The men who want to close the historical process and pronounce the ?last words? of history are most dangerous men. Beware of them! The Muslims were the first to do so. They foreclosed the future of man. Then came the Americans. The Communists were the latest.
Nature was our mother and first teacher. Not God. God came later. Millions of years later. In the meantime, nature gave us a brain and a mind to know and to reason. It was like a lamp in a dark night. It lighted our path.
The Hindu was guided by his light. So were the Jains and Buddhists. But the Semitic peoples were guided by their books and by the word of their gods.
The books, alas, have turned out to be less and less reliable today! But the peoples of the books will not admit it, for to do so is an offence against their gods. No one in his right senses will do such a thing. So they repeat the lies in the books ad infinitum. But today even the Pope will not dare to say that the Bible is the ?last word?. It is dangerous to say so after what the peoples of the books have suffered from their first folly.
But the Muslims are steadfast in their faith. M.J. Akbar writes: ?Most Christians might simply shrug if asked whether they really believed that Jesus turned water into wine.. Muslims, in contrast, do not doubt that the angles of Allah helped the Prophet at the Battle of Badr.? The only country where Muslims were exposed to reason and logic was India, says Akbar.
But what is one to say of the mullah, who says that the Quran is the last word? That not a comma will be changed? He backs it with threats. When Islam ruled the world, no one had the courage to tell nay to the mullah. Today, the threat cannot work. The mullah has to argue his case. But this is not what he is used to.
So, he keeps the Quran close to his heart and keeps repeating the namaaz five times a day. He can'tgo beyond that. But that is not good enough for a world that is changing so rapidly.
A Muslim has no way to know his Quran. This is not my view. Quran is so arranged, say experts, that ordinary Muslims need an alim to interpret it for them.
And the Quran is no more the final authority. There are different interpretations of the Quran. The Wahhabis are right today. Which interpretation is correct? There is no central authority to determine it.
Islam has thus no final central authority. And it has no settled view (author'semphasis) either. How do I say this? Well, I have a good reason. The Justice Munir Commission, set up by the Pakistan government in the fifties of the last century to enquire into ? what is Islam? and ?who is a Momin (Muslim)? had this to say: ?We cannot refrain from saying here that it was a matter of infinite regret to us that the Ulema, whose final duty should be to have settled views on the subject were hopelessly divided among themselves.? This after 1500 years!
You may well ask: How come? The world is becoming increasingly multicultural. There is need for better understanding among peoples. And we have a long long way to go?millions and millions of years. We can'tforeclose our options so early in our infancy. We have to grow with the times. But the Muslims are opposed to change. They are caught in a trap. True, not of their making.
It was wrong on the part of the founders of Islam to say that the Quran was the last word. They could not have decided it for the rest of the world. It was even worse to say that not a word of the Quran would be changed, for you will be mocked at when you are forced to change. This is what happened to the Christians. But they were wise enough to change. But Islam refused to change. With what result? Almost the entire criminal law of the Shariah became obsolete. The British simply rejected it. This is what happens to people who refuse to change. Remember, the British in one stroke of the pen abolished the Sati system of the Hindus. Of course, with the support of men like Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
As the Shariah is a compilation of both the Quran and the Hadith, the words and deeds of the Prophet, the interpretation of the Shariah has kept tens of thousands of senior Ulemas busy during the last 1500 years! But there is no clarity yet in Islamic thought. As a result, Islam carries a heavy load of dead-weight. For example, Islamic law decrees death for apostasy. No Muslim country can enforce it today. And imagine the shame of having to call a Hindu neighbour a kafir and your own country a Darul-Harb!
The way out to this trap is to empower both men and women to put trust in their ability to guide themselves. This is what the Christians have done. Islam must learn to trust its people.
Remember, the days of absolute sovereignty are over. Nations and peoples have to work within an evolving framework of freedom and democracy. Those who fall out of it will meet the fate of the Fascists, Nazis and Communists. What is happening in Iraq was bound to happen. The Arab people have failed to evolve the democratic process. In today'scondition, this will invite foreign intervention.
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