And he renounced his faith at 60 (II)

Yet there is the third category in this widening geography of belief, unbelief, and, indeed, disbelief. The latter belongs to those who believe in, permit the oxymoron, disbelief. Yes! These are humans who have made the ‘reasoned’ choice to impugn, delegitimize, and invalidate all belief systems, Christianity, Islam, traditionalism, etc, either based on ignorance or […]

Yet there is the third category in this widening geography of belief, unbelief, and, indeed, disbelief. The latter belongs to those who believe in, permit the oxymoron, disbelief. Yes! These are humans who have made the ‘reasoned’ choice to impugn, delegitimize, and invalidate all belief systems, Christianity, Islam, traditionalism, etc, either based on ignorance or in protest against what they perceive as irredeemable failure of all faiths and beliefs in the contemporary period.  Thus, while you celebrate your faith and religion, they celebrate faithlessness and irreligion instead; while you glorify His name in awe and penitence, they derive pleasure in impugning His essence and repudiating His magnificence.

Thus, when the story of the American who abandoned Christianity and went on to accuse Jesus Christ, and ignorantly too, of leading him astray, came my way, my first response was that of pity, not necessarily empathy.  I condoled with him for having been led by the nose and in ignorance for much of his adult life and into the assumption that Prophet Isa (a.s) not only practiced Christianity but equally actively invited his followers to do so. Again, I pitied him for his ignorance of the divine exculpatory message in Quran 5:116-118 that reads: And ˹on Judgment Day˺ Allah will say, “O Jesus, son of Mary! Did you ever ask the people to worship you and your mother as gods besides Allah?” He will answer, “Glory be to You! How could I ever say what I had no right to say? If I had said such a thing, you would have certainly known it. You know what is hidden within me, but I do not know what is within You. Indeed, You ˹alone˺ are the Knower of all unseen. I never told them anything except what You ordered me to say: “Worship Allah—my Lord and your Lord!” And I was witness over them as long as I remained among them. But when You took me, You were the Witness over them—and You are a Witness over all things. If You punish them, they belong to You after all. But if You forgive them, You are surely the Almighty, All-Wise.”

It is axiomatic that contrary to popular but facetious practices, messengers of the Almighty never came with messages that were branded by their names. Prophet Ibrahim did not practice ‘Ibrahimism’ or Abrahamism, Prophet Musa (Moses) did not preach ‘Mosaism’, nor did Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) call his followers to believe in or practice ‘Muhammadanity’.  

But could there be a greater argument against faiths and religions that derive validity and credence from their founders’ names other than the fact that the Almighty did not, quite instructively, label faith and belief in Him as ‘Godism’, but Islam? Nor did He ever permit or sanction an indulgence in self-approbation for His Prophets to call people to believe in them other than the Almighty! He says again: ‘Indeed, We have sent revelation to you ˹O Prophet˺ as We sent revelation to Noah and the prophets after him. We also sent revelation to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and his descendants, ˹as well as˺Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron, and Solomon. And to David, We gave the Psalms.’ The revelation to them all was for them to establish Islam as the religion for humanity to follow (Quran 42:13), not to promote their personal beliefs and label same with their own identities.  Indeed, for these Prophets to have practiced faiths apart from Islam, such would have signalled discordance in the conception of divinity, occasioned confusion in notions of religiosity, and rendered nugatory the commonalities that bind humanity together since the primordial times.

But from pity, we are compelled to move to empathy; to empathize with billions who, despite this age and the panoply of data on the true messages of Islam, are still bogged down, probably by chance, not choice, in the morass of ignorance, prejudice and Islamophobia. Tell them, therefore, that this is Islam – a religion that brings humanity from bestiality back to its true and noble nature. Tell them that this is Islam – a religion that sets humanity free from servitude to fellow man to the worship of the sole Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth. Tell them that this is Islam- a culture, a civilization, a moral compass, a political system, a social order, a scientific script. This is Islam- a religion that was founded not by or in the name of a man but sanctioned by the Almighty. This is Islam- the Quranically guided religion; that is the Quran – the Islamically revealed book!