Islam for Non-Muslims

• RELIGIOUS FAITHS VS IRRELIGIOUS IDEAS
• 1 The Present State of the World Religions
• 2 Religious System as a Historical Reality
• 3 The Evidences of God across the Universe
• 4 The Absolute Oneness of God
• 5 The Reality of the Afterlife
• 6 The Growth of Irreligious Ideas
• 7 Worshipping Natural Elements
• 8 Worshipping Imaginary Idols
• 9 Worshipping Human Beings
• 10 Inventing Relationship to God
• 11 Inventing the Idea of Reincarnation
• 12 Inventing the Theory of Evolution (Darwinism)
• 13 Inventing ‘Nature’ as the Creator of the Universe
• 14 Importance of Religion in this Secular World
• ISLAM AS A RELIGION
• 15 Addressing the Criticisms of Islam
• 16 Islam as a Magnet for the Non-Muslims
• 17 The Quran as the Original Divine Book
• 18 The Quranic Reality in Archeological Findings
• 19 Muhammad (pbuh) as the Great Prophet
• 20 Islam as the True Religion
• 21 Islam as the Universal Religion
• 22 Islam as the Eternal Religion
• 23 Islam as a Practicable Religion
• 24 Islam as an Enjoyable Religion
• 25 Islam as the Peaceful & Savior Religion
• 26 Islam as the Progressive & Rational Religion
• 27 Islam in Health & Hygiene
• 28 Islam in Promotion of Science
• 29 Muslims in Practices of Science
• 30 Islam & Other Monotheisms: Similarities & Differences
• 31 Islamic Tolerance for Other Religions
• 32 Islamic Rights for Non-Muslim Citizens
• ISLAM AS A WAY OF LIFE
• 33 Islamic System vs. Human Ideologies
• 34 Moral & Social Impacts of Islamic Rituals
• 35 Moral Discipline in Islam
• 36 Sinning of 3 W’s: Women, Wine and Wealth
• 37 Dignity & Equality of Man in Islam
• 38 Human Rights in Islam
• 39 Social Duties in Islam
• 40 Dignity & Rights of Labor in Islam
• 41 Dignity of Women in Islam
• 42 Rights of Women in Islam
• 43 Marriage & Family Life in Islam
• 44 Political Philosophy in Islam
• 45 Economic Principles in Islam
• 46 Islamic Economy vs. Capitalism & Communism
• 47 Patriotism & Internationalism in Islam
• 48 Understanding Controversial Issues in Islam
• 49 Conversion to Islam: Problems & Prospects
• 50 Conclusive Message to the Non-Muslims

8:  WORSHIPPING IMAGINARY IDOLS

Introduction:  All divine religions of the world were originally sent down to humanity in the form of monotheism or belief in one God.  In some cases, however, their followers were subsequently deviated to idolatry by worshipping self-made idols or statues as symbols of their imaginary gods. For example, Hinduism has numerous gods including Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, Shiva the destroyer in the main.  Ancient Greeks also worshipped various imaginary gods like Zeus, Apollo, Athena etc. Another form of idolatry represents worship of images or statues of actual (not imaginary) religious figures like prophet, saint etc. or beloved political or social dignitaries like Gandhi, Mao or Lenin etc. Anyway, worship of such “false gods counts as the highest wrong doing” (31:13). Though all the above varieties of worship fail to qualify as a sound form of worship, our present analysis sharply focuses only on worshipping idols as imaginary gods.

(1) Idolatry Rebuked & Rejected by Real God:  God is One, Infinite and Invisible and He demands from His human creations the right kind of worship that does not anyway degrade His qualities.  But unfortunately some misguided people fill the honorable place of one God with a multitude of imaginary gods, each assigned with a portion of divine roles.  Then they step beyond abstract imagination by making statues out of clay, stone etc. as symbols of those gods, for gaining better flavor from their concrete presence. Examples of multiple-handed idols as a symbol of godly powers, worship of giant stone penis as a source of blessings for the unmarried girls for getting a muscular husband etc. show how much people were driven by wild “imagination” and “lying” in inventing their gods (6:116). In doing so, they think they are going to please God but in reality they are moving farther from divine pleasure. 

In fact, the idolaters cannot lay hands on even a single historical “Book” or “convincing proof” of divine approval for their self-styled idolatrous worship (35:40; 21:24). God never did send any prophets with a letter “of appointment for any deities other than (God)” but it was only “Satan who made their acts alluring” (43:45; 16:63). On the other hand, God revealed a wide variety of disapproving expressions such as idolaters have “no authority”; “no knowledge”; they simply practice “fancy”; “calling upon female deities” is same as “calling Satan”, ” “shun the abomination of idols”, “nobody is more deviated than invoking besides God” and therefore idolatry is “forbidden” (22:71; 10:66; 10:36; 4:117; 22:30; 46:5; 40:66) and so on.  Backing these words with actions, the Prophet cleaned the Grand Mosque of Kaaba by removing about 360 idols planted by the infidels of Mecca. This proved the reality of what God said in a parable that the house (or religious foundation) that the idolaters build is like the “spider’s house (cobweb)” which “is the weakest” and easiest to collapse (29:41).

(2) Idolatry Performs Poorly in the Test of Reason:  Idolatry appears deficient in logical standards on many accounts, as shown below: 

(i) The idolaters intend to gain sweet flavor of worship by being able to see and touch their concrete gods.  But they missed the point that the vastness of Infinite God cannot be properly understood through a limited size of helpless idols.  Their worship marks a shift of human attention from infinite Glory of God to false idols in confinement. Wherever an idolater moves around in this free world, his/her mind will tend to confine to the finite idol(s) they leave behind in temple.  By contrast, the believers in the real God, regardless of their locations in any part of the world, are always alert to the sense that Omnipotent God is present with them wherever they are.

(ii) Comparison may be justified in case of two objects having some common features as in the cases of the sun and a lamp, the earth and a globe and so on.  Conversely, choosing a man-made concrete idol as a symbol of totally dissimilar and incomparable abstract entity of God does not stand to reason.

(iii) The idolaters break down the powers of God such as into creation, governance and destruction of the Universe and distribute them among different imaginary gods.  In this process, they make their gods less powerful and less worthy than the real God.  Also, because of this “there would have been confusion” particularly regarding mutual boundaries of their powers (21:22).

(iv) God is the Creator of all human beings.  But this natural order becomes totally upside down when idolatry allows you (man) to create your own gods, with freedom to design their every details including size, shape, color, height, weight, gender and so on.

(v) Logically speaking, the very definition of religion is tied to its descent from God.  Otherwise, when you make your own god for worship by your own hands, then that reduces to something other than religion, very similar to children’s playing with their dolls. In that case, God is reduced from ‘the creator’ to ‘the creation’. 

(3) Idols have no Qualities to Be Worshipped:  In the face of rejection by God, the worship of idols virtually does not mean anything more than servitude to lifeless idols. These idols have no divine qualities worthy of human worship. Far worse, they do not even have the qualifications of man who worship them.  The Quran came up with a long list of their disabilities and disqualifications described below in order to show how far incompetent and ineligible these deities are for a position of god. 

The Quran pointed out that the man-made idols are “dead, lifeless” (16:21); they “created nothing and are themselves created” (16:20); they are deaf and dumb, as “they cannot hear your call” and “they cannot answer you” (35:14); Do they have “any feet to walk with”, “hands to work with”, “eyes to see with” and “ears to hear with?” (7:195); they cannot control any bad or good done to themselves nor do they have any power to do “harm or help” to their followers (5:76); they are so helpless that even if a “fly snatches away anything from them, they cannot recover that” (22:73); they do not own anything even to the “extent of an atom in the heavens or the earth” (34:22); in the Afterlife, they will be “fuel for Hellfire” along with their followers (21:98).  If they “had been gods, they would not have gotten there” (21:99).

 In fact, there cannot be anything worse than the idols, when it comes to their qualifications.  In any imaginary comparison of power, idols with zero power will stand at one extreme, God with infinite powers will represent the other extreme and man and animals with limited but derived powers will be located differently somewhere in the middle. Such utterly powerless idols cannot be thought of introducing and maintaining a religious system, not to speak of creating and governing the Universe. It is therefore obvious that by choosing idols for worship, people not only degrade their own position but also deprive themselves of divine blessings.

(4) Social Problems: Idolatry not only unlocks the floodgates of unlimited sufferings in the Afterlife, but also opens up the doors to various social problems for their present life. Whereas worship of one God is the key to success in both phases of life and helps growth of positive virtues like unity, bravery, dignity etc.  Idolatry, on the other hand, lets the prestige and position of its worshippers go down in various ways, as described below. 

(i) It teaches people the lesson of bowing down heads before too many unreal gods and thereby causes erosion into their personality and self-respect.

(ii) The Quran rightly indicates that “a man belonging to many different masters and a man belonging exclusively to one master” (39:29) do not match in comparison.  Obviously, the workload of a servant tends to be heavier in case of serving too many masters rather than one. In similar fashion, the worship of too many gods would cost enormous time, labor and money for making, decorating and worshipping idols which otherwise could be used more productively. Religious experience with one God, on the other hand, is not only inexpensive but also overly simple and spiritually pleasant.

(iii) Idolatry sometimes may turn deadly when so-called gods “make alluring the slaughter of their children in the eyes of the worshippers” (6:137).  In this way, countless innocent people were slaughtered by the Aztecs of Central America, as one example.

(iv) Monotheism aims to hold people together under a system of one God and helps them stay focused. By contrast, the worship of many gods is likely to disunite and diversify people in the society along the lines of plurality of their gods.  As a result, the society is likely to be divided both horizontally and vertically. As horizontal example, the pre-Islamic Arabian society was divided by their cultures and loyalty to different gods. Three prominent gods at that time (e.g. “Lat and Uzza” and “Manat)” were “nothing but names invented” “without any authorization from God” (53:19/20/23). Their followers built separate shrines and invented diverse practices for worshipping these goddesses and the overall impact of these cultures on the society was likely to be more divisive than unifying.

Vertically speaking, the traditional Hindu society was divided into 4-5 layers of caste system (now on declining trend though) where upper class (Brahmin) was known for dominating the lower class (i.e. ‘untouchables’ who were called Harijan or the people of God by Gandhi).  Preservation of such unfair system through prevention of lower class  uprising required the superstitious belief of ‘reincarnation’ (rebirth) that encouraged their tolerance in exchange for better rebirth in their next life on earth.

Conclusion: Because of all these associated problems, idolatry rarely appeals to the enlightened members of the modern society, who tend to discover better wisdom in embracing monotheism.  They are the targets of divine call “Forget (the false gods) that you set up beside God. (Instead) He commands that you do worship none but Him as that is the right religion” (6:41; 12:40).