http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18544

 

Marvin Olasky

Islam vs. liberty

Remembering 9/11 | Is a rule-obsessed religion that denies original sin and the need for grace compatible with freedom?

Photo by Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

The United States replied to 9/11 with not only military might but the hope that Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries would gain freedom. A WORLD cover in 2005 showed an Iraqi voter making an ink-fingered peace sign. Television networks this year showcased demonstrators for freedom in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

But with democratic experiments stalling, more Americans are asking basic questions: Do many devout Muslims, for theological reasons, see liberty as an enemy? Is it historical accident that societies with a Protestant base have typically developed free institutions, and societies with a Muslim base typically have not?

To examine these questions we could use a brief foray into the comparative religion course that I taught for a decade at the University of Texas, where I tried to explain the basic Christian story of Creation, Fall, and Redemption.

In a class of 30, at the western edge of the Bible Belt, only a handful knew the biblical belief that we are helpless in our sins and that our only hope lies in God's grace because of Christ's sacrifice. Most students identified Christianity with a set of moralistic rules: Obey them and you're good.

Oddly enough, what they saw as Christianity is more like Islam. Muslims do not recognize original sin. They contend that Allah through his prophet Muhammad laid out the rules for moral living, and that we are naturally capable of following all of them. To quote from one typical and popular Muslim website, 2muslims.com, "A believer . . . has the conviction that there is no other means of success and salvation for him except purity of soul and righteousness of behavior."

Christians say only Christ meets that standard. (This is why "substitutionary atonement" is a crucial doctrine.) Muslims say they can meet it.

Islam's non-recognition of original sin, and consequent assumption that we can be sinless, leads Mubasher Ahmad of the Islamic Research Foundation International to conclude that it's possible "to eliminate suffering caused by humans." Muslims believe Allah has set out rules that can lead to a just society: Shariah law. The other alternative, a society of liberty, will bring pain but no gain: Liberty for what, to disobey Allah's rules?

Christians don't think a set of rules will make things right. The whole Old Testament shows that. God cares about what's in man's heart-and liberty reveals it. Will we love and trust God in our trials, or go our own way? The verdict of Scripture: Apart from God's grace, we go our own way.

Muslims, though, see God's tests not as primarily a push for us to cry out for mercy, but as a placement exam for heaven. As theologian Ousman Ahmad writes, "The harder the test you undergo and pass, the higher reward you will get on the day of judgment. . . . The easier the test which is passed, the lower the reward."

The difference between the two religions is profound. Christians emphasize God's grace in changing people like Jacob and Joseph who were liars and braggarts, people like Samson and Paul who relied on their own strength or their own intelligence, people like Gideon and Peter who through God's grace lost their fear and became bold and courageous. These individuals had to become aware of their own transgressions and limitations. They had to be broken, because often we don't realize how much we need God until we have no other alternative.

Let's follow this trail for a moment. We do not reach God: He reaches us, often when we are desperate. The goal is to end up in the right place, and not necessarily to receive a star for perfect attendance along the way. God values heart obedience, which shows up when we are free to disobey, above the pressured, collective bowing and prostrating that typifies Islamic obedience-so governments should not force us to go through the motions.

The Bible story is troubling to devout Muslims. Christians read in the Bible honest reporting about twisted, sinful individuals whom God chose not because of their own righteousness but because of His love. Muslims, though, see a record of great heroes that Jews and Christians somehow twisted during centuries of transmission. Since original sin does not exist, why does the Bible tell the stories of so many sinners?

What to Christians makes the Bible ring true-its record of how Noah got drunk, Lot committed incest, etc.-is exactly what makes it ring false to Muslims. Muslims believe that Allah picked biblical leaders to carry His messages because of their strong character, which enabled them to obey the rules. In Christianity the last shall be first. In Islam the first shall be first.

Muslims respect Jesus as one of perhaps 124,000 messengers or prophets Allah has sent, and one of the 25 listed in the Quran, but not as our Redeemer: Since we have no compulsion to sin we have no need of one. Christians know that Jesus was "pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed." Muslims ask, How can wounds heal others? Militant Muslims want to pierce others.

In short, Christians want man to be given enough freedom to come close to hanging himself, so that realizing his sin he turns to God. Muslims say man is good but will go wrong if given freedom.

How does this work out in practice for devout Muslims? Since they think we can be sinless if we have strong character and follow all the rules, the rules (mostly taken from the Hadith, which are Muhammad's sayings) are specific.

Let's start with prayer, which is highly rule-driven. Each time of prayer is made up of units containing set sequences of standing, bowing, kneeling, and prostrating while reciting verses from the Quran or other prayer formulas. The sequences are repeated twice at dawn prayer, three times at sunset prayer, and four times at noon, afternoon, and evening prayers. No deviation allowed.

Other rules emphasize humility, and that's not bad: Islam forbids boasting about good deeds or the contributions made to build a mosque. Muslims are forbidden to build over graves, make them high, put lights over them, or write on them. Men are not to wear gold, and no one is to wear clothes that attract attention.

Some rules are for reasons of health and safety, and those are not bad. Muslims are not to urinate into stagnant water, or defecate on the side of the road or where people draw water. A Muslim is forbidden to hold small stones between two fingers and throw them because this could cause injury to eyes or teeth. A Muslim is not to walk through the marketplace carrying a sharp weapon unless it is properly covered.

Some rules seem designed to build community, and those are not bad. Muslims are not to sit between two people without their permission, or to greet only those they know, because both those known and those unknown should be greeted.

But one problem with a rule-driven religion is that adherents often think the rules will save them. Another is that rules multiply. Many Islamic websites contain numerous, detailed dos and don'ts. For example, one questioner asked a cleric, "Is it permissible to kill insects that may be found in the house, such as ants, cockroaches and the like, by burning them?" The answer was, "If these insects are harmful, they may be killed with insecticides, but not with fire." That's because fire, according to Muhammad, was to be used only on rats, scorpions, crows, kites [like hawks], and mad dogs."

For the devout, the specificity of Islamic law is ferocious. Categories of law codes on the al-islam.org/laws website, which represents the views of Iraq's influential Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hussaini Sistani, include specifics on "Pure and Mixed Water, Kurr water, Under-Kurr Water, Running Water, Rain Water, [and] Well Water." Headings under "Things which make a fast void" include "Sexual Intercourse, Istimna (Masturbation), Ascribing Lies to Allah and His Prophet, Letting Dust Reach One's Throat, Immersing One's Head in Water, Enema, [and] Vomiting."

Also, under the heading "Method of Slaughtering Animals," categories include "Conditions of Slaughtering Animals. Method of Slaughtering a Camel, Acts while Slaughtering Animals, Hunting with Weapons, Hunting with a Hunting Dog, Hunting of Fish and Locusts, Rules of Things Allowed to Eat and Drink, Eating Manners, Acts which are unworthy to do while taking a meal, Manners of Drinking Water."

That list only suggests the great multitude of rules. The Quran includes food requirements, rules concerning marriage and divorce, penalties for crimes, and commercial regulations. Islam's many rules seem arbitrary to non-Muslims-but as one website states at the end of its long list, "There are more commands and prohibitions which came for the benefit and happiness of individuals and mankind as a whole."

Muslims ordinarily do not gain from their religion a sense of liberty. They do frequently gain a suspicion of literary and intellectual diversity. For example, many Muslims wonder how the Bible could be an inspired work when many different authors produced it over a period of more than a thousand years. They ask why four separate Gospels tell the story of Christ's life and death: Wouldn't three of the four likely be false? They view the Quran, produced through one mediator, as much more credible.