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‘Tawhidic-Singularity’ As A New Philosophy Of Islam – Analysis

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One of the realities about Islam as it is represented today is that very few understand its meaning in a contemporary social context, let alone be able to apply it to the world that is organic, emotionally unstable, and constantly evolving as patterned by organized chaos and complexity. 
What is missing in the discourse of contemporary Islam is the idea of the fluidity of One-ness and the bounded-ness of Multiplicity as twin paradoxes of what philosophy in this age of cybernetics, terrorism, and ‘neo-frankensteinism’ means. 
 
In other words, what Muslims of today need is not a debate, dialogue, and discourse about “what is the correct ideology that constitutes Islam”, but a radical rephrasing of the question itself: what is this notion of peace within the self, as it interacts with the outer boundaries of the self and how must the ‘self’ behaves in a world of complexity of beings without losing the fundamental believe in the holistic and philosophic-ness of the self itself. 
 
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This is the notion of ‘tawhid’ in traditional Islamic discourse we wish to explore. 
 
The authors of this essay propose a reconstructed ‘Tawhidism’; one that is not exclusively about the Islamic concept of it, with the cultural baggage of Arabism; rather, it is about the interplay between contemporary idea of Singularity and Multiplicity we frame using some version of Complexity Theory. 
 
In the foregoing discussions we will focus on the Islamic notion of the ‘knowledge of the One-ness of god’, from the philological and philosophical perspective and see how this idea can move nations, especially as we see the relevance to the Muslims in Malaysia. 
 
We chose Malaysia as a case study because of its interesting evolution not only as a plural society but also one socio-psychologically impacted by contemporary advances in globalised and networked technologies and ideologies. 
 
In our discussions we will also allude instances of the idea to existing religious traditions applicable the problems of this century. In doing so, we believe it would be more effective and logical not to craft another essay on the ‘glory of Islamic philosophy derived from the past’, but to write about the Oneness-Manyness, holistic-particularistic, and self-to-Self continuum and dichotomy; about the principle of Singularity which lives in all things cybernetic, as Chinese philosophers too would propose in the concept of the Yin and Yang of existence. 
 
Death of Islamic philosophizing 
 
We begin our discussion on the death of philosophizing in Islam, taking Malaysia as a case in point. In the Malaysian scenario, a ‘version’ of Islam began being imposed upon the rakyat (people) since the 1980s during a first phase of ‘Islamisation’. The reign of Mahathir Mohamad brought mega-changes such as the imposition of Malaysia Incorporated, a crony Privatization Policy, and The Look East policy. 
 
It also brought the push to ‘Islamize society’, through the work of Mahathir’s deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, now incarcerated on charges of sodomy. Educational, cultural, and governmental institutions were made to be more ‘Islamic’, and the nation was hegemonized by this idea of moral and intellectual leadership. 
 
As this idea evolved and permeate through the system, this ‘Islamic version of Malaysia’s developmentalist paradigm’ became one that couldn’t be questioned as to its singularity, where any person even hinting of deviating from the official view would face authoritarian consequences through the ‘Sharia police’. 
 
In this sense, ‘Islam’ in Malaysia today has been put above the constitution. Islam in Malaysia now restricts the basic rights and fundamental liberty of both individuals and communities to express themselves. Sharia authorities use the ‘precepts of Islam” as a vague term to define anything that suits in the ever growing stronger political Islam theology in Malaysia. 
 
What was once Malaysia’s official religion is quickly becoming Malaysia’s only religion. Any deviating opinion is quashed. Malaysia is now under an Umno Caliphate for all intents and purposes. 
 
The last decades saw the increase of Sharia vs Constitutional-related court cases ranging from the fight for custody of children in inter-faith marriage to the controversy over the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Malay-translated version Christian Bible or the ‘Al-Kitab’, used in East Malaysia. 
 
We see a fight between singularities. The Islamic bureaucracy in Malaysia has been growing stronger and stamping and stomping its version as the ‘one and only’ Islam, where any deviation is savagely jumped upon and prosecuted. Any hope of plurality is fast going. 
 
The Islamic bureaucracy has placed heavy ‘qualifications’ upon anybody who would dare speak out, against the prevailing form of Islam prescribed today. Malaysia has gone the path of a skewed literal understanding, with its hudud debate, and shut out the layered interpretations that were once diverse throughout the region. 
 
Like in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), peaceful coexistence of various interpretations are no longer allowed to exist. Any plurality is considered deviant, where total obedience to the ‘infallible’ ulama is now expected without question. Dissent became criminalized. Ideas of any potential Islamic reformism went away with the passing on the prime ministership from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to Najib Abdul Razak. 
 
There is no agreed methodology on how to interpret the meaning within the Quran. Scholars have begun to acknowledge the fact that the text is ‘cultural-bound’ and speaks of the time and place unique to the people of the Middle East. The stories in the Quran are essentially about prophets and messengers of the land of Arabia. 
 
There is then the problem of universalizing the experience of reading the text without ‘transferring the culture embedded in the language itself’. This has led to immense disagreement and conflict in how to approach the spiritual text of the Muslims without a culture subjecting itself to the process or even the onslaught of Arabization. 
 
In addition, centuries old Islam-predated cultural ideas such as animism in parts of South-East Asia included have been planted their roost in the psyche of the peoples, giving the unique identity such as those manifested in the idea of Javanese syncretism. 
 
Especially in South-East Asia, Hindu-Buddhist philosophy was already in vogue in the early kingdoms such as those in Srivijaya, Mataram, Singahsari, Majapahit in Java and in the kingdoms in Champa and Siam. Islam came at a later stage through the work of Arab traders and also those deliberately trying to spread this new religion from Arabia. The triumph of Islam is clear today: the Muslim man is becoming the Arabian man. 
 
Many read Islamic doctrine literally, Allah is merciful, and as a consequence fate should be merciful, i.e. Allah is watching over all Muslims. However this ignores a holistic interpretation where verses such as 13.11 clearly put destiny in ‘human’ hands. 
 
A karmic superstitious dogma has developed dating back to animism, where there is a belief that one will pay for sins against Allah, i.e., esoteric cause and effect view of the world. This appears to be deeply embedded within the cultural ‘psyche’ of Malays today. 
 
Yet within the Quran, our consciousness within the specter of the Tawhid is part of a greater consciousness which links individuals with community, nature, and something much larger that the human imagination, the concept of a universal creator. The Quran sends out a challenge to humankind, a challenge to pursue life in quest of knowledge for the betterment of the spirit, mind, and community. 
 
This is a humbling quest as the Tawhid overshadows any individual or community with something much greater, a universal creator. 
 
There are a number of paradoxes within Islam that have laid the foundations of historical frictions: 
 
The context of pre-Islamic tribal laws and customs and those practices today by ‘Arabic’ Muslims, and emulated by other Muslims across the world. What is Islam and what are residual tribal customs, i.e., on the status of women, hudud, and rituals such as female circumcision. 
The shifting of the context of jihad, a Muslim’s duty to strive and struggle, from the inward struggle to discover the pure nature within oneself and the shift towards an external struggle against those who are perceived to threaten the faith. This is a human rather than divine reinterpretation, and has now come to mean not just war against infidels, but other Muslims who are seen to view Islam differently. 
The contemporary use or hijacking of the concept of jihad makes no apology for ignoring the tenant within Islam that one should not kill another, i.e., committing suicide and going to heaven is a contradiction, irreconcilable within Islam. Is Jihad now a crime against the Tawhid? 
Much of Islamic understanding today is made up of a collective understanding by Islamic scholars, i.e., hudud, not something that comes from the Tawhid within the Quran. Consequently, much of Islam today is manufactured like Judaism, Christianity, but portrayed as set, by political forces of Islam. 
A paradox between the mystical and spiritual heritage of Islam and the political and destructive aspects of Islam. 
Nowhere is the collective wisdom of the Quran used as a compass in public policy and decision-making, particularly in Malaysia where there has been an ongoing competition between the United Malays National Organisation, (Umno) and the Pan-Islamic Malayan Party (PAS) to boast the ‘best’ Islamic credentials. 
 
Certainly there is no shura (collective) decision-making in any country within the Islamic world, where ironically the West has taken up this aspect of Islam. Malaysia tends to follow a model of dictatorship, while trying to put Islamic connotation upon this style of leadership. 
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We should push the point that the concept of Shura is Islam, it is inclusive and an alternative model west proves works, but paradoxically, Islam is repressive on minorities wherever it exists. 
 
What the Islamic world has developed is a pseudo-legalistic and political Islam that is almost singularly used for the purpose of justifying an elite group to remaining unchallenged in power. 
 
Unfortunately, to the authors’ knowledge, Islam has never been utilized as an ethically-based means to solve contemporary social, economic and political problems from an ethical moral and Tawhidic view. 
 
The models are powerful alternative paradigms to social organization purposely ignored by ruling power elites of Islamic countries, because they are empowering. Instead, empowerment has been replaced with the repressive parts of the Syariah and in Malaysia the hudud card was dealt out instead. 
 
As a consequence, too much emphasis is placed on rites and ritual within Malaysian society today. Rites and ritual have become Islam. Hence, we encounter a Fardu Ain/Kifayah paradox, where ritualism is all important at the expense of action in Islam today. 
 
We now come to the paradox of static verses dynamism, where Islam has anchored societies to maintaining a state of static entropy rather than the dynamism of progression that Islam really seeks. Arabism is setting in, antagonism against non-Muslims and returning to middle age rule seem to be the tenant about how Islam is interpreted today. 
 
On Tawhid 
 
The principles of Tawhid, or oneness of God and the idea of Singularity aforementioned; a principle central to the belief system of the Muslims regardless of school of thought or sect. 
 
The building blocks of Tawhid are the concepts of al-iman (belief), al-ilm (knowledge) and al-amal (pious acts and efforts). Al-iman is the belief in the existence of one God and Creator, with a commitment to His teachings and revelations, revealed through the Al-Qur’an, and Prophets, through the Hadiths and Sunnah, i.e., What the Prophet Muhammad said, did, agreed or disagreed to. 
 
Faith in Allah must be reflected in daily behavior, influenced by our moral system formed and contained within us. It is our inner self; 
Faith is not expectations and not outward ornamentations, but implanted in the heart and Al-iman is deepened by al-ilm, which is the responsibility of all Muslims to seek in order to fulfill and perform al-amal. Knowledge (spiritual, wisdom and scientific) is the foundation of all acts of al-amal which would be futile and unproductive without the search for further knowledge to enhance the well-being of society. 
 
Islam places great importance on scientific discovery, knowledge and wisdom to develop civilisation. Al-iman and al-ilm manifested through al-amal is the basis of the advancement of civilization for the benefit of humankind and the Ummah (Muslim community), in particular. This is undertaken under the principle of ad-din (relating humans to Allah through spiritual acts), which is referred to as ibadah. 
 
In Islam a person, who of faith, knowledge and pious devotion, manifested in effort and acts, using reason and experience and adheres to the teachings of the Al-Qur’an and Prophets is a person of Taqwa, adhering to the philosophy of Tawhid. He or she is fulfilling their purpose on Earth to perform ibada to God, through obedience (ta’ah), which conforms to his or her true and essential nature (fitrah) of humanity. 
 
This relates a person to God through everything an individual does, including spiritual duties, thoughts, actions, and deeds to other people. 
As humans operate in a social environment, Islam prescribes a number of forms of business organizationz, through which obligations can be fulfilled. A mushharakah (organization) can take a number of forms. Such business organizations are founded and operated on the principle of al-ta’awun (mutual assistance and cooperation) among members of a society for both their mutual benefit and that of a society as a whole realized through actions. (Ibn Najjar and Dailami) 
 
Islamic business is governed by the rules of sharia, the path by which all Muslims should follow. The sharia is the divine law that establishes the standards of justice and human conduct, as well as what is permitted and prohibited in action. 
 
The sharia is based on the Al-Qur’an, Sunnah and interpretations by Islamic scholars. Some Muslim scholars have stated that these standards are beyond human and are a goal or path of guidance, where others see these utopian ideals as mandatory for advancement of the community. 
Central to the sharia are the concepts of Halal and Toyyibat, which govern all the economic activities of man in wealth production and consumption of wealth, where certain means of gaining a livelihood are declared unlawful. 
 
Halal means lawful or permitted for Muslims, a concept that is much wider than just issues of food, concerning as to whether things are undertaken according to the sharia. Toyyibat is a much wider concept, meaning good, clean, wholesome, and ethical in the Islamic concept. In nutrition, toyyibat is much wider than halal, as food must also be clean, safe, nutritious, healthy and balanced. 
 
Toyyibat would also mean that agriculture must be undertaken within sustainable practices, and in business all things must be undertaken with good intentions. 
 
In Islam, the individual’s vision, mission and objectives in business is to achieve both success in this world and the hereafter. This is al-falah. Islam puts very little restriction upon the scale of worldly success, except specifying, it must be reasonable, provides the comforts of worldly life, with consideration to the poor and suffering, and within the balance of worldly and spiritual life. Human success must also serve the legitimate needs of the ummah. 
 
Allah equipped humans with the faculties of understanding right and wrong, so they may obtain a bright destiny. Humans have a free choice in what they choose. Opposition and straying from his/her true nature (fitrah) will bring discord to the individual where negative attributes will distort his or her true nature, which could lead him into doing evil deeds. 
 
The individual has his al-iman and al-ilm to keep him from this path of self-destruction (al-fasad), which would manifest itself through nepotism, favoritism, envy, greed, corruption, injustice and ignorance. This in Islam is the influence of satan, manifested in many different ways to humankind to lure one away from God’s chosen path. Humans can become unfocused through ignorance and lack of knowledge. 
 
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Achieving al-falah means that a human has lived up to God’s trust placed upon him or her, through performing ibadah, while obeying all the laws of the sharia. This is where humankind can overcome their general weaknesses in the service of Allah through righteous deeds (amal), in the obligation of fard kifayah. A human has reached the state of amanah, fulfilling the trust God has put in him or her. 
 
Islam also specifies the way organizations should be operated and managed. An organization must base all its work on al-amal and ibadah with the overall management objective of achieving al-falah for the organization as a whole and each individual within it. 
 
This is based upon a foundation of al-iman and al-ilm, within a civilization based upon a tawhid philosophy, so that employees have the opportunity to achieve taqwa and avoid straying towards the state of al-fasad. Central to achieving this are the concepts of shura (participation in decision making and community learning) and adab (justice and rights). 
 
Shura is total organizational community participation in decision making to ensure an organization gets the best views, is creative, to develop employees understanding of decisions made, to achieve better implementation of decisions and strengthen the Islamic fraternity. 
 
Shura is can also be seen as an organizational control mechanism to prevent management and individuals within the organization from straying down the path of ignorance, greed and oppression, so that the organization can continue to serve its members and the wider community and thus sustain itself. Shura creates a positive learning environment within and organization, similar to the concepts of learning organization proposed by the management guru Peter Senge in the 1990s. 
 
The Al-Qur’an states that the concept of shura is mandatory upon an organization. 
 
An organization should build its foundations upon the basic principles of human rights in its administration based on the concept of adab. Adab is based on the existence and recognition of Allah and recognition of his commands and laws (sharia). 
 
Within an organizational context, adab persuades a person to do good and avoid evil (al-fasad), in accordance with the nature of man (fitrah) and nature of his action (al-amal). Adab comprises four major responsibilities, 1. responsibility to God, 2. responsibility to oneself, 3. responsibility to society and other human beings, and 4. responsibility to the universe and other creatures. 
 
Over the last few decades Western management ideas and ethics have moved closer to Islamic principles and ethics. Stephen Covey, a devout practicing member of The Church of Latter-Day Saints, evangelistically preaches personal development, fulfillment and spirituality within the context of the organization. 
 
We see ‘Western non-Islamic’ societies that have embodied many principles within the Tawhid within their legal and juridistic codes, playing out a farm of ‘secular’ Islam based up knowledge, fairness, and compassion, that don’t exist within the contemporary Islamic world. 
 
Complexity Theory and Islam 
 
The world of today continues to evolve in all its complexity. Advanced digital communication technologies, high speed informational flow that instantaneously send images and ideas of change, the process of globalization itself that alter and compress time and space and even decide the course of human and social events – all these continue to fragment the human self. 
 
Religion, such as Islam which claims to be adaptable to changing times is also affected by the destruction of the ‘singularity of the selfhood of the Muslim’. New ideas and inventions challenge Islamic orthodoxy and open up new debates that demand new perspectives, or edicts, or “fatwas” to be written to safeguard the ‘fragmentation of Islam’. 
 
In short, the Muslim of today lives in a spiritual world of deconstructionism; ideas bombard the self into multiplicity rather than hold it as a ‘Singularity’, as how promoters of Islam orthodoxy would demand. 
 
Complex systems require a complex view of looking at phenomena. The idea of complexity brought about by the post-Industrial world and as it impacts the mind, body, and soul of the Muslim individually and collectively as an ‘ummah’ (a millinearistic supra-nation of Oneness before Allah,) has brought fragmentation among the believers of this religion. 
 
From the historical conflicts of the major schools of thought, to the violent departure of ideological Islam in the Shia-Sunni schism, to the ‘crisis of identity’ plaguing Muslims of today especially post-9/11 – these characterize fragmentation that have led to never-ending violent conflicts in the Islamic world. Muslims are living in a world of Islamic chaos, so to speak. 
 
If we take the idea of Chaos Theory as one that tries to explain small changes leading to larger systemic changes over a long period of time (the ‘Butterfly Effect’,) and apply it to the phenomena of Islam’s evolution as an institutionalized religious ideology, we could see that there is the need to look the core issue of the loss of ‘the principle of Singularity’ or ‘One-ness’ or ‘Unity’ brought about by Muhammad. 
 
There is a loss of the sense of and the understanding of ‘Tawhid’ or the deep understanding of the knowledge and application of the principles of the one-ness of god or Allah that not only should unify the self but society. 
 
Tawhidic knowledge can perhaps de-fragment the self, bring it to holism and create an understanding that man is the vicegerent of Allah on Earth, as how the early teachings of Islam and the ‘early Tawhidists’ at the time of Muhammad would enjoin. 
 
Today’s Islam is a manifestation of deep rooted fragmentation and even destruction of the self as can be seen in the conduct of nations calling themselves Islamic. Whether the blame is put on geopolitical, political-economic, or post-industrial complexities of a multipolar world of today, or even the power play among empires such as Russia or the United States, the issue in the world of Islam is chaos and the multitudinality of conflicts as opposed to unity and strength of the self and society as taught by Islam. 
 
So how does Tawhidism interpret problems and offer solutions to major issues of today? 
 
Praxis and the Islamic state 
 
A need to rethink these puritanical teachings. Islam is about consciousness, not ritual. Islam has become totally intolerant of diverse views, even though there is a rich and diverse Ummah to contribute. 
 
The task of Muslims of today is to re-interpret Islam within contemporary contexts, rather than rely on the literal Arabic and tradition to craft discourses of action. The Arabic frame of interpretation is just as corrupting as any liberal interpretative frame. (i.e., rose-colored glasses phenomenon). 
 
To date text has supported opinion. However, there must be a balance between text and opinion, particularly when it comes to Hadiths. The tenants of Islam should not change, only the contexts, (i.e., the scenes). 
 
This requires relooking at Islam without any frames, be it Arabic or Liberal-Christianic. Liberal or tribal morals and traditions must not be allowed to skew the true meaning of Tawhid. 
 
Islam was once seen as a magnificent and progressive religion which took civilization to the forefront of advancement. However scholars today are forbidden and censored from taking any ‘unframed’ look at Islamic doctrine, the doctrine(s) held by today’s Islamic elite(s). 
 
The Islamic world of today has also suffered from the evolution of violent and chaos from the ideological and even philosophical conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiahs – conflict that began as a leadership succession crisis between the camp Muawiyyah and the family of Prophet Muhammad, led by the latter’s cousin, Ali’ ibn Abi Talib. 
 
The former believe that the mantle of the prophet should be with the democratically elected leader in Muawiyyah, but some believe that instead of Abu Bakr’ as the first khalifah, the political and spiritual leadership should come from the Ahlul Bayt or the ‘family of the prophet’. 
 
The famous claim that there is a hadiths/saying which goes “… if I am the treasure throve of knowledge, Ali (my cousin) is the holder of its key …” formed the basis of the claim to leadership by direct discordancy. The conflict culminated in the massacre of Ali and his children Hasan and Hussein, at Karbala (now in Iran.) The ‘massacre at Karbala’ became a historical foundation of what is now known as the Sunni-Shia schism and violent conflicts currently happening in the Middle East. 
 
The Tawhidic view of Islam necessitates one to look at the religion outside the realm of the destructive and cognitively-debilitating Sunni-Shiah schism. It requires the mind to enter the realm of discussions on the idea that amid chaos and complexity of the self and the outer world one inhabits lie a realm of totality of the self in which, as we allude in the first paragraph, the Singularity-Multiplicity Principle. 
 
It emanates from the idea that one must first think of oneself from an existentialist point of view and move on to conceptualizing the totality of the self as embodied by the sense of powerfulness, knowledge, and other qualities that makes up human nature. The poem below perhaps best allude to this idea of reconceptualization of oneself: 
 
The philosophy of the self 
is the constant – 
the Absolute – 
from which 
the Changing Concepts emanate. 
From the Absolute 
springs 
existence, 
eternity, 
harmony, 
oneness, 
power, 
destiny, 
knowledge, 
life, … 
and so on and so forth. 
From the Absolute 
springs 
Creationism 
within the Inner Self 
that one must govern, 
From the Absolute 
emanates 
Good and Evil, 
Heaven and Hell 
the opposites and the contradictions 
that one needs to mediate 
in one’s lifetime, 
From the Absolute 
emanates 
the knowledge of one’s 
Life, 
Death, 
and Resurrection 
one experiences daily, 
From the Absolute 
one sees 
the history of the creation of the Universe within, 
the Universe Outside, and 
the parallel universes that are being created 
outside of oneself, 
From the Absolute 
one finds The Love that Reigns Supreme, 
that conquers all, 
that evolves from Hate to Love 
from the being trapped 
in the love of oneself to 
the love of humanity, 
without boundaries 
From the Absolute, 
one commands the Guardian Angles 
to bow down to oneself 
and not to Kings, Sultans, 
Despots, Tuns, Datuk Seris, 
or the State, 
From the Absolutism 
of One’s Rulership in one’s kingdom, 
one governs the armies of senses – 
Sight, Hearing, Speech, Thoughts… 
From the Absolute 
one sees with the Inner Eye 
the daily battles within and decide 
who will be the winners and 
who will be the losers, 
From the Throne of Absolutism, 
one speaks 
with the ancient prophets and sages 
and instruct them 
to strengthen the authority and legitimation 
of this Inner Kingdom one constructed 
out of the realisation 
of an end of a journey 
one is rewarded with, 
The Absolute is Love, 
never changing, 
always travelling with this self 
of flesh and bones 
and consciousness 
that one gets the chance to encounter 
in one’s lifetime… 
if one searches for love. 
Love is the Absolute 
Only Love 
 
This takes us to the higher level of Islamic thinking. We see Allah not as an agent of judgement and hellfire, based upon literal reading of the Quran but as a unifying, non-physical, and a present universal consciousness, that is all loving, all creating, all embracing, all merciful, and absolute; a quantum, which Islam calls ‘Allah’. 
 
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‘Shura-democratic’ principles of transcultural Islam 
 
Borrowing a Socrates maxim, at the core of the issue is ignorance and the will to be stubborn to remain ignorant. There is a possible cure for this, a process philosophy framed from the tawhidic-singularity worldview. 
 
Muslims of today need a multi-culturalist, multi-vocalic, multi-accepting, and multi-diverse brand of progressive thinking to save them. In Malaysia for example, they need to embrace a new perspective in conflict resolution and peace-building: a ‘shura-democratic’ principles based on the idea of transcultural-humanism. 
 
By ‘shura’ we mean the practice of participatory and grassroots decision-making in which the leader will listen to the voices of dissent and consensus and turn them into artifacts of invention and social imagination in order to affect positive change. 
 
This form of progressive and altruistic liberalism that hybridizes tawhid with transcultural philosophies may promise to remove the glass coconut shell that has become a comfort zone, especially for the Malays and particularly of the Malay Muslims. 
 
‘Shura-democracy’ might be the long-awaited cure for this neo-feudalistic malady called ‘malaise-ness’ that hath plagued for example the Malays in Malaysia since they were enslaved first as ‘hamba sahaya’, by their own rulers of ancient times. At the macro-level as it pertains to the evolution of societies governed by Muslim leaders, it may be the best way to approach strategic designs for social change. 
 
‘Shura-democracy’, which begin with the deep understanding of the personacratic self is consistent with the idea of ‘wisdom’ or ‘fatanah’ as the highest level of knowledge acquisition and application in Islam. In speaking of seeking knowledge and in trumpeting Islam as a religion of high learning, progressiveness, and democracy that upholds the principles of human rights, Muslims in Malaysia too often quote the words of the first revelation, ‘Iqra’, ‘Read’, or “read in the name of Thy Lord who created thee … who created thee from a clot” as a signature of religious advocacy par excellence. 
 
In this case, he word ‘Rabb’ or ‘Creator’ or ‘the Lord’ is used in the translation and not the world ‘Allah’ in the first revelation ‘Iqra’. Maybe the concept of ‘Allah’ is a later formulation borne out of a philosophical quest to construct the meaning of god in Islam. Perhaps the idea of ‘Allah’ was already there in the texts of the Jews, Christians, and the Sabeans and the later Muslims had to invent a philosophically distinct one. 
 
Islam as it has evolved is not only an institutionalized religion influenced by texts and subtexts of ideas and ideologies that are in conflict with one another but also have brought about deadly conflicts. It is a religion that has deep cultural roots and continue to impose its Arabist shackle onto the believers. 
 
As such, a transcultural world view of this tawhid-driven belief system need to be brought to the center stage of the global movement of new ideas in Islamic philosophical reconstructionism. We believe that the believers need to help institutionalized and parochlized Islam evolve especially beyond the disabling realms of culture. 
 
We believe that and those using this system as a guide in life need to embrace a ‘transcultural worldview’ of this religion and strip Islam out of its exclusionary Arabist cultural entrapment. We believe that the idea of ‘shura-democratic principles’ of Islam as seen from the transculturalist worldview need to be the new playground of this new Islamic renaissance. 
 
Again, as we assert throughout this essay, the centrepiece of this vision of a new philosophical outlook lie in the idea of tawhidic-singularity of things. Muslims need to bring back multiple worldviews and diverse philosophies of human progress and intellectual freedom into the process of reconsctructing this new ‘tawhidic-singularity’ mode of organic thinking. 
 
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Conclusion 
 
In the foregoing discussions, we have proposed a reconstruction of ‘Tawhid’, by framing it through the language of contemporary social transformation and social cybernetics. At the center of this Arabic word, ‘Tawhid’, which means one-ness and unity as a weltanscauung of the cognition and consciousness of the Muslim, we propose conceptual-constellations such as complexity theory, praxis, cybernetics, and futurism to denote and connoted the notion of Singularity to be applied to the behaviors of the Muslim as he/she is located in the State. 
 
We believe that the idea of ‘shura-democratic principles’ of Islam, framed from a transcultural worldview is needed by today’s Muslims. Today’s believer of this religion seem to be lost in this precarious world of globalization affecting the discursive evolution of Islam. We believe the principles of Tawhid are central to the functions of the State such as the economy, entrepreneurship education, and the relationship among nations. 
 
We propose that only when the self is governed as whole and the principle of One-ness exists in the realm of the One-ness of god, or the Tawhid and that Man knows why he/she exists, and when ethics, epistemology, and ontological vocation of Man as vicegerent of God is understood as a principle of living, the state of peace can be arrived at – beginning from the construction the peaceful self to the building and maintaining of peace in the family, community, and society, and finally moving on to the designing of peaceful solutions to world conflicts, in our dream of building that ‘peaceful world order’. 
 
The Islamic world of today, as a microcosm of the world in general, is not only fragmented but also an organic and metastasizing ground of violence is they visible, hidden, and structural. 
 
We believe that at least at the conceptual and theoretical level we must begin to re-conceive the Tawhidic idea of one-ness and to explore its potential as an organic and ‘praxical’ (or unity of theory and practice) philosophy so that the continuing fragmentation can be arrested. 
 
As the title of our essay suggests, we believe this is a philosophy of personal and social progress and transformation that will be searching for today’s Muslims in particular and for others in general. Tawhid is a philosophy of cybernetic-existentialism that can be appealing to the global citizen of today’s world: a world of materialistic Multiplicities in search of the metaphysical Singularity. 
 
Copernicus once argued that the earth was not at the center of the universe, which threw the Christian view of the world into chaos. Muslims must accommodate that Allah rabb al-àlamin is the Lord of the Worlds, and thus there are potentially multiple and parallel realities within Islam. 
 
This is the true Islamic revolution in developing a Tawhidic wisdom that is waiting. 
 
The literal Islamic worldview is just but one layer in meaning that needs to be peeled away so we can see the deeper meanings within Islam. 
 
The literal view is not the center of Islam. This has covered and hidden much deeper meanings of the Quran. Islam accepts that there are a multiplicity of worlds in existence, but Muslims to date have chosen to live within only one of them. Yet the Quran speaks of Allah al-ghaib, or concealed dimensions of reality. 
 
New understandings of Islam are necessary.</div>

‘Tawhidic-Singularity’ As A New Philosophy Of Islam – Analysis

One of the realities about Islam as it is represented today is that very few understand its meaning in a contemporary social context, let alone be able to apply it to the world that is organic, emotionally unstable, and constantly evolving as patterned by organized chaos and complexity. What is mis…

17Jan2016

Islam Offers Easy Answers for Reducing Waste

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As you might expect, we’ve discussed the environmental impacts of food waste on numerous occasions. We’ve also discussed the economics of sending edible food to landfills, as well as the innovative ideas created to address this waste. But food waste as an issue of faith? Actually, it makes total sense: certainly, it can’t be moral to dispose of food that people who are hungry could eat… can it? 
 
The Hebrew scripture and Christian Bible speak to the notion of gluttony, but (to my knowledge, anyway) the Quran is the only holy book of the Abrahamic religions that speaks directly to the waste of food. Aisha Abdelhamid of our sister site Eden Keeper wrote about this topic very thoroughly at the beginning of the week, and I was just itching to find a place in the schedule for her post. 
 
It’s easy to see why ancient cultures might have put a religious prohibition on the waste of food: their survival wasn’t guaranteed, and hunger was just a poor harvest away. Share your thoughts with us on Islam’s approach to the morality of waste. And, if you know of other religious obligations or prohibitions here, let us know about them… I’m fascinated by this topic. 
 
UPDATE: Thanks to former Green Options writer and mom blogger extraordinaire Jessica Wilzig Gottlieb for filling me in on Bal Tashchit, the Jewish commandment forbidding wanton destruction and waste. In Deuteronomy 20:19-20, this concept is expressed specifically in terms of food waste… 
 
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Islam Offers Easy Answers for Reducing Waste 
 
Since the beginning of time, waste has been an environmental issue for humans. Waste is often equated with trash, but even before the existence of trash, there was waste. Understanding the various forms of waste can help us identify ways to avoid and reduce it. Muslims have had lessons on avoiding and reducing waste for over 1,400 years and we can all benefit from the guidance offered in Islam. 
 
It is He Who has brought into being gardens, the cultivated and the wild, and date-palms, and fields with produce of all kinds, and olives and pomegranates, similar (in kind) and variegated. Eat of their fruit in season, but give (the poor) their due on harvest day. And do not waste, for God does not love the wasteful. [Quran 6:141] 
From this verse we comprehend that food is a primary source of waste. Leftover food in the days before refrigeration was probably a perilous invitation for predators to come visiting. Even today, leaving food out for the bears while camping in Yosemite is a dangerously bad idea. However, not only does God command us not to waste, but in the same verse He also teaches how to avoid it. God instructs us to share our food with the poor — not from leftovers after it’s been to the market, but on the same day it is harvested. 
 
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A Criminal Degree of Commercial Food Waste 
 
During ten years of life as a small family farmer in South Carolina, I saw a criminal degree of commercial food waste firsthand. Not only did we raise animals for halal meat, we also planted two acres of fruit trees. Taking fruit to market requires separating the very ripe fruit away from the fruit that will handle to sell for a few days. Imagine offering that very ripe fruit to the poor, how thoughtful and generous. No matter who you give it to, it’s much better than discarding it as “rotten” because it won’t handle transporting to the market. 
 
This verse also identifies waste that occurs with consumption of food outside of its natural season. “Eat of their fruit in season” implies that this is better for us than, for example, importing grapes from halfway around the world. It is possible that this one simple command might have spared us all from global warming had we simply followed the guidance from Islam. Just think of all the fossil fuel emissions we might have avoided from only eating what is in season locally. 
 
Waste as a Result of Excess 
 
Waste is also a problem resulting from having too much. It may be the most sweet cantaloupe you will ever eat in your life, but if the farmer planted too much cantaloupe, it’s going to go to waste. Allah addresses this problem of excess in the Quran: 
 
O you who believe! Do not make unlawful the wholesome things which God has made lawful for you, but commit no excess for God does not love those given to excess. [Quran 5:87] 
Excess produce is a problem every farmer tries to cope with in a variety of ways. In the case of small family farms, neighborly sharing always was, and still is, a regular practice. In Islam, Allah requires that Muslims share a portion of every harvest with the poor in our neighborhoods. But, sadly, industrialized commercial farming practices have led to the worst forms of food waste due to excess. 
 
Many acres may ripen their produce all at once, and often laborers can not physically harvest fast enough to avoid food spoilage. Sometimes whole fields of produce lay rotting in the sun, and it’s a very depressing sight. My husband and I drove up to the house of a farmer with huge fields full of rotting cantaloupes. The farmer told us the field is under contract, and no more money would be paid for laborers because it was late in the season and the cost of labor was higher than the value of the cantaloupes. 
 
Posted: No Trespassing Allowed 
 
And don’t imagine the poor people in the neighborhood are allowed to take from those fields. We asked about that, too. Even the migrant farm workers are not allowed to do that. Contract farms are tightly patrolled and trespassers will be prosecuted – if they’re lucky and don’t get shot at. 
 
Next, the produce that does get harvested and packaged is distributed to wholesale produce markets in huge quantities. This also is far more produce than can be distributed to grocery stores and restaurants without avoiding another huge loss of food to spoilage. Men drive forklifts around all day in the wholesale markets, carrying pallets of rotten produce to the dumpsters. The dumpsters are also patrolled, and it is illegal to remove any produce from them. 
 
Drive behind your local grocery store and you will witness the next round of food waste from huge quantities of fresh produce on permanent display inside the store. But if it gets one little black spot on it, out it goes, onto the heaping, rotting pile out back. There are some grocery stores where poor people can stealthily grab from the dumpster out back, but in most communities this is definitely illegal trespassing, and I have no idea where poor people can turn for food. Thank God for religious organizations and food banks because harvest day sharing isn’t happening on commercial farms, wholesale markets, or out behind the grocery stores. 
 
Gluttony as a Form Of Waste 
 
From the two verses above, we can understand that God has provided a wide variety of delicious and lawful, or halal, food for us to eat. We can infer from this that God intends for us to enjoy our food, and understands our pleasure in having a wide variety of flavors. This is confirmed by the fact that He gave us taste buds to appreciate the various flavors of food which He provides. But eating excessively, on the other hand, carries a terrible penalty: 
 
Eat of the wholesome things We have provided for your sustenance, but commit no excess therein, lest My condemnation fall upon you; he upon whom My condemnation falls has indeed thrown himself into utter ruin. (20:81) 
 
Gluttony is a form of personal sabotage, leading to a large number of health risks. Overeating may be seen by many as a simple act of self-indulgence in the presence of delicious food, but God obviously doesn’t see it that way. It is easy to understand that unwholesome consumption, like taking drugs, clearly carries dangerous health risks. But the 1,400-year-old lesson here is that even the good, wholesome foods carry dangerous risks when eaten excessively. 
 
Obesity and diabetes, among other life-wasting conditions related to overeating, are risks that God clearly would like us to avoid. And, just as we put the spoon in our own mouth with our own hand, God makes it clear that we are responsible for our own condemnation: “he upon whom My condemnation falls has indeed thrown himself into utter ruin.” 
 
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“Jonesing” Is Another Form of Waste in Islam 
 
“Keeping up with the Jones’s,” or conspicuous spending for the sake of prestige, is not an evil born of 20th century, Western society. It is clearly present in the earliest days of Islam, in the Saudi Arabian desert society of 600 A.D., as we see in the following verses of the Holy Quran: 
 
Children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer and eat and drink. But do not be excessive – verily God does not love the wasteful. [Quran 7:31] 
Not only are we provided with delicious food, but we are also encouraged to wear our beautiful clothes when eating, drinking, and praying. Clearly this is community socializing, and donning your duds is not discouraged. On the other hand, in Islam showing off your personal fortune by spending it on an outrageously expensive outfit is both excessive and wasteful. 
 
Social spending can spiral out of control when being seen as Mr. or Ms. Big Spender becomes more important than enjoying a community gathering. Peer pressure is a trigger for conspicuous spending throughout a community, leading to envy, jealousy, and back-stabbing. Families and whole communities can be destroyed this way, but God provides a warning against this hateful form of waste. And, in fact, even the cycle of peer pressure can be broken easily by following the simple words of the Prophet of Islam: 
 
“When you see one who has more, look to one who has less.” [Prophet Muhammad] 
It is easier to count our blessings when we focus more on the poor people around us, rather than the rich. When God is our mentor, our peers become less impressive. And when we read all this down-to-earth guidance about avoiding waste, it becomes clear that the answers in Islam are simple. They are personal and self-evident. 
 
We need only to focus on our own personal attempt at avoiding waste, and the net effect is possible to ripple through the entire population. Our environment will not change. We will not wake up one morning to a lovely clean environment without each one of us turning our attention inward. 
 
I am not responsible for anyone else’s waste but my own, and no one else will clean up my waste for me. But, God willing, if I clean up my mess and stem my own flow of waste, then I’ll be free and very happy to help out wherever I can! 
 
Source: http://sustainablog.org/2014/10/food-waste-faith-quran-say-wasting-food/</div>

Islam Offers Easy Answers for Reducing Waste

As you might expect, we’ve discussed the environmental impacts of food waste on numerous occasions. We’ve also discussed the economics of sending edible food to landfills, as well as the innovative ideas created to address this waste. But food waste as an issue of faith? Actually, it makes total se…

16Jan2016

Vatican Fully Recognizes The State of Palestine As The Comprehensive Agreement Enters Into Force

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The L'Osservatore Romano published an article on June 26 about the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement between the State of Palestine and the Vatican. The accord, which covered the activities and life of the Catholic Church in Palestine while also reaffirming the Holy See's support to end the conflict in the region, was the first treaty entered into since Vatican recognizedPalestine as a state in February 2013. 
 
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The agreement was signed by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Vatican's Secretary for Relations With States, and Dr. Riad Al-Malki, Palestine's Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
 
While the said treaty was perceived as a motion to improve the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine, Israel condemned it saying that it was a "hasty step that damages the prospects for advancing a peace agreement," Reuters noted on Jun. 26. 
 
Despite the strong condemnation of Israel against the said agreement, Vatican remained eager to establish a significant role in the Middle East that is rooted in soft diplomacy. 
 
On Jan. 2, the Holy See announced that the comprehensive agreement forged last year has come into full force, implying that the Holy See fully supports the "much-desired two-state solution," Russia Today reported Sunday. 
 
"The Holy See and the State of Palestine have notified each other that the procedural requirements for its [the agreement's] entry into force have been fulfilled, under the terms of Article 30 of the same Agreement," both countries said in a joint statement. 
 
Furthermore, this step has extended a full and official recognition to Palestine as an equal partner of Vatican, and sealed support to the resolution of the 2012 United Nations General Assembly that granted Palestine a non-member observer status. 
 
"The Agreement ... regards essential aspects of the life and activity of the Church in Palestine, while at the same time reaffirming the support for a negotiated and peaceful solution to the conflict in the region," said the Vatican. 
 
Source: http://www.eurasiareview.com/04012016-vatican-recognizes-palestine-as-a-state/ 
[post_ads]</div>

Vatican Fully Recognizes The State of Palestine As The Comprehensive Agreement Enters Into Force

The L'Osservatore Romano published an article on June 26 about the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement between the State of Palestine and the Vatican. The accord, which covered the activities and life of the Catholic Church in Palestine while also reaffirming the Holy See's support to end the co…

15Jan2016

Osservatore Romano says cartoon shows sad paradox of world that is increasingly careful to be politically correct yet does not respect believers’ faith

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Charlie Hebdo anniversary cover disrespects all faiths, Vatican newspaper says. 
 
The Vatican’s newspaper on Tuesday criticised French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo for a front cover portraying God as a gun-wielding terrorist to mark the first anniversary of a terrorist attack on the publication’s offices in which 12 people died. 
 
A million copies of the special edition hit France’s newsstands on Wednesday with a cover featuring a bearded man representing God with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, accompanied by the text: “One year on: the assassin is still out there.” 
 
Hebdo’s cover for the one-year-anniversary of the tragedy uses Christian iconography to depict God as a terrorist covered in blood, who is running away with a Kalashnikov slung on his back. The title of the cover reads “L’assasin court toujours,” translating roughly as “the assassin is still at large.” 
 
In the L’Osservatore Romano article, the Vatican said the decision to use this specific image begs the question: “is the kind of controversy France needs right now?” 
 
France has been site of numerous terrorist attacks over the past year, the most recent of which was a series of coordinated attacks by Islamic terrorists in Paris Nov. 13 that left 129 people dead. 
 
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However, the Vatican said the cover choice is “nothing new,” and that behind their flag of “uncompromising secularism,” Hebdo has forgotten that religious leaders have for some time insisted that “using God to justify hatred constitutes true blasphemy,” as Pope Francis has often repeated. 
 
Charlie Hebdo’s decision, they said, “illustrates the sad paradox of a world that is becoming so sensitive to political correctness it is verging on the ridiculous, but which doesn’t want to recognize or respect the faith in God of every believer, whatever creed they profess.” 
 
In comments to AdnKronos news agency, Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieto-Vasto and secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, described the French weekly’s choice as “distressing, as well as unfounded.” 
 
“It offends the sensitivity of all people, not only Christians, Jews or Muslims. It also offends those who despite not being believers sense how important it is to respect the religious conscience and dimension in life.” 
 
The paper’s insinuations, he said, “are far from the truth, because all religions, not just Christianity, but also the Jewish and Muslim faiths, preach non-violence in the name of God. If anything, one shows violence by adopting an ideological stance, claiming to possess the truth, judging and excluding others.” 
 
Charlie Hebdo is known for its provocative paper covers, and has a history printing such cartoons about the prophet Mohamed. In February 2006 it reprinted cartoons from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that provoked outrage among many Muslims; the newspaper’s offices were firebombed in November 2011 after publishing one cartoon of Mohammed. 
 
In September 2012 the newspaper published cartoons showing Mohammed naked. The cartoon came at a time of violent protests over a low-budget film made in the U.S. that was insulting towards the founder of Islam. 
 
Shortly after the last year’s massacre took place, Pope Francis commented on the incident, saying that killing in God’s name is never acceptable, but neither is insulting faith. 
 
While on his way to the Philippines Jan. 15, 2015, the Pope held an in-flight news conference, during which he was asked by a French journalist if he saw freedom of expression as a fundamental human right. 
 
In response, Francis said that “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith.” If you do, he said, you “can expect a punch.” 
 
On the other hand, he stressed that one “cannot kill in the name of God, This is an aberration. Killing in the name of God is an aberration against God. I think this is the main thing with freedom of religion. You can practice with freedom but without imposing or killing.” 
 
He said that every person has not just the freedom or right, but also an obligation “to say what he thinks” in order to build the common good: “We have the obligation to freely have this liberty, but without offending.” 
 
Source: http://www.eurasiareview.com/08012016-vatican-paper-blasts-charlie-hebdo-cover-as-insulting-to-all-faiths/</div>

Osservatore Romano says cartoon shows sad paradox of world that is increasingly careful to be politically correct yet does not respect believers’ faith

Charlie Hebdo anniversary cover disrespects all faiths, Vatican newspaper says. The Vatican’s newspaper on Tuesday criticised French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo for a front cover portraying God as a gun-wielding terrorist to mark the first anniversary of a terrorist attack on the publication’s of…

13Jan2016

Quantum Islam: Towards A New Worldview – Analysis

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In our essay on Tawhidic-Singularity as a new philosophy of Islam, we proposed that Muslims need to interpret the core teaching of One-ness from a kaleidoscopic perspective. We asked readers to reflect upon the applicability of Chaos or Complexity Theory to view Islam as an organic and living religion inviting its believers to look at the concept of One-ness as the manifesting of Many-ness. In this essay, we go deeper into the discussion of the soul of the Quran itself and how Muslims could perceive and read it as a postmodern text with multiple-level meanings based on his/her unique life experiences. 
 
We wish to propose the worldview of “Quantum Islam,” as a new way looking at this cultural belief system. We invite readers to think of Islam as more than just unquestioning faith and rites and rituals but as an evolving text to be made alive. The idea of a “living Quran” is a means of perceiving and feeling one’s existence as a world of interconnectedness. This world of deep personal connectivity is a world of the physical, emotional and spiritual self as it exists in the realm of the Universal self as a world designed as a Quantum being in itself. 
 
Multiple Universes and the Quran 
 
Islam is about what cannot at present be explained intrinsically through the science we know today. 
 
The Qu’ran is a deeply layered book of meaning. However, the majority of Muslims have tended to take literal views. The Qu’ran has also foreseen many scientific discoveries and defined the nature of our realities. Such a view of the cognitive and metaphysical nature of the text has been dominant at a time when Islamic philosophy was being conceived, especially in the debates between scholars trained in Greek philosophy with those trying to rid the influence of rationalism in epistemologizing the meaning of existence. 
 
The Qu’ran and Hadiths have shaped the worldview of 20% of the world’s population. But Islam today is viewed as a singular reality, embedded in ‘Arabism’ and ‘hellfire’ paradigms, coercing Muslims to follow literal views, within a ‘carrot and stick’ enlightenment and fear syndrome. 
 
As a consequence Islam has not been the means to a higher level universal wisdom that the Qu’ran can facilitate, if read with this understanding. 
 
Allah rabb al-àlamin, the Lord of the Worlds indicates a multiverse with parallel realities. There are parallel universes mentioned within the Qu’ran that we don’t have access to. These worlds are widely talked about within the Qu’ran, the world of the jinns, as in the verse ”And the jinn race, we had created before, from the fire of a scorching wind” Qur’an (15:27) 
 
The 99 names of Allah also suggest multi-existential paradigms. 
 
Challenges of constructing this multi-universal view 
 
The first challenge is to escape the unipolar world and live in, and transcend to the multipolar world the Qu’ran describes. i.e., atoms can be both a particle and wave and thus be in multiple places at the same time. True realities are multipolar dynamics, rather than unipolar statics. Thus, to understand the complexity of the environment, we must develop both our personal self-awareness and social awareness. So where reality is multi-layered and kaleidoscopic, layered and deeper meanings can be derived from the chaotic environment we exist within through contemplating the layered intricacies and meanings within the Quran. 
 
Muslims viewing the text of the Qu’ran as a living and evolving one, can find a meaningful guide to life and the universe, which we propose is what Quantum Islam means. What one sees with the naked eye, a phenomenon to be studied is just a level of Reality that we construct cognitively. However as one reads deeper into the meaning of the Quran, one may find the signs and symbols manifesting themselves in newer ways, which we digest and make meaning of through our self-awareness or spirituality. 
 
The second challenge is that we must understand that we are not at the centre of the world. We must override the assumption that modern humankind has adopted in that humans can control nature and nature is here to serve us. What we think and the assumptions behind our very thoughts may not actually resemble reality, and may not be the truth. Once we shed this egocentric view of the world, we come to realize that we cannot control nature and we must nurture nature. In the Quran it is said: ”Say: He is Allah, He is One, He is Eternal He Begets not nor is He begotten and there is none equal unto Him” Surah Ikhlas 112. 
 
Muslims engaged in a cognitive and metaphysical reading of the Quran may propose that human existence is both physical and conceptual, and that as a Platonic view would content, we are both Forms and Appearance, and that if the self is an invention/creation to manifest the “truth”. There is a larger truth of “being and nothingness,” in another world of the “unseen,”. This is the idea of corresponding reality of existence. Islam proposes that this view of Quantum state of beingness can only be understood if one understands the meaning of “selflessness” or the “destruction of the Ego,” and to allow the self to be liberated from the confines of a physical and mechanistic world. 
 
The third challenge is to read the question from a “culturally-neutral” perspective. This means stripping the notion that all that is Islam is Arabic and with fallacy, to believe that religious belief is not cultural. This is to begin to believe that to be a Muslim, one need not aspire to be or to become an Arab. If Islam is a universal truth, it is not ‘Arab-centric’, and many of the rites and rituals cannot be universal, if for example, Islam was to the truth on another planet like Mars. What would Islam be like without the cultural anchors that have grown around it and almost strangled the truth? If, as the last message of Prophet Muhammad would content — that Islam promotes a universal message of peace – and be viewed as the “final revelation,” and that only 20% of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are speakers of the Arabic language, what has been the consequence of Islam as religion that has been too much caught in the semiotics of Arabism? Simply put, why is being Muslim today synonymous of being or looking Arabic? 
 
The three challenges above, namely that we are living in a multipolar world, that our existence is not central to the Universe, and that religion is a cultural construct to present ways for Muslims to view Islam differently. The Quran, in its very first few words of revelation, “Read … in the name of thy Lord who created Thee …” is a clear enough proposition for believers in this religion to “read oneself and to read the world on is living in.” It is an invitation for readers to not only “read the world” but also to “write” a story of one’s life, based on one’s own worldview and to unshackle oneself from being defined by others. 
 
The challenges above are existential in nature, given by the Quran to the readers. 
 
“Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth (with the thought) Our Lord! Not for nothing have you created (all) this. Glory to you! Give us salvation from the suffering of the fire” Qur’an (3: 190-191) 
 
The Ummah as Singularity in Multiplicity 
 
The Ummah is an interconnection of oneness, not segregated tribes who are at war with each other. 
 
We are left to reflect upon the multiplicity of worlds that were created and understand that we are only a tiny part of it. 
 
This opens up wisdom, develops humbleness, and increases empathy towards there being something greater than ourselves. The quintessential and foundational chapter of the Quran, Al Fatihah, or The Opening offer this idea of mercy, peace, gratitude, and wisdom in choosing between Good and Evil. It introduces the reader to the idea that the path of righteousness or the “Siratul Mustaqim” is the path of peace that will guide human beings in this journey through the bountiful and merciful world created by The Lord of the Universe. This path is a challenging one, as we can see that even the world “Islam” can be used to strike terror in others as well as create untold magnitude of destruction. The emergence of the ISIS “Islamic State of Syria and Iraq” or ISISL, The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant” or the Daesh (Darul Islamiyah) and the globalization of terror has is an example of how the word of Islam and the tawhidic message of peace can be misrepresented and be a guide to the path of “those cursed” as the last verse of the Al Fatihah reads. 
 
This takes us into the “tawhidic-singularity” realm of Islam with the idea of Gnosticism factored into the belief system – of the ‘alam al-ghaib’, the concealed dimension of reality. 
 
We are told within the Tawhid to submit to Allah and be part of the greater universe. Yet the behaviour espoused by Islam scholars today tends to deem that OUR humanity is at the centre of the universe. It puts humankind above the natural laws of the universe, in a state of arrogance, detested in the Qu’ran itself. 
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Today we see many political Islamic ideologies that seek to dominate all. 
 
This is contrary to Allah’s scheme of things within the Qu’ran. 
 
The continual return to referencing Allah as the Merciful and the Compassionate reminds us of the need for humility, not hostility and cruelty to humankind. 
 
Choice is open to humankind within the teachings of the Qu’ran. This implies man can choose the realities he wants to exist within: 
 
I control what I perceive 
I control what I think 
I control how I act 
I am responsible for the consequences. 
(13:11) 
 
This must occur beyond the bounds of ego-centric consciousness and the assumption that there is only one possible reality. 
 
The action upon literal translation of the Qu’ran is a denial of the true realities that the Qu’ran lays out in front of us. Literal scholarly understanding of the Quran has shackled our understanding to the cultural metaphors that have bounded Islam to its Arabness that we see today. This has blinded us to seeing the deeper dimensions of Islam and the messages of transformation towards Tawhidness. The Quran is a dynamic book, talking about change. It’s been interpreted as static dogma and doctrines, losing the central message about our journal of transcendence to the state of Tawhidness. 
 
The paradoxes of metaphoric and material universes 
 
The paradoxes of the Qu’ran advise humanity not to be too self-excessive and egocentric. Our greed, and other negative emotions, narcissism and other neurosis, addictions, pleasures, accumulation of wealth, and how we treat others is a quantum introspection that we are taught within the Qu’ran, in order to assist us seeing other realities (universes), that we have choice to enter and exist within. 
 
Only through this open awareness can we experience the realities of the world around us, learn to submit to the greater universe around us, which is called Allah. Our essence of purity through the state of spirituality is the only paradigm we can use to understand the deep meaning of the Tawhid and its greatness, far beyond any person, society, or time. 
 
Thus the Tawhid provides humanity with a meaning of life; that of being part of a greater existence; a worldview that accommodates not only the multiple worldviews of existing belief system but also respects the process of constructing emergent new ones. 
 
The introspection of a literal Allah is a neurosis that blinds us to Allah’s true greatness and our true appreciation of this. This is the true reality. 
 
In Islam, worldviews such as that proposed through Sufism takes Muslims away from the ordered mechanistic world view. The world can be seen for what it is, complex in almost mystical ways, as even the laws of nature itself can be seen beyond cause and effect, beyond karma which is too simplistic to explain reality. This is the Quantum view of Islam, which can also be found in the way Buddhism views the self, Reality, and existence. Buddhist ideas such as the self as non-existence and constantly evolving as the “being and becoming bodhisattva” journeys towards “nibbbana or Nirvana,” and constantly being aware of the impermanence of the self and the ephemerality of physical beings, and to live a principle of “non-attachment to this mechanistic and material world,”, and finally to view that life is a process of samsara or the evolution towards liberation, perpetual happiness, and next to enter the realm of “being and nothingness” – this view is where the similarity of Quantum Islam and core metaphysical teachings of existing cultural philosophies lie. 
 
Perception and feeling become more important than any form of quantitative measurement in understanding reality. The Qu’ran itself is not a quantitative work. It is a compendium of propositions inviting readers to think of multiple interpretations of the meaning of texts, subtexts, and cultural contexts. It is a postmodern text that has not proper arrangement or a sense of story of creationism. In other words, it is not a structured story about the metaphysics and physics of creation and Man’s place in the universe. The Quran, in short is merely a set of annotated readings inviting the reads to deconstruct meanings. It is a book about representations of alternate realities in which even the “speaker” or “narrator” of this grand text utilizes shifting pronouns in telling stories and passing down decrees. 
 
Reality and Quantum Islam 
 
The perception of reality is about awareness as the Qu’ran teaches. It is about how individuals transcend the universe through a journey towards a destination and seek the final reality. 
 
Mathematics breaks down in any view of reality, i.e., mathematics cannot explain 10% of infinity. Science cannot explain reality; as if we look at an atom we are not sure whether it’s a particle or a wave. There is a duality to everything, i.e., atoms can be in more than one place at the same time. Half of what we look at is in decay, so the “Schrodinger’s cat “is both alive and dead at the same time. There is a duality of consciousness that we must understand. It is both psychic and physical, full of emotion and emotionless, black and white, good and evil, hot and cold, attracting and repelling. Reality is thus an inter-connectiveness of nature and a web of relationships between humanity and spirituality, that makes up a unified whole within us. 
 
The form of our realities is the product of our observation of this. A tawhidic consciousness is therefore so important in our interpretation of reality. 
 
Seeing this is the order within the chaos that shrouds our minds by focusing too much on the poles of the existential paradoxes. Paradoxes can only be understood through balance. Then one can see the truths within people, relationships, and events. 
 
Many Islamic writers resorted to using poetry to enhance the understanding of non-linear world. 
 
The Qu’ran talks of a transition to a level where the duality of mind and body cannot be distinguished. We shift into a singularity where there is no time, no space, just a transcendence or universal oneness. We transcend the four dimensions that we understand into further dimensions which the Qu’ran speaks of but we have no direct prior experience. This is the state called Syurga. 
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The direct experience of reality is a psychic and emotional breakthrough to what Islam calls Al-falah. 
 
The only tool needed to see reality is a tawhidic transcending awareness, which is the key to openness and seeing something greater than our selves. 
 
This is why we rely on rituals such as Zikir (where prayer is incorporated) which builds up higher levels of consciousness. Zikir should help us create an empty mind so all thoughts are cleared to enable us to see the greater universe free of our own egocentrism. 
 
This is where insight come from as we experience ‘eureka manifestations’ of both personal and universal nature. Einstein wrote of this epiphanic moment in his journey to construct the “theory of relativity,” 
 
Our intellect is developed through our experience, which gathers knowledge and interprets meaning for us. The heart of all knowledge for a human is experience. For example, we cannot know what it is like to scuba dive, without actually scuba diving. 100 hours in a classroom cannot give you the same knowledge as a few minutes under the water. 
Without experiencing the universe we are blind. This blindness can only be overcome through being open and empathetic to the world around us. Blindness to the universe is a human neurosis. 
 
Science, sense, and soul 
 
A quantum view of reality puts an end to materialism. It is within this paradigm Quantum Islam that one need to look at reality in a different light, taking into consideration that life is not entirely founded upon Materialism. 
 
The Tawhid espouses us to transcend materialism. The non-physical element of our life is our existence, not material things, only their images and symbolic meanings within our minds. This triggers our emotions which create Al-fasad realities for humankind, bringing humans to a level of personal destruction through greed, etc. 
 
This also has repercussions in thought and future actions, and can be considered ill-intentions, contrary to what the Qu’ran espouses. This is our mystical jihad of finding our true uncorrupted existence. 
 
The worldly realities mediate and shrivel over our Tawhidic consciousness, which tells us what is right. Going against what is right is sin and our physical destruction. 
 
Tawhidic consciousness is the true universal wisdom, just as quarks within atoms possess energy which has its own consciousness described for example, by physicist such as Freeman Dyson. Like quarks, we have the capacity to make free decisions. 
 
The non-physical, all embracing empathetic and compassionate mind is what we can develop through Tawhidic guidance. This takes us into the realm of Allah and Syurga. 
 
Allah exists within our higher levels of consciousness, as we are told many times within the Qu’ran. 
 
The narratives of the Qu’ran are concerned with both individual and social (universal) consciousness, the yin and yang of our existence. 
 
This has great implications which haven’t been discussed within the Islamic world. Most are restricted to reading from the literal universe of the Qu’ran, and clinging to this unipolar universe. 
 
To see reality, we must discard the concepts of language and images. Structure gives bias and shackles our ‘knowing’. 
 
Higher intellect cannot be obtained through the processes thinking within mechanistic realities. This blinds us to the understanding of the essential nature of the universe. With a literal understanding of the Qu’ran we are in a paradigm lock within a singular universe of nature. Without paradox, we cannot see meaning, as paradox is the only way we can interpret. Paradox is the language above all other languages, the only way we can create benchmarks within our mind, in order to interpret the universe around us. 
 
However, these paradoxes are ruled by personal emotions, of which we both project and introspect with the dualities that define our world. It is within these dualities that we define ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘virtuous’ or ‘sinful’. 
 
Islam and particularly the Tawhid is a field of potential. It is a reality beyond our materialistic reality, and our consciousness which is intertwined with our ego-self. The Tawhid can only be entered into, discovered, or become an awareness through humility on the inside and compassion filtering to the outside, without the ego-self bounding us back to our materialistic existence. This dimension is a field of human and universal purity, full of wisdom; al-Falah. Islam is really about how we transcend the lower earthly dimensions of ourselves into the higher dimension of Tawhid-purity. 
 
This is Quantum-Islam; the potential to be, the choice that has been given to all humanity within the Quran. 
 
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Conclusion 
 
Exploring idea of Quantum Islam, as the name suggests, requires the mind of the Muslim to engage in the phenomenological and metaphysical experience of conceiving worldviews beyond the mechanistic view of the personal and physical self and move toward a higher plane of quantum physics and metaphysics. In other words, Muslims should raise the level of understanding Islam from mere doctrinal and cultural to philosophical and multi-universal and multi-dimensional. This requires a new understanding of what god is, beyond how this concept of a creator is understood. A Kuhnian shift in Islamic metaphysics and ontological evolution is needed, as how the idea of a Heisenberg Principle of observing Objectivity was conceived. Muslims need to explore the semiotics of believing itself and venture deeper into the meaning constructing the meaning of reading their “book of readings”: The Quran. 
 
Source: 
http://www.eurasiareview.com/12012016-quantum-islam-towards-a-new-worldview-analysis/</div>

Quantum Islam: Towards A New Worldview – Analysis

In our essay on Tawhidic-Singularity as a new philosophy of Islam, we proposed that Muslims need to interpret the core teaching of One-ness from a kaleidoscopic perspective. We asked readers to reflect upon the applicability of Chaos or Complexity Theory to view Islam as an organic and living relig…

12Jan2016

Monotheism [Oneness of God]

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Dear brothers and sisters: 
 
Tawheed briefly stands for the Oneness of Allah in Divinity, in Worship, and in His Names and Attributes. It includes three kinds: first, oneness of His Lordship which means to acknowledge that He is the only Creator, the Sustainer, the Provider...etc. of this world. The second is oneness of His Godhood [divinity] which means to worship Him alone with no Partner. The third kind is the oneness of his Attributes and Names and confirmation of these Names and Attributes to Him only. 
 
 
The Qur’an says, ‘ Say [O Muhammad]! God is One.’ [112-1] It also says, ‘Your Lord is One God, no partner with Him, He is the Most merciful, Most Gracious.’ [2:163] Belief in the Oneness of God is to worship Allah alone as an implementation of the words of truth: “there is no god but Allah and Muhammad (pbuh) is the Messenger of Allah.” 
 
Belief in the Oneness of Allah is the focal point around which the religion of Islam revolves. It is the entire religion. It is to commit yourself to all aspects of this statement and to abide by its dictates under all circumstances in life; prayer, sacrifice, life and death…etc. 
 
The Qur'an has directed utmost attention to the doctrine of Tawheed (the Oneness of Allah) as it is the greatest message of Islam and the mission of every Messenger and Prophet. In the Qur’an, Allah says: “We assuredly sent amongst every people a Messenger, (with the command), “worship Allah, and eschew taghut (all false deities worshiped beside Allah)” (16: 36). And “And question thou our Messengers whom We sent before thee; did We appoint any deities other than the Most Gracious, to be worshiped?” (43: 45). The Qur’an also says: “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but Him.” (7: 59). “Not a Messenger did We send before you without this inspiration sent by Us to him: that there is no god but I, therefore worship Me” (21: 25). All these verses and many others prove that the message of all Messengers and Prophets since Adam till Muhammad is Tawheed [i.e. to worship one God] 
 
Dear brothers and sisters: 
The greatest act of injustice is to associate partners with Allah in worship. He says, “Whoever sets up partners with Allah, Allah has forbidden Paradise for him…” (5: 72). 
The Qur'an contains many verses that deal with the concept of the Oneness of God and the call to it. According to the Qur’an, salvation and pleasure in this life and in the Hereafter are totally founded on the absolute worship of Allah alone. 
 
Dear brothers and sisters: 
the opposite of Tawheed [monotheism] is Shirk [polytheism] which means to make partner with Allah in worship. This is called a major Shirk, and this type is not to be forgiven unless the person reverts. The Qur’an says, ‘Verily Allah forgives not that partners should be set up with Him in worship” (4: 48). 
 
The minor types of shirk are many. It is unfortunate that some Muslims fall into actions that negate the principle of Tawheed. It is therefore necessary to explain the issues and rules that have to do with Tawheed. Such actions and minor types of shirk [polytheism] must be avoided. Some of these actions are: 
 
1. Uttering words or statements containing Shirk even if one does not intend it as such. Likewise is swearing by others beside Allah and whoever does that is on the verge of a dangerous sin. The Prophet said, “Whoever swears by other than Allah has committed Shirk.” (Ahmad) He also said, “Do not swear by your fathers or mothers or other deities beside Allah. And also do not swear by Allah unless you are saying the truth.” (Abu Dawud). Similarly, The use of despicable utterances like, “I depend on Allah and you.” Ahmad narrated that: “A man came to the Prophet and told him, ‘Whatever Allah and you will.’ The Prophet replied, ‘Are you making me an equal to Allah? Nay, it is whatever Allah alone wills.’ 
 
2. Wearing of talismans and the like, for doing such is part of Shirk. Turn to Allah alone in difficulties for He is the only one capable of removing hardships; consult a sincere scholars or imam when you are in hardship. The Qur’an says, “And if Allah touches you with harm, none can remove it but He, and if He touches you with good, He is able to do all things...” (Al-An’aam: 17-18). All these superstitious objects that people wear cannot prevent harm from touching them, nor can they cure them of any illness. One should therefore keep away from them. The Prophet said, ‘Whoever hangs a talisman [on his body], commits a shirk.’ [Ahmad] 
 
3. Visiting fortune-tellers, astrologers and soothsayers because they claim to possess the knowledge of the unseen. They are tricky and treacherous people and ask their clients to associate partners with Allah and to slaughter animals to others beside Allah. The Prophet said, “Whoever visits a fortune-teller and asks him anything, his prayer will no be accepted for forty nights.” (Muslim) He also said, “Whoever visits a soothsayer and believes him in what he says has disbelieved in what is revealed to Muhammad.” (Ahmad). He also said, “May Allah curse whoever slaughters for others beside Allah.” 
 
4. Among the aspects of minor shirk is to perceive evil omens in days, months or some birds is a prohibited act. Perceiving evil omens does not in any way change what has been decreed. The Messenger of Allah said, “(There is) no Adwa (no contagious disease is conveyed without Allah’s permission), nor is their any bad omen (from birds) nor is there any (bad omen in a bird called) Haamah nor is there any bad omen in the month of Safar.” [al-Bukhari] 
 
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5. Seeking help from the dead, asking them one’s needs, slaughtering to appease them etc. are all forbidden acts. Allah says, “And who is more astray than one who calls (invokes) beside Allah, such as will not answer him until the Day of Resurrection and are (even) unaware of their calls (invocations) to them. And when mankind are gathered (on the Day of Resurrection) they (the false deities) will become enemies for them and deny their worshipping.” (46: 5-6). 
 
6. It is not permissible to seek blessings neither from the Prophet’s grave nor from his birthplace or that of any Prophet or righteous people or to say, O such and such, O Hassan or Husain…etc. It is also not permissible to seek blessing from walls of any mosque, even the sacred mosque in Makkah. It is only recommended to kiss or touch Al-Hajar Al-Aswad. ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab also said while kissing the Black Stone, “By Allah! I know that you are only a stone that can neither benefit no harm, had I not seen the Prophet kissing you, I would not have kissed you.” (Muslim) 
 
7. It is a minor type of shirk to show off as the Prophet warned us in the Hadith, ‘On the day of Judgment, Allah will say to those who used to show off, ‘Go to those whom you showed off in order to reward you.’ The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said, “Almighty Allah says, ‘I am the One Who is most free from want of partners. He who does a thing for the sake of someone else beside Me, I discard him and his polytheism.'' 
[Muslim] 
 
8. It is also not recommended to extremely and excessively exaggerate in praising Prophet Muhammad for he forbids us to do that when he said, ‘Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a Slave. So, call me the Slave of Allah and His Messenger. [al-Bukhari] the reason for this prohibition is mentioned the Hadith. 
 
Dear brothers and sisters: 
Keep your Tawheed pure and free from Shirk. The Qur’an says, ‘…So worship Allah, making religion pure for Him (only). (2) Surely pure religion is for Allah only. And those who choose protecting friends beside Him (say): We worship them only that they may bring us near unto Allah.’ [39:2-3] Allah also says, "You (alone) we worship; You (alone) we ask for help. [1:5]" 
 
Finally, it is the right of Allah upon us to worship Him alone and not to make partner with. Mu’ath Ibn Jabal said, the Prophet said to me “O Mu’aath! Do you know Allah’s right upon His slaves and the slaves’ right upon Allah?” I said, “Allah and His Messenger know best.” He then said, “Allah’s right upon His slave is that they should worship Him and associate nothing with Him in worship, and the slaves’ right upon Allah is that He does not punish whoever does not associate anything with Him.” (Muslim). 
 
Finally, we ask God to guide us all. 
 
Sheikh/ Khalifa Ezzat 
Muharram 29, 1431 – Jan. 15, 2010 
 
http://iccuk.org/page.php?section=religious&page=khutbas 
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Monotheism [Oneness of God]

Dear brothers and sisters: Tawheed briefly stands for the Oneness of Allah in Divinity, in Worship, and in His Names and Attributes. It includes three kinds: first, oneness of His Lordship which means to acknowledge that He is the only Creator, the Sustainer, the Provider...etc. of this world. The …

12Jan2016

Hadeeth - Six Rights of every Muslim

Hadeeth - Six Rights of every Muslim

Ash-Shaikh ‘Abdur-Rahmaan As-Sa’dee’s explanation of the hadeeth regarding the Muslim’s rights Abu Hurayrah (radhiyallaahu ‘anhu) narrated that the Messenger of Allaah (sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said, “The rights of the Muslim upon the Muslim are six.” It was said, “And what are they Oh Messen…

12Jan2016

French TV documentary explores Christianity and Islam.

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A French television documentary has explored the close relationship between Christianity and the emergence of early Islam. Further research could lead to a wider reinterpretation of its founding texts by Akram Belkaïd 
 
Jesus in the Quran, 
It is not easy to tackle Islam and its origins without mentioning current events, yet Gérard Mordillat and Jérôme Prieur have done just that in their recent French television documentary on the influence of Christianity on early Islam (1). Credit to them for showing that a multi-disciplinary study of the Quran — going beyond theological commentary — is the scholarship of the future. Islam’s holy book is often presented as a text without context because of its complex literary structure and the impossibility of dating the suras (chapters) or even of determining the chronological order of their revelation. Such a study is important because better knowledge of the historical and social context in which Islam, the last of the three great monotheistic religions, emerged would help overcome some of today’s political and religious challenges. 
 
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The dialogue between Christians and Muslims, like the separation between the temporal and the spiritual, can only benefit from being reminded of the original proximity between the cross and the crescent. The documentary includes contributions by scholars from different countries and backgrounds, who point out that in Islam Jesus was as important a figure as Adam, the first man, since Muslims believe that Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary) will return at the end of the world to kill the Antichrist. Muslims know that the figure they call masih (the Messiah) is a prophet, but many are not aware of his fundamental and unique role in the Quran, where he is called the spirit, breath or word of God, and described as a handsome, unusual man who can perform miracles. The Quran is far more laconic about Muhammad who, as an ordinary man (no miracles performed), is no more than Allah’s messenger (rasul) and a prophet (nabi) among others. The importance of Mary is another indication of the proximity between the religions. She is mentioned several times in the Quran (the only woman named in it) and sura XIX is devoted to her. 
 
Revealing the close relationship may ease tensions in face of an increasingly divisive vocabulary — particularly radical Islamists’ designation of Christians as “crusaders”, the failure of many westerners to distinguish between Islam the faith and (political) Islamism. Religion is gradually disappearing in western European society, and noting the Christian-Islamic kinship might discredit the prevailing line about the “otherness” of Islam in relation to Judeo-Christian references. There are considerable theological differences: the Quran refutes the divine nature of Jesus and asserts that God is “neither born nor gives birth”. It also denies that Jesus died on the cross. The documentary gives considerable time to this, mentioning verses which state that those who thought they had seen the Messiah on the cross were deluded. Islam denounces Christianity for having broken with strict monotheism through shirk (idolatry) by associating Jesus and the Holy Ghost with God (2). 
 
An interesting aspect of the documentary is the scholars’ claim that Islam was not born in opposition to Christianity, but as a continuation of it, or even as an attempt to reform it. Islam used or reformulated Christian doctrines prevalent in the 7th century. That happened with Docetism, an early Christian heresy that held it impossible for Christ to have died on the cross. Mary’s role in the Quran becomes far clearer after reading apocryphal Christian texts that disagree with the canonical ones recognised by the Church, which hardly mention her. 
 
Early Islam knew about the Christian theological debates of the time, and in a way closed their disputes about the nature of Christ. The pre-eminence of Jesus in the Quran even leads to the supposition that Muhammad was not only addressing the polytheists of Mecca and the Arabian peninsula, but also Middle Eastern Christians, to win them over to his cause. That would be a reason, though not the only one, for the astonishing speed with which Christians in the Levant adopted this new religion. Was Islam an offshoot of Christianity? A reply based on historical evidence is impossible. Nevertheless, as the experts interviewed in the documentary admit, there was a sharing of texts between early Islam and 7th-century Christianity. 
 
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Reform of Judaism? 
The documentary also mentions another factor that might help to consolidate a more urgent inter-religious dialogue. Anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world today is fuelled by the fate of the Palestinians, but is also based on a certain reading of the Quran (3), which makes it important to consider the context in which the relevant verses appeared. The accusation in them that the Jews demanded the death of Christ reflected Christian beliefs widespread in the 7th century, and well beyond — not until 1963 did Pope John XXIII publish his Prayer for the Jews: “Forgive us Lord, for the curse we unjustly placed on their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying Thee a second time in their flesh. For we knew not what we did” (4). The experts point out that the dispute between Muhammad and the two Jewish tribes of Medina, where he found refuge after his flight from Mecca (hijra) in 622, was not only political but theological. Historically, Muhammad probably came into conflict with Medina’s rabbis because he followed in the line of Moses and Jesus, and intended to reform both Judaism and Christianity, which is viewed in the Quran as a distortion of the original religion. Hence the experts’ view that the Quran is not anti-Judaic but anti-rabbinical. 
 
A century after its creation, Islam was in full territorial expansion, had been gradually freed from the tutelary figure of Jesus and had given a predominant role to Muhammad. The divergence with Christianity grew over centuries. Today we can see the value of rereading the Quran in the light of its original historical and social context. That is an essential step for the ambitious critical interpretation needed to renew Islamic thought. Ijtihad, or interpretation of the texts, was immensely rich in the centuries after the Prophet’s death in 632, but has stagnated since the 11th century, often now amounting to an endless repetition of commentaries on the Quran. 
 
Fields of study such as anthropology and linguistics — for the detailed study of Quranic Arabic and its many borrowings from other languages (notably Syriac, a Semitic language derived from Aramaic) — would be invaluable for this much-needed revision of the texts. And fresh archaeological discoveries would give a better understanding of the historical context — on condition that Saudi Arabia authorises many more excavations. The lessons learnt from the reinterpretation of the Quranic texts must be made accessible to the public — and that is no easy task. 
 
Source: <a href="https://mondediplo.com/2016/01/14islam">https://mondediplo.com/2016/01/14islam</a> </div>

French TV documentary explores Christianity and Islam.

A French television documentary has explored the close relationship between Christianity and the emergence of early Islam. Further research could lead to a wider reinterpretation of its founding texts by Akram Belkaïd Jesus in the Quran, It is not easy to tackle Islam and its origins without mentio…

09Jan2016

Why our food is making us fat

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Up a rickety staircase at the <a href="http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/lc/leicester-city-museums/museums/newarkehouses/" style="color: #135cae; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title="">Newarke Houses Museum</a> in Leicester, England hangs a portrait of Britain's first obese man, painted in 1806. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2009/06/23/daniel_lambert_feature.shtml" style="color: #135cae; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title="">Daniel Lambert</a> weighed 53st (335kg) and was considered a medical oddity. Too heavy to work, Lambert came up with an ingenious idea: he would charge people a shilling to see him. Lambert made a fortune, and his portrait shows him at the end of his life: affluent and respected – a celebrated son of Leicester. 
 
Two hundred years on, I'm in a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/03/ambulance-services-adapt-larger-patients" style="color: #135cae; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title="">bariatric ambulance</a> (an alternative term for obese, favoured by the medical world because it's less shaming to patients) investigating why the UK is in the midst of an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/obesity" style="color: #135cae; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title="">obesity crisis</a>. The crew pick up a dozen Daniel Lamberts every week. Fifty-three stone is nothing special, it's at the lower end of the weight spectrum, with only the 80st patients worthy of mention when a shift finishes. The specially designed ambulance carries an array of bariatric gizmos including a "spatula" to help with people who have fallen out of bed or, on a recent occasion, an obese man jammed between the two walls in his hallway. As well as the ambulance, there's a convoy of support vehicles including a winch to lift patients onto a reinforced stretcher. In extreme cases, the cost of removing a patient to hospital can be up to £100,000, as seen in the recent case of <a href="http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150598/Georgia-Davis-63-stone-teens-desperate-plea-I-stand-sparks-100k-rescue-operation.html" style="color: #135cae; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title="">63st teenager Georgia Davis</a>.</div>
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But these people are not where the heartland of the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/obesity" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Obesity">obesity</a> crisis lies. On average, in the UK, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7307756/Obesity-rates-20-per-cent-higher-now-than-in-the-1960s.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">we are all – every man, woman and child – three stone heavier than we were in the mid-60s</a>. We haven't noticed it happening, but this glacial shift has been mapped by bigger car seats, swimming cubicles, XL trousers dropped to L (L dropped to M). An elasticated nation with an ever-expanding sense of normality.</div>
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Why are we so fat? We have not become greedier as a race. We are not, contrary to popular wisdom, less active – <a href="http://www.earlybirddiabetes.org/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">a 12-year study, which began in 2000 at Plymouth hospital</a>, measured children's physical activity and found it the same as 50 years ago. But something has changed: and that something is very simple. It's the food we eat. More specifically, the sheer amount of sugar in that food, sugar we're often unaware of.</div>
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The story begins in 1971. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-nixon" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Richard Nixon</a> was facing re-election. The Vietnam war was threatening his popularity at home, but just as big an issue with voters was the soaring cost of food. If Nixon was to survive, he needed food prices to go down, and that required getting a very powerful lobby on board – the farmers. Nixon appointed <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/04/usa.obituaries" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Earl Butz</a>, an academic from the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/farming" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Farming">farming</a> heartland of Indiana, to broker a compromise. Butz, an agriculture expert, had a radical plan that would transform the food we eat, and in doing so, the shape of the human race.</div>
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Butz pushed farmers into a new, industrial scale of production, and into farming one crop in particular: corn. US cattle were fattened by the immense increases in corn production. Burgers became bigger. Fries, fried in corn oil, became fattier. Corn became the engine for the massive surge in the quantities of cheaper food being supplied to American supermarkets: everything from cereals, to biscuits and flour found new uses for corn. As a result of Butz's free-market reforms, American farmers, almost overnight, went from parochial small-holders to multimillionaire businessmen with a global market. One Indiana farmer believes that America could have won the cold war by simply starving the Russians of corn. But instead they chose to make money.</div>
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By the mid-70s, there was a surplus of corn. Butz flew to Japan to look into a scientific innovation that would change everything: the mass development of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/15/high-fructose-corn-syrup-rename" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">high fructose corn syrup</a> (HFCS), or glucose-fructose syrup as it's often referred to in the UK, a highly sweet, gloppy syrup, produced from surplus corn, that was also incredibly cheap. HFCS had been discovered in the 50s, but it was only in the 70s that a process had been found to harness it for mass production. HFCS was soon pumped into every conceivable food: pizzas, coleslaw, meat. It provided that "just baked" sheen on bread and cakes, made everything sweeter, and extended shelf life from days to years. A silent revolution of the amount of sugar that was going into our bodies was taking place. In Britain, the food on our plates became pure science – each processed milligram tweaked and sweetened for maximum palatability. And the general public were clueless that these changes were taking place.</div>
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There was one product in particular that it had a dramatic effect on – soft drinks. Hank Cardello, the former head of marketing at <a href="http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Coca-Cola</a>, tells me that in 1984, Coke in the US swapped from sugar to HFCS (In the UK, it continued to use sugar). As a market leader, Coke's decision sent a message of endorsement to the rest of the industry, which quickly followed suit. There was "no downside" to HFCS, Cardello says. It was two-thirds the price of sugar, and even the risk of messing with the taste was a risk worth taking when you looked at the margin, especially as there were no apparent health risks. At that time, "obesity wasn't even on the radar" says Cardello.</div>
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But another health issue was on the radar: heart disease, and in the mid-70s, a fierce debate was raging behind the closed doors of academia over what was causing it. An American nutritionist called <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/dec/08/guardianobituaries1" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Ancel Keys</a> blamed fat, while a British researcher at the University of London <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor John Yudkin</a>, blamed sugar. But Yudkin's work was rubbished by what many believe, including <a href="http://profiles.ucsf.edu/ProfileDetails.aspx?Person=5291002" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor Robert Lustig</a>, one of the world's leading endocrinologists, was a concerted campaign to discredit Yudkin. Much of the criticism came from fellow academics, whose research was aligning far more closely with the direction the food industry was intending to take. Yudkin's colleague at the time, <a href="https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/research/personal/index?upi=KRBRU16" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Dr Richard Bruckdorfer at UCL</a>says: "There was a huge lobby from [the food] industry, particularly from the sugar industry, and Yudkin complained bitterly that they were subverting some of his ideas." Yudkin was, Lustig says simply, "thrown under the bus", because there was a huge financial gain to be made by fingering fat, not sugar, as the culprit of heart disease.</div>
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The food industry had its eyes on the creation of a new genre of food, something they knew the public would embrace with huge enthusiasm, believing it to be better for their health – "low fat". It promised an immense business opportunity forged from the potential disaster of heart disease. But, says Lustig, there was a problem. "When you take the fat out of a recipe, food tastes like cardboard, and you need to replace it with something – that something being sugar."</div>
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Overnight, new products arrived on the shelves that seemed too good to be true. Low-fat yoghurts, spreads, even desserts and biscuits. All with the fat taken out, and replaced with sugar. Britain was one of the most enthusiastic adopters of what food writer <a href="http://garytaubes.com/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Gary Taubes</a>, author of Why We Get Fat, calls "the low-fat dogma", with sales rocketing.</div>
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By the mid-80s, health experts such as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/15/andrew-lansley-department-big-macs" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor Philip James</a>, a world-renowned British scientist who was one of the first to identify obesity as an issue, were noticing that <a href="http://www.theobesityepidemic.org/introduction/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">people were getting fatter</a> and no one could explain why. The food industry was keen to point out that individuals must be responsible for their own calorie consumption, but even those who exercised and ate low-fat products were gaining weight. In 1966 the proportion of people with a BMI of over 30 (classified as obese) was just 1.2% for men and 1.8% for women. By 1989 the figures had risen to 10.6% for men and 14.0% for women. And no one was joining the dots between HFCS and fat.</div>
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Moreover, there was something else going on. The more sugar we ate, the more we wanted, and the hungrier we became. At New York University, <a href="http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=376" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor Anthony Sclafani</a>, a nutritionist studying appetite and weight gain, noticed something strange about his lab rats. When they ate rat food, they put on weight normally. But when they ate processed food from a supermarket, they ballooned in a matter of days. Their appetite for sugary foods was insatiable: they just carried on eating. 
 
 
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According to <a href="http://research.tu.edu/laboratories/schwarz/staff.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor Jean-Marc Schwarz</a> of San Francisco hospital, who is currently studying the precise way in which the major organs of the body metabolise sugar, this momentum creates "a tsunami" of sugar. The effect this has on different organs in the body is only now being understood by scientists. Around the liver, it coalesces as fat, leading to diseases such as type-2 diabetes. Other studies have found that sugar may even coat semen and result in obese men becoming less fertile. One researcher told me that, ultimately, perhaps nothing needs to be done about obesity, as obese people will wipe themselves out.</div>
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The organ of most interest, however, is the gut. According to Schwarz and Sclafani, the gut is a highly complex nervous system. It is the body's "second brain", and this second brain becomes conditioned to wanting more sugar, sending messages back to the brain that are impossible to fight.</div>
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The <a href="http://www.sugar.org/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Sugar Association</a> is keen to point out that sugar intake alone "is not linked to any lifestyle disease". But evidence to the contrary appears to be emerging. In February, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/01/tax-regulate-sugar-alcohol-tobacco" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis of the University of California wrote an opinion article for the journal Nature</a> citing the growing body of scientific evidence showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases, and in March, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/health/research/sugar-sweetened-drinks-linked-to-heart-disease.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">the New York Times reported a study that had been published in the journal Circulation</a>, which found that men who drank sweetened beverages most often were 20% more likely to have had a heart attack than those who drank the least. <a href="http://www.theendofovereatingbook.com/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">David Kessler</a>, the former head of the US government's most powerful food agency, the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">FDA</a>, and the person responsible for introducing warnings on cigarette packets in the early 90s, believes that sugar, through its metabolisation by the gut and hence the brain, is extremely addictive, just like cigarettes or alcohol. He believes that sugar is hedonic – eating it is "highly pleasurable. It gives you this momentary bliss. When you're eating food that is highly hedonic, it sort of takes over your brain."</div>
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In London, <a href="http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/tony.goldstone/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Dr Tony Goldstone</a> is mapping out the specific parts of the brain that are stimulated by this process. According to Goldstone, one of the by-products of obesity is that a hormone called <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/leptin" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">leptin</a> ceases to work properly. Normally, leptin is produced by the body to tell you that you are full. However, in obese people, it becomes severely depleted, and it is thought that a high intake of sugar is a key reason. When the leptin doesn't work, your body simply doesn't realise you should stop eating.</div>
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Leptin raises a big question: did the food industry knowingly create foods that were addictive, that would make you feel as though you were never satisfied and always wanted more? Kessler is cautious in his response: "Did they understand the neuroscience? No. But they learned experientially what worked." This is highly controversial. If it could be proved that at that some point the food industry became aware of the long-term, detrimental effects their products were having on the public, and continued to develop and sell them, the scandal would rival that of what happened to the tobacco industry.</div>
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The food industry's defence has always been that the science doesn't prove its culpability. <a href="http://www.ameribev.org/about-aba/board-of-directors/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association</a>, a lobby group for the soft-drinks industry, says: "there's a lot of work to try to establish causality, and I don't know that I've seen any study that does that." But it looks as though things might be changing. According to <a href="http://publichealth.yale.edu/people/kelly_brownell.profile" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor Kelly Brownell </a>at Yale University, one of the world's foremost experts on obesity and its causes, the science will soon be irrefutable and we may then be just a few years away from the first successful lawsuit.</div>
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The relationship between the food industry and the scientists conducting research into obesity is also complicated by the issue of funding. There is not a great deal of money set aside for this work and so the food industry has become a vital source of income. But this means that the very same science going into combating obesity could also be used to hone the products that are making us obese. Many of the scientists I spoke to are wary about going on the record because they fear their funding will be taken away if they speak out.</div>
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The relationship between government and the food industry is also far from straightforward. <a href="http://www.andrewlansley.co.uk/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Health secretary Andrew Lansley</a> worked, until 2009, as a non-executive director of <a href="http://www.profero.com/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Profero</a>, a marketing agency whose clients have included Pizza Hut, Mars and PepsiCo. In opposition, Lansley asked public health expert<a href="http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelligence/issue32/chd.htm" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Professor Simon Capewell</a> to contribute to future policy on obesity. Capewell was amazed at the degree to which the food industry was also being consulted: the equivalent, he says, "of putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank". Lansley has made no secret of his work for Profero, and denies a conflict of interest, saying that he did not work directly with the company's clients. And the government argues, not unreasonably, that it's essential to have the industry on board to get anything done. But the relationships are not always kept at arms length. Professor James was part of a <a href="http://www.who.int/en/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">WHO</a> committee to recommend global limits on sugar in 1990. As <a href="http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/who_trs_916.pdf" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">the report</a>was being drafted, something extraordinary happened: the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/apr/21/usnews.food" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">US secretary of state for health Tommy Thompson flew to Geneva to lobby on behalf of the sugar industry</a>. "Those recommendations were never made," says James.</div>
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In New York, Mayor Bloomberg is currently planning to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/31/soft-drink-obesity" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">reduce soft drink super-sizing</a> while last week, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/former-coke-executive-slams-share-of-stomach-marketing-campaign/2012/06/07/gJQAKwgKMV_story.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">a former executive at Coca-Cola Todd Putman</a> spoke publicly about the need for soft drink companies to move their focus to "healthy products". But it's not going to be easy to bring about change. A previous attempt to bring in a soda tax was stopped by intense lobbying on Capitol Hill. The soft-drinks industry paid for a new ward at Philadelphia Children's Hospital, and the tax went away. It was a children's obesity ward.</div>
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Why has Kessler, when he has had such success with his warnings on cigarette packets, not done the same thing for processed foods high in sugar? Because, he tells me, when the warnings came in on cigarettes, the game was already up in the west for the tobacco industry. Their new markets were the far east, India and China. It was no concession at all. The food industry is a different matter. For one thing, the food lobby is more powerful than the tobacco lobby. The industry is tied into a complex matrix of other interests: drugs, chemicals, even dieting products. The panoply of satellite industries that make money from obesity means the food industry's relationship to obesity is an incredibly complex one.</div>
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<a href="http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/category/ministers/anne-milton/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">Anne Milton, the minister for public health</a>, tells me that legislation against the food industry isn't being ruled out, because of the escalating costs to the NHS. Previous governments have always taken the route of partnership. Why? Because the food industry provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in revenue. It is immensely powerful, and any politician who takes it on does so at their peril. "Let's get one thing straight," Milton tells me, however. "I am not scared of the food industry."</div>
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And I believe her, because now, there is something far bigger to be frightened of. Eventually, the point will be reached when the <a href="http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/category/policy-areas/public-health/obesity-healthy-living/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="">cost to the NHS of obesity</a>, which is now £5bn a year, outweighs the revenue from the UK snacks and confectionery market, which is currently approximately £8bn a year. Then the solution to obesity will become very simple</div>
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<a href="http://www.uaekhutba.com/index.php/articles/51-health/172-why-our-food-is-making-us-fat" target="_blank"> http://www.uaekhutba.com/index.php/articles/51-health/172-why-our-food-is-making-us-fat </a></div>
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Why our food is making us fat

Up a rickety staircase at the Newarke Houses Museum in Leicester, England hangs a portrait of Britain's first obese man, painted in 1806. Daniel Lambert weighed 53st (335kg) and was considered a medical oddity. Too heavy to work, Lambert came up with an ingenious idea: he would charge people a shil…

08Jan2016