A Student's Notes and Comments on
The Concept of Islam
World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY)

Caveat

These are notes taken (and comments occasionally added) by a student (albeit an aging one). I am not a scholar of this complex subject. But if you find these notes of use, feel free to browse.

Introduction

This small booklet was handed out to each of us (in the 'Understanding islam' course) at the conclusion of our visit to the Oshawa mosque. In the notes that follow, I have not repeated points already well covered in Beverley and Sardar & Davies -- but only new (to me) information or emphasis. My italicized comments below may sometimes seem snide or seeking to score cheap debating points -- but my aim has been more to be simply the perplexed student asking (sometimes pointed) questions.

Contents

• 1. Islam at a Glance
• 2. What they say about the Qura'n
• 3. What they say about Islam
• 4. What they say about Muhammad
• 5. Moral System of Islam
• 6. Life after death
• 7. Prophethood in Islam
• 8. Concept of worship in Islam
• 9. Concept of God in Islam
• 10. Human rights in Islam

1. Islam at a Glance

• 'Allah' is "a unique term because it has no plural or feminine gender" -- [RJA comment: these quoted words are not absolutely clear and could be misinterpreted in a patriarchal sense -- but as I understand it, the masculine in Arabic can either be used in a "Haqeeqi' sense to refer to male humans or animals or used in a 'Majazi' sense to refer to things (such as God, angels, night, door, etc.) that have no gender -- Allah is considered to have no gender (not male, not female, not neutral) -- see the IslamicVoice website]
• "Mohammad ... was an unlettered man who could not read or write" -- [RJA comment: yes, we have all heard this -- but I had a Shia tell me that this was a lie and the Mohammad on fact could write and asked for a pen on his deathbed to add one further revelation (but the pen was denied) -- so many versions!]
• "the sacred and secular are not separate parts of man: they are united in the nature of being human" -- [RJA comment: this of course echoes the injunction to not compartmentalize the Prophet's life and ultimately, in turn, to not separate church and state]
• "the tragedy of secular societies is that they fail to connect the different aspects of life" -- [RJA comment: -- of course Kemal Ataturk (creator of the Turkish secular state) had a somewhat different view when he stated "I flatly refuse to believe that today, in the luminous presence of science, knowledge and civilization in all aspects, there exist . . . men so primitive as to seek their material and moral well-being from the guidance of one or another sheikh."]

2. What they say about the Qura'n

• some discussion here about the revelations in the New Testament not having been documented at the time but recorded years later by various writers -- [RJA comment: this is at least a consistent argument -- elsewhere I've noted that the The Gospels do not seem to me to parallel the Qur'an in the direct voice of God (as a revelation) but are closer to a Haddith, describing the life of Christ -- so I take it now that the Muslim viewpoint is not simply that the Gospels became corrupted over time (which is what one normally hears) but in fact they were corrupted ab initio by not being written down at all from the words of the 'Prophet Jesus' but only written years later as a memory of his life]
• "the Qur'an could never be written by any human being" -- [RJA comment: and yet, for example, the misconception that Jews believe that Ezra was the Son of God must surely arise out of some Jewish sect which Muhammad encountered and not out of some mistake in the omniscient mind of Allah]
• there is some discussion about scientific predictions in the Qur'an unknowable in Muhammad's day -- [RJA comment: but so far, I haven't been able to identify what those might be]

3. What they say about Islam

• fairly standard stuff -- Islam is the first and last and best

4. What they say about Muhammad

• again fairly standard stuff -- it's good (but also well covered in the books referred to above)

5. Moral System of Islam

• quotes the important verse 2:177, which is for substance over form (it's not the direction you face but what you believe and do)
• also quotes the verse which says "He is not a believer who eats his fill when his neighbour ... is hungry" -- [RJA comment: leading me to conclude, as I've noted elsewhere, that "unbeliever" in the largest sense does not mean non-believer so much as sinner.]

6. Life after death

• argues that the Prophets proclaiming life after death must have had divine revelation since so many idolaters opposed the idea -- [RJA comment: yes, but I could conceive of a counter argument that says the life-after-death belief occurs in Egypt, Greece, Persia, Judaism, Christianity, Islam because the human psyche finds the idea comforting and wants to believe it -- I do not say this proves that the belief is an illusion -- only that the sheer prevalence of the belief is not, in itself, evidence of divine revelation]
• "Actually if there is no life after death, the very belief in God becomes irrelevant" -- [RJA comment: this sounds to me like Nietzsche's 'the virtuous always want to be paid' and is in contrast to the Sufi Rabia Basri's doctrine of "disinterested love of God" as being the proper motivation for action as opposed to desire for Paradise or fear of Hell -- but to be fair, a better counter-argument is given at the end of this chapter: "God's attributes of Justice and Mercy have no meaning if there is no life after death.]

7. Prophethood in Islam

• "Guidance cannot be obtained ... from science nor from mystical experience. The first is too materialistic and too limited; the second is too subjective and frequently too misleading." -- [RJA comment: yes, there are always limitations in science -- though one almost has to be a mystic to be in Quantum Mechanics these days -- but as to the subjectivity of mysticism: why is revelation to the mystic (whether Rabia Basri or St. John of the Cross) suspect but revelation to Muhammad acceptable?]
• some Muslim scholars have suggested 240,000 prophets -- [RJA comment: and I suppose that's only the terrestrial ones?]
• Adam was created without a father and mother -- [RJA comment: does it follow from this that Islam is creationist and anti-evolution? I'm not sure -- the answers on the Understanding-islam.com website are equivocal and raise the question that the concept of Allah creating Adam 'from clay' and a certain way of interpreting 'from clay' raises the idea of the Earth evolving 'near-species' from which eventually Adam was created]

8. Concept of worship in Islam

• worship does not mean just the rituals
• "decent work is considered in Islam a type of worship"
• some of the Prophet's sayings: "seeking knowledge is a (religious) duty on every Muslim" and "Seeking knowledge for one hour is better than praying for seventy years" -- [RJA comment: which raises the question of reopening the 'gates of itjihad']

Concept of God in Islam

• "Allah" has no plural or feminine (like gods and godess)
• says that "Allah is the personal name of God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic" -- [RJA comment: but I thought "lah" was god in Arabic and "Al-lah" literally meant The God -- so how is this ultimately different from the change from god to God in English?]
• "the concept that God rested on the seventh day of creation ... [is] considered blasphemy from the Islamic point of view"
• "Foreomost among those mental states [states that arise from faith] is the feeling of gratitude towards God, which could be said to be the essence of ibada (worship)." -- [RJA comment: echoing Rabia Basri's doctrine of "disinterested love of God" as the only pure motivation]

10. Human rights in Islam

• human rights are granted by God not by governments
• quotes 49:11-12 "do not let one (set of) people make fun of another set; do not defame one another; do not insult by using nickname -- [RJA question: like speaking of the "trickster Jews"?]