The romance of Islam

3 April 2010

/article_images/articledir_11759/5879893/1_listing.jpg

Paul Goodman, a well-known opponent of Muslim extremism, on the beauty of Islam in its traditional, classical form, unpolluted by politics

For anyone trying to follow the journey begun by Abraham, conversion to Islam should recommend itself with compulsive force. It’s the most plausible of the three religions that look back to him.

Near the root of Judaism is the conviction that a single people are chosen by God — a people, moreover, who are hard to join. At the core of Christianity is the belief that a man was God and rose from the dead. Both claims seem to spit in the face of reason. Isn’t it an offence against justice to assert that God specially favours one people in particular? Isn’t it an affront to common sense to hold that a baby was divine, and that a dead man walked from a cold tomb?

Nonetheless, the suggestion that Islam might be preferable to either is objectionable to modern Western minds. It provokes visions of frenzy: failing states, suicide bombers, fanatical mullahs, shrouded women, burning books, oppressed minorities. But it should also conjure images of tranquillity: serene mosques, the circles of dhikr, a certain detachment from the claims of politics, distaste for the extremism within its own ranks of which Mohammed warned, and — until fairly recently — better treatment of religious minorities than Europe’s.

For most of its history Islam has been the most relaxed of the three faiths. It neither aches for the coming of a Messiah nor announces that outside the Church there is no salvation. It offers monotheism for all — a kind of Judaism for the masses. A more profound film about Islam than Geert Wilders’s could be titled not Fitna, but Fitra — namely, man’s primordial disposition, which is made for God. The path to paradise isn’t closed by original sin. Rather, it remains open, but man strays from it in heedlessness and forgetfulness. In doing so, he turns his face from tawhid — from the divine unity. So God sends prophets to nudge man back to the straight path. Mohammed was the last of them — not God, like the Jesus of Christianity, but the best of all creation. I write of conversion to Islam, but what takes place, rather, is reversion — a return to man’s natural religion.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Next page

More articles from: Paul Goodman | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (3)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Herbert Thornton

April 10th, 2010 12:32am Report this comment

"Romance"? Hardly a word that I'd use.

I am not what some Muslims call a "person of the Book" (an expression that includes Jews, Christians and Muslims) but the more I contemplate the three religions, the more Paul Goodman's panegyric seems, to me to have got things entirely back to front.

So much so that the first word that sprang to mind after reading his article was - "Whitewash".

PieceoftheJigsaw

April 19th, 2010 7:25pm Report this comment

Paul,
You make two errors in respect of Judaism.
Firstly, historically Judaism was a proselytising religion, and one which it was very easy to join. This only changed when Jews in Catholic Europe were subject to the frequent accusation, followed by persecution, that they were 'stealing' Christian souls.
Secondly, you fall into the common trap of assuming that Judaism regards the Jews as a favoured people. In fact, Jewish theology considers that the Jews were ‘selected’, not ‘favoured’, to take God's word forward, not to be beneficiaries of a preferential existence. I think you will acknowledge that no part of Jewish history would lead a Jew to conclude that they were benefiting from Divine favouritism.
Noting how you have either misunderstood or been misinformed about Jewish theology, and how much your subsequent essay is dependent upon these fallacies, one must conclude that your conclusions cannot possibly have intellectual validity.
You may do well – in the spirit of honest enquiry – to investigate what other misapprehensions you labour under with regard to the religion of your birth.

Lorraine

October 16th, 2011 8:34pm Report this comment

Funny the hardliner entrenched truths attributed. Really, who is to say, to those who have been around the block, most do not heed these things,they are enforced upon many,sure, but people do manage to liberate themselves.
Think different - Judaism attributes God as a Father, perhaps that means we are all sons of God. Perhaps Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, and fought for his own right to be. Perhaps Abraham was a lone voice claiming that an undisputed loving God did NOT request human child blood to be satiated. Perhaps Jews were chosen to teach of endurance through severe hardship.
Now with Mo the Pro, and his V for victory through terror, I find many things repulsive, beyond that Europeans went through a history of religious oppression and silencing, why would we ever want to willingly go back to that.
I'm wary too of anti-religionists, are we now supposed to persecute those who wish to pray? Please.
Beyond all that I believe man needs God, but rather than our image of God being crucial, it is our own perception of how we require God to perceive us that is more vital. If we do not have this sense we refer to as morality, and of which we are not always inclined, we become again animals with all that that would imply.
But then I am also a capitalist and think banks are wonderful if used wisely. How else could someone ever build anything? I think self interest is a huge motivator and it certainly beats whips at getting people to work very hard. I think it is really cool that some guy wants to live in a commune somewhere, I also think it is even cooler that I do not have to.
For peace, life and freedom.

Post comment