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born, 570 CE, into a world of violence and crime
a member of the leading tribe in Mecca (the Koreish / Quraysh)
‘Mohammad’ means ‘highly praised’, and is now the most
common male name in the world
father died a few days before his birth, mother when 6,
grandfather when 8
raised by his uncle, well-loved and accepted in his family
at 25 began a caravan business, worked for Khadija, a wealthy
widow 15 years his senior, whom he later married
became frustrated with wickedness in his world and began
frequenting a cave on Mt. Hira for solitude
while most Meccans were polytheistic and animistic,
some, the hanifs, worshipped one god exclusively, ‘Allah’
became convinced while meditating in his cave that Allah
was the only God, The God
on the Night of Power, the angel Gabriel appears to
Muhammad in human form and urges him to ‘proclaim’
this is the beginning of the writing of the Koran
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earn a living maintaining the 360 shrines to various gods around Mecca
enjoy, as Smith says, ‘licentiousness’
maintain class distinctions Muhammad rejects
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living in a clay house
milking his own goats
mending his own clothes, and
advising the humblest visitors personally
His role as a general emerges as he leads the Medinese against
the Meccans
• first battle his forces win a great victory over a much larger Meccan
force
• second battle he is injured and Medinese lose
• finally, after exhausting themselves laying siege to Medina, the
Meccans retreat and are later finally conquered
Always merciful in victory, Muhammad accepts the Meccan’s
conversion to Islam
• ‘al-Qur’an’ in Arabic means ‘a recitation’ (see Smith, p231)
• Written over 23 years, Smith emphasizes that Muhammad considered it the only
“miracle” associated with himself.
• Illiterate as far as formal education, Muhammad wrote down the Koran in fits and
spurts, describing the experience of inspiration as hearing “the reverberating of
bells.” Smith, p232
• The Koran is composed of 114 chapters, called Surahs (Sura, Surat, Sewar),
arranged in order longest to shortest.
• Muslims believe there are, in a sense, two Korans—an uncreated, eternal Koran,
and an instantiation of it, the written Koran.
• Smith, p232: “If Christ is God incarnate, the Koran is God inlibriate.”
• As literature, Arabic speakers Smith mentions find the Koran poetic and beautiful;
English writers like Carlisle and Gibbon consider it, in translation of course,
“wearisome,” “crude,” “a jumble.”
• See an example of devotion to reading it perfectly, in Arabic. (Begin at the 40:00
minute mark to experience a bit of the competition)
“innovation was to remove idols from the religious scene and focus the
divine in a single invisible God for everyone. It is in this sense that
the indelible contribution of Islam to Arabic religion was
monotheism.”
“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” –Deut. 6:4
Christians have worldwide monotheism, but they have the
Trinity:
“They say the God of mercy has begotten a son. Now have you
uttered a grievous thing … It is not proper for God to have
children.” (Koran, 3:78, 19:93)
Islam eschews all “parental images” of God. They make God
too human; they are anthropomorphic. –Smith, p236
Are ‘Son of God’ and ‘God the Son’ equivalent? __________
Still, Allah’s compassion and mercy are mentioned 192 times in the
Koran, wrath and vengeance 17.
What do you think of Smith’s argument, p237, mid-page:
“Mistakes could be disastrous. Koranic images of heaven and hell are pressed
into service here; but once we come to terms with the fear that life’s inbuilt
precariousness inspires, other lesser fears subside. The second, supporting
root of the word islam is peace.”
What kind of peace is this? __________________________
(Yes, I’m asking a serious question )
Rather than emanating from the divine as in Hinduism, or
from the Form of The Good (Goodness itself), as the
Neo-Platonists held, nature exists because of “a
deliberate act of Allah’s will.” –Smith, p238
Does Allah have to continue willing existence to all other
things to sustain them? ______________
Smith notes two consequences of this view:
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Islamic thinkers
were the first
Western scientists
The world is both real and important
Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and
perfectly powerful, the world must be good.
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Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and
perfectly powerful, the world must be good.
“You do not see in the creation of the All-merciful any
imperfection. Return your gaze … It comes back to you dazzled”
(Koran, 67:4) –Smith, p238
Smith takes this statement to be an endorsement of “confidence
in the material aspects of life”; notes that Christians and Jews
share that confidence.
What does that mean? __________________________
Are nature’s imperfections ignored? _______________
Recall Tennyson’s “Nature, red in tooth and claw.”
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Being the handiwork of Allah, who is both perfectly good and perfectly
powerful, the world must be good.
Regarding the creation of the human self or soul, Smith extends the
commitment to such being created ‘good’.
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This could have been inferred, given its Maker, but the Koran states it explicitly:
“Surely we have created humanity of the best stature” (Koran, 95:4) …The closest
Islam comes to the Christian concept of original sin is in its concept of ghaflah, or
forgetting. People do forget their divine origin, and this mistake needs repeatedly to
be corrected….
With life acknowledge as a gift from its Creator, we can turn to its obligations, which
are two.
The first of these is gratitude for the life that has been received. The Arabic word
“infidel” is actually shaded more toward “one who lacks thankfulness” than one who
disbelieves.
The second standing obligation [is surrender … total commitment to God] –Smith,
p238-239 (my brackets)
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the duty to be grateful, and
the duty to surrender and be committed to God
feed ourselves
clothe ourselves
educate ourselves
etc.
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they didn’t ask for, and (say, a diamond)
are hard for them to return (say, a huge fish tank)
and at the same time demand something in return, like
gratitude and or surrender / commitment.
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no duty of gratitude,
no duty to return what’s given,
no duty to treat what was given according to the wishes
of the giver
Consider the
common theatre
device of the
starlet pursued by
the admirer
bearing gifts
Smith explains the human self or soul in Islam by contrasting it
with the ‘no self’ of Buddhism and the ‘ecological’ self of
Confucianism.
Why not compare it to the ‘ultimate self’ of Hinduism?
Recall the question of whether, on dying, the soul becomes one
with Brahman or retains a bit of individuality so as to “taste
honey, not be honey”?
Smith calls the Muslim self an “inexplicable center of experience
that is the fundamental fact of the universe,” (p240) and so it
is clearly not the empirical self.
Nonetheless, Smith rejects the comparison, apparently, because,
In India the all-pervading cosmic spirit comes close to swallowing the individual self. –
Smith, p240
The Muslim soul retains its absolute individuality after death.
The total individuality of the soul leads to its complete
responsibility for its choices.
Whoever gets to himself a sin, gets it solely on his own responsibility
… Whoever goes astray, he himself bears the whole
responsibility of wandering. (4:111, 10:103) –Smith, p241
Islam then provides a complementary picture of the
afterlife.
When life is over, souls are judged by Allah …
When the sun shall be folded up, and the stars shall fall, and when
the mountains shall be set in motion … and the seas shall boil …
Then shall every soul know what it has done. (81, passim) –
Smith, p241
The imagery in the Koran of the afterlife … of heavens and hells
… is extremely sensuous. Lots of sex in the heavens for the
virtuous … men and women … though, mostly men; for the
wicked, the hells present “burning garments, molten drinks,
maces of iron, and fire that splits rocks into fragments.” –
Smith, p241
Do all Muslims accept this as a literal depiction of heaven.
The Koran itself says:
Some of the signs are firm—these are the basis of the book—others are
figurative. (3:5) –Smith, p242
So, no, some Muslims think the imagery is sensuous in order to
be compelling, but is literally false.
See Koller,
p143; Smith,
p242-248
This is to be recited at least once by all Muslims “slowly, thoughtfully, aloud,
with full understanding and with heart-felt conviction.” –Smith, p244
Al-Farabi
870-950 CE
Avicenna
Anselm
Averroes
980-1037 CE
1038-1109 AD
1126-1198 CE
900
Ockham
1287-1347 AD
1300
Al- Kindi
801-873 CE
Al-Ghazali
1058-1111 CE
*All images link to scholarly articles
Maimonides
Aquinas
1138-1204 AD
1225-1274 AD
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