The Gospel according to
St. Matthew
Chapter 5
The Holy Bible
King James Version 2000Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Mohammed:
Medina Suras
The Chapter of Women
[Chapters from the Koran]
The Harvard Classics 1909–14But if there befalls you grace from God, he would say—as though there were no friendship between you and him—‘O would that I had been with thee to attain this mighty happiness!’ Let those then fight in God’s way who sell this life of the world for the next; and whoso fights in God’s way, then, be he killed or be he victorious, we will give him a mighty hire.
What ails you that ye do not fight in God’s way, and for the weak men and women and children, who say, ‘Lord, bring us out of this town 19 of oppressive folk, and make for us from Thee a patron, and make for us from Thee a help?’
Those who believe fight in the way of God; and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Tâghût; fight ye then against the friends of Satan, verily, Satan’s tricks are weak.
Do ye not see those to whom it is said, ‘Restrain your hands, and be steadfast in prayer and give alms;’ and when it is prescribed for them to fight then a band of them fear men, as though it were the fear of God or a still stronger fear, and they say, ‘O our Lord! why hast thou prescribed for us to fight, couldst thou not let us abide till our near appointed time?’ Say, ‘The enjoyment of this world is but slight, and the next is better for him who fears;’—but they shall not be wronged a straw.
... Why are ye two parties about the hypocrites, when God hath overturned them for what they earned? Do ye wish to guide those whom God hath led astray? Whoso God hath led astray ye shall not surely find for him a path. They would fain that ye misbelieve as they misbelieve, that ye might be alike; take ye not patrons from among them until they too flee in God’s way; but if they turn their backs, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them, and take from them neither patron nor help,—save those who reach a people betwixt whom and you is an alliance—or who come to you while their bosoms prevent them from fighting you or fighting their own people. But had God pleased He would have given you dominion over them, and they would surely have fought you. But if they retire from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace,—then God hath given you no way against them.
Ye will find others who seek for quarter from you, and quarter from their own people; whenever they return to sedition they shall be overturned therein: but if they retire not from you, nor offer you peace, nor restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them;—over these we have made for you manifest power.
There are many who will say, regarding the undeclared war since the atrocities of 9-11, that we are not in a religious war, that we are not to wage war on Islam but on the terrorists who seek to embroil the world of Islam in a global struggle against anything non-Islamic. Make no mistake, it is a religious war to the terrorists. Let us now explore the fundamental differences (religious/cultural/philosophical in nature) in belief systems as they apply to the current conflict.
If Islamism is to be eradicated, it will have to be done by Muslims. It will become apparent why, shortly, for what Osama bin Laden seeks to export worldwide is a sub-sub-sect of Islamic faith. [The following essay regarding Islam, Christianity, and Judaism will be cursory at best where fundamentals of three great religions are concerned. No attempt will be made to completely summarize what takes vast written volumes just to enumerate. We will try only to touch the highlights as they apply to the current worldwide struggle against terrorism.]
The three great religions of note in the current struggle are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Setting Christianity aside for a moment, it is essential to note that both Jew and Arab are descended from the patriarch, Abram, or Abraham.
In scriptures acknowledged by both Islam and Judaism the story of Abram’s first two sons is the line of original demarcation for these two great religious traditions. Arabs claim the blessings of God through Abram to Ishmael; Jews claim the blessings of God through Abram to Isaac; there are people to be studied that are older than both, the Bedouin, who inhabited the world in which Abram sojourned and whose traditions were undoubtedly known and followed by Abram before and after God called him out of Ur. We will get back to the Bedouin in a moment.
Both Judaism and Islam claim human lineage back to Adam. That is essential, especially for Islam since the holy Kaaba in Mecca is believed by Muslims to have been rebuilt many times since Adam’s first construction. [The Kaaba predates Judaism and Islam; readers should search this word to dig deeper into Muslim traditions. We won’t try to elucidate the Kaaba here ... http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/06791.html.]
Both Judaism and Islam lay claim to interaction with God, the Creator of us all. Both religions have at their core the notion of earning from God a place in the afterlife. Both religions deem evil as a real force, personified in a being that is not God. Both religions at one time or now may be understood as a matrix of religion and culture, thus both religions have traditions of non-separation of ‘church and state’; both—especially the extreme fundamentalist forms of both—are still deeply engrossed in this meld of religion and societal institutions. This is very different from our American way of thinking, but it is not necessarily bad, just a different way of constructing society.
The essence of our current clash with Islamism (the radicalized deadly tumor growing near the heart of Islam) may be understood best as totalitarian, where adherents seek to force fundamental religious behavior on others and justify killing in the name of this ‘conversion’, even to the extent of killing without remorse those fellow Muslims who do not follow the strict rigors of Islamism.
It is important to note that adhering to strict fundamental rigors of Islam doesn’t necessarily breed killing such as seen 9-11, for there is in Saudi Arabia the sect of Wahhabism which is very restrictive, yet this sect doesn’t seek to kill any who do not conform, Muslim or non-Muslim … but it is from this fundamentalist form of Islam that Osama bin Laden has arisen, and some few in Saudi Arabia have supported him all along.
For American understanding, let’s compare this phenomenon of Islamism to a very restrictive sect within the Baptist denomination of Christianity gradually building a hatred for modern life with its degradation of women, children, the poor, the … well, you get the gist; this imaginary sect of radical Baptists become so incensed that they take up terrorism against television networks and bars and strip joints to force an end to these abominations as they perceive the clash of their belief system and the world around them. Radicals seeking to force adherence to ‘righteousness’, as they define it, would perceive their struggle as a holy war, while America in general would perceive their acts and their underlying beliefs as totalitarian in nature.
We must not make the mistake of painting the entire of Saudi Arabia with the radical paint of bin Laden’s ‘holy aggression/holy terror’ for the sect from which his beliefs arise is at peace within Saudi Arabia and they have every right to exist and live as they wish within their own society. As contrast, we don’t have the right to force women’s liberation and ‘abortion on demand’ on societies outside of America, no matter what N.O.W. may claim; emancipation of women, if it is to occur, must occur within the context of each society as it exists in the arena of its cultural heritage; if we try to force adherence to our cultural peculiarities, we are behaving as an Osama bin Laden. Osama seeks to export by force his fundamentals, to ‘evangelize’ the entire world and force conversion to his belief system, in his demented service to allah, the allah of his definition, not Allah of the Koran, the Allah of Islam.
Let’s turn now to Islam and Judaism as different from Christianity, in the context of our current struggle against terrorism. If Islam and Judaism are religions of works, of earning blessings from God, Christianity may be seen as religion of grace not of works to achieve paradise; paradise is to be earned in Islam and Judaism, whereas it is the gift of God in Christ as defining Christianity, then the good works follow as evidence of a transformed soul. In a way, the ‘law’ of Judaism and the submission of Islam are to be contrasted with the grace principle of Christianity. Where Islam has most fundamental issue with Christianity is the notion of the trinity, of God in three persons, for the basic tenet of Islam is ‘there is only Allah’, not three god persons, thus Islam defines Christianity as polytheism, yet they recognize Jesus as a prophet from God. Interestingly, the founder of Wahhabism, Sheik Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahhab (18th century), took a similar approach to the veneration of Muhammed, the Prophet of Islam, as of Jesus described above; he believed Muslims raised the worship of Muhammed to a level of polytheism, equating the Prophet with the position of Allah, and to him this was an abomination.
Before there was Judaism or later Islam, there were Bedouin (actually, nomadic Arabs) all across the Middle East and North Africa. The Bedouin have a well-defined system of ethic and culture that holds highest esteem for the family and tribe, loyalty and honesty. Bedouin tradition is the garden from which the cultural aspects of Judaism and Islam have arisen, though I doubt the high leaders of either religion would admit to such an anthropology.
The ferocity with which Islamic and Judaic traditions remain inflexible has roots in the traditions of the Bedouin. To understand how the Saudis can allow our involvement for commerce and defense, while expecting us—as far as possible—to not violate their rigors of religion and societal construction, one should look to Bedouin traditions, not bin Laden’s insanities. Ruling the kingdom, al Saud family has sought to bring some measure of modernity to the people while maintaining the rigors of their faith, but they haven’t sought to kill anyone that does not submit … being tossed out of Saudi Arabia is fairly easy, but the guest that does not blaspheme their faith is welcome in a way few in the West could understand, for generosity is a Bedouin grace and al Saud have raised this grace to a high art one can understand only after experiencing it directly, and not with a Western filter!
We should differentiate the totalitarian nature of bin Laden’s extreme Islamism from the great tradition of Islam that can co-exist and has co-existed for over a thousand years. Yes, Wahhabism of the Saudis is extreme faith, but even in its extreme it has shown the ability to co-exist if treated with the dignity any religious fervor is allowed in a complex world of clashing cultures. Osama bin Laden’s mutation from Wahhabism cannot co-exist with other religions nor with less extreme Muslim traditions, and thus it is a danger for all humankind, not the least of which are the faithful in the Middle East, especially Saudis who are not on his wavelength of death and mayhem.
What bin Laden represents and is seeking to achieve is best understood as totalitarian, as subjugation, with annihilation for those who will not bow before his extreme. Because of this holy terror, Osama bin Laden and his network must be eradicated from the earth, and the use of terror must be ended in theaters of international and regional interaction.
Osama—and most casting their lot with him in his extremism—would have the state of Israel annihilated and the Middle East wedded to Islamism, ‘purifying’ the region and eventually the entire world to the exclusion of all other faiths. To achieve that goal, these fanatics will destroy America with religious zeal, believing they generate a debt owed to them by God that they will collect the instant of their death, forcing their way even into paradise. Such insanity (for they awaken in Hell) cannot be negotiated with and certainly cannot be allowed to continue as these terrorist acquire weapons of mass destruction and the delivery systems, for they have proven they will go to any extreme to foster their totalitarian ends; they don’t want to co-exist! This had better not be Islam’s future, for once the evil jinns of biological weapons are released en masse they cannot be stuffed back into their rocks, back into their confinements. [When you read the history of Bedouin, the reference to jinns will be apparent. It would behoove we Westerners to strive for better understanding of Bedouin traditions that have lent their influence forward in time in the Middle East, for they are fundamental to Israeli and Islamic thinking processes.]