ISLAM UNDER THE KNIFE
Only Reform Will Bestow Power
By John Paul Maynard
Over time a spiritual tradition picks up more and more extraneous details not part of the original teaching, the original revelation. Pruning the tree then becomes essential, critically important, if the original message is to be preserved. Otherwise it will be absorbed. Little precepts exist amongst big precepts, and there is no way of delicately focusing on the important ideas. So the religion actually loses itself, carrying so much baggage. It's not exactly baggage. Baggage is your own stuff, but here we see Islam entangled with what is not is own. The inhumane elements of Islamic law are not part of Islam, as originally understood by the prophet and his companions.
We will look at these extraneous additions, these add-ons. Most remarkably, these are the same 'laws' which have become issues poisoning Islam's relations with the rest of the world.
Think how many billions of times Muslims have tried to get back to the original Islam, the Islam of the prophet, as he lived and taught it, in Mecca and Medina and then in Mecca again (622-32). It is as if these devotees were in a dream. In reality, there is no one Islam. It is understood differently by every human. But the dream, the aspiration, is potentially useful, if it leads to study, the study of history, and to ever deeper understanding of the Recitation (al Qur'an). But to do that one has to call into question some basic beliefs.
If one lacks a genuine critical capability, nothing is possible. There are many decent people in Islam who hate the cruel stonings and the cutting off of hands and gouging out of eyes, not to mention countless acts of terror by evil people speaking loudly about Islam and God. How can they fight the false teachers except through reform of their own false laws?
It is genuinely recognized that Islam the religion is different than the Sunna, the ways of life, of the prophet Muhammad. Yet when Muslims try to get back to ancient Medina (where Muhammad established an esoteric community), they end up focusing on phenomena, things, events, rather than noumena, ideas, insights. As ibn Hanbal (of all people) teaches: “Verily God does not consider your appearances or your wealth, but He considers your hearts and your deeds.”
There is an old proverb: “The letter of the law killeth the spirit of the law.” All this attention to the beard, the clothes, the rituals, the prohibitions, the prayers, controversies, the texts, and not much attention is left to actually achieve genuine spiritual perfection, which is unfortunate. “This work requires the very best of myself, yourself.”
Over time, Islam has picked up foreign material and alien ideas. A 'fit' Islam, one ready to go to battle, needs subtract, cut out, what is not Islamic. Not surprisingly, these extraneous laws and false injunctions, are precisely those which alienate people from Islam
Westerners (and moderate Muslims) do not like the shari'a for four (4) reasons:
1. the hadd punishments (cutting off of hands, stoning, FGM etc.)
2. the repression of women
3. Islam's autocratic, anti-democratic features
4. Islam's war-like nature – jihad
What is extraordinary is that none of the above issues have anything to do with Islam. Even more extraordinary, most Muslims have not the power and knowledge necessary to purify their own faith.
The stoning of adulterers is an old Jewish practice, found in the Old Testament and the New Testament as well. “Let he who is free of sin cast the first stone.” See Matthew 21:35, 2 Chronicles 11:25, Hebrews 11:37, 12:20, 2Corinthians 11:25. Old Testament passages include: Numbers 15:36, Joshua 7:25, 1 Kings 12:18, 21:13, 21:14. Why on earth are Muslims following such an alien and inhumane Jewish practice?
The hadd punishments (cutting off of hands) are Byzantine in root and practice, derived by corrupting the supposed words of Jesus Christ: “If your right hand offends thee, cut it off. If thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out.” They are Christian, not Islamic, laws, and bad ones at that, so why on earth do Muslims support such an alien and degraded set of laws not from their own religion?
The Qur'an says men and women are equal, equal in rights, intelligence, and in the divvying up of resources. It is written down first in the Qur'an: a woman's right to divorce, to be supported thereafter, to inherit, to be free of physical abuse, and slander. Muhammad was deeply attached to women friends, and to his wives. So the oppression of women is not Islamic. It has nothing to do with Islam. It is primitive tribal custom or life way. Amongst primitive tribes in the ancient Near East, women were sometimes a kind of property to capture and trade, or to protect and maintain. The veiling of women, is an old urban, upper class Byzantine (and Babylonian) custom which Muhammad let stand. FGM of course has nothing to do with Islam.
Democracy in Islam is a huge pressing issue. The Arabs are no strangers to elections and the vote. Bedouin chiefs were usually elected. So called 'primitive democracy' is real democracy, from the bottom up, and sometimes from the top down. The first four caliphs were supposedly elected, actually appointed after consultation, consultations ending with the show of hands. “Government and the people must consult together at every step” said Muhammad.
As to holy war, jihad, there is no theory of war, just or otherwise, in the Qur'an. Muhammad's experience in war was defensive. (His own tribe tried to kill him repeatedly, then the Meccans invaded Medina with a large army.) Remember that much of the Qur'an was channeled through Muhammad at critical moments, advising his actions, sometimes from hour to hour. Foolishly, the Islamist radicals take supposed sayings (ahadith) of Muhammad, sent down, say, at 5:46 pm in Medina on the 7th of Nisan, year 4. The foolish extremists then take these purported sayings out of context, and turn them into universal Muslim laws which must be believed and acted on.
So obviously Muslims the world over must redefine what is Islamic. Why hold on to cruel stupid laws that have nothing to do with Muhammad and Islam? These barbaric practices seem to be deeply embedded. Even 'liberal' jurists like Malik ibn 'Anas kept the hadd punishments, including stoning.
One might object. If these are not Islamic laws, why did Muhammad support them? Muhammad did not support them – he left them alone, let them stand. He did not see himself as a great reforming law giver. Muhammad did have a legal background, as a mediator. Later, as prophet, he did concentrate on a set of definite legal reforms, pertaining to the exposure of girl babies, the rights of women, orphans, regarding inheritance and education, charity, laws relating to non-Muslims, settlements and cities, charitable institutions (waqf), commerce, money, war and the treatment of prisoners. But otherwise Muhammad just let the old laws stand. Why?
Muhammad did not see himself as some great law giver or revolutionary. He was not nearly so presumptuous. He did not see himself as founding a brand new religion, and indeed, many of the aspects of the Muslim religion accrued after Muhammad died. The Qur'an itself is a rather haphazard collection of oral sayings memorized from a limited group of very old men (and some women) – the Sahaba and Sahabat, the Companions, that is, any believer who was with the prophet, saw him, heard him speak.
There is occasional evidence of interpolation. The passage that says “Men and women are equal” is followed by the line “And men are above (or over) women” and then “You can hit them.” Obviously this does not make sense. And since the Qur'an does not contradict itself, we are safe in saying that the latter lines were interpolated.
Certainly most hadith were composed after Muhammad's death in 632. The Muslim sees his book as perfect, even uncreated, but any scholar, even one who doesn't know Arabic, can see the marks of humans in the book's transcription, editing and organization.
Let me put it this way. We glorify the great prophets, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad. To us, they become giants of history. Yet each of them was an ordinary man and all of them were bedeviled by weaknesses which proved problematic if not fatal.
Abraham, who was not Jewish, married his half sister (Sarah) and unjustly preferred her over his concubine, Hagar, mother of Ismael, who was abandoned with her baby in the wilderness. Moses was a murderer who never got to see the so-called promised land. Jesus Christ could not help but display his powers, with fatal consequences.
Muhammad? Muhammad left no instructions as to what to do after his death. He did not picture a lawful designated successor. Muhammad was not so presumptuous. He never called himself the exclusive teacher of God. He did not see himself as a revolutionary law giver. Or a universal teacher. His Recital was in Arabic and for the Arabs. He did not plan or prepare his patrimony, his legacy. Muhammad left no instructions, no way to choose a successor, no world vision of conquest, no theory of war, little religion and no texts (he was illiterate) except what a few old timers remembered 25 years after his death.
Not being presumptuous is, of course, a virtue, an honesty, a modesty. Godly things can't be known unless the personality is seen through, neutralized.
Maybe the Magian Zarathushtris are right when they say that the good and the evil grow together in a man or a woman, as he or she evolves. The great prophets had huge shadows. They were basically ordinary people who struggled with themselves. True, they were superb magicians. The Islamic prayer is a ritualized invocation aimed at calling up the Divine Presence. 'Magic,' the word, the art, comes from 'Magian', i.e., the Old Persian religion, linked to Zoroastrianism – the Zarathushtris.
Some Muslims, like some Jews and Christians, think their religion is 'unique on earth' and 'the one true way to God.' But the Bible says Abraham, who was not Jewish, Christian or Muslim, came out of Ur – Sumer/Babylon -, and that Moses came out of Egypt and was likely an Egyptian medical doctor, probably one of the last followers of Ikhnaten, the monotheist pharaoh.
Islam also has deep debts to other cultures. So much of the Qur'an is simply the re-telling of Old Testament stories. Though the Qur'an tells Muslims to pray three times a day, like the Jews, Abbasid Baghdad adopted Zoroastrian precepts, ordering Muslims to pray 5 times a day, like the Zarathushtris, and perform ritual ablutions, again taken from Magian Zarathushtris.
Much of what we call Judaism, Christianity and Islam are au font Zarathushtri concepts, like angels, archangels, the idea of an after life, the end of days, Satan. The very idea of a One God, who is beneficent, just, and who cares for His people – was a Zarathushtri innovation.
I spell this out because it is time now for moderate Islam to counter-attack. But first it must be ['fit' and wholesome (so God can support it again). So Islam must lose all that dead weight – non-Muslim ideas which somehow got wound up in what people call Islam. A few probable interpolations in the Qur'an should be corrected. All hadith should be dismissed except those which show the mark of a superior intelligence, an all-embracing love.
The radical hotheaded ignoramuses who have hijacked Islam use bad false hadith all the time. True, Muhammad left some sayings about war. Some warn against fanaticism, aggressive or pre-emptive war, static war, and all prolonged conflicts. Curiously, the Qur'an says to stop war-making as soon as the situation changes, which will be sooner than later. Prisoners of war are to be treated with respect and cared for. Non-Muslims are to be tolerated, even protected. Islam has its own injunctions against forced conversions and fanaticism.
Here are two hadith about war which are probably true sayings by Muhammad, because they cut against those calling themselves Muslims: “If you have a choice between following an un-righteous Muslim, or a righteous non-Muslim, choose the righteous non-Muslim.” Or this one: “If violence breaks out, find out who started it, then attack him.” These are not like the jihadi hadith. They are superior, and true.
As to holy war, jihad, there is no theory of war, just or otherwise, in the Qur'an. There are, however,definite laws promulgated regarding the costs and the victims of war. The enemy is given his due respect. Prisoners of war were to be cared for meticulously. No compulsion should be used, to convert anyone. The rights of non-Muslims were spelled out, and I should say the benefits also, as the 6% tax that dhimmis (Jews, Christians, Sabaeans and Zarathrushtris) paid in order to not have to be in the army, is the about the same tax on income that Americans pay for their grotesquely bloated defense departments and industries.
Linguistically, jihad means struggle, any kind of going against oneself, or the willed intent required to evolve and not perish, physically, culturally. Remember, Muhammad became a general against his will. His war was defensive. His own tribe, the Qurayshis, tried to assassinate him, repeatedly. Since he challenged all the gods, Muhammad was a dangerous man. Mecca's prosperity depended on pagan pilgrims. The Hijra – the flight – to Medina - year Zero - is the stuff of epic legend: how Mecca organized ever larger armies of mercenaries to cut down the Muslims; how a Jewish tribe swore allegiance to the Muslims, then turned sides right during Mecca's attack, stabbing the Muslims in the back.
Remember that much of the Qur'an was channeled through Muhammad at critical moments, informing his actions, sometimes from hour to hour. Foolishly, the Islamist radicals take supposed sayings of God (or Muhammad), sent down, say, at 5:46 pm in Medina on the 7th of Nisan, year 4. The foolish extremists then take these purported sayings and turn them into universal Muslim laws which must be believed and acted on. God forbid.
So obviously Muslims the world over are anxious to accurately define what is actually Islamic. Why hold on to cruel stupid laws that have nothing to do with Muhammad or God or any humane utility of law?
For over 30 years moderate Islam has been on the defensive. Now it is gathering for an offensive against the fundamentalist usurpers. Fewer people are falling for the politics of symbolic appeal, and it is generally recognized amongst Muslims that the extremists are injuring Islam, acting against Islam's best interest. Many moderate Muslims have studied fanaticism, per the Qur'an “There is no fanaticism in Islam.” But the question is, can these same moderate Muslims, intellectuals or not, shepherd in a series of changes that would purify and focus Islam?
Islam originally was a method of self-transformation. Those esoteric teachings remained secret, and some traditions were quickly swamped by matters of survival. But these teachings did persist, handed down through several women colleagues of the prophet, as well as male lines, like the one through Ali, Hussein and Hasan – the Shi'ia traditions.
Esoteric schools exist just for a short period, rarely go public, and are unlike religions which stay the same (uncorrected) and to which accrue everything including the kitchen sink. That inner part of Islam can be found amongst the Sufis, and others, e.g. the Ahmediyya, the Ishma'ilis, the Druze, the Alawites, and the Imamite traditions of Yemen and Iran, et al.). But nobody can own, still less monopolize, the holy spirit.
Put it this way. Most Muslims who pray, who adopt and call their own that rigorous discipline of ablutions and prayer, expect and hope for some relief, some real knowledge, some personal perfection. But that wish can easily be turned into something irrelevant, or even dangerous. Islam affords a way to escape from the ego, but contrast this to the political Islamists. They are strong by deceit, aiming to increase their influence. But Islam means 'surrender' and the aim is to weaken the ego, the personality. This inner, holy, divine part of Islam goes in a opposite direction than the Salafists, Deobandis, Wahhabis, and al Qa'ida. Not surprisingly, the devil speaks in the name of God and His prophets, most loudly. Yet their blind fundamentalist teachings are void of truth, justice, mercy, and extremely inimical to world peace. As the sufi master Bistami said: “If you want to see the devil, look in the mirror.” And “I have seen Satan and he is a Muslim.”
Why do Muslims fall for the politics of symbolic appeal? In the West, if one starts talking about Jesus Christ, the Bible, and/or ancient Moses with any emotion, one is considered as 'possibly very crazy, maybe even dangerous.' But those false usurpers of the Muslim religion who loudly publish their cruel, divisive fatwas, are not much challenged by moderates. Why? Is it because of the threat of violent retaliation? Or because the politics of symbolic appeal are still considered valid in the culture at large? Or is it that Muslims are just not well schooled in their own traditions of tolerance, critical thinking, and scientific investigation?
Close attention to history offers some guidance. The Qur'an says it was written for the Arabs, a teaching for the Arabs. Muhammad believed Arabia should be Muslim. That's as far as he went in using force and compulsion. He told his troops not to force conversions, but to neutralize all the false prophets – pagan figures who could influence the people. There was a copy cat effect, with several talented leaders claiming to be prophets from God. Muhammad went after these guys for 'copyright infringement.'.
After Muhammad's death in 632, rebellions broke out. Many tribes reneged on the terms they worked out with Muhammad (to form an umma, a nation, and an ulama (council of elders), and a confederation). So less than a year later, the Ridda (Apostasy) Wars break out, and a powerful enemy is defeated, in the Battle of al Aqabah (master general Khalid ibn Walid). The Muslims did not execute the enemy general, Khalid ibn Walid, which had great benefit, because, when Khalid converted to Islam, he became an impeccable general, not terrorizing populations, but assuring them. Since Khalid was granted tolerance, he acted tolerantly. We also see that Muslim leaders were early oriented to the north. They aimed to liberate all the Arabs, including the Bedouin in the Sinai, the Negev, plus Nabatea, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and the Lakhmids of the Persian empire (Iraq and Iran) where Arabs lived.
Initially Muhammad tried secret diplomacy with the Byzantine Empire but Emperor Heraclius showed no desire to negotiate. Then the Muslims tried to secretly win over the Arab chiefs. But the Greek imperialists were alert and determined. So the Muslim armies, battle-hardened, highly mobile, took apart the Greek 'Rum' army apart at Ajnadayn and Marj al Saffar, and annexed the part of the Greek and Persian empires in which Arabs lived. I say 'liberate' because the Byzantine empire was basically a big cruel tax machine, impoverishing the middle class. No wonder Islam spread so quickly.
Some talk of Muhammad's militarism, but this is a modern term which yanks us out of the context. First of all, this is the early middle ages, a very violent, lawless period that should not be judged and condemned by modern norms. Muhammad was unlike Charlemagne in that he didn't have the hatred for the other that would lead Muslims to commit genocide, as did Charlemagne and the later Crusaders. Muhammad was a mediator before he was a prophet, so he instinctively used the law and diplomacy to work out possible compromises. This tradition was followed.
After defeating the Byzantines in north Arabia, Khalid ibn Walid 'the Sword of Islam' did not hesitate but turned his whole army to the right, and went east, where they defeated the Persians at Hira, in southern Iraq. Hira was capital of the Arab Lakhmid state and culture, under dominance by the imperial Persians.
Muhammad had no plan of conquest outside Arabia, and there really is nothing like that in the Qur'an. Yet under his successors, the Rashidun, the first four khalifs, this 'militarism' is expanded. Arab armies go into Egypt, North Africa, and eastwards into Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Everywhere they let people worship freely and left in place not only local institutions, but the same personnel. That's why Islam 'exploded.'
There are a host of reasons why Islam expanded out of Arabia. Expansion unified contesting tribes, directing martial energies outward. In this they resembled the European Christian crusades six hundred years later. But unlike the crusades, there was little hatred of the other. Right from the start Islam was tolerant, much more tolerant than the Catholic Church. It is true that the first caliphs were more tolerant to non-Muslim outsiders, than to the Muslims themselves, who were not allowed to take over land without payment.
The tolerance of Islam is worthy of deep reflection. Where did it begin? Remember that Muhammad was not raised by his birth mother, that his father died early, that his uncle Abu Taleb likely knew how to read Hebrew, that Arabia was populated with Jews and Christians and pagans, that the greatest military leaders, the two most responsible for the expansion out of Arabia, Khalid ibn Walid and Caliph Omar al Khattab, were originally sworn enemies of Muhammad. Each tried to kill him. Yet both were completely forgiven and given command of the biggest armies.
Though the Qur'an says its teaching is for the Arabs, Islam spread like wildfire into areas where Arabs did not live. It pointedly became a supra-ethnic faith. It became in the process a religion, a system of psycho-social development, enjoining Muslims to do a few things: To say “There is no god – but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.” To pray 5 times a day (after washing), to take a pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj, a pre-Islamic tradition), to give to charity (zikat), to meet collectively on Juma (Friday), to obey legal authorities, to learn to read in order to study the Qur'an, and the great legal scholars, to struggle for justice.
There exists a political teaching in the Qur'an, a political dimension. Medina was a think tank where new ideas were tried out. To me, as a scientist, the most important aspect of Islam are the laws pertaining to land use and land ownership. How did the Arabs construct huge cities almost overnight? How was marginal land used? How were small poor individual merchants given access to the marketplace? How could any society become so mobile? How were land taxes legislated and collected? Unfortunately the religious Muslims ignore the core teachings re land. So-called 'encyclopedias of Islam' omit them. Even amongst Islamic scholars in the West, these Islamic land laws are little known, and not yet studied or analyzed.
Since Islam was born at a time of transition from nomads to townsmen, one can see the effort made, an effort of law, to rationalize customs. New houses had to be designed and built – quickly. Mosque orienation and architecture had to be just right. Hospitals needed to be invented, as were caravansaries. The Arabs were no barbarians.
The standardazation of the Qur'an was put together 25 years after Muhammad's death, by caliph Uthman. He appointed Zayd ibn Thabit, formerly a scribe of Muhammad's, to lead the effort. The book was organized in an arbitrary way, not chronologically, or by theme, but by simply making the book begin with the longest sura, and end with the shortest. The suras (or chapters) were all given names, but that name usually has little to indicate what the sura is about. The actual passages often exhibit a taping together of diverse, unrelated themes and motifs. Yet of all the scriptures, only the Qur'an captures the true nature of humans – that they are duplicitous, deceitful, lying, unforgiving, bigoted, vengeful, depressed, and their personalities are fissionable, and fragmented, that is, not whole or wholesome. Humans can say one thing, and then act, behave, completely contrary to the ideals professed verbally, without even seeing the contradiction. They are so perverse because they are asleep. Men and women are deluded, particularly in regard to wealth and material security. Humans have basically 'fortified their prisons.'
Muhammad did not like to talk, to speak. He limited himself to pithy one liners like “There is no harm, or benefiting from harm, in Islam.” Or “Pray as a woman prays.” Under the pressure of battle, he may have said some harsh things about the enemy of the day. But that is no reason for Muslims to take those purported statements, and turn them into universal laws demanding battle, violence.
Most Americans and Europeans see Islam as a cruel, intolerant medieval religion, which has lost its first virtue – mercy.. But in sum, on the whole, Islam is not that. Islam has been of incalculable benefit, particularly to the West. Consider the medical knowledge that came from the Islamic world. Take any medical doctor and you can trace his skills back to Islamic civilization, indeed to the prophet's own words. The Qur'an rejects all the demonology, all the superstitions, saying “Do not believe that illness, injury, death, is punishment from God.” Then Muhammad went on to say: “Every disease has its cause and its cure.” That was a radical departure. In rejecting accepted paradigms of illness (Greek humorism), Muhammad spoke as a scientist.
Instead of listing who discovered what, let me just list the inventions of Islamic medicine.
The hospital was invented in the sixth century (Baghdad), and spread to the west during the crusades. Think of all those elite Christian warrior knights who, as Hospitalers, Templars, dedicated themselves to building and running hospices and hospitals, first in Palestine, then in Rhodes, Malta, Sicily, Spain, then in western Europe. (Paris had the first hospital.)
The Qur'an mentions male sperm and female eggs. How did those 'primitive' Arabs know that? There is a scientific streak in the Qur'an. God often suggests that one look keenly at the worlds interior and exterior, “to see signs therein.” Curiously, the Qur'an takes a celestial or cosmic perspective, as if the speaker were looking down on earth. The old Mid East God of the skies, the storm God, endures. Here is a typical passage paraphrased: “look at the clouds, how they glide in billows, one upon the other. Look at the ships, how they scud before the wind. See therein signs (ayat) from God.” Islamic doctors anticipated bacteriology by concluding that tiny parasites and vectors spread disease, that these diseases can be contagious. This was a big breakthrough, leading to the practice of quarantine.
Islamic medicine, which included many Jewish and Magian (Persian) doctors as well, soon specialized into some thirty different medical specialties. Let me just list some or their discoveries. One sees breakthroughs in:
ophthalmology, where superior optical knowledge (nur, or light) corrected the Greeks and the whole ancient world
contagion, through tiny animals, anticipating bacteriology.
immunology – the Zarathushtri view of the body as a battlefield
the use of anesthesia (fennugreek mixed with cannabis and some opium); the use of smells, to dull pain.)
dentistry. Muhammad enjoined flossing the teeth (with a twig) on all believers
close inspection of the metabolism, and homeostasis, as a balance, a harmony;
pathology (the classification of disease, compilations of knowledge into encyclopedias)
the first use of experiments and studies using controls.
pediatrics and diseases of childhood
geriatrics and aging
the cause and treatment of diabetes
knowledge of the circulatory system
surgery, particularly cancer surgery (first they cut the arteries to the tumor, then later excise it, using leeches to gobble up the last of the the tumor and the bacteria)
the use of drugs (in which inorganic chemicals are precisely dosed)
pharmacies, pharmacy schools, (a pharmacopeia of over 700 simple and compound drugs)
the hypodermic syringe, originally used to extract bad lenses from eyes
the invention and use of many surgical instruments (over 200 kinds).
an early focus on mental diseases and disorders– psychiatry and psychology. Muslim doctors distinguished between three kinds of depression, and drew a careful line between neurosis and psychosis. They also invented humane mental hospitals. They closely compared physical and mental disorders, assessing the ishtibak, or the interweaving, the intermingling, the fusion, of mental and physical (dis)orders, clarifying psychosomatic illnesses.
first use of plaster casts to heal bones.
a theory of evolution, survival of the fittest, environmental adaptation (every plant and animal has its own strategy of survival), and food chains.
The goodness of, the benefit from, Islam went even deeper. Mathematics was used to precisely grade and compound medicines, and to rate their strengths. The Muslims may not have invented the zero, but they applied it widely, using it all the time, often ingeniously. The kalema - that one thing you need say to be Muslim - is usually translated as “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” But the kalama might also be translated as “There is no such thing as God, as you think – God is what is.” In any case, the Muslims used algebra to keep families together, that is, to accurately determine inheritances (everybody gets some fraction), and to graph specific trends and processes. They were very faithful to Euclid, but added elements, tying together advanced algebra and geometry e.g, quadratic equations). A few schools even understood the laws of the octave, and applied the laws of harmony to the body, the seven spheres of the universe, and to the human soul.
Just as those great Muslim doctors applied scientific reasoning to illness, so must Muslim 'experts' apply the same sharp knife to their own ideas about Islam. Or put it this way: just as the world needed desperately what Islam had to offer, Islam now needs desperately scholars of Islam who know the texts, the histories, and the laws. For some reason, self-professed devotees of Islam fail, because they put their allegiances and hopes in the Muslim religion, not the teaching of the prophet Muhammad. To understand that difference, one must be a scientist, disinterested, uncommitted and have access to the texts. One must also know classical Arabic, and history.
Looking at Arab advances in medicine, one sees how these doctors applied critical thinking to free themselves and their patients, from many harmful practices and concoctions. Today that same critical capacity is required if we want to know about, and follow, real Islam.
In conclusion, it is important to see Islam as a modernizing western development, based on traditional knowledge drawn from Egypt, Persia, India, old Phoenicia, Byzantium and from the Arabs themselves. It was the last of the classical civilizations – and the first of the modernizing.
by JPM
