Islam for Non-Muslims
- RELIGIOUS FAITHS VS IRRELIGIOUS IDEAS
- ISLAM AS A RELIGION
- ISLAM AS A WAY OF LIFE
Islam as the Universal Religion
Introduction: Islam is basically a universal religion, being the only of this kind. It aims to embrace not only a section of people named Muslims, but also the entire humanity. Literally, Islam stands for both ‘peace’ and ‘submission to God’, each having interrelated meaning. As the best of all creations of God, human beings are expected to duly submit to Him in order to obtain His Blessings necessary for building foundation of world peace. Thus the term ‘Islam’ has an all-inclusive overtone.
(A) Universal Features: (i) Quran: In a show of its universal character, Islam has its holy book Quran addressing the readers as “O mankind! Fear your Lord” (22:1) instead of confining its call to ‘O Muslims!’ The Quran is “nothing less than a message to the whole world” as it has been sent “for (instructing entire) mankind”, instead of the Muslims alone (68:52; 39: 41).
(ii) Prophet: Similarly, in a broader sense, Muhammad (pbuh) as a Prophet did not represent only the Muslims, but God did send him but as a “universal (Messenger) to men” (34:28). In echo, he himself claimed “Oh men! I am sent to you all, as the Messenger of God” (7:158). Since God designated him as a “guide to every people” (13:7), his concern for salvation in the Afterlife extended to everyone. During his historic sermon at the farewell ‘hajj’ (pilgrimage), he outlined major points that covered the rights and interests of the entire mankind. All these earned him the divine title “a Mercy for all creatures” (21:107).
(iii) Islam: The universal nature of Islam also explains why it adopts it generic title ‘Islam’ in preference to ‘Mohammedanism’ honoring its Prophet. That is how Islam is different from many other major religions like Christianity named after Jesus Christ, Buddhism after Buddha, Zoroastrianism from Zoroaster and so on. The pace at which Islam has been expanding gives appearance to God’s plan at work for turning it into everybody’s religion. It’s a simple historical fact that among the religions, Islam enjoyed the highest expansion pace by covering three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe) in a relatively short time. This led to Pope John Paul II’s comment on Islam as the “fastest growing religion” on this planet.
(B) Universal Policies: Not only the nature and features of Islam are universalistic but its policies and actions (described below) also point to the same.
(i) Islam theoretically considers every new born baby (whatever community it is born into) as Muslim who subsequently may become practically a non-Muslim under influence of the parents or environment (Hadith).
(ii) Islam is different from some other religions that are very restrictive if not totally prohibitive against change of religion. For example, Judaism raises high bar for conversion involving motherhood test, checking motivation, commitment to Jewish cultures, informational training, ritualistic immersion, probation period and so on. Islam, by contrast, adopts an open-door policy for the ‘would-be Muslims’ whose conversion to Islam is simply a matter of one-minute declaration of faith in God and His Prophet in front of 2 witnesses. Apparently, this is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way of embracing a religion.
(iii) New converts often face open or hidden discrimination in many other religions. But Islam shows a contrast by treating both new converts and born Muslims on equal footing in their access to social, economic, political and other types of rights. One of the spending heads of compulsory charity named ‘zakat’ is dedicated to the neo-Muslims.
(C) The Evolution of Religions: An understanding of Islam as a universal religion will be clearer if you look back at the history of religions.
(i) Numerous Prophets: Beginning with Adam as the first prophet (also the first man) down to Mohammad (pbut) as the last one, God sent down tens of thousands of prophets “in succession” (23:44). Mostly unknown by name, the prophets belonged to different times and stationed at different places. Few exceptions included David and Solomon, Moses and Aaron, Abraham and Lot (pbut) who personally knew each other by favor of time and place.
(ii) Uniform Mission under One God: The main purpose of all the prophets was to pass around the message of One God among people and “make (things) clear to them” (14:4). Obviously, each of them acted as a link to the chain of prophets with ties to the same religious system planned by God. All of them represented the same God with submission to Him (this submission translates to the term ‘Islam’). In this broad sense, they were all the followers of Islam who are known as Muslims. God therefore “named you all (monotheistic prophets and their followers) as Muslims, both before and in this (revelation)” (22:78). The same God is the Lord for the entire humanity including the Muslims, Jews, Christians, polytheists, atheists etc. and as such He will “judge (fairly) between them on the Day of Judgment”, either you believe or like Him or not (22:17).
(iii) Ending of Religious Evolution: All the prophets received different religious laws that best suited to their time and people. Oftentimes, these laws were amended to cope with the needs for changing time even if the place remained the same where a new prophet took over after the death of an old one. For example, the Old Testament on Moses was updated and supplemented by the New Testament for Jesus. Then came the final Book Quran with some modifications and improvements over the earlier scriptures. No matter what the prophets preached where, when and how, one basic message that always bonded them together in perfect unity was the Oneness of God, even if the religious laws for practices varied across time and place. In this process, the original religion of the same God, through evolutionary process, reached a pretty mature stage of civilization at about the 7th century. In such fullness of time, God decided about sending down the latest version of monotheism (through the Quran) upon the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). Then He shut down the process of sending further prophets which was obviously considered needless.
(iv) Quran as Final Testament: The Quran summarized and confirmed the accurate portion of the contents of previous holy Books including the Old and New Testaments. This Book, therefore, appeared like the Final Testament in complete form, making all previous scriptures additional or irrelevant. Thus Islam became the latest version and most complete of religions and thereby having replacement effect on all other religions. This is similar to a metaphoric example of a tadpole that evolves into a frog, through shortening of its tail at each successive stage and then finally what you can really see is only the complete frog. Now this frog without tail is the present and the tadpole with tail becomes a memory of the past. Accordingly, the Quran is a present day reality like the example of a ruling King and other Books are like a deposed or deceased King of the past.
(D) God’s Recommendation for Islam: God encouraged the people of other religions to have faith in Islam, saying “The religion before God is Islam (submission to His Will)” which He has “perfected” and “chosen for you as your religion” and thus “completed (His) favor on you” (3:19; 5:3). He adds on, “O Mankind! The Messenger has come to you in truth from God; it is best for you if you believe in him. (Those who) believe in the (Revelation) sent down to Muhammad, (God) will remove ills from them” (4:170:47:2). Then comes the warning for those who fail to accept the invitation and continue “to desire an (old) religion other than Islam (known as submission to One God)”, then that “will never be accepted to Him” (3:85). It seems quite logical that if you follow the old governing law even after its replacement by a new one, then that will not be acceptable. In fact, it is important for your success that you show your loyalty to any new law every time it is introduced by your government. Likewise, it will make religious sense for the non-Muslims to switch to the final religion Islam by giving up “envy against each other” in compliance with God’s desire (3:19).
Conclusion: Viewed in this light, anyone remaining outside Islam should give serious consideration to making Islam their own. Because Islam is the religion of not only the Muslims, it is the religion of everyone among you; it is a universal religion.