There has been a hue and cry about the many anti-Christian supplications (du’a in Arabic) during the Friday prayers. The controversy began after the attacks of Sept. 11. As a result of the attacks, Muslims began to feel that there was a virulent intellectual, political and media campaign in the West which was targeting them. Prompted by this feeling, the imams of mosques as well as preachers and other speakers have encouraged all inclusive anti-Christian feelings through supplication.
This matter deserves objective intellectual discourse focusing on three pivotal points: consideration of the supplication as aggression against innocent people, the need for a correct interpretation of events and the political exploitation of religion.
What about aggression as a part of supplication? Verse No. 55 of Chapter Al-Aaraf in the Holy Qur’an says: “Pray to your Lord humbly and secretly and verily He does not like aggressors.”
Al-Qurtubi says: “Aggression in supplication can occur in different ways. Such as praying in an extremely loud voice, praying to reach the level of a prophet, praying for the impossible or praying for something sinful, etc.”
We would like to add here another form of aggression: praying for injury to an innocent and peaceful person who has not wronged you and who has not even thought of doing so. Nor has he or she shown any happiness in any wrong done to you.
I can say without any hesitation that the majority of Christians have committed no injustice against Muslims. I believe that praying for their injury is not only injustice but also aggression.
Islam does not allow its followers to attack others because they believe in a different religion. Islam absolutely prohibits such injustice. Supplication is certainly legitimate but it should be made against wrongdoers. It is also legitimate for non-Muslims. The prayers of the wronged will be answered even if he is a non-Muslim. There will be no barrier between a person’s legitimate supplication and God.
Imams and preachers should restrict such supplications to wrongdoers. Firstly, it is important to avoid injustice against innocent and peaceful people. And secondly, to achieve closeness with God, one of the objectives of supplication which cannot be achieved through injustice.
Many Muslims have married Christian women. So how can they accept supplication that attacks their wives? I know that there are Christian intellectuals and academics who hold Islam and Muslims in high esteem, much more than many so-called Muslims.
We have seen thousands of Christians in the West demonstrating in support of Muslims. How can we pray against them? The generalization of supplication is thus seen to be religiously wrong and politically foolish. Moreover, to generalize supplication against all Christians contradicts Qur’anic teachings. The Qur’an says: “You will find the nearest in love to the believers who say: ‘We are Christians’” Al-Maeda: 82
This Qur’anic verse prevents us from applying supplication in general to all Christians. Someone will probably say it pertains to an ancient situation that no longer exists. Those who make such arguments have elevated themselves by claiming that they can nullify Qur’anic verses. But historical facts and those on the ground have proved the truthfulness of these Qur’anic verses. Christians are in fact more inclined to understand Islam and embrace it in large numbers than many other religious communities.
Correct interpretation of events:
Nobody can rule the religious factor out of interpreting events and conflicts. At the same time, exaggeration will prevent us from holding the right views and a clear understanding. Example: If someone says that the religious factor is at the root of all conflicts in the world, how can you view the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea since the religion of both is Christianity?
What about the armed conflict between Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats and the decades-long bloody violence between Ireland’s Catholics and Protestants?
Hitler and Mussolini led their Christian countries against other Christian countries all over Europe. World War I too was a bloody fight between Christians. The Americans themselves fought their war for independence against the British — and both were Christian. Throughout history, Europe has witnessed a number of destructive wars pitting Christians against Christians.
At the same time, if we look at Arabs and Muslims in recent decades, we see the same scenario repeated with few differences. There have been long and bloody conflicts between Arabs for various reasons. Some of them fought for socialist economic systems while others struggled for revolutionary governments. Political corruption accounted for 20 percent of the conflicts while malicious propaganda or the cold war led to 49 percent of them.
The point is that all these took place while Islam was the religion which most of them followed and professed.
Human history abounds with these events and this makes it imperative that we review the philosophy and methodology of interpreting events and conflicts in order to arrive at a correct explanation.
One may feel comfortable by thinking of the whole world as a single picture or color. The person’s comfort, however, will come at the expense of his objectivity. It is naive to think this because it is patently unrealistic.
Anybody or any system that portrays the world as a single picture and attribute what happens to a single cause is letting himself or herself in for real difficulties when he or she ultimately has to face reality. We cannot say that regional and international events or conflicts took place for a single reason or from a single cause. It is untrue, scientifically incorrect and ignores other objective factors. We will discuss the third pivotal point — political exploitation of religion — in the next article.
(To be continued tomorrow)
(Zain Al-Abidine Arrekabi is a Saudi columnist based in Riyadh)