My way and the wrong way

Prophet Muhammad did not claim to be introducing a new religion. He in fact claimed that God had sent down the Torah and Gospel before this and that the Quran was merely to confirm what was revealed before it. In other words, the Quran is not a new Holy Book. The Quran is a Holy Book to confirm the Holy Books of the Jews and Christians that came earlier.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Why Call Me "Khalid Gereja"?

by Aidil Syukri, Malaysian Digest

PETALING JAYA, JAN 12, 2010: Shah Alam Member of Parliament, Khalid Abd Samad, who had been called "Khalid Gereja" (translated as "Church Khalid") hit back at the Barisan Nasional government supporters who were silenced when the Government decided to help rebuild the church which suffered an arson attack last Friday.

“They are not consistent. They called me 'Khalid Gereja' for my actions. Why didn’t they say anything when the Prime Minister Dato' Seri Najib Abdul Razak visited the Metro Tabernacle Church and pledged to donate RM500,000 to rebuild the church?” he told Malaysian Digest when asked to comment on the issue.

He said some Barisan Nasional-friendly bloggers had labelled him with many names when he visited a church in Shah Alam after he was elected as the MP for Shah Alam.

Khalid also described the demonstrators who stomped his picture at Shah Alam Mosque last Friday as being motivated politically. “Let them carry on, it doesn’t affect me at all. I get lot of free ‘pahala’ (merits) from their action,” said Khalid.

One of the protestors stomp on Khalid Samad's picture.

In the incident 50 demonstrators stomped on his poster over his stand that Christians should be allowed to use the word "Allah" in their worships.

The protest organised by “Anak-anak Muda Islam Selangor” (AMIS) was eventually stopped by the police.

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Picture of an Indonesian church

To the average, run-of-the-mill Malay, there are only two ways -- my way and the wrong way. In other words, my way is correct and anyone who contradicts my way is practicing the wrong way.

‘Deviants’ are all those who believe something that I do not believe in. Since my beliefs are correct, that makes every other belief wrong, and therefore they are deviants.

In the old days, anyone who believed that the world is round and not flat and that the sun revolves around the earth, and not the other way around, were put to death. Anyone who had ‘extra’ knowledge, which means knowledge that I too do not possess, must be witches and were also put to death. The knowledge that I possess is the correct version of facts. Anything beyond that is the work of the devil and these devil-worshippers must die.

The fact that the first word in the first verse of the Quran revealed to Prophet Muhammad is ‘read’ seems to escape most Muslims. Muslims do not want to read, in particular what the Quran has to say. The fact that the Quran was supposed to be for entire mankind and not just for Prophet Muhammad also seems to escape most Muslims.

Was God ‘talking’ to just Prophet Muhammad or was God talking to entire mankind through Prophet Muhammad? Was God addressing the verses of the Quran to only the Muslims or to Jews, Christians and Pagans as well?

There were no Muslims yet when the Quran was first revealed to Prophet Muhammad. So God could not have been addressing the Muslims. God was in fact addressing the non-Muslims, Prophet Muhammad included in the days before the revelation of the Quran.

According to the Muslim belief, and undisputed by all sects of Islam, Prophet Muhammad at first did not even realise that God was talking to him through the Angel Gabriel. Prophet Muhammad at first thought that maybe he had been confronted by the devil. He ran home shivering and sought the solace of his wife, Khatijah, who went to meet her Christian cousin to seek advice. Her cousin speculated that it was God addressing Prophet Muhammad and that Khatijah’s husband was destined to become a Prophet of the Arabs.

It took a Christian to tell Khatijah that Muhammad was tipped to become a Prophet when the Prophet himself thought that some evil forces were at play.

Only then did Islam gain its first ‘convert’, the Prophet’s wife, Khatijah, followed by Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, who some Muslims believe to be the second ‘convert’. I say ‘some’ because there are some Muslims who dispute the belief that Ali was the third convert.

Nevertheless, the point I want to make is that the Quran was not meant for just the Muslims -- seeing that there were no Muslims yet at that time. In fact, many verses of the Quran actually address the non-Muslims -- Jews, Christians and Pagans alike.

So, does the Quran belong to only the Muslims or is it the ‘property’ of entire mankind? And therefore is Allah, as mentioned in the Quran, the God of only the Muslims or the God of entire mankind? If the Muslims believe that there is only one God, then Allah should be the God of all mankind, not the God of only the Muslims -- or else there would be many Gods, one for each religion.

The Quran addresses the followers of Moses and the followers of Jesus and talks about those who follow the adeen (way) of Abraham as being the true submitters – submitters meaning Muslim. Can the Quran be wrong in that the followers of Moses and Jesus who follow the way of Abraham are Muslims when Malays believe that Muslims are only the followers of Muhammad while all others are infidels?

The Quran acknowledges those who follow Abraham, such as the followers of Moses and Jesus, as being the People of the Book. In fact, the Quran even goes further than that. It also acknowledges the Sabeans and Zoroastrians as also being People of the Book. And Muslims are allowed to eat the meat from an animal slaughtered by the People of the Book -- even though the animal was not slaughtered by a Muslim or a follower of Prophet Muhammad.

Prophet Muhammad did not practice miracles like the other Prophets before him. He did not part the Red Sea or walk on water or raise the dead or turn a stick into a snake or feed a multitude of people on a very tight food budget. But Prophet Muhammad did have his own miracle, claim the Muslims. And this miracle is the Quran.

So Prophet Muhammad’s miracle is the Quran, claim the Muslims. But is the Quran meant only for recital and for giving prizes to whomsoever can recite it in the most melodious manner or is it meant as a guide for entire mankind, not just for a handful of people?

The Quran does not say, “Hey Muslims!” The Quran ‘talks’ to the non-Muslims. So the Quran was revealed as a guide for all mankind, not a guide for only the Muslims. So would Allah in the Quran be for all mankind or just for the then non-existent Muslims (other than the two or three ‘converts’)?

Allah existed before the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad. The Christians, Jews and Pagans used to make their annual pilgrimage to Mekkah to pray in front of the Kaabah to Allah and the pantheon of 360 Gods that was housed in the Kaabah -- Mary and Jesus included. But the Chief God was Allah, Al-ilah or The God, who had three daughters, the minor Gods.

Prophet Muhammad did not claim to be introducing a new religion. He in fact claimed that God had sent down the Torah and Gospel before this and that the Quran was merely to confirm what was revealed before it. In other words, the Quran is not a new Holy Book. The Quran is a Holy Book to confirm the Holy Books of the Jews and Christians that came earlier. And even though the Sabeans and Zoroastrians did not quite receive Holy Books such as the Torah and the Gospel, nevertheless they are also considered People of the Book.

Yes, we have to look beyond our very narrow interpretations and possessiveness. Allah was meant as the God of all mankind. The Quran was a revelation for all mankind. And Islam can be considered as Version 3 of Judaism and Christianity, which were Versions 1 and 2 respectively of the teachings of Abraham.

And that is why the Quran cautions mankind about dividing ourselves into various sects and religions, which mankind has done, resulting in this great division along religious lines.

As Kofi Anan said in his address to the United Nations, “We are all children of Abraham.” And that makes Kofi Anan more a Muslim (submitter to God) than most of us.