Of Islam and Christianity: Which of the two of the worlds great religions brings the best or beast of a man? It would be foolish to suppose that the extensive asceticism and life-denial had succeeded in any measure as seen in the monasteries of the Churches, to counteract the grotesque licentiousness and materialism originated by the Romans. The moral and religious history of mankind does not warrant such optimism. It is opposed to human nature. Experience shows that only that ethical or spiritual system which is not opposed to innate human aims and instincts and which, instead of crushing them down, aspires at disciplining them and passing them from the beastial to the noble, can tame arrogant materialism and convert it into a healthy social force. This is the method of ISLAM, the way of the Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu allehi wa sallam). We have noticed how chivalrous and warlike temperament the Arabs were. The Prophet did not tone down their valour. He diverted it from mutual warfare and sensless blood feuds to JIHAD in the way of ALLAH. Similarly, the Prophet did not stifle their inborn generousity and high-mindedness. He put these virtues to the best advantage by advising his followers to employ them for bringing relief to the needy and the forlorn instead of allowing them to branch out towards ostentation and self-conceit. Without killing the indigenous characteristics of the Arabs, he wove them into the fabric of Islam. He taught his religion as a new theory of life, giving to mankind something more wholesome and more divine for whatever he took away from it. He even allowed for opportunities of amusement and recreation. As the great Muslim scholar, Ibn Taymiyyahm has said Man agrees to give up a thing only when he is provided with a substitute thereof and that Prophets are raised up to evolve and to improve human nature and not to change it. These truths are underlined in the teachings of the Prophet of Islam by innumerable instances. When the Prophet came to Medina, he found that the Medinites used to have two festivals in the year in which they indulge in merry-making. He inquired about the nature of the festivals and was told that the Medinites had been celebrating them from very early time times. Then he said to them ALLAH, has given you better festivals than these, Eid al- Adha and Eid al-Fitr. The Prophets wife Aisha, (radiallahu) anha relates, On an Eid day two Ansari girls were singing the songs of the battle of Buath at my house. They were not professional singers. When Abu Bakr chanced to pay us a visit at that moment, he exclaimed What, the devils songs in the Prophets house? Thereupon the Prophet said to him, Abu Bakr, every community has its Eid (day of rejoicing). It is our Eid today. The Roman Christianity, on the contrary, took upon itself the utterly hopeless task of trying to alter human nature and tried to work out a system that was beyond human endurance. In the beginning people bore with it as a sort of recoil from the super abundant materialistic inclinations of pre-Christian Rome, but they soon become sick of it with the consequence that there came to operate in the Christian world two parallel and diametrically-opposed movements in the licentiousness and ascetism. There was no dearth of moral enthusiasm, but it having been drawn away in the desert, the cities presented a scene of depravity and degradation that has seldom been surpassed. If we look closely at the realities of the world before and now, the level of public men went extremely depressed. The luxury of the court, the servility of the courtiers, and the prevailing splendour of the dress and ornament, had attained an extravagant height. The world grew accustomed to a dangerous alternation of extreme ascetism and gross vice, and sometimes, the most vicious and luxurious cities produced the most numerous anchorites. There existed a combination of vice and superstition which is eminently prejudicial to nobility, though not equally detrimental to the happiness of man. Public opinion was so low that very many forms of vise attracted little condemnation and punishment, while undoubting belief in the absolving efficacy of superstitious rites calmed the imagination and allayed the terrors of conscience. There is more falsehood and treachery, cruelty, violence and shamelessness. --I.M.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 06:22:16 +0000
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