BEHIND ISLAM

Introduction

Nowadays, in the West, we presume to have full access to everything that was written on earth. That is: we suppose to know already and evaluate well all the most important ideologies or world-views conceived by humankind throughout its history.

Nevertheless, have you noticed already how difficult is it — if not even almost impossible, especially here in Brazil — to access the classics of the Islamic literature, the Koran itself included?

Boycott?! Conspiracy theory?!

After all, it is no secret that, besides insisting on antagonizing Islam for nearly a millennium, the lords of the West have already come many times to subject even the Koran itself to fraudulent translations with the purpose of discrediting it.

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But, will all that mystery have some relation with the fact that the Koran does indeed touch the very Achilles heel of the Western mentality: its notorious Manicheism?

It means that the West keeps at the same time two philosophical postures which contradict each other, which conflict among themselves – like someone suffering from “double-personality”.

Thus, either it believes in God, but rejects the primacy of reason; or accepts the primacy of reason, but denies the existence of God. In other words: either it appears to be very sensitive, but not so rational like that; or very rational, but not so sensitive like that.

Result: the material or objective side of things ends up being naturally excluded from any moral order; and the mental or subjective one relativized to the point of reducing in the practice to a mere fantasy. And then spirituality dies: skepticism and cowardice turn manifestations of realism; passion, of insanity and perversion; and goodness, of weakness and stupidity.

But, so?! How does the Koran succeed in touching the Achilles heel of the Western mentality? What does it propose instead of that nefarious dualism of the white man's posture?

To the surprise of many Muslims even, the Koran advocates nothing less than

natural religion (the belief in God based on reason) jointly with socialism (the political precedency of the community over the individual).

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Even so, if not for that very reason, the Western academy persists in denying that the Koran really sustains natural religion. In this sense, see what says a philosophy handbook from the Open University:

"An argument, based on the Koran or the Bible, [...] would probably be unnecessary for those inside those religious traditions and carry no connection for those outside. What is needed is an argument whose premises would be accepted by any reasonable person. And many reasonable people are outside any religious tradition. What is needed is an argument in natural theology […].

"Christian, Jewish and Muslim philosophers and theologians [, for example,] have historically found common ground in discussing the arguments of natural religion. But they largely disagree when it comes to revelation since their most characteristic

beliefs are founded upon different sets of writings. […] Since these beliefs conflict, the claim of these texts to speak from God poses this fundamental problem: they cannot all be right. [...]

"[…] It remains to be seen whether natural religion could provide a basis for accepting a particular religious authority as reliable and rejecting others.”

— Stuart Brown, “Destiny, Purpose and Faith” (Milton Keynes, The Open University, 2002), pp. 78-79: a book forming part of the Open University course A211 Philosophy and the Human Situation.

To your information, natural religion is that whose doctrines are exclusively based on reason. Nearly all religions pretend to be so, even when they cannot. A religion only could be regarded as such if maintained at least that God is reality: a posture usually called pantheism or idealism.

Identifying God to reality ends up revealing itself not only an uncontestable position but also the only one of the class not needing a proof beyond logic. For it is obvious that either God or reality well corresponds to that which embraces

everything (matter and mind) but cannot be reduced to anything in particular (material or mental).

Quite the contrary, materialism (the opposite posture) tries to subject reality to our understanding; and, hence, to our control. For that very reason, it is not able to impose with logic alone and is obliged to furnish an empirical evidence.

The problem is that any empirical evidence restricts itself by nature to a quantification: a relative value, a convention without intrinsic reality. In that resides the main cause of the successive failure of all the materialist attempts to produce a consistent world-view.

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Now, verify by yourself whether it is true that the Koran defends natural religion and socialism or not through the following selection of its verses:

“God is the Reality” (Koran, sura 22:6). “God is the only Reality” (31:30). “It is He that encompasses all things” (4:126). “Whithersoever you turn, there is the presence of God. For God is All-Pervading, All-Knowing” (2:115). “It is to God that the End and

the Beginning of all things belong” (53:25). “All things are from God” (4:78). “To God we belong, and to Him is our return” (2:156). “He is the First and the Last, the Evident and the Immanent” (57:3). “He is the Living One” (40:65).“Everything that exists will perish except His own Face” (28:88).

That was pantheism or idealism: what would already be more than enough to prove that the Koran in truth maintains natural religion. Even so, it insists on surpising us by going far beyond that:

“God proves the Truth by means of His words” (Koran, sura 42:24). “God has revealed […] the most beautiful Message in the form of a Book consistent with itself” (39:23). “Here are signs self-evident in the hearts of those endowed with knowledge” (29:49). “On the earth are signs for those of assured faith, as also in your own selves: will you not then see? [...] This is the Truth as much as the fact that you can speak intelligently to each other” (51:20-21, 23).

“‘My Lord! Show me how […] !’ He said: ‘Do you not then believe?’ He said: ‘Yea! But to satisfy my own understanding!’” (2:260). “Do they not consider this Book with care? Had it been from other than God, they would surely have found therein much discrepancy” (4:82). “See you if this Revelation is really from God, and yet do you reject it?” (41:52). “Have We give them a Book from which they can derive clear evidence?” (35:40). “There have already come to them Recitals wherein there is enough to check them”(54:4).

That was the defense of the primacy of reason: rationalism. Notice that such a concept cannot be found in so explicit a way as that, or even in none, in any other writing of the genre.

So?! Does the Koran in fact advocate natural religion or not?!

Now, let us go to socialism:

“Behold, you are those invited to spend of your substance in the Way of God: but among you are some that are niggardly. But any who are niggardly are so at the expense of their own souls” (Koran, sura 47:36-38). “The produce of the earth — which provides food for men and animals [...] : the people to whom it belongs [ — the unbelievers — ] think they have all powers of disposal over it” (10:24).

“When they are told, ‘Spend of the bounties with which God has provided you’, the

Unbelievers say to those who believe: ‘Should we then feed those whom, if God had so

willed, He would have fed Himself?’“ (36:47). “[As to the righteous,] in their wealth and possessions was remembered the right of the needy” (51:19).

“God has bestowed His gifts of sustenance more freely on some of you than on others: those more favored are not to throw back their gifts to those whom their right hand possesses, so as to be equal in that respect. Will they then deny the favours of God?” (16:71). " [...] For it would be the Fire of Hell! — [...] inviting all such as [....] collect wealth and hide it from use!" (70:15-18).

“God has permitted trade and forbidden usury” (2:275). “O you who believe! Fear God, and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if you are indeed believers. If you do it not, take notice of war from God and His Apostle" (2:278-279). “Only those are Believers who […] have striven with their belongings and theirs persons in the Cause of God” (49:15).

“Let not those who covetously withhold of the gifts which God has given them of His

Grace think that it is good for them: nay, it will be worse for them” (3:180). “We wished to be gracious to those who were being depressed in the land, to make them leaders in faith and make them heirs, to establish a firm place for them in the land” (28:5-6).

“We made a people considered weak and of no account inheritors of land” (7:137). “God has promised, to those […] who believe and work righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the Land, inheritance of power […] ; that He will establish in authority their mode of living — the one which he has chosen for them; and that He will change their state, after the fear in which they lived to one of security and peace” (24:55).

So?! Jointly with natural religion, does the Koran sustain socialism as well or not?!

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Therefore, it has at last been proved that the Koran advocates in truth natural religion jointly with socialism.

It has also been demonstrated — out of that erroneous explanation from the Open University, among other evidences — the existence in the West of a generalized misinformation about the matter.

Meanwhile, observe that, in terms of ideological force, natural religion with socialism could well compare to something like Christianism with Marxism. And that alone would already be more than enough to justify the suspicion that the West must really be doing something for maintaining the Koran in oblivion.

Religion based on reason plus socialism — an ideological combination like that would no doubt represent a serious threat to any empire.

Religion based on reason plus socialism — would not that have been the world-view aspired by most of the Humanism’s champions in the whole world, especially in Brazil?

Palmares, Padre Antonio Vieira, Canudos, Padre Cicero, Don Helder Camara, the Liberation Theology, Chico Mendes, the Landless’ Movement, among others

— will they have dreamt, or would still be, with an ideology like that?

The answer is obvious, is not?!

And all that, by the way, not to mention above all the very Indians themselves, whose majority does already follow since ever natural religion in its

purest meaning.

“Do they seek for other than the lifestyle* of God? — while all creatures in the heavens and on earth have, willing or unwilling, bowed to His Will” (Koran, sura 3:83). “Establish God’s handwork according to the pattern on which He has made mankind: no change let there be in the work wrought by God: that is the standard way of life[1]" (30:30).

Notice that, on comprehending even the Indians, the world-view maintained by the Koran ends up also touching the very core of the not only Brazilian or Latin American culture but above all the whole Third World’s one: the non-materialist way of facing reality, the idealism.

After all, even the history of Brazil can give us a surprising evidence of the libertarian power of the Koran: more than 60% of our people descends from the same Africans here enslaved among which, according to recent discoveries, at least 1/3 happened to be Muslim. And it was such a group that, inspired by nothing more than some mere fragments of the holy book, ended up effecting the biggest revolt of slaves occurred in the 3 Americas during the 1800: the Malians’ one, in Bahia.

Background: A Muslim butchery’s facade at Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1895. Probably, an undercover mosque. Alufa means in Yoruba “holy man”, "priest" (Alufá is the Brazilian derivative). And the sentence: “There is no lord but God” (from the Koran).

Epílogo

For your information, the Koran (in Arabic: “book”) was written 600 years after Jesus. It constitutes (1) the last sacred book not only of the Semite tradition but of any other of continental weight; (2) the only one having not suffered any alteration known, neither of redaction nor of composition; (3) the only one whose originals still exist, as well as an ample documental memory of either its author or its historical context; and, above all, (4) the only one submitting explicitly its own validity to the criterion of logic.

Muhammad (in Arabic, “the praised one") was who, in trance and little by little, dictated the Koran. Noble by birth, but orphan of father, he started life in poverty. From camel shepherd to merchant, he became rich still young. Unlettered, but always very pious, he absorbed the Judeo-Christian tradition of the region.

At the 40th, after a decisive mystical experience involving the angel Gabriel, he assumed himself as a prophet: condemned the prevailing order, spent all his wealthy with the poor, recruited disciples e formed with them a theocratic and socialist community which soon came to suffer violent opposition from the dominant classes.

After 23 years confronting much more powerful enemies, Mohammad’s brotherhood ended up prevailing over almost the whole Arabia. The Koran was written during this period. And the prophet died soon after, at the 62th. Not, however, the movement he had founded and minutely delineated — called by the very Koran “Submission (to God’s Will)”. In Arabic, Islam. Hence: Muslim — “that who submitted (to God’s Will)”.

Holy revolution! Which not only continued but expanded as well. And in a fantastic way! Only 100 years later, would already have dethroned almost all the

emperies of the Old World. And 200, all.

Not, however, by violence. But, yes, thanks to the practice of socialism, which obtained the spontaneous support of the masses — also then extremely impoverished by an unprecedentedly prolonged global crises.

Thus, slaves were freed e endowed with full citizenship (many reached the top of the society; that was the case of Egypt’s first Muslim governor); lands, socialized (with infra-structure and even technical consultancy); religious freedom, guaranteed (most of the non-European Christian communities, such as the Copts, would have been completely annihilated by its own white sister, if the Muslims were not to protect them); racism, banished (it was Islam which verily constituted the first multiracial great civilization, not Brazil); women, by the first time in the most complex societies, assisted by egalitarian rights (in the Christian Europe, a wife was reduced to a property of the husband until 150 years ago); public services, instituted by the first time in history: the social welfare — state support to the needy (the unemployed, the incapacitated, the retired); the public schools — fundamental, technical and universitarian (the world's first university was founded in the 10th century's Egypt; most of the modern European rationalism's fathers, philosophers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, formed in Muslims universities); the public hospitals — with even specialized clinics; the public mail; the streets lighting (Seville, in the 10th century’s Spain, was the world’s first city to enjoy such a privilege); the public inns to the wayfarer; among others.

By the first time, the Old World was completely interconnected, either by land or by sea. Science and art were stimulated as never before. So much so that even the European Renaissance started in the Muslim Europe. And, until 300 years ago, it still was the Islamic world which defined the model of successful and global civilization.

And even today, when the white man’s empire starts collapsing, leaving behind a track of destruction which threats even the planet, Islam still represents not only the religion but also the organized movement which has more adepts in the world. Nearly 2 billions: nearly 1/3 of humanity! And which grows more in adhesion. Including among the Latin-Americans — the newest continental civilization on earth.

That, coincidentally, when it starts what some already call the Reformation of Islam: a full updating of the Koran’s message. To wit: that the natural way of life acknowledges the existence of God; and, just for that, obeys with rigor the dictates of reason — among other manners, practicing socialism as well.

“These are signs of the book — a book that makes things clear; a guide; and glad tidings for the believers. [...] The Revelation of this Book is from God, Exalted in Power, Full of Knowledge”  — Koran, sura 27:1-2; e 40:2.

[1] The word generally translated as “religion” in the original means something like “mode of living”.

 

(The text from an interactive documentary with the same title you can watch in http://www.martinsbenperrusi.com/crbst_30.html)