ISLAM : What it is

By
Hassan S. Karmi

Islam and the West

Islam today appears to be counter to the West and the West appears to be counter to Islam. Both cases are historically correct, but for different reasons. For one thing, for instance, the crusades and Zionism originated in the west and not in the east. The West appears to be distinct from any other part in the world and that is due primarily to its being Judeo-Christian. Christianity that was actually preached by Jesus is not known, and the various versions of it that were given by the apostles and the evangelists have continued to be at variance with one another, but through these versions ran two streams, or trends; Pauline and Petrine, after St. Paul and St. Peter. The Pauline trend was generally anti-Jewish. It is thought that the Paulines were responsible for the construction put on the word “testament” in the New Testament. This was that the covenant with the Jews was revoked and that the Jews are no longer  the chosen people. The chosen people are now the Christians instead. During the Crusades in the eleventh and the twelfth centuries the Christians justified their wars against the Muslims and Jews by claiming that they were the chosen people.

The bishops of Rome, the Popes, accepted this Paulines construction and the Western or Catholic church acted on it notwithstanding that the church in Rome was Petrine in origin and was responsible for putting the Old Testament and the New Testament together apparently under the Jewish Petrine influence, into one holy book, The Bible.

The Popes started to wage campaigns against heretics, non-conformists, Jews and Muslims. Apparently the church or churches in the East showed less concern about those problems, especially after the Great Schism (1054), and less enthusiasm about the new Pauline idea  of ”chosenness.” This may explain that the religious landscape was less turbulent and less divisive.

On the contrary, the division in the West between Christians and others, the Gentiles, including the Jews was sharp and bloody. This was in the name of religion, but the infection spread to the secular side. The whole of the West was plunged into violence, conflict, intolerance and tension. This state of affairs persisted until the second schism, now between the Catholics and the Protestants with bloody consequences. Protestantism is thought to be more Petrine than Pauline, and probably less inimical to the Jews, although the Calvinists regarded the Protestants as the new chosen people. As revolutionists, the Protestants thought that their God was not so meek as Christ but so strong as the God of Israel, and this idea was expressed in a declaration by the Founding Fathers.

Throughout all this turmoil one doctrine stood out as dominant, and that was that mankind is sharply divided between “chosen” and “gentile.” The gentiles continued to be the Jews and the Muslims, but the Jews in the Protestant countries felt relieved. They gradually established themselves in Russia, Germany, Britain, North Europe and North America after World War I. The Nazi rule persecuted the Jews together with others. But this was a blessing, for it drew sympathy from the Christians and gave impetus to the Jewish migration to Palestine where the British, under the mandate from the League of Nations, were establishing a national home for the Jews as promised by Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Jews, with the help of the West, got their state in 1948, for which they had worked for nearly two centuries. In the meantime they established centres of power in the Protestant countries where they were no longer regarded as “dirty Jews”. On the contrary, the Jews turned round and started to revive their claim to Chosenness, and in consequence, the Jews got so arrogant as to dare openly to look down even upon the Christians.

The cult of chosenness has shaped to a large extent the history of Europe and the world for many centuries. The geographical discoveries, starting from the fifteenth century opened an outlet for the exercise of the cult. The newly discovered territories encouraged emigration from Europe to the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia. The immigrants to these parts of the world went as colonists and conquerors. They were imbued with the spirit of chosennes and with the idea that the conquered peoples in those parts were gentiles. Slavery was one of the results of colonization. The resources of those parts were plundered, and the peoples were impoverished, leading to the division of mankind into poor and rich and strong and weak. Power was concentrated in the hands of the chosen leaving the gentiles helpless. This new power is twofold: military and financial. The military power was imperialistic, and the wealth and power were combined in the hands of a small number of nations, especially after World War I and the rest went under. Self-interest and lust for power, with a cut-throat competition for profit turned the greedy nations into instruments for plunder and for enslavement. The world was split into master and slave, into robbers and sufferers of robbery, into rich and poor and into superiors and inferiors. The superiors were again the “chosen” people and the underdogs were the “gentiles.” History repeats itself.

Now, in the twentieth century, the world is ruled by systems inspired by the old doctrine of “chosenness”. Even the United Nations is infected with the disease. The permanent members are the “chosen” members. There is a fierce competition among the super powers as to which one is more “chosen”. That is more tyrannical through wealth or might or both. The nuclear powers have the upper hand which means that these nations which are in possession of greater stockpiles of lethal weapons are predominant and answer the description of “chosenness” and are thus more capable to destroy humanity. This is not the end and the worst is to come. But one thing is significant. Israel is emerging as a super-power and a “chosen” power.

If one surveys now what is taking place on the international arena one will find that the situation is a replica of the situation when the Hebrews  conquered Palestine. The same drama is enacted  now by Israel, but the victims now are the Arabs.

Chosenness presupposes the existence of a counterpart, and presupposes favouritism, partiality on the part of God. God according to this doctrine, has likes and dislikes. The doctrine also presupposes double standard, and in consequence leads to anarchy, and encourages everyone to take the law into their hands. Therefore, so many individuals or societies can get away with it. International law and resolutions by the United Nations will go by the board. The only criterion to go by now is “chosenness”, as illustrated by the discrimination exercised in the implementation of international law or The United Nations resolutions on the Middle East and in the world as a whole. Those who are “chosen” or “semi-chosen” like the Israelis go scot free, but the others who are “gentiles” like the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Libyans and the Sudanese, get it hot. They are all Muslims. History repeats itself.

Take the market economy. This is based upon gain or profit for both the seller and the buyer. Each one tries to maximise his profit or gain, like the usurer, or like the Merchant of Venice. This lust for gain was something alien to the Christians before the 17th century. Christiantiy prohibits money lending and the church taught that no Christian should be a merchant. To the Pilgrim forefathers in America, gain was considered as a doctrine of the devil. The Jews were money lenders and merchants all the time. Gain, after the 16th century came gradually to be regarded as a mark of distinction like wealth. Wealth and military power joined hands to become the essentials for superiority or, in other words, for “chosenness”. The market economy of today is inspired by the spirit of “chosenness.”

The spirit of “chosenness” is a spirit of hatred not of love. It breeds to arrogance and contempt for the others, the “gentiles”. It is a spirit of cruelty, of war, of enmity. It will continue to disturb the world, unless the course that the world is taking is reversed. Otherwise, everything will be thrown into chaos, and results in ruin.

But who are the “gentiles”? They are those who are not Judeo-Christians. They are the victims of “chosenness.” They deserve to be annihilated or held in bondage. Their property can be seized with impunity and their wealth can be plundered with equanimity. They are the Amalekites, the Canaanites, the Moors, the Red Indians, the Aztecs, the Turks, the Australian Aborigines, the Maoris. The Muslims everywhere, and the Muslims in Algeria, in Palestine in Bosnia and in Kossovo. The Christian powers which played into the hand of the Jews and helped them to create a state for them in Palestine, turning a fiction, a fable into a fact, were motivated by the Jewish doctrine of “chosenness”. Before that the Moors in Spain met the fate of expulsion and the despoilment of their land. The Algerians were persecuted and were in danger of losing their language and nationality. The Muslims in Bosnia were about to be liquidated, and now it is the turn of the Muslims in Kossovo. The Muslims in the Philippines were constantly being despoiled of their property like the Muslims in Palestine, and were all the time pushed back until they were cornered in an island in the south.

The Muslims in the Middle East are accused unjustly of being “fundamentalists”, that is to say fanatics, and of being terrorists. The Jews in Israel or even in the world are fundamentalists to the core and also terrorists. The Judeo-Christians do not see the difference, because they are blinded by the spirit of “chosenness”. The Americans waged a war against Iraq, ostensibly because it occupied Kuwait, an Arab country. Israel is still occupying parts of Lebanon, parts of Syria and parts of Arab Palestine. This occupation is approved of and financed by the United States. Iraq has been severely punished for, as alleged, possessing weapons of mass destruction. Israel has been in possession of the very same weapons, with the help of the Americans and the Judeo-Christians in Europe, but nothing has been done about that. There must be a reason, and the reason is that Iraq is “gentile” and Israel is “chosen”.

The doctrine of chosenness is divisive and racist. It is exclusive and unjust. It breeds arrogance, hatred and defiance. It presupposes the existence of a superior race, which has the right to enslave the inferior races to achieve this superiority. The chosen people must have superior capability, either through wealth or deadly weapons, or both. Now, the world is in the grip of a ferocious competition for nuclear or mass destruction weapons. It is also in the throes of a struggle for wealth in the market economy. This is the devil-take-the-hindmost competition. The weaker and the poorer nations will have to go under. The law of the jungle is reigning supreme. History repeats itself.

This doctrine, divisive as it is, classifies nations or races into superior ones and inferior ones, into weaker and stronger, into poorer and richer, into friendly and unfriendly, and above all, into chosen and gentile. The weaker, the poorer, and the gentile are despised and regarded, like the lilliputians, as fit only to be trampled on. They must try to feed themselves and defend themselves as best as they can, and should expect no mercy from the chosen peoples.

The idea of neutrality or non-alignment is ridiculed by the chosen peoples, and looked upon as a waste of time. Nations have to be friendly, and in actual fact, subserviant to their  chosen superiors, or run the risk of being trampled underfoot. In the Old Testament, all nations are to be regarded as gentiles if they do not succumb. But as gentiles, they must expect the worst. In the New Testament, a nation, “which is not with us is against us”. There is no middle course. It is like Hobson’s choice. History repeats itself.

Strangely enough, this aggressive and exclusive attitude has a countepart, fear. The two things that man dreads in life is fear and hunger. Hunger may be appeased, but not fear. Fear arises from a feeling that everything around is hostile. But this fear also arises in one if one is aggressive, and the more he is aggressive the more he is afraid. It is like one who hates everyone else. One also thinks that one is hated by everyone, and one is always on the alert. One has only oneself to rely upon, and one is always in danger of one’s life. This phobia takes hold of those who have no confidence in God, because God can be bound by a contract or covenant.

The idea that God is ineffectual, induces man vaguely to believe that God does not exist, and that in consequence he must shift for himself, alone. Jean-Paul Sartre describes this feeling in the following terms:

“He finds it extremely embarrassing to think that God does not exist, for there disappears with him the possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. Everything is permitted if God does not exist, and man is, in consequence, forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon. We are left alone”.

The covenanter is afraid of anything unknown. The covenanter makes it his business to discover this unknown thing and conquer it, because it poses a threat to him. He may conquer it, or do away with it. Thus he is both a constructor and a destroyer at the same time.

A case in point is the geographical discoveries. The discoveries were made under a feeling of fear. Fear from the unknown. Man discovered mysterious lands inhabited by mysterious peoples. The lands must be seized, and the peoples must be subjugated or done away with. This was what actually happened. The loss counterbalance the gain.

Likewise, nature harbours many secrets. They are a threat. They must be known to be controlled. But these mysteries are endless, and so is the struggle, the worry or the rush. Man seems to be doomed to live in travail. He builds and destroys in his hurry to rid himself of fear.

The atom was discovered, and the constituents such as the electron, the neutron, the proton, the positron, etc. were also discovered. What then? What followed was gloom, chaos uncertainty and nothingness. Man was left with nothing but the nuclear weapons which threaten mankind with extinction. And why is the rush?

There are benefits and there are perils. The balance is zero. What about man-made diseases, the extinction of species of birds, animals or fish, the trouble with the ozone layer of earth’s atmosphere, the deforestation of vast areas on the globe, the encroachment of the desert on the arable lands, the widespread pollution, the social disintegration, poverty and unemployment, the cutthroat competition in the present market economy with the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer nations and concentrating poverty in more and more nations, the spread of crime, prostitution, drug addiction, corruption, the scarcity of drinkable waters, etc.? Who is responsible for all these evils? Of course the civilized nations are responsible, especially the “chosen” ones, not the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Confucians or the Muslims. It seems that everyone are impelled willy-nilly towards their own destruction. Is man doomed, and is it true that civilization carries within it the germs of its own destruction?

There remains another evil side-effect of “chosenness.” This is the split personality of the “chosen”, schizophrenia. It is well known now that the West alone is schizophrenic, double-faced, Why?

First of all, to believe in something unbelievable causes tension in one’s soul. This tension is peculiar to the West alone, probably because of the conflict between faith and reason, which means that faith in the West is contrary to reason. The tension rising from this conflict is resolved in the majority of cases in a trauma or in a split in one’s personality or in schizophrenia. The West is known to be schizophrenic. Double talk, double-standard, duplicity, hypocrisy, pious fraud, ambivalence, double-face are all characteristic of the West exclusively. This is very significant, we must also remember  Watergate, Irangate, and Libyagate.

We may look upon “chosenness” from yet a different angle: “Chosenness” may have arisen from man’s need to protect himself, and his desire to have a guarantee to ensure this protection. According to the Old Testament, the Jews satisfied the need by “chosenness” and got the guarantee through a contract the Covenant with their god. But this, however, deepened their fear, and gave them no sense of security. They relied upon themselves, and had a feeling that God was not to be trusted for they were able to bind Him. He was ineffectual. But self-reliance breeds fear, and fear breeds self-reliance - a vicious circle. They had to shift for themselves as best as they could. Self-reliance may lead to resorting to chicanery, decent and fraud on a national scale.

But the main thing is that man in this situation will never feel secure. The Israelis are running after security. They want to be reassured. But they are suspicious all the time, nervous and jittery. The Palestinians, though weak and disarmed, are a threat. The Syrians are a threat. The Iranians are a threat. The Pakistanis are a threat. The Chinese are a threat. Even the North Koreans, thousands of miles away, are a threat. By the same token, even the moon poses a threat. The security that the Israelis want cannot possibly be given to them. In fact the security they seek will be a source of insecurity. Such was the case with “chosenness” and with the covenant. It is a vicious circle.

Now an Israeli in his state of fear, must have an enemy. This enemy is the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs in general. But this security is a figment of fancy because it exists only in the Israeli’s mind. He is the enemy of himself, and here is the dilemma.

Before departing from the subject of bifurcation in the Western behavior, one or two side issues may not be out of place in this context, namely the rise of capitalism and the demise of intellectualism. As regards capitalism, the motive even on a national scale, is a keen desire on the part of the individual to maintain life. But there lurks in this desire an urge to protect oneself against poverty or need. Therefore it is a fear of some sort which impelled individuals late in the Middle Ages to seek gain for gain itself. The period was congenial for the birth of this urge. Individuals as well as groups felt insecure about their present and their future. But a cure was not far to seek The Jews, the chosen people, gave the lead, and the wave rolled on. Therefore the rise of money power, and even of capitalism, may be traced to Jewish influence. On this basis the market economy grew, and one can understand who is at the back of all this. Marx described the Jews as “capitalists”.

Capitalism has been the cause of misery to millions in the West as well as in the colonies. And so is the case of the market economy, with one difference and that is that the misery is global.

Now intellectualism is on the wane, if not already defunct. This is one of the many victims of capitalism. Intellectualism is an outgrowth of the age of reason and the Enlightenment of the 18th century, especially in Europe, its essential doctrine is that reason is the measure, and as such it is implicitly antithetical to capitalism. The greater majority of the intellectuals were leftists, and that is enough to make them a target for attack by the capitalists. They were destroyed. The stage is now clear for the gadgeteers.

After all this survey, Islam seems to be irrelevant to the whole discussion. But in reality it is not so.

To start with, Islam is not divisive like Judaism and Christianity. There is no “chosenness” in Islam.

Islam does not believe that power of whatever source, should be monopolised by man alone, for man is by nature inclined to go astray, and that is the reason for the enactment of laws in a society. In Islam, hegemony, on the basis of wealth or power, is disapproved of. Hegemony on the basis of wealth rests on robbery, and hegemony on the basis of power is tyranny.

In Islam, everything is a unity. The universe is a unity and the human society is a unity. The interrelatedness of the universe is matched by the interrelatedness in society. The poor and the rich are correlated in the sense that the rich have an obligation to fulfil towards the poor, and the poor have the right to demand help from the rich. This help is not charity as much as it is a duty. This means that the state has a duty to maintain the poor, the underpriviliged, the needy, the handicapped and the sick. This is the welfare society.

The objection to this system may be that it encourages disinclination to make money. but money-making was not one of the major and most impelling desire of man, until the doctrine of “chosenness” came into play and man was gradually seized with a frenetic fever to make money, and in consequence, to develop unconcern for the fate of the underdog. Even worldly philosophers began to speculate as to whether the poor are or are not eligible for social security. Even welfare state has been dismantled and for lack of intellectuals to defend it, the field has been left clear for the wolves to do their worst. Again, the same drama began to be enacted: the haves against the have-nots, or the chosen against the gentiles. The underlying, unconscious spur is that the “chosen” refuse to accept the idea that they, with the gentiles are an integral part of the one and the same social unit. They insist on being superior and separate. They are the masters, and that is all there is to it. The fellow feeling is dead. The divisive spirit, rooted in religion, is reigning supreme again.

Basically, Islam is dead against superiority or hegemony on the grounds of wealth or power. The system of inheritance in Islam is against any aspirer to be the ruler or the master in the community, on the grounds of wealth. In the whole history of Islam, there have been no tycoons, croesuses or gnomes. There were no bankers like the Fuggers or the Rothchilds. The idea of a world bank was unknown.

The world bank is a money lender. But it is more than that. It is a power, with a rope, a stranglehold. As such, it is immoral. It is an instrument of subjugation, in the last analysis. It is usury. The profit that it gets from money lending is not its own. The world outside it has a share in it just as the poor have a share in the wealth of the rich, according to Islam. The world bank should render that share by giving assistance to poor countries and/or lending loans to those countries without profit. This can be achieved through the Zakat system in Islam, applied internationally.

The objection to this springs mainly from a consideration, originally religious, that it is unfair and dampens enterprise, with the result that the whole world will be poor. But why should the world be rich and wealth should be in fewer hands? The reply may be that those who are few are the only enterprising part of the community and they deserve to be rich. Islam does not quarrel with that. It only says that the rich have a duty to fulfill towards the poor, and this duty can be fulfilled through the Zakat system.

One subject remains to be considered, namely, why is Islam shunned in the West? In the West, they know a lot about Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism and about the Veda, Zend Avesta, Mahabharata, Upanishad but they know very little about Islam. Nay, they do not want to know. Instead, they show deliberate and venomous hostility to Islam, most undeservedly and its prophet is maligned at every turn. The Qur’an, the holy book is dismissed as a hodge-podge of incoherent rhapsody. When one thinks of that it  strikes one as something odd considering that Islam was a major factor in promoting learning and creating a civilization worthy of note, at a time when Christendom was plunged in darkness, Europe owes a heavy debt to the Muslims in Spain and elsewhere and to their Arabic language.

In the West, they appear to prefer things which are mythical, fanciful, legendary and superstitious even absurd, to things concrete and in broad daylight. They love the stories of the Olympian gods, because they are not true, Tertullian, a church father, used to say about belief in Christianity that he believed in it because it was absurd. The “leap of faith” of Kierkegaard is of the same sort. In Catholicism, a Christian is taught to believe in order to understand. Belief here is not the belief that results from reasoning, but the implicit acceptance of the truth as enunciated by religion. This truth is always presented in a mythical form to be understood as in the case of the birth of Christ and the Athanasian creed. Myth had a big role in the popular folklore in the West. Perhaps man, by nature, likes it that way, and does not take kindly to cases presented in a matter-of-fact way, which makes them dry and unconvincing. For instance, Islam, when presented to the West looks too factual and devoid of any mythical lubrication or imbellishment. It is perhaps for this reason that it is unrelished. The same is true of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. The Qur’an is not a story book as the Bible is. One may say that the Zionists were able to convince the West of the validity of their case because the case is mythical. The Arab case on the other hand, was true, and that was why it is losing and is still losing. But there is another side to the case, namely that a “chosen” people has, by virtue of being “chosen”, claims a kind of divine right to dispose of the life, the property and the destiny of a gentile people, high-handedly. The Palestinians are “gentiles”. A crime perpetrated by a “chosen” is pardonable if it is against a “gentile”. The Israelis in this respect are the “chosen”.

But having said all that, the question why the West, Christian, Jewish and Judeo-Christian, is prejudiced against Islam has various reasons unanswered. It is true that there have been many suggestions to answer the question, but to my mind they are inconclusive.

If you call somebody an “upstart” you mean that he is presumptuous, claiming for himself a rank which he does not deserve. He is a commoner claiming to be of a noble descent. Not everybody can claim to be a scientist, a doctor, a saint or a prophet without credentials. But a man descending from a tribe known to have a prestigious title to nobility or sainthood may lay claim to nobility or sainthood. Such was the case with the people of Israel in the matter of prophethood. As a “chosen” people, they claim to have a monopoly for producing prophets, or even to have semi-prophets. This is the reason why the Jews refused to recognize Jesus as a prophet when he or his disciples claimed that he was not a Jewish prophet. He was described as a heretic, an upstart.

When the Christians claimed to be the new “chosen” people, the old and the new “chosen” peoples denounced the prophet Muhammad as a heretic, a pretender and an impostor. He was denounced by Jews as well as by Christians, and his denunciation by the Christians was worse. He was the most maligned prophet. He was even regarded as a piece of dirt, a bogey, a gentile and who would have any truck with such a person or with his religion. And so, prejudice against Islam in the West is based upon a delusion. And this is why it is deep-rooted. It is psychological and therefore it is morbid. It points markedly to the belief that the West in matters of religion tends to credit affection more than a fact, and this unfortunately has been in operation throughout history. The Soviet Union was regarded as the “focus of evil”, Iraq, Syria, Libya and The Sudan are regarded as the focus of terrorism, simply because they are not Jewish or Christian countries, or even Abyssinian.

Gentiles

To argue with a Jew or a Christian about such delusions will be a waste of time. Their minds are made up. But what is really strange is that the Jews and the Christians who lived in close contact with Muslims and Islam seem to have known very little about Islam and the prophet. They could not have learned so many falsehoods and so many misrepresentations about Islam and conceived a wrong and horrid picture of the prophet. Therefore one would be inclined to think that the campaign of vilification, especially, against the prophet, must have been prompted by venom. But why the venom? Is it because Islam was a foil to Christianity and hence a threat? This looks to be more likely. It is prejudice founded on self-deception. Hence it is a psychosis, a delusion which is not easy to eradicate. This prejudice is chronic, and is now more virulently more active than ever before. Islam remains the most unheeded major religion, and Muhammad remains the most maligned prophet. Islam has been under attack, without let-up, and the prophet has been given all sorts of derogatory names, such as pretender, impostor, charlatan, magician, lecher, beast, epileptic, demon, Mahound, schismatic, heretic, false prophet, wicked, crafty, apostle, etc. etc. The whole West did not have a single good word to say about the prophet. He was condemned blindly, and without trial. The church insisted on all authors and writers to add the word “impostor” after his name.

Islam fared no better. Islam was not to be regarded as a religion in its own right. It was a Christian heresy, a great apostate, idolatry, break-away form of Christianity, religion of vermin, religion of the sword, faint version of Christianity, religion of fanatics, mere imitation of Christianity, a cult that was an enemy of civilization, etc. etc.

In Bibliothèque Orientale of d’Herbelot (1697), there is the following entry under “Mohamet”, quoted by Karen Armstrong:

“This is the famous impostor Mohamet, author and founder of a heresy which has taken on the name of religion.”

Islam was regarded as an imposture. In a book by Prideau: “Mohamet the true nature of imposture”, there is the following statement about the prophet (as quoted by Karen Armstrong):

“For the first part of his life he had a wicked and licentious course, much delighting in rapine, plunder and bloodshed, according to the usage of the Arabs, who mostly followed this kind of life being almost continually in arms, one tribe against another, to plunder and take from each other they could.”

“His two predominant passions were ambition and lust, the course he took to gain empire abundantly shows the former, and the multitude of women he had to do with proves the latter.” The same charges were repeated by Simon Ockley in 1708. In 1741, Voltaire wrote that the prophet was an example of all the charlatans who enslaved their people to religion by means of trickery and lies”. Even as late as 1810, Chateaubriand wrote that the holy book of Islam “was neither a principle for civilization nor a mandate that can elevate a character.”

Such judgements on Islam and the prophet spring mainly from the cult of “chosenness” which is a source of prejudice and fantasy, coupled with crass ignorance. The Europeans who are Judeo-Christians (and they don’t know it) see the straw in the eye of the gentile and do not see the stick in their eyes. Their religious hatred of woman because of the dubious doctrine of the original sin, their emphasis on celibacy and monasticism, their witch hunt, their belief in sorcery and black magic and their familiarity with mountebanks and quack doctors, together with many other distorting delusion have moulded the European thinking and the Judeo-Christian character, in a most virulent way, stamping it with indifference to the woes of the gentiles, unreasoned prejudice, hypocrisy, arrogance, aggressiveness, and love of power. These diseased qualities have been till now the blight of humanity, so much so that one may be induced to think that they will by and by become ruinous.

There is nothing that the West accuses Islam with which is not a characteristic of the West. Western writers accuse the prophet of being ambitious and a lover of women. With regard to ambition, it is not wrong to be ambitious if it is just; but what about the Western empires which have been built by force and on the shoulders of slave peoples? The prophet’s love of women, if it is love, is not lust. Christian writers, before the 20th century have a phobia of talking about any relationship with women. It was indecent, and smelled of lechery and concupiscence. In practice, however, the case has been different, even in high religious circles. This is religious hypocrisy. But in the Qur’an the polygamy is not ordained, and to marry more than one wife is hedged round with restrictions. But if these restrictions are met, man, by marrying another wife legally, becomes immune from promiscuity. An American lady writer, Brigid Brophy,  wrote that the solution for the present chaos in marital relations is to legalize polygamy. If this happens, Christians will be doing what Muslims do. They now divorce like Muslims. And the civil marriage in the office of the marriage registrar is Islamic.

There is a big difference in marriage between Islam and Christianity. Marriage is a civil contract of partnership entered into outside the mosque. It can be dissolved at will by either party. In Christianity marriage is entered into in a church and is indissoluble by divorce. It has a religious nature. This proved to be unworkable, and the religious nature was abandoned, and the Islamic system of civil marriage and divorce was adopted.

There is also in Christianity a link between marriage and the original sin, Marriage remained frowned upon by Christians for many centuries. Women were not to be praised for their charm in song or poetry. The Troubadours inspired in Spain and South of France by the Arabic romantic poetry broke down the barriers, and soon minstrels, good men and lyric poets swept over Europe from the 11th Century to the 13th century, paving the way for the romantic poetry in Europe late in the 18th century. Romantic poetry in Arabic literature goes back to the dawn of the present world era, and Europe is indebted for it to the Troubadours.

Again, the question of marriage with more than one wife is a social question, not necessarily linked with religion. In Christianity and Judaism, marriage is a religious function, with sanctity. This sanctity has been under pressure from the beginning of the Christian era, and perhaps the first crisis of libido versus credo was represented by the adventure of Heloise and Abelard in the 12th century. The crisis was long-lived, causing a psychological tension which was frequently relieved by wreaking the spleen on imaginary adversaries. When the Christians criticise the prophet of being licentious, they do so with the religious consideration at the back of their minds, and with a feeling of frustration. It is like Tertullian inveighing against concupiscence.

Now let us come to the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. As Islam and its prophet are unique, so is the Qur’an. But what does this uniqueness consist of? Well, it consists of its being the only authentic, historical scripture. It is not man-made, based on tradition or hearsay evidence. There are no myths, fables, miracles, stories, fictions or superstitions. The creed of unity is the most striking in the Qur’an. The idea of social justice shines through every Chapter of it. Its insistence upon peaceful coexistence and compromise is unmistakable. The style is of course unique, the discussion of problems, religious or secular, is more philosophical and discursive than just mere talk. Its appeal to logic and demonstration is typical. It urges understanding before belief and not the other way round.

Now, those who can judge the merits or demerits of the Qur’an are those who studied it impartially in its original Arabic texts or those Western translators of it in their native languages. I chose for this purpose the translation of the Qur’an by a Christian theologian, the Rev. J. M. Rodwell. His opinion is given in the following, as stated in his preface to the first edition of the translation in 1909.

Rodwell begins by trying to separate the chaff from the grain or the original ideas from the borrowed ones in the Qur’an. The first assumption by a Christian or a Jewish theologian is that the Qur’an was borrowed from the Old or the New Testament. Here is what he says:

“The sources whence Muhammad derived the materials of his Koran are over and above the more poetical parts, which are his own creation, the legends of his time and country, Jewish traditions based upon the Tamlud, or perverted to suit his own purpose and the floating Christian traditions of Arabia and South Syria. At a late period of his career no one would venture to doubt the divine origin of the entire book. But at the commencement the case was different. The people of Mecca spoke of it as the work of a poet, as a collection of antiquated or fabulous legends, or as palpable sorcery. They accused him of having confederates, and even specified foreigners who had been his coadjutors. Such were Salman the Persian, to whom he may have owed the description of Heaven and Hell, which are analogous to those of the Zendavesta, and the Christian monk Sergius, or Baheira as the Muhammadans term him. From the latter, and perhaps from other Christians, especially slaves naturalized in Mecca, Muhammad obtained access to the teaching of the Apochryphal Gospels and to many popular traditions of which those Gospels are the concrete expression. His wife Khadijah, as well as her cousin, Waraqa, a reputed convert to Christianity, and Muhammad’s intimate friend, are said to have been well acquainted  with the doctrines and sacred books of both Jews and Christians. And not only were several Arab tribes in the neighbourhood of Mecca converts to the Christian faith, but on two occasions Muhammad had travelled with his uncle Abu Talib, as far as Bosdra, where he must have had opportunities of learning the general outlines of Oriental Christian doctrine, and perhaps of witnessing the ceremonial of their worship.”

Now, obviously the attempt so far of Rodwell is to show without a tangible proof that Islam is either a Christian or Jewish heresy. The attempt has failed for obvious reasons, Christianity was not yet solidly formed and the Talmud was written by Rabbis, and would not be believed by Muhammad.

The Reverend then continues:

“It has been supposed that Muhammad derived many of his notions about Christianity from Gnosticism and that it is to numerous gnostic sects to which the Koran alludes when it reproaches the Christians with having “split up their religion into parties.” But for Muhammad to have confounded Gnosticism with Christianity itself, its prevalence in Arabia must have been far more universal than we have any reason to believe it really was. In fact, we have no historical authority for supposing that the doctrines of those heretics were taught or professed in Arabia at all. It is nevertheless possible that the gnostic doctrine concerning the crucifixion was adopted by Muhammad as likely to reconcile the Jews to Islam, as a religion embracing both Judaism and Christianity, if they might believe that Jesus had not been put to death, and thus find the stumbling block of the atonement removed from their path. The Jews would in this case have been called upon to believe in Jesus as being what the Koran represents him, a holy preacher, like the patriarch Enoch or the prophet Elijah, had been miraculously taken from the earth.”

Then the Reverend asserts that “it is quite clear that Muhammad borrowed in several points from the doctrines of the Ebionites, Essenes and Sabides.” And he goes on to give other sources such as the Talmud from which the prophet is supposed to have drawn his material in the Qur’an. The writer starts by assuring implicitly that the prophet must have known Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and other languages to have been able to understand his borrowings. His other presupposition is that the Old and the new Testament, written by ordinary men, are the major source of inspiration for Muhammad.

In one of his remarks about the Prophet, the Reverend says: “And, whatever Muhammad may himself profess in the Koran as to his ignorance even of reading and writing and however strongly modern Muhammadans may insist upon the same point - an assertion by the way contradicted by many good authors- there can be no doubt that to assimilate and work up his materials, to fashion them into elaborate Suras, to fit them for public recital, must have been a work requiring much time, study and meditation, and presumes a far greater degree of general culture than any orthodox Muslim will be disposed to admit.”

In this, the Reverend made a significant concession, but it fell short of conceding originality to the prophet. He further says:“The evidence rather shows that in all he did and wrote, Muhammad was actuated by a sincere desire to deliver his countrymen from the grossness of its debasing idolatories; that he was urged on by an intense desire to proclaim that great truth of the Unity of the Godhead. The more insight we obtain from undoubted historical sources into the actual character of Muhammad the less reason do we find to justify the strong vituperative language poured out upon his head by Maracci, Prideaux and others.”

On the Qur’an he says: “It must be acknowledged too that the Koran deserves the highest praise for its conception of the divine nature.” But in a note, appended to the preface he says: “A line of argument to be adopted by a Christian missionary in dealing with a Muhammadan should be not to attack Islam as a mass of error but to show that it contains fragments of undisputed truth, that it is based on Christianity and Judaism partially understood.”

Here is where the Reverend blundered. Islam is not in any way based upon Judaism or Christianity. It is totally different, and there is nothing in the narratives of the scriptures of both religions that would seem to be fit for borrowing and incorporating into the body of the Qur’an.

It should be noted that the basic mission of the Qur’an is as follows:

1-  to show where things have gone wrong;

2-  to show how the error can be corrected;

3-  to lay down rules for a course along a straight path, Sirat Mustaqim;

4-  to urge Muslims to commit themselves to this path, and never go astray.

This commitment is Islam. This system, with the philosophy behind it, could not have been contemplated by Judaism or Christianity or, for that matter, any other religion in the area then and before. What distinguishes Islam is that it is truly monotheistic and truly original. What stories there are in the Qur’an about Adam and paradise, about Noah and the Flood, about Jonah and the Fish, about the Exodus and about Jesus are true in so far as they were believed to be true by the people of the time. Islam does not believe in myths, miracles, legends, fictional stories or romances, especially when related to religion.

This is a major difference in favour of Islam. There are others, equally major, which should distinguish Islam as the only authentic civilized religion when put to the real test. The greatest wonder is that the so-called civilized nations ignore this henotheism and prefer to accredit what is mythical and dubious,

Islam is the only monotheistic religion, Judaism is a monolatry and Christianity is trinitarian. Other religions are either polytheistic or pagan. If monotheism is the highest stage in the evolution of religion then Islam is more advanced than any other religion.

Islam is authentic in the sense that its prophet is a historical figure and its holy book, the Qur’an, is a historical document. Other religions do not have this historicity. There are now doubts about the historicity of Moses and Christ. The books of the Old Testament are not historical, nor are the books of the New Testament. The Jews consider the Talmud, although written by the rabbis, as a more credible source. The gospels are not historical nor are they synoptic.

Islam is a universal religion, meant for all mankind. The Old Testament, on the contrary, is for the Jews and about the Jews. The Gospels are about Jesus.

The Islamic creed is very simple, and is not a creed peculiar to one particular nation, as the Jewish creed is, or peculiar to one single person, as the Christian creed is.

The idea of Unity in Islam is unique. By virtue of this Islam is unitive. The doctrine of chosenness in both religions is discrimanotory. The whole Western civilization, in its genesis, is indebted to this doctrine. The geographical discoveries from the 16th century, opened a new alien world of gentiles and provided a vast field for the exercise of chosenness. The new discovered countries and peoples should be exploited to the utmost and their resources should be plundered. The natives should be enslaved and be blocked from developing their capacities. They were condemned to be ignorant and to live segregated as foul swine. The role assigned to them was that of a second class citizen.

Meanwhile, in Europe, as a result of these discoveries, the Europeans were girding up their loins to provide the conquerors with instruments to tighten up their grip on the colonies, to enable them to ire the resources of gentiles. The impulse to subjugate was at the bottom of the thrust to invent and industrialize. This is the origin of the industrial revolution in the 18th century. Morally, that revolution is reprehensible. The advances in science that followed were first tainted with the same infection. The need to tighten the grip on the gentiles entailed the dwarfing of the potentialities of the natives and the blocking of every path towards improvements. This was a crime.

The sharp division of mankind into Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, inherent in Judaism and Christianity, is still active with a vengeance in the 20th century, practiced by the “chosen” powers in many fields. Take for instance self-determination. The Muslims in Palestine are denied self-determination, while the Jews who in actual fact had nothing to do at all with Palestine were granted self-determination on a plate. The Muslims in the Philippines were despoiled of their land and were thrust into a corner, but were denied self-determination. Cyprus was originally a Turkish island but eventually the Greek Cypriots who were originally immigrants got self-determination. The Muslims in Georgia and the Caucasus, fought for independence for many many years but they got nothing for their pains. Similarly, the Bosnians and the Kosovan Muslims are denied self-determination after so many years of struggle. It will be remembered that Kosovo in Serbia is almost totally Muslim and is ethnically almost totally Albanian, and yet the Serbs insist on its remaining under their rule, and if the Kosovans refuse they will be expelled from their land and property confiscated or they will be “cleansed” out as the Muslims were massacred in Montenegro in 1711 because they refused to be converted to Christianity, or as the Bosnian Muslims who were being systematically liquidated by Mikailwitch early during the second World War, or as the Bosnians who were recently being “cleansed” out by the Serbs. The genocide exercised against the Muslims was because they were Muslims, gentiles, Lilliputians. East Timor was given independence from Indonesia but not the Muslims in the Philippines. Frederick Barbarossa (1123-90) is said to have systematically killed all the Muslims in Sicily.

The Israelis in Palestine, with the connivance of the West, and the Serbs are taking a leaf out of the same book, the book of “chosenness”. The Literary Digest dictionary, under Armenia says: “Between 1894 and 1915 the Turks massacred most of their Armenians subjects because they were Christians,” this is of course a lie. But what is dead true is that the Muslims massacred in Montenegro, in the Caucasus, in Palestine, in Bosnia, in Kossovo and anywhere else were and are massacred because of their being Muslims. Islam and the Muslims do not deserve this.

Islam and the Muslims have a case against the West. In trying this case logic and truth should be set aside because they are not the criteria for judging the case. The refractory point in the psychology of a “chosen” is the stumbbing block, unaffected by logic, facts or by any sense of justice. The case will lose any way. The defence should base the plea on something other than justice, in the same way as when a weak nation has a case in the Security Council against a super power, as when, for instance Libya, Iraq or Iran has a case against the United States.

Well, then, what is to be done? It looks as if the weak nations, the gentiles can only have the carrot or the gun, slavery in either case. This is the norm in the world of the 20th century.

The Muslims have to decide whether to succumb or resist. Islam tells them not to succumb to injustice, and this is the true fundamentalism. Muslims are fundamentalists only because they resist injustice and this brings them into conflict with the West. Chosnennes breeds injustice and when Muslim fundamentalists fight injustice they really fight “chosenness”, and indirectly fight the West. The source of “chosenness”, enshrined in Judaism and Christianity is the classification of humanity into sheep and goats, into superior and inferiors, into elects and outcasts, into Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, and into Jews and non-Jews. There can’t be any justice in this classification.

By the way, fundamentalism in Islam is not terrorism. Far from it. Neither fanaticism. When the West accuses Muslims of being fanatics and terrorists it is only trying to cover up. Nay, the whole history of Western civilization has been a panorama of wars, bloodshed, enslavement, plunder, extermination, injustice, domination, and chosenness. Even logic and science has been coerced into subservience to this inhumane attitude. To be tied to the principle of justice is a curb on human waywardness. This has not been the case throughout the history of Western civilization. And if one dares to say that Islam in this respect is antithetical to the West, there will immediately be a violent storm of denials. The storm will be like the storm raised by Jews all over the world if one dares to deny any claim by the Jews relating for instance to the holocaust or to the number of Jews killed in the German Nazi concentration camps. The Jews, like the Christians, are supposed to say the truth and to contradict them is an invitation to trouble. This preposterous attitude is the order of the day. Any documentary proof of any claim by Muslims to the virtue of Justice for instance, is met with derision and scorn, and the result is that a falsehood may be a truth and that a truth may be a falsehood. This is what is actually happening in the world now. The Jews in Palestine are the rightful owners and the Palestinian original owners are intruders. This rape of justice can happen only in the West. It is an integral part of the Western civilization.

Justice in Islam is fundamental and one of its pillars. It springs from the principle of unity which is basic in Islam. The human society, for instance, is a unity, the sections are interrelated, as a corporate body. This conception of the human society is far in advance of any other in any religion, before and after. The welfare state was a purely Muslim idea. The idea is a negation of injustice which, even now, could be regarded as the hall mark of the Western society, based as it is on “chosenness”, apartheid and discrimination. Islam, as ordained in the Qur’an and the tradition, is unitive and not divisive.

This is only one example where justice is the norm. There are others on the same principle, especially in international relations where justice merges with non-aggression. “Chosenness” is inevitably aggressive and consequently unjust. Aggression takes many forms, especially those invented and practised by the West. Those include expulsion, extermination, as well as enslavement, suppression of any endeavour to improve. These crimes were perpetrated callously against the helpless gentiles, under the aegis of the most-glorified civilization.

Two more things should be added to emphasise further the contrast between what Islam enjoins and what “chosenness” dictates. The first as stated in the Qur’an as the general principle of morals is that every Muslim ought to do what is good and to refrain from what is evil. This negates injustice and aggression. But, if you are a “chosen”, injustice and agression are permissible. The proof is that “chosenness” has been responsible for so many wars of aggression with so much savagery and bloodshed till now.

The second is the view that mankind, although composed of various tribes and peoples should learn to live in peace and in reciprocate recognition. The view is given in a verse in the Qur’an. It negates totally the doctrine of “chosenness”, but stresses the idea of peaceful coexistence as a modus vivendi.

These two Islamic injunctions are intended to deal with a world social problem, namely “chosenness”. This problem seems to have been neglected by the sociologists and philosophers of all ages in the West, perhaps for religious considerations. “Chosenness” nevertheless is undeniably an important factor in the formation of one’s character. Man in the West does not work to live, he works to live and compete, to be rich. As an urge to competition it creates problems, one of which is an increase in the number of the poor. To deal with this increase requires measures to remedy the situation, but these measures will create their own problems, and the problems will create new problems, and so on indefinitely. It looks as if there is nothing stable except perhaps “chosenness”.

The rule of peaceful consistence referred to above is inadmissible in the West because it implies equality, and equality is anathema to the West. A gentile should not aspire to be a chosen. If he does so he will be suppressed. This is the case with Pakistan, Iraq and Iran especially in trying to be strong to defend themselves. They should not have the right to defend themselves because they are gentiles. To defend themselves is an aggression. The Kossovan Muslims in Yugoslavia who are trying to live in peace, independent of the Serb oppressors, are regarded as rebels and should be quelled by eviction or massacre as the Jews did to the Palestinian Muslims and Arabs. What prompts the Serbs to do what they did in Bosnia and what they are doing in Kossovo is simply the doctrine of “chosenness”.

One may justifiably think that the doctrine of “chosenness” may be responsible for more than that in many areas. It may be generally responsible for the global destruction of human life, plants and animals and the widespread pollution everywhere, in the air, in water, in the environment, Lynn White finds a rationale for environmental destruction in the Christian view of mankind as separate from the rest of nature (Social Poblems, p. 423, pub. - Little, Brown and Company, 1980). This is very significant. If stresses the element of separateness in the two religions: Judaism and Christianity, and this is exactly what is meant by saying that the two religions are divisive, in contrast with Islam which is unitive, as explained somewhere in this book. The result of it all is, as Perrucci and Pilisut say, is that the present culture in the West is a death culture (Social Problems p.5).

The attitudes of Islam towards nature, including plants, animals, environment and the soil is that of solicitude. Islam forbids the destruction of animals or plants. Animals have souls like human beings. Water, plants and energy should be publicly owned, and should be preserved. In the Qur’an those who play havoc with these natural resources are condemned. The principle in Islam is cultivation and not ruination or destruction.

The test of a system as to whether it is beneficial or detrimental lies in the amount of attention it pays to the means which ensure contentment to the individual as well as to the society and to the degree of harmony between the two. This means that the individual should feel that he is an integral part of the community and the community should feel that the individuals are integral parts of it, in the sense that the destiny of the individual is tied up with the destiny of the community. The Prophet, in a tradition of his, encapsulates this idea as follows: Muslims are bound together in a compact and interrelated structure. This means that the Islamic community is a unity, and not, as in the Western society, binary, dichotomous and disconnected. It is interrelated because it is interdependent, and Muslims are pulled together towards a focal paint, as if by a centripetal force. The human society as a whole with its peoples and races is similarly interrelated and interdependent, with no discrimination on the basis of colour or race, all united in the sight of God, the only God. In contrast to this unitive view of Islam, Judaism and Christianity stress the sharp division of human society into “chosen” and “gentile”. Here is an example of this inhuman attitude. In the Book of Education in current use in Israel, the following exhortation occurs:

“And at the root of this religious obligation (to keep a Gentile slave) is the fact that the Jewish people are the best of the human species, created to know their Creator and worship him, and worthy of having slaves to serve them.” This Jewish spirit inspires all what the Jews do to the Palestinian Arabs in the way of oppressing them, despoiling them of their lands, expelling them and even killing them. How could the civilized world connive at such a savagery? How could the United States have the heart to lend support to a regime of this sort?

The Western culture is based fundamentally on conflict. In the Western society everyone is against everyone else. This is the trend in everything. Even in science, this divisiveness is basic. Nature is seen as composed of “building blocks”, with separate entities, unrelated to one another and not as single unity in which every element is complemental and interdependent.

The conflict in the Western idea of nature and society, gives rise to strife between the “building blocks” and the ethnic or religious groups. The doctrine of the “chosenness” will compound the strife, because the doctrine was anterior to the compartmentalised view of nature.

The Western culture of death breeds hatred among nations - hatred to the death. It is a sort of venom that knows no bounds, not only against men, but also against animals, plants, water, air. This is apparent in the destructive wars, devastation of nature and dissolution of society.

To save man from this destructive tendency a radical change in attitude is essential. The compartmentalization of nature and society should be abandoned, in favour of a scientific new philosophy and the dismantling of the doctrine of “chosenness”. The doctrine of unity in Islam may be the remedy.

The West, for no rhyme or reason, bears Islam and the Muslims a grudge. One may feel inclined to think that the source of this grudge is religious. Islam, as is well-known, denies that Jesus Christ was killed by the Jews, as the Jews claim in the Talmud, and denies that Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans. This denial balks the Jews of their major aim, namely to punish Jesus Christ by death for his apostasy, as a Jew, from Judaism and cuts across the roots of Christianity by rejecting the doctrine of the Original Sin, and rejecting along with it the doctrine of Atonement and the claim that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer or the Saviour. By the way, the doctrine of the Original Sin was framed by St. Augustine of Hippo. The doctrine was denied by Palegius. Anatole France described the doctrine as a childish idea.

It will be remembered that the theory advanced here is that the feeling in man of being left alone without support is the genesis of self-reliance which is in turn the spring of fear which engenders aggression. This view may not have been accepted by writers on fear in Judaism and Christianity, perhaps to avoid linking up this kind of fear with the doctrine of “chosenness”.

There is, however, a well-known book on the subject of fear in Judaism and Christianity under the title of “Christianity and Fear” by Oscar Pfister, pastor in Zurich. The sub-title of the book is: A study in History and in the psychology and Hygiene of Religion”.

In this book the author attempts “a historical study of Judeo-Christian religion” which is “bound to reveal a large number of neurotic aberrations in the emotional and the doctrinal spheres, and numerous distortions in the religion and in the practical ethics taught by Jesus Christ. Many readers as well as myself have expressed grief at the monstrous volume of anti-Christianity discoverable in the history of Christianity. The history of Christianity which ought to unite men in competing in the realization of the love of Jesus in every walk of life, in fact revealed innumerable instances of savage and uncharitable disputes about dogmas, sacraments and ecclesiastical powers. It shows how innumerable heretics were tortured and killed, allegedly in the name of Jesus; how hundreds and thousands of witches were burnt to death by men who thought themselves to be God’s Champions and how murderous wars were waged with hate and savagery about the eucharist”.

These questions and many others posed by the author need answering, and that is the task he took upon himself to perform, and he gives analysis of the character of every founder of Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Calvinism and how each was affected by fear, fear neurosis and fear compulsion. In all this he assumes that the Bible is a historical document, an assumption which is challenged by Biblical criticism which has gone so far as to cast doubt on the historicity of Moses and Christ.

In his analysis of the characters of the religious leaders, he begins with Moses, the putative founder of Judaism. The new religion, the author says, can be expressed by the formula: “ Israel is the people of Jahveh, the god of Israel. Jahveh is above all things, a god of war, helping his elect people. Moses was not a monotheist. He believed in other gods besides Jahveh, and monotheism in its normal usage always denotes the belief that there is one god and one god only. Jahveh’s love of Israel does not exclude the existence of sinister and cruel traits. He is sometimes described as the “Supreme Demon”. At one time, Jahveh turned his furious wrath against the worshippers of the golden calf and through the mouth of Moses commands the Levites to slay them, “every man his brother and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour, so that about three thousand were killed.” The author quotes Freud as saying that Jahveh was “the savage, cruel and warlike national god of Moses”. The author then goes on to speak about the harsh god of Deuteronomy and later. He quotes the following commandment from Deuteronomy: “And thou shall consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall not deliver them; thine eye shall have no pity upon them.”

But the author turns apologetic, and believes that “God’s wrath is no more than the converse of His holy love”. And says that “despite His strictness He is just.” Then he sets out his theory of fear _ fear of God and fear of previous sins.

In talking about Jesus Christ, he begins by saying that “a growing number of the Lord’s sayings as recorded in the Bible have been challenged as spurious”, and “many of the most important texts, formerly keystones in the historical development of dogma and even in the formation of the churches and denominations are vigorously disputed by modern scholars. He quotes Albert Schweizer as saying, “The Jesus of Nazareth who came into the world as the Messaiah, taught the moral nature of the Kingdom of God, founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and died to sanctify his work, never existed.” He also quotes Rudolf Bultman as saying: “In my view it is virtually impossible today to know anything about the life and personality of Jesus.”

Nevertheless the author relies upon tradition, and thinks that such destructive sayings, maybe invalidated tomorrow. He regards Jesus as different from Moses, and says that “if we study the conflict of Jesus with one part of the Mosaic Law we easily find that it took place solely but also uncompromisingly when his own merciful and ministering love conflicted with the rigorous harshness of the Old Testament Law.”

Jesus, as the author says was compelled to claim an authority superior to that of Moses. He felt within himself a divine mission to come to man as a helper, deliverer, saviour and redeemer, and consequently to execute a far greater work than that laid upon Moses, The people then required a leader and he felt himself divinely called to assume the leadership. By this, the author says, Jesus was able to overcome the fear and compulsion neuroses of Judaism. It is the love of God and man, not as a doctrine but as an experience and as a form of life, and as an urge sending him on his mission.

Then the author contrasts the harsh God of Israel with Jesus Christ the embodiment of love and mercy. Fear is caused by punishment of sinners and by the terrifying picture of hell where their (The Sinners’) worms dieth not and the fire is not quenched.” This view about sinners and their terrifying punishment in hell arises from the consideration in Christianity that man, though he is the child of God, is evil by nature.

After that, Oscar Pfister speaks about St. Paul who is reputed to be the founder of Christianity. The enemy of the Jews, and the enemy of woman. But, according to the author one of the main worries that exercised Paul’s mind was fear _ fear from divine wrath, from sin, from the carnal nature of man, and how to get rid of it or to alleviate it. Paul thinks that Christianity is the religion of love and consequently of overcoming fear. He believed that sinfulness was the fate of mankind. He also believed that the human body was sinful flesh.

Later leaders of Christianity such as Luther and Calvin, were also effected by the same sort of fear. The Jews had a fear peculiar to their religion in which God is the antithesis of Christ who is stated to be the God of mercy and love.

But this talk about fear in Judaism and Christianity implies an idea of divisiveness, in spite of the concept in Christianity that God is the father and we are all His children. The struggle against fear, real or imaginary, in both Judaism and Christianity, has bred a notion that a Jew or a Christian has an enemy of some sort and that this enemy, actual or fictitious must be sought out and overcome. Therefore, a Jew and a Christian must be ready with money or power to overcome the enemy. The whole history of Judaism and Christianity is characterised by this aggressive spirit. Even today, the world is always divided into warring camps, as it was in the days of the “Chosen” and the “Gentiles”, the days of “Christian” against infidels, heretics and schismatics, and Catholic against Protestant, in bloody long religious wars. Now the division is between Socialism and Capitalism, between the north and the south, between the Chosen and the Gentiles, between the Judeo-Christians, represented by the United States and Israel, and the rest of the world. The United States has decided to build a strategic net against missile attack. This is because of fear … fear of an enemy.