generalspeaking

ThumbPrint History of Islam

In the beginning, there was chaos; Bedouin tribes living in an hostile, barren landscape, challenging one another for territorial advantage, clashing, violating, doing battle, taking hostages, assassinating one another. Life was a constant cycle between triumph and loss, and loss appeared to predominate; inadequate land, food, water, defences. Against marauders whose single purpose in life was to pillage, slaughter, enslave.

And then there arose from among those in this landscape a man advanced in years who declared himself to have been given a vision of the Almighty. Whereupon he took it upon himself to advance that vision, with himself as divinely-inspired messenger. And he became known as the Prophet and the religion he advanced, Islam. Peace, surrender, and total obeisance to Allah.

When the Prophet Muhammad assembled the Arab tribes through gradual conquest in the 7th Century, the pantheon of the desert illuminati was vanquished but not without washing the desert sand with copious floods of blood. The Prophet Muhammad liberated the Arabs allowing them to continue battling one another to combine forces for a future onslaught on non-believers world-wide.

Muhammad is only a messenger;
and many a messenger has gone before him.
So what if he dies or is killed!
Will you turn your back and go away in haste?
But he who turns back and goes away in haste
will do no harm to God.
But God will reward those
who give thanks (and are grateful).

When Muhammad died without having named a successor, he unleashed by his lack of foresight another flood of tribal bloodshed. Those believers of surrender to peace and the will of Allah took once again to their swords to combat one another, believers, each feeling themselves entitled. At Medina clan elders met to nominate and elect one of their own.

The new leader who resulted, an enabler of The Prophet, but not of his clan nor his family, Sa'ad ibn Ubadah, was challenged by the Prophet's closest companions and slaughter ensued. Leaving the new leader as dead as the old Prophet, and his companion Abu Bakr, deputy of the Prophet, as he was of the most prestigious clan, the Quraysh.

Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, took umbrage, refusing to bow to Abu Bakr. For his part Abu Bakr spent much of the following two years keeping ahead of the revolts against his leadership. These were known as the Riddah Wars (Wars against Apostasy); bloody tribal feuds, fondly reminiscent of the years before Islam.

One war after another, each more ruthless, sweeping, bloody and vicious than the next, helped to consolidate a larger hold by Islam other, religion-averse Arabs. These merciless inductions into the religion of peace and harmony and brotherhood irretrievably shaped the trajectory and effectiveness of Islam, bringing it toward a future of universal conquest.

Terror was an astonishingly reliable weapon in the march of Islam to succeed in its purpose; submission to God. Time helped to meld religion, traditions, tribal culture and the impact of jihad on Islam and its fervent followers. Throughout all this time, civil wars, massacres, and ongoing killings solidified Islam's reputation as a religion of peace.

Finally the dynastic authority of Islam came to be recognized through the emerging series of caliphates which the Arab-Islamic empire expanded throughout the Middle East, Africa, Asia and into Europe. The blessed quotations ascribed to the Prophet were compiled, held to be sacred, relevant to the past as to the future; the authority by which the future was propelled.

And then came the birth of shariah law, exemplifying the pure traditions of Islam, its respect for human life and the majesty of the Almighty. Fundamentally, sharia law outlines the justification for a trinity of basic principles, out of which justice flows: the superiority of men over women, of Muslims over non-Muslims; of free persons over slaves.

Other, unwritten rules but transcribed from original memory are the absolute superiority of Arab Muslims over all other Muslims; the sacred nature of Arabic in the Koran; the sacredness of Islamic geography, never to be surrendered; the sublimity of Islam, the rejection of which is death.

Finally, one speaks of the Prophet Muhammad in hushed tones of pure adulation [peace be upon him], Never, under any circumstances, permitting his blessed name to be taken in vain. Even while he ushered Islam into tribal consciousness through violence, and even though his instructions for liberation/subjugation prevail.

Labels: Human Rights, Political Realities, Realities, Religion

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, October 11, 2009