Understanding Islam

Though we live in a predominantly Christian country, we take beginning today as a special time primarily to give importance to Ramadan which is very significant to the Muslims we have come to co-exist with even if at the back of our minds we continue to ask why do believers of a faith said to be peaceful would wage a war called jihad to subdue another conviction?

I am no different from those having a set of biases for Muslims that stems from the failure to understand them. A hand can count a few close encounters I had with them in traders market – most especially in the recent Colon Night Market in line with Vice Mayor Michael Rama’s project on the revitalization of the downtown area; talked to some of them when few became seatmates back in college, and one I met during the Women’s Congress in Manila by the name of Elisa Capal Guru, a Meranao teacher (according to her Meranao not Maranao is “most appropriate term”). 

“Islam is a peaceful religion. For the Muslim, Islam is more than just a religion. It is the sum total of his cultural heritage,” Elisa said.

“The ones shaping suicide bombers out to reduce skyscrapers to cinders are what we call extremists,” she explained.

In a bid to understand Muslims, a booklet written by Kalafi Moala entitled “God loves the Muslims” proved to be very helpful.

Moala said that at the mention of the word, what comes to our minds are the images of garbed, bearded men with piercing cold steel eyes; of women in black chadors, only their eyes showing above their veil; and the terrorism and violence that issue from the Middle East.

Moala explained that Islam is an all-encompassing way of life. Literally translated, Islam means “submission to the will of God.”

Unlike Christians who see this submission in terms of a child submitting to his father, Muslims see themselves as slaves of Allah. Whatever their circumstances in this life, such is Allah’s will, and must be accepted. As a result, Muslims can be fatalistic in their view of life,” Moala went.

“Islam’s effect on our lives is a very wide issue; Islam affects, directs, and forms our lives,” Brother Yahia Hamed, a member of the editorial staff of Islam Online, said.

“The word Islam is derived from the word istislam which means “surrender”, that is, surrender to God’s laws. The word is also derived from the word salam, “peace,” for if we follow God’s laws we will achieve peace—be it peace of soul, peace of mind, peace between nations, peace between people, and so on,” Hamed added.

Further, Moala said that Islam teaches that there is one God and Muhammad or Mohammed was his greatest prophet. A Muslim is taught that he has two angels watching over him, one to record his bad deeds, and the other to keep a record of his good deeds. On the Day of Judgment, the deeds of every Muslim will be weighed. If the good deeds outweigh the bad, then he will enjoy life in paradise. However, if the bad outweighs the good, he will endure an eternity of suffering and torture at the hands of Satan. Redemption in Islam rests squarely with the individual.

Moala also went presenting figures to show that Islam is one of the world’s fastest growing religions with nearly one billion adherents as of 2004. One out of every five people on earth is a Muslim. The Islamic world stretches across North Africa, Asia and Europe and includes not only such countries as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Libya and part of what was the Soviet Union, but also India, China and Indonesia. In fact, Asia has the four largest Muslim countries in the world – Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Muslim countries of Eastern Europe, formerly part of the Soviet Union, together make up the world’s fifth largest bloc of Muslim believers.

Islam is also the fastest growing religion in Europe. In 1949, the first mosque in the Netherlands began operation, and today in the Netherlands there are over 200 Islamic places of worship. Muslims account for 2.1 percent of the Dutch population. In Germany, there are an estimated 1.9 million Muslims. A large part of the growth in Europe is due to immigration from Muslim nations. In a spiritual vacuum of Europeans, many are converting to Islam, particularly women who marry Muslims.

But back here in the Philippines, most Muslims certainly feel government has nothing to offer them as shown by the terror sowed in Aleosan, Kulambugan, Maasim, among other areas, few weeks back.

As Muslim armed group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, looks back through history, they find that Christianity has all too often brought persecution to their people – the Crusades that left tens of thousands of Muslims dead as the Holy Land was reclaimed for Christians. They look to the more recent past and the treatment at the hands of ruthless Christian colonial powers. And they look at the state of today’s so-called Christian nations that do the worst filth in the world and pour this around the globe.

Says Dr. Ahmad Domancao Alonto, Jr. over at CCTN-47 in an interview recently, “the Sultanate of Mindanao was already established in the late 12th century, but Christian colonizers in the 15th century started the conflict in their attempts to make Mindanao a part of the Philippines.”

The conflict was carried on from generation to generation and led to the armed uprising with the creation of rebel movements like the MILF, a secessionist group of the Moro National Liberation Front, he explained.

A culture of hatred for colonizers manifested in a statement of the late Hashim Salamat, founding chairman of the MILF, who said, “We never considered ourselves Filipinos, why do we have to be part of the Philippines?”

“Deeply rooted in violence gyod ning problema sa central and southern Mindanao,” Imam Najeed Razul, president of Voice of Islam, said over at CCTN-47 in a recent interview along with Alonto, professor emeritus of the Mindanao State University.

“If we look at history, Islam was introduced in the area at the end of the 12th century. The Sultanate was established long before colonizers came,” Razul said. He referred to the Sultanate of Maguindanao ruled by Shariff Mohammed Kabungsuwan. The sultanate ceased to exist when the Spanish colonized Mindanao, which became part of what would be the Philippines.

In the hope of co-existing in peace from now to forever, Christians today are called to observe with brother Muslims the commemoration of Prophet Muhammed’s enlightenment in Medina. Maybe, just maybe, we Christians were the ones who really started the fire.