kingdom.
Upon them shall be green clothing of silk
and brocade, they are embellished with
bracelets of silver, and their Lord shall
give them to drink a pure draught.
Behold this is a reward for you, and
your toiling is thanked" (Man: 10-25).

Purpose of young boys

The presence of the immortal young boys who are immune to the rigour of time, and the deliberate mention of their beauty which matches the radiance of scattered pearls, and the fact that they are dressed up like brides, makes one wonder about their real purpose.

The boys are again mentioned in the "Mount" (20): "While they hand therein a cup one to another wherein is no idle talk, no cause of sin, and there go round them youths, their own, as if they were concealed pearls".

Abundance of houris and boys

The moselms believe that each of them shall be given seventy two houris. Here, the words "their own" show that in addition to the ever-young maidens, each faithful shall have his own boys. We must note that there will be "no cause of sin". Does this phrase convey the ordinary sense of the words or does it imply that nothing can create sin in paradise? It is a confusing issue and is made even more baffling by the fact that the boys have been repeatedly projected as a thing of physical beauty. However, it is better if its interpretation is left to the believers.

Since the Koran is addressed not only to the Arabs and Moslems but to the entire mankind, one is inclined to raise a few points about hell and heaven:

1. God desperately wants to be believed and worshipped by man. If it were not so, He would not offer the alternative of hell and heaven: the former amounts to blackmail and the latter constitutes a bribe which is a sin itself. A desperate God lacks stable nature and is, therefore, not worthy of submission.
2. Paradise is a form of temptation based on sex appeal. Its enormity is enhanced by the fact that the faithful will have no duties whatever, and all their time shall be taken up by merriments. Is sexual gratification the goal of existence?
3. The description of hell is contrary to Allah's claim of being merciful and compassionate.

Interpretation of hell and heaven

The educated Moslems evade this issue by declaring that hell and heaven are metaphorical descriptions and refer to psychological experiences. This cannot be true because Moslems believe that every word of the Koran is literally true. Secondly, they believe in an individual's physical resurrection on the Day of Judgement. Obviously, as in this life we want food and sex, the resurrected bodies will have similar needs which will be provided by the Paradise. If this were not true, the paradise would have no purpose at all.
Again, a metaphor is brief e.g. black as coal, white as milk, etc., whereas the Koranic description of the paradise is detailed and graphic.

Provision of the paradise is a promise binding on Allah and therefore it has got to be real and not metaphorical. Otherwise, He is just fooling the faithful.

Moreover, all Moslems believe in the physical existence of the paradise, and this is the main reason for their belief in the Koran. Without anticipation of houris and youths, the numbers of the Moslems shall dwindle dramatically.

Why will people deserve hell or heaven in the life-after-death? The Moslem scholars argue that man has been given free will, that is, the power to choose the right or wrong, and therefore, he qualifies for a reward or punishment. To prove that Islam is based on reason, they further argue that nobody will go to hell or heaven without a fair trial which will be held on the Day of Judgement.

Rational though this statement looks on paper, it loses its glow of reason when subjected to a logical examination, and also disturbs the fundamental claim of the Koran as the Divine Book:

"What, do they not delve deeper into the Koran?
If it had been from other than God
certainly they would have found in it much
inconsistency" (Women: 80).

Mutazilites and Asharies

Before proceeding any further, let me state for better comprehension of the issue that the Moslem scholars started indulging in philosophic expression c.757. It became fashionable to discuss whether the Koran is eternal or created. The school known as the "Mutazilites" (the Seceders) denied the eternity of the Koran because it implied total predestination. The caliph Al-Mamun championed this interpretation. However, Abul-Hasan Al-Ashari (873-935) preached that Allah is the supreme sovereign and He does what He wills. He has predetermined every act and event and is the primary cause of everything that is or may happen.

Inconsistencies of Koran

The Mutazilites and the Asharies stood on the opposite sides of the fence. If the Koran is the basis of the argument, then the latter are right but their accuracy creates inconsistencies in the Koran. Let us review this situation with reference to:

a. Determinism, and
b. The Day of Judgement

a. Determinism.

"Say, O God, Master of the Kingdom
You give the Kingdom whom you will,
and seize the Kingdom from whom you will,
you raise whom you will, and you
abase whom you will . . . you
are all-powerful . . .
you provide whomsoever you like limitlessly" (The House of Imran: 25).

"Whomsoever God will, He leads astray,
and whomsoever He will, He sets him
on a right path" (Cattle: 35 and 125)

". . . If God had willed, He would have
guided men all together" (Thunder: 30).
"It is not given to any soul to die, except by the
leave of God, at an appointed time" (The House of Imran: 135).

Allah and vice

It is quite clear that everything is predestined by God. Why then the Day of Judgement? Obviously Allah has made people what they are, and has deliberately withheld guidance from those who have sinned.

Satan accuses Allah

When we examine the doctrine of vice and virtue, Allah seems to be the sole and active cause of vice. In the myth of creation as described in El-Hijr (25-40), Iblis (Satan) accuses Allah openly for perverting him. He asks Allah for a respite until the Day of Judgement so that he can lead people astray as a revenge. Strange as it may seem, the most compassionate Allah grants this request to Satan so that he can help Allah to fill Gehenna (Hell) with people!

Satan, the agent of Allah

Not only the perversion of Iblis (Satan) is a deliberate act of Allah but Iblis also acts as His agent in misleading mankind:

"Have you not seen how we sent the
Satans against the unbelievers, to
prick them?" (Mary: 85).

Yet the All-Merciful declares in the same Chapter that He would "drive the evildoers into Gehenna, herding".

b. Day of Judgement:

Is there really any point in resurrecting people for trying them? A trial unless fair, is just a farce and the source of injustice. Is it right of me to blind someone and then accuse him for not being able to see? If it is Allah who is the cause of human perversion through Iblis or the creative design, then has He any reason to resurrect people for punishing and rewarding them? One must also remember that in Al Araf (178) Allah declares: "We have created most of the people and Jinn for Gehenna (Hell) only . . .". The Day of Judgement is an unjust principle and therefore below the dignity of God. The Prophet like the Christians, borrowed it fom Zarathustara. Dynamics of this doctrine become obvious when we realise that death is man's greatest fear, and the concept of resurrection gives him the hope of eternity. Having laid it down as one of the fundamental principles of the Islamic faith, the Prophet substituted himself for Jesus Christ and declared that he would share the Throne of Justice with Allah on the Day of Judgement; he would sit on the right hand side of God and exercise his intercessionary powers to damn or deliver people. Flocking to the prophet, who claimed to possess the divine stature, was quite natural for the ordinary mortals who had been frightened by the description of the most torturous hell. Is it not natural to shun the raging flames and run into the most luscious embraces of houris with musky bodies, swelling breasts and large restraining eyes?

Scene of Resurrection

At this juncture, it seems appropriate to describe the Islamic scene of the Day of Resurrection and Judgement:

Koran repeatedly assures people that they will be resurrected for the dispensation of justice according to the evidence that has been collected and recorded from birth to burial:

The Recorders

"He sends recorders over you till,
any one of you is visited
by death, our messengers take him
and they neglect not.
Then they are restored to God,
their protector, the true. Surely
His is the judgement; He is the
fastest of censors". (Cattle: 60)

Register of deeds

"Surely it is We who bring the dead to life
and write down what they have forwarded
and what they have left behind, everything
We have numbered in a clear register" (Ya Sin: 10).
"We have been registering all that you were doing" (Hobbling: 519).

Book of evidence

"With us a book recording" (Qaf: 1).

The Watchers

In Qaf, The Splitting and the Night Star, the Koran repeatedly says that God has appointed Watchers, i.e. two angels over every human; they record everything he does.

Significance of evidence in Islam

On the Day of Judgement, everybody shall be presented with his book of record and told: "Read thy book" (The Night Journey: 10-15 and JO, also the Resurrection: 10).

The relevance of testimony is so vital to the Day of Judgement that besides the presentation of individual records, a person's own limbs such as tongue, hands, feet will give evidence about him! (Light: 20 and Distinguished: 15).

Doubting Arabs

Arabs found the concept of Resurrection hard to believe:
"What, when we are dust,
shall we indeed then be raised up again
in new creation" (Thunder: 5).

Resurrection as God's promise

The Koran declared that disbelief in Resurrection shall be punished with hell, and positively asserted that Resurrection "is a promise binding on Him (Allah)" (The Bee: 40).

Islamic view of justice

The concept of justice as depicted by the Koran seems to be based on natural justice:

No intercession

"and warn them against the Day of Judgement
when, stricken with extreme fear, the hearts are in the throats
and the evildoers have not one loyal friend,
no intercessor to be heeded" (The Believers: 15).

No befriending

" . . before a day comes
wherein shall be neither haggling
nor befriending" (Abraham: 35).

Allah, the sole judge

". . judgement belongs not to any
but God. In Him I have put my trust;
and in Him let all put their trust
who put their trust" (Joseph: 65).

The strange turn

So far the Koranic statements conform to the principles of natural justice, but for lack of favour, do not seem to carry an effective appeal to the audience for conversion to Islam. Then the tone changes:

The Prophet assumes intercessionary role

"Intercession will not avail Him
except for him to whom He gives leave" (Sheba: 20 also The Star: 25).
Gradually, the Prophet's intercessionary powers become the plenary powers:
"No! I swear . . .
truly this is the Word of a noble Messenger
having power, with the Lord of the Throne secure,
obeyed, moreover trusty" (The Darkening: 15).

Perversion of justice

According to the Moslem belief, the Prophet will sit on the right hand side of God on the Throne of Justice and his intercession will be final. The hymnal poetry of Islam zealously sung by the believers make no apology about their belief that Allah cannot pardon anyone whom He likes but Muhammad can. They hold that the first element that ensures salvation is the belief in the Prophet.

Natural justice has always been based on deeds and not beliefs. What kind of justice is associated with the Day of Judgement? It makes fun of the concept of Justice because intercession is as alien to it as heat is to snow or as flying is to a reptile.

Is physical resurrection possible?

The idea of physical resurrection also looks puerile. The modern scientists claim that man as a species has evolved over a period of ten billion years but on the Day of Judgement when the trumpet is blown, the dust and ashes of the dead will instantly resume their original form and present themselves for an unusual brand of justice which condemns most of them to an eternal hell without any regard to the righteousness of their deeds.

Man is so frightened of death that he will believe even in self-deception if it offers him a glimmer of hope to evade death.

Muhammad and Resurrection

However, it may not be a bad idea if the faithful remember that the Prophet himself was afraid of the Day of Judgement (Cattle: 15) and being a mortal was equally subject to Resurrection: "You are mortal; and they are mortal; then on the Day of Resurrection before your Lord you shall dispute" (The Companies: 30).

This verse throws an entirely different light on the role of Muhammad in relation to Resurrection! The Koran contains a multitude of contradictions. Let me give a few examples.

Koranic contradictions

The Prophet claimed:
"This Koran could not have been produced
apart from God . . ." (Jonah: 35) and stressed that "if it had been from other
than God, surely they would have found in it much inconsistency" (Women: 80).

We have just seen that Allah had predestined everything yet he holds people responsible for their actions. He wants to punish them with hell and reward them with heaven but both these concepts are below the dignity of the Universal God. Again, to enforce his judgement, He will resurrect the dead but His method and standard of judgement are quite contrary to the principles of natural justice. Finally, the doctrine of physical resurrection is far-fetched and irrational.

The Koran

In view of the above facts, one feels inclined to look into:

a. the purpose and

b. composition of the Koran.

The purpose of the Koran

a. The Koran has been revealed to guide mankind but it does not guide the wicked:
" . . Who is further astray than he who
follows his whim without guidance from
God? Surely God guides not the people
of the evildoers" (The Story: 50).
"God does not guide the evildoers" (The Table: 55).
Since the righteous require no correction, and it is only the evildoers who need guidance, the Koran, obviously, has no purpose.

Composition of the Koran

b. Regarding the composition of the Koran, we should remember:
". . . a Koran we have divided
for you to recite it to mankind
at intervals, and we have sent it down
piecemeal" (The Night Journey: 105).

Arab objection

It means that the Koran was not revealed all at once but successively. The contemporaries of the Prophet argued that as his revelations were connected with certain occasions, they could not form God's Book. If the Koran were a Divine Book, it must have descended upon him as a whole. Its relationship with particular events, they held, proved that the Koran was Muhammad's own authorship which he pretended to be from Allah:
"The unbelievers say, 'Why has the Koran
not been sent down upon him all at once?" (Salvation: 30).
To stress the point Allah claims:
"Of course, We have sent the Koran and
of course, we are its guardian" (El-Hijr: 8).
". . . it is a glorious Koran,
in a guarded tablet" (The Constellation: 20).
"No man can change the words of God; and
there has already come to you some news
of the envoys" (Cattle: 124).

Muhammad declared that Allah had sent a prophet to every locality along with His Word. Especially, the Books of the Jews and Christians were divine revelations but had been interpolated and tampered with!

Word of God is uncorruptible

One wonders if God's previous Books were corruptible, why did God have to protect the words of the Koran? One cannot say that God guards the Koran because it is His last Word: Jesus had a similar claim about His Word, yet Muhammad emphasised that it had been falsified. Again, if God must guard the Koran because it is His Word, He must have guarded the Old and New Testaments as well because they also were the Word of God.

Composition of Koran

Man is man only when he is a rational being and, thus, cannot be deprived of the rights that reason bestows upon him. Therefore, one is entitled to review critically even the Word of God for satisfying one's curiosity. The following points must be borne in mind when considering the composition of the Koran:

1. Muhammad claimed to be the Messenger of God; he declared that the Koran was the message of God who revealed it piecemeal at certain occasions.
2. Koran is not created and has always existed; it is only its revelation which was made in terms of time.
3. Koran is the final expression of God's will and He will not send any further guidance or messengers.
4. The Koran promulgates the Law of God; it is complete, immortal, immutable and capable of guiding through all the situations, eternally.
5. There is no certainty that the whole text of the Koran was ever committed to writing during the lifetime of the Prophet. Nobody can make such a claim either. The Prophet was said to be illiterate. The fact that in the beginning, there were many hypocrites among his followers, it is likely that his messages had not been recorded exactly the way he might have dictated them. Being illiterate, he could not have known it. There is no proof that his famous amanuensis Zaid Ibn Thabit had acted for him right from the start of his apostolic ministry.
6. It is generally agreed that the first revelation (Sure XCVI) dates back to A.D. 610 and the last one was received shortly before the death of the Prophet on 8th June 632. Thus it took twenty two years to complete the revelation of the Koran. Again, the Koran was not compiled during the lifetime of the Prophet. As revelations gathered momentum they were written upon scraps of parchment and leather, flat pieces of stone, camel's ribs and shoulder-blades, and palm leaves. The fragments were never numbered and dated and were deposited in various receptacles without regard to any particular system.
These scattered fragments were compiled long after the death of the Prophet and the first authorised text appeared during the caliphate of Uthman C.660. It means that from the commencement of revelations in 610 to 660, it took fifty years to collect various bits and pieces of the Koran from different people and containers. One ought to remember that revelations were recorded not only by the appointed recorders but also by the members of the Prophet's company, i.e. the followers who assembled around him most of the time. Again, there were some followers who memorised the Koranic verses, and their memories also served as the record for the compilation of the Koran.
7. The 114 Suras or Chapters which constitute the Koran, lack chronological and rational sequence and thus most verses do not form a cohesive narrative to facilitate an easy understanding, especially to the layman to whom the Koran is addressed.
8. If Allah has accepted the responsibilty of guarding the Koran, then it extends not only to words but its meanings as well.
9. Comprehensiveness is claimed to be the integral part of the composition of the Koran: the Moslems believe that there is nothing which has not been mentioned in the Koran, and this claim extends to astronomy, the physical laws of nature, scientific formulas and discoveries, medical and biological innovations, history and knowledge of the future events and anything else one can think of.
10. The Koran confirms the divine origin of the Old and New Testaments and exalts Moses and Jesus to the rank of a prophet.
In view of what I have said above, one comes to the following conclusions:
1a. Since the Koran was the message from Allah, and this is what made Muhammad the Messenger, his foremost duty was to compile it himself in the most orderly fashion. He, obviously, neglected this task which deserved the highest priority.
2a. If the Koran is not created and has always existed as it is, then all the events that it refers to, had been predestined. Therefore, it is futile to send a Messenger to argue for or against them. Thus, the Koran has no purpose and is quite unnecessary.
3a. If the purpose of revelation is to guide people, then it has to be a continuous and everlasting process because they need leadership all the time. Again, time is progressive and human culture keeps changing constantly. If revelation ceased after Muhammad, then it implies that the generations that follow him after 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 years must live at the same level as did Muhammad. This makes the Koran an unnatural book.
Christ and Mani also claimed that the revelation had ended with them, and did not want anyone else to be believed in as a Messiah or Messenger. It is like the power-hungry mundane rulers who want to rule every territory to the total exclusion of other monarchs. This is what makes revelation, the device of dominance.
4a. The Koran contains some eighty verses which can be construed to contain the Islamic Law. They are confined to a very limited area and cannot extend to the vast reaches of life. This is the reason that the Shariah or the Islamic Law could not be introduced in its pure form in any part of the Moslem empire and they had to borrow from the Roman, Byzantinian and Persian legal systems.
The very nature of law makes it (the law) mortal, that is, laws become obsolete and irrelevant over a period of time and have to be replaced by new laws. Therefore, the Koranic Law which was revealed nearly 1,400 years ago cannot be immortal, comprehensive and everlasting. Its proof is found in the Koran itself:
"And for whatever verse We abrogate or cast into oblivion, We bring a better or the like of it . . ." (The Law: 100).
Further evidence of this is to be found in The Spoils: 65, The Bee: 100 and The Most High: 6.
If several verses had to be rescinded and replaced by others within the twenty years of the Prophet's ministry, then how come, the rest of the Koran can stay intact over a period of centuries and millenia?
5a. The Prophet's illiteracy and the fact that the whole of the Koran was never written down in his lifetime, are likely causes of ommisions from, and additions to, the Koran.
6a. The facts that had been preserved haphazardly, when compiled after half a century must be liable to error by way of omission, addition, exaggeration or understatement. This state of affairs is confirmed by the fact that the abrogated verses, which should not form part of the Koran, are still there. Again, this is especially true because many of the Prophet's followers were hypocrites who intentionally wanted to harm Islam.
7a. The Koran lacks chronological order completely. The Prophet received his first revelations when he was in Mecca and the last ones came down to him during his residence in Medina. The compilers omitted the chronological sequence completely and arranged Suras in their order of length. The Koran is arranged back to front and the Western Scholars have called it "history in reverse order". This is the reason that an ordinary believer cannot comprehend it readily despite the Koranic claim that Allah has made it "of easy understanding". If Allah has not thought it fit to guard the sequence of the Koran, which is vital to its true preservation and understanding, He cannot be expected to guard its words. I am referring to the pre-Uthman era which covers a period of fifty years. There is no doubt that since Uthman's authorization, the words of the Koran have suffered no change, whatever.
8a. Of course, words have their significance but of much greater importance are their meanings. If word "orange" comes to mean apple or banana, then the preservation of its letters, spellings and pronunciation ceases to have any significance at all. This is exactly what has happened to the Koran. The words are the same but different scholars stand miles apart in interpreting them. If it were not so, Moslems would not be divided into so numerous irreconcilable sects. Has Allah really guarded the Koran?
9a. If everything, as the Moslems claim, has been described in the Koran, they would have been the most advanced nation of the world because all they would have to do would be to look into the Koran to find out the remedy for cancer and the formulas for the atom bomb and space control. This has obviously not happened. It is a pity that they declare the existence of such knowledge in the Koran only when non-Moslem scientists have made them public! It is a tragedy of Islam that the Moslems look for things in the Koran which are not supposed to be there.
10a. If Prophets like Moses and Jesus were needed before Muhammad, they should be needed after him as well because life goes on varying all the time. If the earlier divine books could be tampered with, the Koran being a similar book cannot escape falsification. And falsification does not have to be wilful it can happen quite naturally by way of inadvertent addition or deletion.
As mentioned under 4a and supported by the quotations from The Cow, The Spoils, The Bee and the Most High, the Prophet was liable to forget certain verses which could not have been recorded. This amounts to omission; replacing them with new and better verses constitutes revision which is against the Koranic claim that it is immortal and immutable.

Finally, as a footnote to the above observations, I may add that there are several narratives in the Koran which are not attested by the facts of history. Let me give you two examples:
1. In the cave (80-95) the Koran has portrayed Alexander, The Great (Dhool Karnain) as a prophet and a monotheist. He was nothing of the kind. Knowing full well that Philip of Macedonia was his father, he claimed to be the son of the chief Egyptian god Amon.
After conquering the Persian Empire, he demanded deification and was acknowledged and worshipped as a god in many countries. Again, the Koran is not aware of the story of Alexander's retreat from India. Nor has history recorded that he built any wall of iron and brass to keep the imaginary Gog and Magog at bay. These facts are more relevant to the Chinese Wall but Alexander had not put his foot on the Chinese soil.
2. In Chapter XXXI, headed as Lokman, the Koran depicts Lokman as if he were a true Moslem who practiced Monotheism and condemned shirk, that is worshipping someone else in association with God.
Alcmaeon was a student of Pythagoras who established a school of natural philosophy at Crotone in southern Italy. Known to the east as Lokman Hakeem or Lokman the Wise or Lokman the Physician, he earned this reputation for investigating the animal structure; he distinguished arteries from veins, established brain as the centre of intellect, discovered optic nerve, and because of his insight into the development of embryo, came to be acknowledged as the founder of embryology.
But Lokman the Wise was not a monotheist; he was a polytheist and an idolater!

Nature of Koranic Law

Having briefly considered the purpose and composition of the Koran, one is inclined to look into the nature of the Koranic Law.
The Koran clearly lays down its fundamental principle of law: "(O Prophet) you shall find no change in the law of God" (The Confederates: 61).
I must point out that the "Law of God" has also been interpreted as the "Way of God" and the "Custom of God". As Moslems believe that the Koran is the Law and it is unchangeable, it makes no difference whatever, whether we translate the~original verse as the Law of God, the Way of God or the Custom of God.

Equality at Law

The second priciple of the Koranic Law declares that nobody is above the law and it equally applies to the Prophet himself:
"Follow you what has been revealed to you
from your lord;" (Cattle: 105).
Allah commands the Prophet:
"and this (Koran) is My Path, straight; so do you
follow it, and follow not other paths
lest they mislead you from His path" (Cattle: 150).
One cannot underestimate the warning given in this verse yet we find it difficult to reconcile some of the prophet's deeds with the Koranic Law. Let me give you just two examples:
". . . marry such women as seem good to you, two,
three, four; but if you fear you will not be equitable,
then only one, or what your right hand owns;
so it is likelier you will not be one-sided" (Woman: 2).
This verse allows polygamy on two conditions:
a. A Moslem can have up to four wives provided;
b. He is equitable, and does not show partiality to any of them.

Essence of law

It is the essence of jurisprudence that unity of the law is preserved under all circumstances i.e. there cannot be two laws, one for the mighty and one for the meek, and secondly, a law-giver is required to observe his own laws while he allows them to stand. This is especially true in the case of the Prophet because every word of the Koran is addressed to him for direct compliance.

History has recorded that the Prophet did not pay any attention to either of these rules because:
When he died he left eight widows and one Christian concubine, and He was partial to Aisha. His deep inclination towards Aisha, the youngest wife, caused a good deal of discord amongst his other wives. The following verses testify to this fact:
"It is possible that, if he divorces you
Allah will give him in exchange wives
better than you, women who have surrendered,
believing, obedient, penitent, devout,
giving to fasting, who have been married
and virgins too" (The Forbidding: 5).

The furore that the Prophet's partiality caused, is well portrayed by this verse: the attitude of his wives bordered on rebellion and he threatened to divorce them and replace them with better wives. When this threat did not prove effective, Allah sent down a special law which applied to the Prophet's wives exclusively:
"Wives of the Prophet, whoever among you
commits a gross indecency, for her
the punishment shall be doubled; that is
easy for God.
But whomsoever of you surrenders to God and His
Messenger, and does righteousness, We shall pay
her wage twice over; We have prepared for her
a generous reward.
Wives of the Prophet, you are not as other
women. If you are God-fearing, be not
vile in your speech, so that he in whose
heart is sickness may be lustful; but speak
honourable words" (The Confederates: 30)

This law reveals not only the matrimonial background including "vile speech" of Prophet's wives but also lays down that if the Prophet's wives obey him, they will be entitled to twice the reward of an ordinary wife and if they disobey him they will attract double the punishment! Why? Draw your own conclusions.
There cannot be duality in a true law because equal application is its essence. Without this virtue, it cannot guarantee justice, its main purpose. Yet the Koranic law provides duality to justify the Prophet's deeds:
"You can suspend any of your wives as you will
and receive any one of them as you will; and whomsoever
you desire of those whom you have set aside,
it is no sin for you; now it is likelier they will be
comforted and not grieve, and everyone of them
will be well pleased with what you give her" (The Confederates: 50).

As already stated, the basic condition of polygamy is that the husband is equitable to all his wives and does not practice partiality. But here Allah has given special dispensation to the Prophet who can suspend any of his wives as he pleases but his followers can't!

One must remember that the Koran projects Muhammad as the model for all the faithful. If the Prophet can't practice his own laws, how can they be binding on the believers?

Allah obeys the Prophet

The Prophet declared that he is a servant to God but it is evident that it is God who follows the Prophet's inclinations:
Here are some examples:
"O believers, enter not the houses of
the Prophet, except permission is given you
for a meal, without watching for its time.
But when you are invited, then enter; and
when you have had the meal, leave,
neither lingering for idle talk;
That is annoying to the Prophet, and he
is ashamed before you; but God is not
ashamed before the truth. And when you
ask his wives for any thing, ask them
from behind a curtain; this is cleaner
for your hearts and theirs. It is not
for you to hurt God's Messenger, neither
to marry his wives after him, ever;
surely that would be, in God's sight
a monstrous thing" (The Confederates: 50).
These verses clearly pertain to Muhammad's personal life. He was quite capable of saying all these things to his followers directly, yet he chose to put these words in God's mouth!

Change of Kibla

"We have seen you turning your face about
towards the heaven; now We will surely turn you.
Turn your face towards the Holy Mosque; and
wherever you are, turn faces towards it" (The Cow: 135).

What this verse records is known as the change of Kibla i.e. the direction which Moslems face to say prayers. It is quite clear that when the Prophet started looking towards the sky, God took the hint and with a view to satisfying His Messenger He changed the Kibla i.e. the direction of prayers from Jerusalem (Bait Ul Maqaddas) to Kaaba (The Holy Mosque). Obviously, Allah has no will of His own!

Jerusalem, the original Kibla

Originally, the Prophet had appointed Jerusalem as the Kibla to convince the Jews that Islam was a continuation of what had been revealed to Moses, Abraham and Noah. To win them over, the Koran repeatedly stated that the Children of Israel were an exalted race and God had raised them above the rest of mankind. When praise failed to secure conversion of the Jews, the Prophet decided to deprive them of this honour.

Moslem interpretation of Kibla

However, the Moslems insist that Jerusalem as the Kibla was meant to be a temporary affair; they faced it simply because the Kaaba was full of idols and the Moslems being the followers of Allah, could not adopt it as the Kibla until such time that all the idols had been removed from there. History does not support this claim: this change of Kibla took place in 624 A.D. when the Kaaba was still the holy shrine of the Quresh where they worshipped their idols, and it was not until 630 when the Prophet entered Mecca as a victor and removed statues from the Kaaba.

Another reason for the change of Kibla

In fact the change of Kibla from Jerusalem to Mecca was adopted by Muhammad to increase his influence amongst the Arabs. The Kaaba had been the holiest shrine of the Arabs for centuries. In 622, Muhammad migrated to Medina, the home of the Jewish tribes such as the Banu-Nadhir, the Banu-Kuraiza, the Banu-Kainuka. This occasion of flight (July 16, 622, the Hijra) was designated by the Caliph Omar as the official beginning of the Moslem era. The Prophet planned to visit the Kaaba as a pilgrimage. His Meccan followers who had left Mecca ten years earlier to be with the Prophet, and felt homesick, were delighted by this suggestion. This pilgrimage to the Holy Place also wrought a considerable change on the minds of the Meccans who were jolly pleased to realise that their shrine was to be designated as the most sacred centre of Islam. Jerusalem as the Kibla, did not gratify the Jews, the stiffnecks, who would rather break than surrender, but it had a great effect on the Arabs who despite being tough, proved to be tender. Owing to its stupendous influence on the progress and history of Islam, it was surely the master stroke that proves the wisdom and farsightedness of Muhammad as a man.

Allah, the factotum of Muhammad

In fact, Allah does everything not only to please Muhammad but He also acts as his factotum:
"O believer, advance not before God
and His Messenger; and fear God. God is
All-hearing, All-knowing".
"O believers, raise not your voice above
the Prophet's voice, and be not loud
in your speech to him, as you are loud
one to another, in case your works fail
while you are not aware.
Surely those who lower their voices in
the presence of God's Messenger, those
are they whose hearts God has tested for
godfearing; they shall have forgiveness
and a stupendous wage" (Apartments: 1).

The Prophet was human

Of course, it is only fair that the led should respect their leaders by controlling their manners and tone of voice. But is it for God to tell such ordinary and commonsense things to intelligent people? It is a myth that the pre-Islam Arabs were barbarians: their literature and traditions of honour openly defy this view. No, it is Muhammad who speaks as God in the disguise of revelation.

Slavery

Muhammad was human and was influenced by the culture, and social traditions of his time exactly the same way as all greater and lesser mortals have been throughout history. Take slavery, for instance. He took it for a natural institution. Despite all the torture, disgrace and humiliation associated with it, he did nothing to abolish it. Of course, it is true that he was kind to slaves, and thought of freeing slaves as a virtue, but Christianity had expressed a similar attitude towards slavery long before him. The Code of Justinian (528) had abolished the old class distinction and the freed men were given all the privileges of free men. It went even so far as to put the chastity of a slave woman on par with that of a free woman by treating the rape of the former punishable by death whereas Islam authorised the master to have sexual intercourse with his slave girls.

Slavery and God

If revelation carries a grain of truth, then the foremost duty of any divine Messenger is to condemn and abolish slavery. Why? Because liberty is the greatest Virtue for being the stepping stone to humanity from the lower form of existence. If you don't believe me, think of yourself as a slave and imagine yourself being chained, starved and whipped; visualise your wives and daughters being raped and your children being sold away to strangers. Is there anything more atrocious and horrible than this state of affairs, called ``slavery"? The value of liberty emerges when we realise that this is the only cure for the venom of servitude. I am not prepared to adore the God who is all out to humiliate mankind Relationship between God and man is moral and not that of a master and slave How would God feel if He were subjected to similar pain and humiliation as man is? A true God cannot be callous, unjust and uncaring. Therefore, the major purpose of His prophets will be to eliminate slavery outrightly.

Islam and Womanhood

Another example is the plight of women. They have always been held as an object of sexual pleasure, a toy for man, the source of mischief, impurity and hypocrisy. Treating them with inferiority has become the mark of male superiority. Of course, the Prophet did say that paradise lay at the feet of one's mother but it proved to be only of theoretical reverence because in addition to being mother, a woman is also a person, a daughter, a sister and a wife. Apart from motherhood, women suffered more under Islam than any other major faith or doctrine. The Prophet imported the Persian custom of veiling or purdah into the Moslem society (Light: 30), and by confining their role to the household behind curtains under the watchful eyes of the male members, turned them into virtual house-prisoners. To gauge the condition of women one has only to look at the Koranic laws:
1. "Your women are a tillage for you; so come unto your tillage as you wish" (The Cow: 220).
2. Men are superior to women (The Cow: 225).
3. Man can divorce woman at will but she can't (The Cow: 225, The Confederates: 45, Divorce: 1).
4. A man can have four wives and an unlimited number of concubines but a woman must have only one husband.
5. One man is equal to two women as a witness (The Cow: 280).
6. Likewise, a brother is entitled to twice the inheritance of his sister (Woman:l0).
7. Man is free to administer a dose of violence to his wives when he thinks they are not obedient: ". . . chastise; banish them to their couches and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them" (Women: 35).

Islam, and sex outside marriage

There is evidence in the Koran winch forbids sex outside marriage:
"Marry the spouseless among you, and your
slaves and handmaidens that are righteous;
. . . and let those who find not the means to
marry be abstinent till God enriches them
of His bounty. Those your right hand owns
but seek emancipation, contract with
them accordingly . . . And force not
your slavegirls to prostitution, if they
desire to live in chastity" (Light: 30).
However, this law has been contradicted by other verses:
" . . Marry such women
as seem to you, two, three, four;
but if you fear you will not be equitable,
then only one, or what your right hand owns" (Women: 1).
"O Prophet, we have made lawful for you
your wives whom you have given their wages
and what your right hand owns . . ." (The Confederates: 45).
"What right hand owns" has been understood as a slave. In the context of sex, it has been invariably interpreted and practiced as a slave woman. Extending sexual relationship to women who are not one's wives, flaunts the sanctity of marriage. Yet Allah prescribes the sentence of death for adultery but not for those who can afford to own slave girls. The Moslem Caliphs, Sultans and Kings set up vast harems containing not scores but hundreds of pretty and delicate women. The Emperor Jehangir of India is reported to have had six thousand women in his seraglio. The royal bedchambers were administered by specially castrated men known as "eunuchs" who mastered the arts of lechery, grooming and stimulating and accelerating the appetites and pleasures of their masters, immune to the grip of Allah for having the riches and power to keep concubines. No matter what they did to these helpless girls, could not count as a sin. These harems were obviously a reflection of the Paradise on earth.

Concubinage

However, it was not the Prophet who invented the institution of concubinage. Abraham had a concubine, and so did Jacob. May be it had originated in Persia where the stern monarchs needed soft and saccharine sexual dolls to reduce the rigours of the ruling rituals which they usually performed well.

Duality of Muhammad and Allah

Nobody can blame the Prophet for the institution of concubinage which he accepted as a going tradition. It demonstrates that he was a mortal and thus subject to the cultural influences of his time. Though it clearly shows that he was human, the matter is not quite as straightforward as it looks because the Koran depicts him both as a man and God. The Moslems claim that they believe in one God; in fact, they believe in the Duality of Muhammad and Allah as the Christians believe in the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. However, this duality is totally different from what Zoroasterism, Manicheism and Neoplatonism preached. It holds that Muhammad as Messenger, and God are one, and Muhammad being the dominant component of duality, is the ultimate object of worship. This belief is less an article of theory and more of practice.

The Prophet as a man

I am sure that Moslems all over the world will accuse me of misrepresenting slam Honesty demands that before getting excited, they must deliberate on the following quotations sincerely. Let me quote the Prophet's human side first:
1. The Prophet is God's Servant:
"And if you are in doubt regarding that we have
sent down on Our servant . . ." (The Cow: 20).
2. The Prophet neither knows the Unseen nor is he an angel:
"I do not say to you, 'I possess the treasures of God'
I know not the Unseen. I say not to you, 'I am an angel',
I only follow what is revealed to me" (Cattle: 50).
3. The Prophet's function is only to warn people; he is not even given the responsibility to guide them:
"You are only a warner; and God is a Guardian
over everything" (Hood: 15).
"You are not responsible for guiding them;
but God guides whomsoever He will" (The Cow: 270).
4. The Prophet has no power to perform miracles; he is just a man:
"The unbelievers say, 'Why has a sign not been
sent down upon him from his Lord? You are only
a warner . . ." (Thunder: 5).
Despite people's fervent demand, the Prophet failed to show a miracle and declared:
". . . say 'Glory be to my Lord! Am I aught but a mortal,
a messenger?"' (The Night Journey: 95).
5. The Prophet obeys God's commandments and nobody has a share in the Divinity:
"Say, I have only been commanded
to serve God, and not to associate
aught with Him. To Him I call, and
to Him I turn" (Thunder: 35).
"Therefore call you, and go straight as you have been commanded . . ." (Counsel: 10).
6. God's commandments to obey, and pray to Him are equally binding on the Prophet as on any other believer:
"Proclaim your Lord's praise,
and be of those that bow,
and serve your Lord, until
the certain comes to you" (El-Hijr: 95).
7. The Prophet is equally subject to Allah's reward and punishment:
a. "If He will, He will have mercy on you
or, if He will, He will chastise you" (The Night Journey: 55).
b. "Set not up with God
another God, or you
wilt be cast into
Gehenna (Hell), reproached
and condemned" (The Night Journey: 40)
8. The Prophet is a mortal and subject to Resurrection:
"You art mortal; and they are mortal;
then on the Day of Resurrection before your Lord
you shall dispute" (The Companies: 475).
9. The Prophet is neither aware of the Unseen nor does he know what will become of him:
". . . and I know not what
shall be done with me or with you.
I only follow what is revealed to me;
I am only a clear warner" (The Sand-Dunes: 5).
10. God confirms Muhammad's humanity loud and clear:
"Know you therefore that
there is no god but God,
and ask forgiveness for your sins, and
for the believers, men and women" (Muhammad: 20).

Purpose of Revelation

After this description of Muhammad's humanity, it seems impossible that a man can claim to be God, and even surpass Him in the exercise of Divinity. This is the magic, and purpose of revelation which enables an ordinary mortal to declare himself as God's Messenger or Messiah and issue all the commands in His name. Since nobody can see God or approach Him without the agency of the Messenger (or Messiah), it is the Messenger himself who begins to rank as God and is treated as such by his followers. Look at the following quotations from the Koran and see the truth for yourself:

Basic Islamic belief

1. The basic Islamic belief is Shahadah:
"There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger".
It is surely the quality of the message, and not the messenger that counts. Therefore' it makes no difference whether one believes in the messenger or not if the message itself is sound, sincere and salubrious. But this does not apply to Muhammed as a Messenger:
"Upon the day the unbelivers,
those who disobeyed the Messenger,
will wish that the earth might be levelled with them" (Women: 45).

Muhammad and Godhead

Obedience to Muhammad is a must if you do not want to suffer the perils of the Day of Judgement. Just belief in God alone will not save you. Muhammad obviously has a share in Divinity. Otherwise disbelief in Muhammad could not be fatal.
2. Obedience to Muhammad is as compulsory as it is to God.
a. "Say, Obey God, and the Messenger" (The House of Imran: 25).
b. "Obey God and the Messenger; haply so
you will find mercy" (The House of Imran: 125).
". . . Whoso obeys God
and His Messenger, He will admit him
to gardens . . ." (Women: 15).
"O believers, betray not God and the
Messenger . . ." (The Spoils: 25).

Muhammad and God are coextensive

3. Having asserted that Allah is nearer to man than his jugular vein, the Koran declares:
"The Prophet is nearer to the believers than their
selves . . ." (The Confederates: 5).
Now, God and Muhammed have become coextensive!

Muhammad as mercy for mankind

4. As the Bible called Jesus the Grace for Mankind to give him divine status
the Koran pronounced Muhammed as the Mercy or Blessing for all beings:
"We have not sent you, except as a mercy
unto all beings" (The Prophets: 100).

Muhammad and God as co-sovereigns

5. Now Allah and Muhammad become co-sovereigns and command together:
"It is not for any believer, man or
woman, when God and His Messenger
have decreed a matter, to have the choice
in the affair. Whosoever disobeys
God and His Messenger has gone astray
into clear error" (The Confederates: 35).

Muhammad as model

6. God tells believers that Muhammad is the model of action for them and they must follow him in all details:
"You have a good example in God's Messenger
for whosoever hopes for God and the Last Day . . ." (The Confederates: 20).

Muhammad and the unseen

7. Now we find God sharing the knowledge of the Unseen with Muhammad though previously it was exclusive to Himself:
"Knower He of the Unseen, and
He discloses not His Unseen to anyone,
except only to such a messenger as
He is well-pleased with" (The Jinn: 25).

Muhammad and Divine Authority

8. After elevating himself as the model of conduct and having gained parity with God in the right to command, and to be obeyed, now he exercises the divine authority in conjunction with Allah:
"A release, from God and His Messenger,
unto the idolaters with whom you made covenant.
A declaration from God and His Messenger,
Unto mankind on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage:
God is quit, and His Messenger, of the idolaters" (Repentance: 1).

Muhammad and intercession

9. To begin with, the Prophet had no intercessory powers whatever:
"Ask pardon for them, or ask not pardon for them;
if you ask pardon for them seventy times, God will not pardon them" (Repentance: 80).
"Do you know what is the Day of Judgement?
That is the day when no one shall be able to
benefit anyone else; the command shall belong unto God" (The Splitting: 15).
Now the situation changes; the Prophet's claim to divinity rises as his political power grows:
"truly this is the word of a noble Messenger
having power, with the Lord of the Throne secure,
obeyed, moreover trusty" (The Darkening: 15-20).
The basic Moslem belief in the intercessory powers of the Prophet is founded on these verses. They believe that, on the Day of Judgement, Muhammad will share the Throne of Justice with God. He will sit on the right hand side of Allah and the Prophet's recommendations will be binding on Him!

God and Angels worship Muhammad

10. The gradually changing situation is now reversed:
"God and His angels pray peace to the Prophet.
O believers, do you also bless him, and
pray him peace" (The Confederates: 55).

Moslems worship Muhammad

Praying peace (salaam) and reciting darood (repetitive recitation of Muhammad's name) are forms of salutation and devotion reserved for Muhammad. They are an integral part of the Islamic form of worship known as Namaz or Salaat. Thus not only Allah and angels but also Muslims directly or indirectly worship the Prophet. The Moslems of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh hold special sessions to praise Muhammad and recite hymnal songs to adore him. If this is not Prophet-worship, then what is it? This is the Duality that I have referred to. How can Moslems call themselves monotheists?

In fact, Muhammad encouraged Prophet-worship during his life-time. He declared that Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Jesus, all had the powers to work miracles but when his contemporaries asked him to show them a miracle so that they could believe him without hesitation, he could not do so. The Koran testifies to this fact repeatedly. Yet he claimed to be the last and the most superior prophet and encouraged his followers to believe in his supernatural powers. History has recorded that whenever he had a haircut, his disciples swarmed over one another, to gather his cut hair and nails as divine souvenirs; they even collected his spittle and the water in which he had washed his hands. It is because they believed in their miraculous virtues of healing and salvation! Again, to imprint his divinity on the subconscious mind of every new-born baby, he prescribed recitation of his name as God's prophet in its ears almost immediately at birth. The process of learning known as imprinting is said to have been discovered in 1935 by Lorenz but the Prophet knew it fourteen centuries ago! Imprinting, in a way, is a form of brainwashing. If at birth duckling and goslings are led to believe that man is their father, they follow him as his offsprings! Since faith is like a castle that one builds around one's self for severing connection with the inclemencies of the real world, the stronger its foundation, the securer one feels. The fortress of faith draws its strength from the tales of miracles that a Messiah or Messenger is reputed to have performed; the more incredible miracles a prophet is said to have shown, the greater his divinity and the higher the chances of salvation for believers!

The Hadith, the Jews and the political opportunists

Originally, Islam was a simple, practical faith, free from theoretical complexities. Its purity was adulterated by the Jewish hypocrites who fabricated countless sayings and ascribed them to the Prophet. They did it to avenge the humiliation of defeat. Their "contributions" helped to build up the body of the Hadith or traditions associated with the Prophet. This began to count as the Oral Law of Islam, and has the same relationship with the Koran as the Mishna and Gemara have with the Old Testament. The political opportunists of the Umayyad and Abbasid parties concocted further additions to attain their secular goals. History has recorded that Ibn Abi Al-Awja, who confessed to fabricating 4,000 traditions was executed at Kufa in 772 for this blasphemy. Of course, it is hard to challenge the piety of Al-Bukhari who first compiled the Muhammadan traditions in 870 but he did so 238 years after the death of the Prophet. Hadith means the spoken words of the Prophet. Despite the greatest care in the world, the spoken words are likely to lose their originality, purpose and meanings over such a long time.

Revelation is the most effective tool of dominance-urge because it raises an ordinary mortal to the status of God and secures for him the rights of total Obedience and worship. Since God cannot be seen or contacted, the revelationist becomes the Divine Manifestation and God Himself recedes into oblivion. It is not surprising that the Moslems believe that Muhammad like Allah has ninety nine sacred names and ninety nine numinous attributes; Allah and angels pray peace to Muhammad whose intercessionary powers control Allah's sense of justice. This is the reason that Islam has come to be founded on the love of Muhammad, and not surrender to Allah who ranks as a euphemism for the Prophet. Was Muhammad God? The Moslems who know something about the Koran do not think so. In fact, to them, it is Shirk, the greatest sin. But they are a small minority. The misunderstanding lies at the folk-level which constitutes 95�10 of the Moslems.

Muhammad was human, and there is a lot of evidence for it:
1. First of all, the Koran portrays him as human. He was born like any other human; he lived and died like other humans:
a. He ate and drank, he walked, talked and slept; he fell ill and needed medication, and answered the call of nature like other humans.
b. He possessed sexual urge which is the characteristic of all humans. The fact that he had over twelve wives, shows his natural passion for women.
2. Again, his wives did not think of him as God. In fact, some of them treated him harshly, the Koran itself mentions the "vile speech" of his wives towards him, and history has particularly noted the impolite attitude of Hafsa, the daughter of Omar the Great.
3. Using marriage as a weapon of political power, is an old way of the secular princes. The Prophet was no exception to it. Abu Bakr and Omar were his fathersin-law and Uthman and Ali were his sons-in-law. It is these four men who firmly established Islam which had lost ground after the death of the Prophet. Among his wives, we even find a daughter of Abu Sufyan, the arch enemy of Islam.
4. The Prophet made taxation, which is a form of plunder, as the tool of dominance. Its ultimate purpose was to reduce all non-Moslems to the status of tributaries. To achieve this end he propounded the doctrine of Jehad or Holy War and declared Booty i.e. the loot, as God's Blessing for motivating his followers to kill. Robbing the peaceful commercial caravans of the Quresh of Mecca, which led to battles establishing Muhammad's political hegemony, is the natural sequence of this doctrine. Is it really Godly to kill for the joy of robbing and turning people into widows, orphans and cripples? Is it divine to call loot and murder "holy"? What kind of God can sanction carnage just because people don't believe in Him? If belief in God was so vital, He would have created mankind differently. Does God really need wars to establish His suzerainty? It cannot be the act of God who is Almighty in His own right. (For further details see the chapter: Taxation).
5. The prophet was not only born as human but he also lived and died as human During his life-time, he was subject to the human mechanism of fear and favour:
a. His uncle Abu Talib had acted as his protector until he died in 619. Sense of insecurity persuaded him in 620 to leave Mecca for Taif, a small town some sixty miles to the east. As people of Taif turned hostile, he returned to Mecca out of fear. For about a year, he was afraid for his life when in 622 some seventy three citizens of Medina came to see Muhammad and invited him to make Medina his home. He felt relieved, and asked them if they would protect him against his enemies with the same zeal as they would defend their own families. They vowed to do so and asked what reward they would receive if they got killed in shielding the Prophet. "Paradise", he answered.
Fear of death, obviously, haunted him as painfully as it enervates other human beings. It is strange that even the reward of paradise, which he offered to his followers, did not tempt him to part with life happily. Nor did Allah care to protect him against the infidels of Mecca. As hostility increased, he fled to Medina in September, 622.
b. His death also points to his humanity. A few years prior to his death, he thought that the people of Khaiber had served him poisonous meat. He started having unusual fevers and spells. Aisha, his youngest wife is reported to have said that the Prophet would get out of home quietly at midnight to visit a graveyard; there he would "ask forgiveness of the dead, pray aloud for them, and congratulate them on being dead". His long agony came to an end on June 7, 632 when he passed away at the age of sixty-three.
Since the Prophet could not tell that the meat he was being served contained poison, he obviously, had no knowledge of the Unseen, contrary to the popular Moslem belief. He suffered the normal course of misery as a victim of poison and Allah did nothing to alleviate his pain. This negates the tall tales of the special love bond which is supposed to exist between Allah and Muhammad. Nobody can ever willingly see his truly loved ones in a prolonged agony. How could Allah?
The truth is that Muhammad was a human. But what kind of man was he? This is the real issue. So far, I have discussed him in relation to revelation, now I may assess him as a man, and the reader ought to be prepared to accept some contradictions which stem from the difference between divinity and humanity:

Assessment of Muhammad

Unfortunately, in the West, as a result of the prolonged crusades and ecclesiastical propaganda, Muhammad's name has been corrupted to Mahound, meaning devil, and the Koran has been described as the word of Satan.

Muhammad's virtues

This is a shameful and odious attitude towards the Prophet. He was sincere, upright and honest. In terms of humanity, he was an aggregate of virtues to be found rarely in one person: he was at once a thinker and trader, a general and jurist, a preacher and philanthropist, a sage and soldier, an administrator and advisor, a loving friend and father. Having been born posthumously, he had boundless compassion for orphans and widows and his laws demonstrate this fact beyond a shadow of doubt. His socialist tendencies of common care were fairly balanced with people's unlimited right to legitimate ownership. Though merciful, his judgement reflected natural justice and made no discrimination between friends and foes. The radiant smile that he possessed, never failed to win him friends. Despite being practically the ruler of Arabia, he lived at subsistence level; his food was simple, his dress was modest and though all his wives had separate huts, he didn't even have a hut of his own.

He was a truly great friend in peace and a forgiving foe in war. During all those battles, he fought with courage, tenacity and determination; even his enemies cannot trace any atrocities towards him. The Prophet set a model of forgiveness which was observed by his followers: the Meccans, who had persecuted him, were forgiven almost to the last man when he returned as a victor, and Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, bade his soldiers not to molest women, children, the old and the sick belonging to the enemy.

Universality of message

His humanitarian spirit lay in the fact that his message was directed at the whole of mankind and not just the Arabs. Whereas Yahwe is the God of Israel, Allah is the God of the world and has no preference for the Arabs. Not only all those who believed in the Prophet formed Umma or one nation, each having equal rights and obligations, but he also advocated a subtle commonwealth with "the people of the book", that is, Jews and Christians. A proof of this fact is to be found in the society that Muhammad created in Medina.
He offered to the Jews, who still practiced their own faith and traded with the Quresh of Mecca, a concordat which guaranteed them equal rights with his followers if they were willing to attach themselves with the Islamic commonwealth. There was no threat of conversion or second rate citizenship lurking behind this offer.

Prophet's real strength

Though the Moslems keep harping on the divine powers of the Prophet, his real strength lay in his practical abilities: his velour and tenacity won him all the important battles; his resolve was immortal, his courage defied all perils, his will to honour agreements was well-respected and his word was considered his bond even by his enemies. The Prophet's true and most significant achievement however, lay in tansferring his values of honour and integrity not only to his descendants but also his followers. Take his grandson Hussain, for instance.

Hussain Ibn All

He stood up for what he thought to be his legitimate rights. Having lost almost his entire family to the enemy at Karbala, he still did not beg for mercy or sought to escape He acted in the true tradition of his grandfather; he raised his javelin, galloped his white stallion (Duldul) and charged into the enemy line reciting the Koran with the dignity and honour of a true Mujahid (Crusader). Fancy one man standing up to a host of several thousand. Yet his courage and determination did not fail him. Neither he cursed his foes nor he shrieked with pain. He kept praising Allah as he received stab-wounds from back and front and left and right. This man, Hussain Ibn All, showed no sign of helplessness until the last drop of blood gushed out of his perforated body. No wonder, the Iranian used to admiring velour, became Shi'ite to acknowledge the vitrue of Hussain. In fact, one does not have to be a Shi'ite to adore Hussain; there are plenty who admire him as a great human specimen.

These virtues of action that the Prophet inspired, were not restricted to the members of his own family; they touched the hearts of his followers with an equal zeal; veracity of Abu Bakr, greatness of Omar, generosity of Uthman and piety of All, need no introduction. Greatness of character was the real legacy of the Prophet which enabled his followers to defeat the Byzantine and Persian empires within twenty years of his death and dominate the earth for about 1,000 years. Thus, the Prophet laid the foundation of a new culture, which in many ways, was more advanced than the existing civilisation, for being founded on piety, honour and fairness. Yet it was the personal triumph of Muhammad, and Allah had no part in it.

The Prophet was a reformer. I have no doubt that he used the device of revelation to achieve a righteous goal, but this device is more suitable for promoting a human as God rather than serving as the fountain of righteousness. This is the reason that Moslems all over the world adore the Prophet but pay lip-reverence to his teachings despite the fact that he laid a great emphasis on the piety of deeds and presented his followers with a code of practice.

Chapter 9: Horrors of Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is the ultimate aim of revelation which seeks to brainwash people by excessively exploiting their instincts of fear and favour. A messenger or messiah is the person who loves to be worshipped, but worship is the lowest form of self-humiliation, and therefore, repugnant to the freedom-loving nature of mankind. A messenger (prophet) or messiah can achieve this goal only by making his follower a fundamentalist. This is the reason that one can confidently say that revelation is not the source of guidance but misguidance, and man is walking on the path which leads him to the opposite direction instead of the true destination.

Definition of Fundamentalism

What is Fundamentalism? It is the state of mind when man's moral splendour and rational excellence are completely eclipsed by the vehemence of faith and he begins to hate everything which challenges his religious values, no matter how absurd. Why? Because the elements of his personality which are likely to become unstable owing to stress of fear, are held together by the super glue of belief. Therefore, opposition to faith constitutes a threat to personality, which one is inclined to defend at all costs for survival. It is like going through a voluntary process of blindness and deafness with a view to avoiding reality. The purpose of faith is to provide protection against the inclemencies of reality, and not the reality itself: the dark glasses which shield eyes against the glare of the sun to facilitate its observation have a positive role to play in the life of the observer but the dark glasses which lead to permanent darkening of the observer's vision deprive him of discovering the truth. When faith assumes such a facinorous stature, it becomes the fetter which through its faltering effect, turns life into a regular series of futility. Fascinating though life may look through the bliss of ignorance, one must seek freedom from such a false faith because it is debilitating, degrading and destructive.

Raising false hopes is not an act of mirth and mercy but the fountain of mischief and misery. Revelation is the biggest hoax because its power of deliverance is based on the extremely stilted personality of a Messenger or Messiah who lives and dies like any other man, and is himself subject to the human mechanism of fear and factor Yet he claims to be divine against all criteria of rationality!

Brainwashing is an act of reducing man's rational faculty for inducing him to adopt a pattern of conduct which he will not display under normal circumstances. A fundamentalist or brainwashed person loses his will and becomes a puppet on a string. His entire intellectual and physical life is manipulated by the puppeteer who is usually a messiah or his lieutenant. He becomes a robot, quite happy to obey the most heinous commands of his operator with utmost pleasure. Let me give a few examples from the Crusades and modern history to show you that fundamentalism is a volcano of hatred; it is nothing but utter negation of moral conscience; in fact, it is the reversal of humanity: Jerusalem forms a good point of reference in this respect:

David and Ark

David, having conquered Jerusalem, proceeded to enhance its glamour which should tempt Yahwe, the warrior God of the Jews, to adore it as His bride. Yahwe's stern heart, used to toughness, felt immersed in a wave of tenderness when David moved the ark to this city. To make sure that the ark did not have to migrate from one sanctuary to another, he chose Mount Moriah or the Temple Mount for its permanent residence. Though there is no proof, Jews, under the dictates of their compelling faith, have always believed that this was the spot where Abraham had built the alter to murder his own son Isaac to gain the pleasure of Yahwe!

The Temple of Solomon

This is where Solomon, the son of David, built the (first) Temple in 957 B.C. The building faced eastward; it was oblong and comprised three rooms of equal width; one of them being the Holy of Holies which housed the ark and ranked as the most sacred spot on earth for being the point of the Divine Presence (Shekhina). Nobody could enter it except the highest priest and his privilege was confined to Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. It became the centre of Judaism and led the Jewish life with much greater power than a steering controls the movements of a motor car or heart regulates the blood supply.

Despite its spiritual beauty and religious splendour, Yahwe, the Bridegroom, never defended it against the horrors of sacrilege and destruction which it suffered several times. Each time the flames of desolation enveloped Jerusalem, rabbis the Jewish priests, whose living, prestige and authority depended upon the grip of faith, found a justification for Yahwe's desertion and blamed people's sins for the pillage, rape and murder of their loved ones. The Roman pagans had interpreted the destruction of Rome in similar terms.

They declared that the City fell because the Romans had betrayed their gods to embrace Christianity! There is no end to the caprices of faith. People will do and say anything to hide themselves behind the shield of faith to escape the forceful arrow of reason.

Solomon and his beauties

The Temple was an extension of Solomon's palace which happened to be the abode of his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines along with the statues of their foreign gods which Solomon is known to have worshipped for winning the tender favours of his exotic female beauties. Yet the Temple rose to the apex of reverence beyond the flight of fancy!

Jesus and the Temple

Jesus Christ is also said to have preached in the Temple. I find it difficult to believe that the Jews would have allowed him to use their holiest shrine for teaching the blasphemy which provoked them to secure his crucifixion. To the Christians Jerusalem had an equally fascinating appeal because Jesus was born in its suburbs (Bethlehem/Bethleheim); this is where he played as a boy and this is where he was nailed to the Cross "to wipe off human sins through Divine mercy and to give believers a chance of resurrection".

Islam and the Temple

The Moslems were equally imbued with the sanctity of Jerusalem. To woo the Jews, the Prophet Muhammad had appointed it as Kibla, the direction of worship, for his followers. The prophet's journey to heaven when he went to see Allah in person, had also taken him "to the Further ' Mosque, the precincts of which had been blessed by God".

This "Further Mosque" on whose precincts the Al-Aqsa Mosque of Islam was founded later did not exist at the time of the Prophet's journey and referred to the ruins of the Second Temple. It rose from the ashes of the original (first) Temple of Solomon which had suffered total devastation at least twice between 586 B.C. and 70 A.D. However, a portion of the Western Wall of the Second Temple had remained intact to display the miraculous powers of Yahwe - always eager to remind the Jews of their infidelity, idolatory and insincerity. When Yahwe subjected the Jews to a terrible opprobrium for breaking the Covenant, Allah approved of this attitude by encouraging his followers to heap further humiliation on the Jews by building the al-Aqsa Mosque in A.D. 691 on the site of the Jewish Temple. The glitter of the Dome of the Rock was to serve as an eternal sign of the Jewish depravity.

Start of Crusades

Though Jerusalem, the City of the Jews, rose to become the highest symbol of esteem in human history, the Jews themselves fell to the lowest point of contempt It is because the Christians thought of them as the murderers of their Lord and the Moslems believed that they had been condemned by Allah for not believing in the Prophet. This created a strange situation, that is, the love of the Christians and Moslems for Jerusalem grew inversely proportionate to their hatred for the Jews. Yet it is not the hatred for the Jews but the devotion to Jerusalem that erupted as the volcano of terror in 1095. The Christains wanted to dispossess the Moslems of Jerusalem by any means - might, misery or mischief. This was the beginning of the most unholy war which demonstrated the true nature of fundamentalism and lasted for two centuries until 1291.

Pope Urban II

The Council of Clermont was convoked by Pope Urban II on November 18 1095. The Holy Father, as a mark of his dedication to Christian ideal of love renewed the Truce of God which meant peace for mankind and love for neighbours but excluded the non-Christians from the Divine mercy. They might look human but did not qualify as such, and therefore, deserved extermination. In a speech brimming with the fire and thunder of explosive oratory, he moved members of the Council to tears with the profane stories of the Moslems who were habitually persecuting the Christian pilgrims to the Holy land. To raise an army of crusaders devoted to pious carnage, he used his heavenly authority and granted a plenary indulgence to all those who were prepared to travel to the East and undertake murder as mercy and dispense bane as beneficence.

Plenary indulgence

What was plenary indulgence? It was the papal licence to heaven. Officially, it meant remission of all penance for sins but the crusaders believed that a Christian bearing his Lord's Cross could do no wrong. The murder of the old and sick, decapitation of women and children, pillage of the innocent and rape of bellibones (including that of the Christian nuns), was a holy fun. With the privilege of entry into heaven, went the release from feudal bondage, usurious debts and taxman's excruciating demands. If they survived the horrors of long journey and perils of the battlefield, their lives which hitherto had been a series of misfortune and molestation were to be crowned with the rights and reverence reserved for a crusader and if they perished, their martyrdom guaranteed them a place in the Kingdom of Heaven whose streets were paved with gold and where beautiful virgins impatiently sighed to embrace them.

Urban's sermon

Tickling the racial pride of the French with the spiritual sceptre, Pope Urban II, himself a Frenchman, raised his deep voice choked with ecclesiastical grief and said "O race of Franks, the beloved and chosen people of God, hearken that an accursed race has polluted, plundered and possessed the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord . . . The Holy City of Jerusalem, the Centre of the earth, begs you to come and free her from the clutches of the unclean infidels".

As the oratorial tempest of Urban's address subsided, tempers of the believers rose with an unimaginable heat and their hearts fulminated with the cries of "Deusvolt" - God wills it. What a chance it was for the Christians to sail into paradise through the streams of Moslem blood. They all vowed to wear a cross to display the sanctity of their mission, and affection for the Saviour.

Love for the Saviour was equally matched with hatred for the Prophet Muhammad through a series of highly profane and perverse tales. One gossip said that when Muhammad suffered a fit of epilepsy and pretended to be in a trance, a hog devoured him alive as a divine punishment.

Moslem hatred of Non-Moslems

The Moslems, on the other hand, were equally impatient to cut the throats of the Christian infidels. Their ears rang with the Koranic message:
a. "O believers, do not treat your fathers and brothers as your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief, whosoever of you takes them for friends, they are the evildoers" (Repentance: 20).
b. "Certainly God is an enemy to the unbelievers" (The Cow: 90).
c. "God has cursed the unbelievers, and prepared for them a blazing hell" (The Confederates: 60).
d. "Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends . . . for whoso does that belongs not to God ...." (The House of Imran: 25).
e. "O believers, do not make friends with Jews and Christians; . . whoso of you makes them his friend is one of them" (The Table: 55). Every revealed religion is a fountain of hatred; here the divine advocacy for loathing unbelievers is equalled by persuasion of friendship for the fellow-believers:
"The believers indeed are brothers;
so set things right between two brothers . . ." (Apartment: 10).
"Moslems are hard against
the unbelievers, merciful to one another" (Victory: 25).

Islamic Jehad

With these exhortations went the commands of Jehad, that is, a Moslem's duty to wage holy war and embrace death honourably in the battlefield. Islam guarantees that a martyr never dies; he enjoys immortality in the paradise where he is allotted seventy-two houris of musky bodies and several beautiful youths.

Religion and hatred

Both the Christians and Moslems though in theory praised the doctrine of love, in practice, were ready to demonstrate their universal hatred for humanity which the device of revelation promotes to adore God and deplore mankind. No butcher has ever been able to express half as great a skill in throat-cutting as did the admirers of revelation. For two whole centuries, these divine murderers tirelessly soaked the torrid sands of the Arabian desert with human blood which is more sacred than anything that exists in this world.

Despite being the cause and centre of this iniquity, Jerusalem remained the Holy Land! Still more shameful is the fact that while the City of the Jews rose to become the object of reverence for the Christians and Moslems alike, the Jews themselves became the target of contempt for the believers of all shades. It shows how natural pride of the Christians and Moslems, which had been humbled by the innovative skill of the Jews through their mastery of revelation, had turned into an inferiority complex: they naturally sought the rejuvination of their repressed instincts through suppression of the Jews.

The Impatient Crusader

Urban had appointed the month of August 1096 as the time of departure. Like the lover who finds waiting the most tormenting moments which assume the longevity of months and years, the believers could not sit still until August and found it too long a suspense to bear. About 12,000 persons left France in March under the leadership of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless. They were Soon joined by another 5,000 from Germany, and a crowd of similar strength from Rhineland under Count Emico of Leiningen, swelled their ranks still further. These bands, aflame with the love of Jerusalem, decided to practice the art of cruelty on the Jews of Germany and Bohemia and showed no respect to the appeals of the local clergy and Christians. Having run out of their meagre supplies, they laid claim not only on the wealth of the Jews but also their honour. Of course, they believed in Jesus but not in his celebacy. Was it wise not to indulge in the appetites of the flesh, having secured plenary indulgence from the Holy Father? However, they did not enjoy their divine rights of orgy for very long because they were cut down near Nicaea by a force of the Seljuq Turks, highly trained in archery This was the first division of the First Crusade.

By an irony of history, these crusaders were not being led by their kings because several monarchs such as Philip I of France, William II of England and Henry IV of Germany had been excommunicated by the Pope. The First Crusade was mainly a French adventure and its meritorious division was commanded by the nobility such as Duke Godfrey, Count Bohemund of Tarantu, Tancred of Hauteville and Raymond, Count of Toulouse.

Personal interests of Crusaders

When one looks at the events more closely, it transpires that the crusades had been engineered to satisfy the human greed for prestige, and not to enhance the glory of God. For example, some of these noble lords, as they crossed the Taurus, separated themselves from the main army to pursue their personal political interests: Raymond, Godfrey and Bohemund wandered into Armenia to make their private conquests and Baldwin (Godfrey's brother) founded the first Latin kingdom in the East during 1098.

Emperor Alexius Comnenus

It was originally Alexius Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor, who repeatedly asked the West for help against the Suljuq Turks who had extended the boundaries of their empire uncomfortably close to Constantinople. When eventually, his appeal was granted by Pope Urban 11, and he found the presence of a massive force of 4,000 mounted knights and 25,000 infantry near Constantinople, he employed his imperial skills gathered through the political blat and blare of seven centuries, and demanded of each crusade-leader to swear on the Bible that he would restore to the Empire any conquered territory which formerly belonged to it. Further, he required each of them to take the feudal oath of allegiance to him for holding any new land as an imperial fief. The glitter of gold and brilliance of diamonds, which Alexius generously distributed among these holy combatants, soon softened their tongues which uttered words of musical appeal to the imperial ears.

For the Pope, it was yet another link in the long chain of his efforts to augment the Holy Power without regard to the holiness of means which sought to secure it:

Donation to Constantine

History has recorded that the Holy See forged the document known as Donation of Constantine, a supposed grant by the Emperor Constantine, the Great, to pope Sylvester 1(314-335). This document reined to give pope and his spiritual Successors supremacy over all other patriarchs in religious matters as well as dominion over Rome including the whole of the West. It was during the 12th Century that Popes started using it as an effective tool against the secular rulers to humble them. The scholars have established that this paper was forged between 750 and 800 A.D.

Shroud of fibrin

The Shroud of Turin which was supposed to contain the imprint of Christ, is a further illustration of this tendency to seek power deceitfully. It was believed to be true until 1989 when its falsity was established by forensic evidence.

No believer of any persuasion will put up with such forgeries as an ordinary human. It is amazing how these tricksters had degraded the intellectual capacity of their followers by the application of the revelatory magic. I do not know whether to commend or condemn them for this adroitness; after all a skill is a skill irrespective of its nature!

Al-Hakim

The Pope was not just a spiritual leader but also an earthly prince. The Donation of Pepin (745) actually gave him and his successors the princedom of central Italy which lasted until the 19th Century. It shows the imperial inclinations of the Holy Father. The preaching and sanctioning of the Crusades was a practical step to unite the East and West under the papal command for ruling the lives of all Christians from top to bottom. Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was a lame excuse because it had been restored to its formal state by the Moslems at their own expense. It had been damaged by Al-Hakim, the Fatmid Caliph of Egypt (996-1021) who was known to be mad and deluded with his own divinity. It is against the Islamic traditions to hurt Christian shrines, and no true Moslem would have ever done it.
The fate of the first division of the Crusaders had struck a big blow to the Christian morale. In May, 1098 the news that Karbogha, the Prince of Mosul, was approaching with a great army, frightened the Christians to such an extent that many of them boarded ships on the Orontes, preferring the modest living in the West to the magnificent life in the Kingdom of Heaven, saturated with splendour and gaiety. Even Alexius thought it fit to believe these deserters, and instead of joining the Crusaders, he turned back to the safety of Asia Minor.

Peter Bartholomew

At this juncture, a priest known as Peter Bartholomew produced an ingenious trick to buttress the sagging courage of his people. Stroking his beard in the most ecstatic manner, he thundered to assure his fellow-combatants that by a divine chance he had found the lance that pierced the side of the Lord Jesus. The psychological state of the crusaders underwent a similar change as the parched grass experiences after a heavy rain. Thinking of the Lance as a gift from the Lord, for doing to his tormentors what they had done to him, they became sure of victory. They praised the Lord, burst into singing sacred hymns, and danced frantically. This over-confident army of crusaders, intoxicated with the promise of success, was led to the battlefield under the Lance, carried aloft as the sacred standard. The Moslem warriors were put to flight by the Crusaders whose fighting zeal had touched its peak. They roared for vengeance, and the most loving God provided them with an opportunity on June 7, 1099 when they stood before the walls of Jerusa'em whose purity was about to display the putrid aspect of mankind.

Butchery at Jerusalem

As the sun dawned on 15th July, each of its golden rays became incandescent with the heat of hatred to expose the shameful reality of the Revelatory Message which the followers of different prophets had received from the Most Merciful Creator. Under the leadership of Godfrey and Tancred, their soldiers scaled walls of the Holy City successfully and then let hell loose to depict its horrors with the utmost sincerity of a believer. A lay priest known as Raymond of Agiles proudly recorded "the wonderful things that he had seen": he saw the heads of the saracens (Moslem Arabs) mown down like a lush crop; some were shot with arrows, others were forced to jump down from the lofty towers; many were tortured mercilessly for days and then heaped together and burnt alive. The streets were scattered with limbs such as heads, feet and hands and no matter how far one's horse galloped, the dead bodies appeared everywhere.

These ecstatic conditions as experienced by the Christian zealots were also described by their contemporaries: it turned out to be the favourite hobby to kill the subdued people by piercing their sides with lances to avenge the Lord; the frightened women were stabbed repeatedly as an expression of delight; the suckling babies were snatched from the breasts of their mothers and thrown over the walls as a mark of respect to the Babe in the Manger. As the murderous frenzy became more tense, the holy warriors developed the mania of carrying the infants by their legs and dashing their heads against large stones, pillars and walls. The number of Moslems who perished in this divine orgy of blood-spilling rose to 70,000 and this was in addition to those who died fighting.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Jews who had developed the Holy City, and thus provided a fountain of piety to the believers, were not thanked for it. Instead, they were hunted throughout Jerusalem; their damsels were raped and tortured; their babies were torn apart alive; their wealth was plundered; and as a final gesture of thanksgiving to the Lord who, in His immense wisdom, had facilitated this miracle of mercy, the crusaders drove the surviving Jewish population into a synagogue which was too small to hold them. The worshippers of the Most Clement Lord heaped men, women and children on top of one another and set the building alight. To celebrate the jocund mystique of the occasion, they quite reverently marched into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre whose grotto had once housed the crucified Jesus. There they hugged and kissed one another; the sense of fulfillment brought tears to their eyes, and the gratitude to the Lord for this mighty accomplishment choked their voices with passion and puerility. Yet they sang Hallelujah in an ear-rending pitch which drowned the Jewish supplications for mercy, and thus provided the Lord with an excuse that He could not hear the laments of the burning Children of Israel!

Yahwe's attitude towards Jerusalem

What happened to Yahwe, the Bridegroom of Jerusalem? He proved to be the vain lover who enjoys the burgeoning beauty of his bride but does not bother to defend her honour. His attitude towards the Chosen Race was based on the English maxim: "I told you so". That is, He had warned them that unless they stopped worshipping other gods, He would sanction their persecution. It is strange to see that the Jews, known for their toughness, have never been able to look up into the eyes of Yahwe, the living cause of their perpetual humiliation. One wonders why Yahwe, who pretends to be the Universal God, does not punish other nations for idolatory? Are Jews His only Children? Who "Created" the rest of mankind? If there is another God, then Yahwe cannot be the sole object of worship. If He is the only God, then He must treat all His Children equally. As He, obviously, does not, He is not great enough to be Divine.

The success of the first Crusade enabled the Christians to carve out the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem which under King Fulk, Count of Anjou (1131-43) extended to include most of Palestine and Syria though the Moslems still held Emesa, Aleppo and Damascus. The Christian zeal soon gave in to the urge of dominance which has always determined the attitudes of rulers; as the barons took over ownership of the conquered lands, they reduced the former owners, both Christian and Moslems, to the status of serfs and laid upon them far severer terms of feudal servitude than they had ever imagined. Man is the victim of faith. How easily he is manipulated by the forces of divinity to their own end, leaving him hoping for ever.

Islamic share of carnage

The tragedy of the Crusaders spans over two centuries and demonstrates the savagery of fundamentalism. I have said enough to expose the Christian aspect of this bloodiest saga of mankind. What about the Moslem side of it? The Moslems were at war with the Christians, and thus equally share the ignominy of shedding human blood arising from the bigotry of faith. I shall describe only one episode to illustrate this truth. After all this book does not solely concern the history of crusades.

The Second Crusade (114648) proved disastrous to the Christians. The Emperor Conrad 111 of Germany suffered such a big disaster at Dorylaeum that ninety per cent of his army was wiped out. The French fared even worse. King Louis VII proceeded to Antioch along with several nobles and ladies but he left his remaining army in Attalia. Now came the turn of the Moslems to please Allah: in 1148, they swooped down on the City like starving hawks, and the French soldiers who had left the shores of France in a prodigious spirit of victory behaved like doves struck by despair, dismay and despondence. The Moslem Qaris, i.e. Professional reciters of the Koran, chanted the scripture with eloquence, and in a tone of authority to assure their warriors that Allah had forbidden death to those who gave their lives for the cause of Islam; what is termed as death is just a transition from mortality to immortality; it is a transportation from the painful life of this earth to the eternity of Paradise where wide-eyed houris with swelling bosoms and fragrant bodies serve believers in the most exhilarating environment. As the recitation became louder and the mention of Allah's mercies increased in frequency, the Moslem swords flashed faster and felt more blood-thirsty. Nearly all the Frenchmen perished. Their women ended up in the harems and their children formed part of the Conquerors' possessions. Some 60,000 followers of Jesus met their Maker before their time, and the same fate befell the Christians of Tyre, Sidon, Haifa and Beirut.

Divine cover-up

Of all the addictions, fundamentalism i.e. the addiction to faith is the worst. The doleful news of the holy fiasco opened up tongues of the European sceptics They argued that wisdom and mercy of God who treated His most loving devotees with such utter contempt, was doubtful. St. Bernard, the real instigator of the Second Crusade, replied that man had no right to question the ways of the Almighty which are beyond human understanding. God cannot be blamed for the failure of the Crusade because it is a punishment for Christians' sins! Similarly, each time the Jews have faced a disaster, the rabbis have come up with similar logic based on evasion of the truth. They have never admitted that Yahwe is a myth. If they do, they will soon be out of priestly business which is so rewarding and prestigious. Therefore, they depict each calamity as a fulfilment of prophecies which they forged themselves to fool the believers.The fundamentalists, whether they be Christians, Jews or Moslems, submit to the authority of faith which is so totalitarian, tantalizing and tortuous. Fundamentalism has simply come to mean selling one's self into slavery along with one's conscience, self-respect and power of judgement.

Jewish attitude towards Germany

Fundamentalism is a greater source of mischief today than ever before. Take the modern Jewish attitude towards Germany. Despite their high-sounding philanthropic claims, Jewish people hardly know anything about forgiveness. It is not surprising that there is no mention of compassion in the Pentateuch. Instead, the emphasis is on revenge, the relic of the law of talion practiced by Hammurabi and his predecessors over three thousand years ago.

Law of Talion

In Jewish terms, the law of ration forbids forgiveness and lays down that if someone hurts your eye you must hurt his eye and if someone breaks your tooth, you must break his tooth (Ex. 21: 24-26).

It is difficult for a practicing Jew to be kind-hearted owing to his preference for inflicting injury as a means of seeking personal satisfaction. This tendency, which is carefully nursed by the divine law, is made more acute by the consciousness of racial superiority as a member of the "chosen" or ``exalted,, race. The Jewish law is a colossus of command and perplexity. Nobody can prove or disprove anything from it. As a result, the word of the rabbi reigns supreme, and acts as the source of his authority and prestige.

Jewish Law

The written Law of Moses as found in the Pentateuch is inflated tremendously by the inclusion of the oral Law which has been handed down over centuries and expanded by each successive generation. The Pentateuch plus oral traditions came to be known as the Torah or Law. The written form of the oral Law is called Mishna. Then, there is Talmud which refers to commentaries and interpretative writings accumulated over a long period, ranking next to the Bible (The Old Testament) only. The sheer vastness of the Law, on the one hand, makes it the determining religious and social force, and on the other, its tendency to yield to a wilful interpretation renders it the vehicle of convenience. When enormity of law commands every movement of life, it begins to impinge upon free will. Being over-conscious of law, people pay it lip-reverence, and to restore their liberties, circumvent it to make their deeds look legal.

Concept of timeless justice

Since forgiveness is not encouraged by the Jewish law, seeking revenge has become an integral part of the Jewish culture. Let me explain this point with reference to the attitude of the British Jews towards the Germans, euphemistically, known as the "Nazi war criminals" but without looking as avengers. They demand retribution in the name of justice and claim that it has no relevance to passage of time: "Justice is timeless; if you have offended, it does have the right to call upon you".

Since Yahwe punishes the sins of fathers on their children generation after generation the concept of timeless justice is compatible with the Jewish attitude of retribution but is repulsive to lovers of justice. It is strictly time-bound because:
a. the length of time is a deciding factor in assessing the value of evidence which determines the quality of justice.
b. cultural spirit, that is, ways of thinking, feeling and acting are directly linked with time. What was fashionable a century ago, may be outmoded now. For example, women's psychology was different when they had no votes some six decades ago. Therefore, they were motivated by different considerations in the past compared to the present, and it goes without saying that the nature of motive affects the quality of behaviour and standard of justice.

Jewish wealth and influence

Using the immense power of their wealth and political influence, the Jews have mesmerised the governments of the West with their illogical concept of the 'timeless justice" and persuaded them to change and reshape their laws for trying the Nazi war criminals. It is insane to think that the rules of war-time emergency can be applied to the peace time normality because the difference between the two is the same as between an erupting volcano and striking a match for lighting a cigarette. If the purpose of such trials is really justice, then securing absolutely exact evidence is a must, but this is an impossibility after such a long time especially when most of the mitigating records are likely to have perished, and the witnesses become hysterical just by the mention of the word "Nazi or German".

Jewish persecution complex

Frankly, this is an exercise in mollifying the Jewish inferiority which has become an integral part of their persecution complex, starting with the Babylonian captivity. The Babylonian Talmud seeks to lighten the burden of Jewish humiliation with the promises of divine glory. In fact, the entire Jewish conduct of sorrow and servility over the last 2,500 years has been suffused with a dream of self-deception which emerges from their philosophy of racial superiority, and disdain of the Gentile. Thus they have flouted the reality, and lived in a world of make-believe where a sparrow assumes the manner of an eagle. As a result, there came into being a small section of the "Court Jews" who influenced the state policies through a mixture of bribe and flattery. The Christian monarchs, who loved the Lord Jesus dearly, were equally infatuated with the Jewish wealth. They protected the Jewish usurers against their own Christian subjects who usually had genuine complaints against them. The sighs and cries and moans and groans of the Christians were subdued by the jingling of gold pieces which the Jews poured into the bottomless pockets of the Christian rulers where their conscience lay. The Jewish ability to suppress the genuine grievances of the Gentile gave their inferiority-ridden ego a tremendous fillip of superiority. This psychological fact has now asserted itself in demanding prosecution of the German war criminals. The message is loud and clear: nobody can molest the Jews and go scotfree. But what about the Jewish molester? This is different because a Jewish molester ranks as divine, it is only the non-Jewish tormentor who qualifies as the devil. Am I perverting the course of justice? Not at all. It is the facts of history which lead me to this conclusion. See them for yourself:

Nazism and Judaism

Hitler was inspired by the Jewish principle of racial superiority as well as their practice of looking down upon other nations. This Austrian born leader of the National Socialist German Working Party (the Nazi) adopted the same mode of assertion as used by the Jewish prophets who claimed that they had been instructed by the Lord to say this and that. He declared that he was called upon by the Providence to lead his country against the Jews! Even his conduct was modelled on the Biblical account of the Jewish behaviour in relation to the Philistines. What I am about to say is an example of the Jewish historical conduct referred to at the end of the sixth chapter (Judaism):

God promised the Jews that He would give them a land flowing with milk and honey. This land turned out to be Canaan i.e. Palestine. How did God enable them to Possess it?

Simply through a determined policy of genocide and pillage. Let me paraphrase the relevant perts of the Old Testament which you can check yourself:
a. When you come near a Canaanite city for the purpose of possessing it, declare peace. If they surrender, they become Jewish tributaries and slaves (Deut. 20: 10-11).
b. However, if they exercise their right to defend honour and liberty and refuse to be plundered, and do not submit themselves to servitude, then the Jews must strike them with the edge of their swords to murder every man, woman and child and shall not leave any live thing to breathe; this extermination had got to be total and complete because this was the command of the Jewish God (Deut. 20: 12-16).
c. This is exactly what the Jews did. They destroyed city after city, murdered every man, woman. child and baby; took over houses, cattle and lands of the vanquished (Deut. Ch. 3). This policy of deliberate extermination of all nationalities that dwelt in the Promised Land was carried out by Joshua even after the death of Moses. Jos. 10:28 gives a systematic account of this planned destruction city by city.

Was Jewish extermination by the Nazi any different from the well considered plan of extermination that the Jews carried out in Canaan?

Didn't Nazi like the Jews, try to conceal their crimes against humanity under the veneer of Providence and Divine Command? Was Jewish plunder of the Canaanites any different in purpose and methods from those of the Nazi? Both Joshua and Hitler committed similar acts but Joshua is considered a prophet of God, and Hitler is thought of as the Devil incarnate! Why? It is because Joshua was a Jew and Hitler was not.

Cycle of history

The Jewish inferiority pining to assert itself as superiority has been the bane of this fraternity; the suppression of Gentiles' liberties has always rebounded on them in the form of rape, murder, pillage and expulsion in every century, yet these chosen people have not shed one sincere tear of remorse for the dishonour of their virgins and decapitation of their babes. What a price to pay for racial ostentation! In fact, it has become a cycle of history: the Jews of the present generation by displaying their glory at the expense of the Gentile, sow the seeds of destruction for their next generation. Now, this phenomenon is taking its course in Britain.

Revenge, Revenge, Revenge

For the purpose of seeking revenge, the Jews have set up headquarters in Los Angeles charged with the duty of hunting Nazi war criminals. It means not only hounding the suspects but also persuading different countries to change their laws to facilitate trials. Common law countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia have already done so. Now, it is the turn of Great Britian where there are Supposed to be four men who may be successfully prosecuted as Nazi war mammals. One of them has died. A Jewish Nazi-hunter expressed his regret at the death of the suspect but it was not for the reason that a human being had died, but because there would now be one suspect less to be tried, thus reducing the amount of satisfaction that would have arisen from the trial of the whole lot. This shows the nature of the timeless justice! Again, it should be the function of each individual state to decide, of its own free will, whether or not to seek and try these alleged criminals. The active persuasion by the Jews turns the Whole episode into a charade, and also shows the enormous influence of the Jewery on the internal affairs of other countries. Since they have the power to change foreign laws, one can surmise what they can do to the individuals who do not suit their palate. This success which the Jews are enjoying today will form part of the cycle which I have previously mentioned. The new British generations will take notice of their fathers' follies to restore the balance of justice which will prove horrendous to the next generation of Jews. The reader does not have to believe me; he ought to look into the pages of history.

What is true law

Of course, laws are made and remade but law is law only when it contains a natural element. Having discussed this issue in "Taxation and Liberty" I shall not go into details of this point here but must add that the law is the ambassador of legality only when it acts as an effective restraint on dictatorship, that is, it forbids the executive, legislators and judges to use law as the tool of convenience. It must be beyond the manipulative desires and powers of the political magnates. When they can mould it to act as the medium of realising their particular designs and dogmas, the law loses its basic values of defending liberties and ensuring natural justice. The natural element which I have previously referred to concerns these basic values. Once these basic values are lost, the law becomes the source of legal dictatorship known as legalism.

Existing British law

This is exactly what is happening in Britain. Since these suspects were neither born in Britain nor did they commit the alleged atrocities as British nationals, the existing law does not permit their trial. Bowing to the Jewish pressure, the British parliament, which is the custodian of British honour, is about to dishonour the entire concept of British honour, based on fairplay. A fairplay is a fairplay only when it is free of bias but when the law itself is being modified to suit a particular purpose it is the proof of a fundamental bias because it shows that the end is being considered good enough for justifying the means. This is an act of high treason against the traditions of British fairplay whose virtue once echoed throughout the Empire. Those who are guilty of this monstrous act will have to stand trial at the bar of history to receive eternal condemnation which they so truly deserve.

Richard, The Lion Heart

If these men were really criminal, they would have committed crimes over the last forty years since they have been in this country. On the contrary, they have been law-abiding citizens of this land and thus deserve protection of the British Law, and moral strength of this country. Assuming that they are guilty of the alleged offences, they did only what everyone else was doing at that time in the Eastern European countries; Jew-bashing had been made as fashionable during the Second World War as murdering a Moslem or a Jew was considered an act of piety during the Crusades. Has ever anyone reviled Richard, the Lion Heart for participating in the holy carnage?

Mitigating factors

If these men did act wrongly they were victims of the abnormal circumstances brought about by the local press which incited to murder the Jews, the local police which instead of protecting the Jews sought their extermination and the local regimes which rewarded Jew-bashing. How can you try such men who had lost the insight to act correctly? They can be judged only in accordance with the then prevailing conditions and laws in those countries. It is stupid and sinful to apply the same rules of conduct to mental patients as applicable to normal people. These suspects were themselves the victims of their local environment. Is there a person who is ever immune to the effect of his social surroundings?

Edward I and Jews

The concept of timeless-justice, is the most dangerous nonsense. What about Edward I? He expelled Jews from England and Gascony and thus subjected them to a great deal of agony. Shouldn't we punish him for Jew-bashing?

Since many a crime is committed in the name of law, there is an English precedent to sanctify such a profanity: Charles II dug up the bones of Oliver Cromwell and hanged them. Why doesn't the Parliament commit such a lunacy which the law permits to carry the concept of timeless-justice to its logical conclusion? In addition to pleasing the Jews, it will also appease the Scots who have always moaned about the harsh Edwardian attitude.

Retrosepctive legislation

This type of atrocity is nothing to the government which is prepared to indulge in passing retrospective legislation. What is retrospective legislation? It springs from the dark interior of mankind because the brute force of authority declares that a certain law existed in the past whereas, in fact, it did not exist, and nobody had ever heard of it. Passing this type of laws and placing them on the statute books was a speciality of the Nazi who mastered the art of murdering their Opponents legally! What an example for the British Parliament to follow!

Henry VII

Usually the retrospective legislation seeks to legalise illegality and all its attendant horrors In England, Henry VII used this device and had himself declared the King of this country one day earlier than his actual date of enthronement. Henry VII was a despot and could have beheaded anyone but that constituted "injustice and cruelty" which looked bad for his royal image. The purpose of this trick was to declare all his opponents as traitors who resisted his "lawful" authority, which he actually did not possess for being an invader with a very dubious claim to the throne of England. He wanted to punish all his antagonists legally. A crime committed in the name of law looks most beautiful despite being one of the ugliest things in reality. Who cares about reality? People usually fall for the appearance the more attractive a thing looks, the greater its appeal. This fact equally applies to the retrospective legalisation which the British government may pass to enable the Jews to wreak vengeance in the disguise of justice.

House of Lords

In "Taxation and Liberty", I had argued for the upgrading of the British House of Lords and suggested that its members should not be subjected to electioneering but appointed on merits, especially with regard to the services that they have rendered to the nation. There are plenty of such peers already in the House of Lords. They will probably defend the honourable traditions of this country by defeating such a bill. My admiration for this noble House has always been copious. Since it ranks as a great human institution for guiding the path of democracy and checking the pace of ravenous tax-gatherers, I hope that it will nip the evil in the bud.

German-bashing

The connotations of such a bill becoming the law do not seem to have been understood properly:
1. Firstly, propagating horrors of the Nazi camps has become a very regular Jewish affair and thus ranks as a business which strives to achieve certain rewards. In addition to making money out of misery, it seeks to denigrate the Germans habitually. This is an act of revenge to depict them as the most despicable race. It is totally unfair because Germans are a great people whose scientific, industrial, cultural and religious contributions to civilisation need no introduction. Is there a nation which has not been aggressive to its neighbours at some point in history? Why pick on the Germans with a religious zeal? I certainly do not condone the German atrocities but it equally baffles me that nobody has so far apportioned the blame attributable to the Jewish attitudes towards the Germans during the pre-war era. It does not seem proper to call Adolf Hitler "insane". The man who commanded the loyalty of his people and stood up to the whole world for several years, could not have been mad. His genius, though tinted with evil, deserves a better appraisal. His passion for supremacy was no greater than that of Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte.

Ban anti-German propaganda

The fact that the Germans have become ardent supporters of the European Community, shows that they have realised the evils of nationalism and want to be a part of mankind. Their participation also ranks as a proof of repentance Besides, they have paid for their follies and deserve a clean slate. Their partnership calls for genuine respect from all her European allies; continuous campaign of mistrust and assassination of the German character will eventually provoke the Germans and destabilise the European Community. It is high time that the Shoa business ("the holocaust industry") was banished and preaching of hateful
propaganda against the Germans made illegal throughout the European Community. Wisdom demands that the Jews must heed this warning. European dream of unity is becoming a reality. It is the Jews who will suffer for being an eastern race. Their future lies in the East, the land of Moses and David. I refrain from developing this theme because to me, every Jew is as human as anybody else and thus entitled to equal dignity and respect.

Nazi-type Jews

2. If the purpose of securing retrospective legislation is to seek justice against those who harmed the Jews, then it opens up a new avenue, far more macabre than the fertile imagination of a novelist can dream of: the Nazi were not the only Jew-bashers. History has recorded that there were some Jews who sent fellowJews to the horrors of the gas chambers. Some did it to protect the lives of their relatives and others were sordid enough to make a business out of it for financial rewards.

A murderer is a murderer whether he is one's brother or a stranger. What has the British government done to trace such Jews? Has the Israeli government done anything to prosecute them? They are probably being cared for in some Jewish sanatorium.

British Jews and Palestinians

3. Finally, it raises a point of far more fundamental importance, utterly repugnant to the Jews themselves. Justice means justice for all the aggrieved and not for one particular section. If the British government is so anxious to dispense justice that it wants to change the law for trying its citizens who were not born and bred here, then it must also be equally zealous to prosecute all those British citizens who were born and bred here and are guilty of harming others. I am, of course, referring to the British-born Jews in relation to the Palestinians. The British Jews bear a direct responsibility for the misery, molestation and murder of the Palestinians. Why? Because every Jew is considered a citizen of Israel. Secondly, donations of the British Jews must play a considerable role in keeping the Israeli state alive, and thirdly, there are plenty of British Jews who have their second homes and business interests in Israel.

Have the British Jews ever demonstrated against the Israeli attitudes towards the Palestinians? No. Not at all, yet they clamour for justice! It is strange that they cannot tolerate racial discrimination in the lands of their abode whereas their motherland, i.e. Israel, is founded on racism. All Palestinians are second-class citizens but all Jews in diaspora are more than first class citizens for holding exalted positions in the commercial, industrial and political life of other countries.

I can develop this theme far more effectively but I shall not do so because the purpose of this criticism is not Jew-bashing but pointing out the lethal effects of fundamentalism which relegate man to the status of a lower animal by reducing his vision and curbing his conscience. The modern Jews owe their social recovery to the broad-mindedness they showed in response to the Napoleonic investigation. They can be liberal without turning their backs on Judaism. The diplomacy of clenched fist has brought them nothing but misery. Their children and virgins are entitled to human dignity and respect This is high time that they opened their arms a little, instead of antagonising the Gentile. Until such time that they make forgiveness a part of their culture, history will keep repeating itself. There is no evidence that anti-Semitism has died down it has simply become dormant and is likely to raise its head when someone's interest persuades him to change the prevailing climate.

Islamic fundamentalism

Jews are not the only fundamentalists in the world. Fundamentalism, irrespective of its origins, is destructive. Whereas Jewish orthodoxy has been partially responsible for the preservation of Judaism, the Islamic fundamentalism has become a tool of dominance for the Moslem politician who deliberately corrupts the Islamic principles to advance his own cause but in the name of Islam. It has been quite easy for him to do so. Since there is no formal priesthood in Islam, the Moslem clergy could not gain an authoritive position in his own right like the Christian priest. Thus his secular weakness made him a puppet of the politician whose patronage depended upon how skilfully he interpreted the Koran to suit his master's purpose.

Mulla and Learning

The Moslem Mulla (priest) is a learned man but his erudition is lopsided because he hardly knows anything other than the Koran and Hadith; he is usually pious but poverty poses a problem to his probity and he feels obliged to prevaricate for providing the politicians with preferential and not precise interpretations of the Koran which should make the faithful believe that snow is as hot as fire and a sparrow is a higher flier than an eagle.

Koranic Law

To understand this fact, one must realise that the Koran is considered by Moslems as the last revelation of Allah, and its purpose is to guide man through an eternal code of law. Since the Koranic law is for ever, it obviously means that it is capable of providing legal guidance under all circumstances and for all ages. Such a law must be capable of interpretation without losing its essence. The mulla's submission to the will of politician has struck a big blow to the Koran as the eternal legal guide. It has been stressed by the Moslem scholars that once a principle has been unanimously agreed through Ijtihad (Juristic effort) it is final, and binding on Moslems of all ages without any regard to the passage of time. Thus they have destroyed the value of juristic deliberation and made Islam a rigid and regressive code of life.

Qatl-E-Murtad

Take for example the unanimously-agreed doctrine known as Qatl-E-Murtad (decapitation of a renegade). It is utterly against the Koranic principle which clearly states that a renegade shall be beheaded only if he makes a game of apostasy, that is, he embraces and renounces Islam again and again. This is further supported by the fact that hypocrisy was the Prophet's biggest abhorrence. If a person born as a Moslem wants to renounce his faith, he will not do so owing to fear of decapitation and shall be forced to live as a hypocrite. The spirit of the Koran confirms it abundantly that the Prophet would have preferred apostasy to hypocrisy: he wanted true followers and not phoney believers. This is the reason that the Koran states "La Ikrah Fe Din": there is no compulsion in religion.

As a result of such attitudes, most of the Moslem nations do not practice Shariah i.e. the Islamic law. For example, Turkey discarded it in 1926 and adopted the swiss family law; India and Pakistan have essentially become Common Law countries Even in Egypt and Tunisia Shariah courts do not exist as a separate entity and many Islamic countries have abolished polygamy, changed rules of divorce and modified procedures of evidence.

Secondly, what made Islam a practical religion was the fact that the Amir-UI-Momineen (head of the Moslem Community) was required to be the practical model of the faith. To make sure that the faithful follow this law strictly, the Koran gives them the legal right to rise against an unrighteous ruler:
"So you must not obey who tell lies . ..
Never you obey the mean swearer,
backbiter, those who indulge in slander,
obstruct righteousness, the guilty agressor,
the uncouth and the ignoble" (The Pen: 10).

Today, one has only to look at the Moslem leadership to realise that the genuine practice of the faith is no longer an integral part of leadership in many Moslem countries. Instead, the Moslem followers have been carefully and excessively conditioned to the word: "Islam". Whoever, can use this word effectively, commands the obedience of the Moslems. This is why Islam has been turned into a blind faith and serves as a tool of dominance for the politician and seekers of social prestige. It is this wilful misinterpretation of the Koran that has led to the decline of the world of Islam. Every Moslem wants to practice his own brand of Islam without knowing what real Islam is. In fact, the true Islamic principles have been overshadowed by the darkness of misinterpretation to such an extent that it is no longer possible to establish them. This is the reason that Islam has broken up into numerous sects; it is totally un-lslamic:
"Those who have made divisions in their religion
and become sects, you have nothing in common with them" (Cattle: 160).

The Islam that is full of sects is not Islam. The present state of the Moslem world does not reflect the character and teachings of the Prophet. On the contrary, it represents what the Prophet disliked and forbade. The Islam that the Prophet Propounded enabled its followers to rule the world for a thousand years! This s why the Koran states: "You are the best nation ever raised because you bid for honour and forbid dishonour" (House of Imran: 105).
Need I comment on it?

Allah's curse on Jews

After this lengthy explanation, now I may resume the discussion of Islamic fundamentalism; the Koran says:
"Some of the Jews pervert words from their meanings . . . . but God has cursed them for their unbelief . . ." (Women: 45).

Interpretation of Allah's curse

Moslems all over the world interpreted these verses to mean that Allah's curse meant that the Jews would never be allowed by the Almighty to return to Palestine and form their own state. This interpretation became a fundamental part of the Moslem faith. This is the reason every Moslem felt that he had been struck by lightning when the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948. To prove that it was a fleeting affair, the Arab world including the Palestinians wanted to drown all Jews in the sea; the ensuing bloody wars were waged to appease the Islamic fundamentalism.

Every nation has the right to a homeland, and the Jews are no exception. If we accept the interpretation that the Moslem scholars have put on this verse, then it means that the Koran is wrong because the Jewish state has become a reality. I am more inclined to think that it is the interpreters who are to blame. Having been born as a Moslem and trained to be a scholar of Islam, I know that the Koran has been frequently subjected to misinterpretation by those who seek power and influence as Moslem Zealots but without having any true reverence for Islam.

Jewish rights and heroism

The Jews have the right to a homeland like any other nation. Where is the Jewish homeland? It has to be the land that has always been loved and adored by the Jews. Obviously, it is Palestine which according to the sincerely-held Jewish belief, was promised by God. No nation has ever shown half as much reverence to its homeland as have the Jews. Palestine has been their vision, their palpitation and, above all, an integral part of their faith. They waged bloodiest wars against the aweful Roman imperialism. Their velour, tenacity and heroism knew no bounds to defend the Holy Land, the Gift of Yahwe, the apex of devotion. Why the Apex of Devotion? Without a mighty, marvellous and magnificent devotion they could not have fought the lethal wars that raged between 132-5 and then again during the reign of Antoninus Pius (138-61). These wars were based on the ideal of liberty, sincerity of conduct and true piety of faith, and therefore, marked the apex of devotion because they led not only to the decimation of 985 towns but also the slaying of 580,000 men, women and children. The Jewish population fell below half of its original strength. I applaud the Jewish gallantry. Each of the slain was a hero whose blood was infused with divine purity, preference of death as a lover of liberty, to the slavish living, is a mark of honour and godliness. These Jews were immortal and their blood was sacred, super and sublime. They were a different species from the Jews who went to the Nazi gas chambers like lambs. Though they lost the battle, the quality of their struggle constitutes the true human virtue and ranks as the ultimate dream of mankind.

Palestine, the greatest human romance

It is not only the sacrifices of the Jews which make Palestine their natural home but also their undying love of this country. The Jewish love for Palestine is the greatest romance that man can dream of. Its sanctity is lifted sky-high when we realise that this love is not based on design but devotion, without any expectation of reward. Am I exaggerating? Not at all. The Jews had several opportunities to found a new homeland abroad. For example, in 1903, the British government offered them 6,000 square miles of uninhabited Uganda but they turned it down. Why? Because they wanted to go back home, that is, Palestine. In fact, they have always wanted to return to Palestine. The story of this yearning and the selfless attempts to achieve it, is a long one. The Jewish attachment to the Holy Land is ecstatic and devotional; without this relationship, they could not have been willing to throw their wealth, position and comfort, which they enjoyed in Diaspora, in exchange for the frightening uncertainties, awaiting them in Palestine. There is a New York, New South Wales, Nova Scotia, New England but there is no New Israel. Why? The reason is obvious.

Indivisibility of Jerusalem

What is Palestine? It was a territory on the eastern Mediterranean coast, once embellished by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. But now after many centuries the situation has changed. The United Nations on 29th November, 1947, recommended the establishment of seperate Arab and Jewish states in Palestine. Though Jews could claim the territories of modern Lebanon and Syria, extending to the Euphrates once ruled by David and Solomon, they ought to be realistic and acknowledge the rights of the Palestinians who are also entitled to a homeland. Not only that, they have the duty to give full human rights to all the Palestinians who live within their jurisdiction. After all, they enjoy all such rights in the foreign lands. However, they cannot renounce a part of Jerusalem, the dream of David, the passion of Solomon and the bride of Yahwe. The Israel without the whole of Jerusalem is an eye without sight, a marriage without consummation, a fireball without light, a cloud without rain and a romance without excitement. It is not a matter of fundamentalism. If it were so, I would oppose it openly. It is a matter of fact that Jerusalem is Judaism and Judaism is Jerusalem. Being a rationalist, I believe that every person has the right to a belief of his own choice, provided it advocates tolerance and respect for other people's views. Since sanctity of Jerusalem is an integral part of the Jewish faith, dividing Jerusalem means the destruction of Judaism. This is what makes it indivisible. The Bride of the Lord is not available for seduction.

Yes, the Bride of the Lord is untouchable. Dividing it, is an act of profanity. Partitioning means desecration. Why desecrate Jerusalem now? Just because it is in the Jewish hands? Then, in all justification, it is a Jewish city, and to establish this fact, I wrote about its background in the beginning of this chapter.

It is a nonsense to say that it should be treated as an international city because Christian and Moslem shrines are located there. What about Mecca? One billion Moslems of numerous nationalities truly believe in its sanctity. Yet it is legally and morally an integral part of Saudi Arabia. Rome is, similarly, a part of Italy despite being the holy centre of Christians of all races.

To say that (part of) Jerusalem is a conquered territory, and therefore, it should be given up, is an even greater nonsense. The Jews have conquered nothing; they have simply repossessed what is legitimately theirs. If we look into the matter fairly, it transpires that Arabs are in Palestine by conquest. Shouldn't they also be made to leave Palestine?

The answer is an emphatic "no" because they have been there for so long that Palestine ranks as their home. They are entitled to all the dignity and rights of a homeland but the whole of Palestine does not belong to them exclusively. Jews are the natural claimants to a part of it known as "Israel", yet they have been deprived of this fundamental right for a very long time indeed. It has made Jewry a major international problem fraught with lethal consequences which are likely to arise from the Jewish sense of insecurity.

A deeper examination shows that sense of insecurity is the fountain of inferiority complex which puts on a cloak of imaginary superiority to hide its infirmities and reinforces it with ostentation and belligerence.

Prolonged homelessness and continuous fear of survival is the source of the Jewish sense of insecurity, leading to their anti-Gentile philosophy and attitudes. As a result, their faculty of social adjustment in relation to mankind has suffered a serious setback and they find it hard to treat other people as their equals or even as members of the human race. Solution of the Jewish problem lies not in their extermination but giving them a secure homeland.

Both Jews and Palestinians are civilised people but they have chosen to live at the same cultural level as did their ancestors 3,000 years ago: they are as full of mutual hatred and revenge now as they were then. This is the result of fundamentalism which benumbs conscience and strangles the faculties of reason.

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