Quran taught me to respect everyone.
Today we’re still struggling to deal with conflicts across the world mainly because many people fail to tolerate different ideas and ideologies. For the past couple of years I’ve been thinking about something, never brave enough to write it down somewhere; until tonight.
This is my way to pay tribute to the innocent human beings who lost their lives in France, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, etc.
Every life that’s taken, is a responsibility for everyone else alive to keep growing. The world needs people who listen, people who think.
I can think, listen. Everyone should learn to listen. I believe we’re not born human, we become human. Humanity is something we earn. The power to listen is one of the fundamentals of humanity, and I believe the universal education system fails to emphasize this enough.
I’m against scientific approaches to assess religion, I don’t like putting religion under a microscope to see whether or not it makes “sense”; but I love mathematics and I know a mathematically proven theorem when I see one. To me,Quran is full of them. Strong reasoning, and a lot of hidden ones for “people who think”.
The following is a number of facts from Quran plus one of the most powerful verses of Quran, in my opinion (when it comes to comparing different ideas):
- 14 centuries since revelation of Quran: there is only one Quran, one version, and humans have yet to find a contradiction in the book’s content.
- There are a lot of verses about Jesus Christ, Holy Mary; Moses; and what they did and how amazing and patient they were in their preaching and faith. There are really detailed narrations of what they preached and their followers, and they’re all respected and admired for it. In fact, as a Muslim Iranian, I was taught that “to respect all other prophets and their followers” as the first requirement of being Muslim. At school, we weren’t told about religion as if they were different smartphones brands and we would need to pick one; we learned to see them as a flow; a continued mission.
- This verse:
Al’ Imran 19
Surely the (true) religion with Allah is Islam, and those to whom the Book had been given did not show opposition.
“The religion with God is Islam”? Given that there are no contradictions in Quran, one would question if the book is discarding Christianity and Judaism? Seemingly, but it’s not.
- This verse (very powerful):
-Ash-shura 13 (God speaks to Prophet Muhammad directly in this Surah)
He has made plain to you of the religion what He enjoined upon Nuh (Noah) and that which We have revealed to you and that which We enjoined upon Ibrahim (Abraham) and Musa (Moses) and Isa (Jesus Christ) that keep to obedience and be not divided therein; hard to the unbelievers is that which you call them to; …
A couple of keywords from these 2 verses capture my attention:
1.the religion
2.“What He enjoined upon Noah and that which We have revealed to you and that which We enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Christ ….”
I believe “the religion” is the keyword here. For centuries, we’ve been told there are multiple religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc) while by Quran’s standards clearly there’s one religion. Judaism, Christianity and Islam didn’t deny or ignore the previous teachings. What different prophets taught were different presentations of the same religion in different scales (gradually and patiently upscaling their teachings according to the knowledge and understanding of the people of each time and many more factors. ).
“The religion”
By Quran’s standards, Islam is not name of a religion that prophet Muhammad brought, it’s the name of the religion every prophet has contributed to. The word Islam, in fact, means “Submission” or “surrender” originally. So it’s a word with a definition and that definition by itself is not meant to refer to a particular geographical location or a certain skin color or language.
Mathematics is art of being able to differentiate between what is and what ought to be, even if what is has worked out in one’s favour.
I am Muslim and this is world, as I see it.
My post is technically finished at this point but since questions might come to mind, I’m gonna go on a little bit more and clarify some possible confusions.
So all these said, is a Christian or Jewish person(Christian or Jewish by world’s standards) a Muslim (by Quran’s standards)? If yes, he or she is surely practicing a different religion from what Islam is known to be; how is this difference explained? (and if you’re the heaven and hell type of person you could ask “do they go to heaven without doing Islamic rituals? Is that fair?” I think the right answer to these questions (and such) would be that God is God. We’re not talking about someone with our level of knowledge and judgement capability. He’s great and He’s the judge. And also it’s worthy of note to refer to the concept (and not definition) of “Religion” in Quran:
What is Religion
By Quran’s standards
It’s the Plan God has prepared for humans’ life for that certain destination that all prophets promised.
Read it again.
“Religion is the plan God has sent”, mathematically means 2 things to me:
- God has sent only one plan.
- There can be [possibly] other plans to achieve the same positive outcome in life, but this (religion) is the one God sent! (Otherwise it’d be said “religion is the plan for humans’ life” and not “religion is the plan God has sent/prepared…). People like me choose this plan of God because we believe life is too short to try different plans; so we pick one that we know (trust) will work for certain.
This can go on and on(as it has, for centuries).
My conclusion is if we truly believe God is the ultimate judge, and if religion is one plan out of many possible plans for life; then the whole point of our existence (in religious view) isn’t to be religious! but to be human. Religion is just the guaranteed way to become a human and to remain one over the years.
Food for thought!
PS: I’m 20. My ideas are subject to change/develop.
