ALLAH IS AN EGO-GODThe Allah of Islam is not even a monotheistic God of the initial Biblical conception. On the contrary, it is what Ram Swarup calls an Ego-God:
�The Upanishads say that God chooses whom he will. This is true in a deeper sense. It means that He is beyond our choices and preferences, our likes and dislikes, and our conceptions of Him, or definitions of right and wrong, false and true.
�But there is a sense in which we choose our own Gods. God made man in His own image. But man also makes God in his own image. Our God is what we are. If our heart is pure, our God is also pure, but if our hearts are impure, our Gods too are impure.
�Most men want a God who humours them and gratifies them, who vindicates and justifies their way of life, who sanctifies them in their own eyes and in those of their friends� They want their kingdom to extend, they want war-booty, particularly in the form of gold and young girls; they want their enemies to be slain and humbled.
�Ego-Gods come fully into their own when our desires take on moral and theological disguises: when the Ego uses a higher principle for a lower satisfaction, the truth itself is perverted and Ego-Gods are born. We worship the Ego-Gods when we worship the lower in the higher.�
This is the true import of the Kalima - there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Prophet. It seems that the prophet of Islam had no use for a God who could have his own independent will, who could have and express his own opinions of men and matters, and who could exercise his own judgement about right and wrong. On the contrary, the Prophet needed a proxy disguised as god who would echo precisely, though in a pompous language, the personal proclivities of the Prophet in every situation, domestic as well as public, which the Prophet had to face. This conclusion is confirmed by a reading of the Quran in a chronological order, side by side with the orthodox biographies of the Prophet. The close correspondence between what the Prophet was planning or pining for in his normal moments, and what was revealed to him in a state of wahy that followed soon after, is quite striking. The chronological confusion in the compilation of the Quran has helped a good deal to hide this correspondence.
So much for the first pretension of Islam.
BROTHERHOOD OF BANDITSThe second pretension of Islam is that it stands for human brotherhood and social equality as contrasted with the caste divisions and class hierarchies rampant in other societies, particularly the Hindu society. Many people with socialist preferences or pretensions are duped by what they describe as the �social progressivism� of Islam. We have in this country a whole battalion of Hindu-baiters who have no use for Allah or for Muhammad but who strongly recommend Islam on the rebound because they have come to believe that Islam stands for better social values. And there is no dearth of Hindus, who, while they love their own religion and culture, admit at the same time that Hindu society has a lot to learn from Islam in matters of brotherhood and equality.
Islam had never put forward these claims before the rise of democracy and socialism in modern times. The old theologians of Islam were meticulous in placing various people in their proper places. The mu�mins (believers) constituted the master class (millat) entrusted with the mission of imposing the faith and law of the Prophet on all mankind. The kãfirs were the scum of the earth who were to be consigned to eternal hell-fire whenever they could not be killed or converted outright. The zimmîs were people who accepted the supremacy of the Islamic state and agreed to live as non-citizens under severe disabilities. The slaves were mere merchandise who could be bought and sold in the bazar, and killed without any compunction if they tried to escape into freedom. And the women (zan) were men�s personal property comparable to gold and silver (zar) and land (zamin), to be kept veiled and hidden in the harem if they happened to be legal wives, or to be presented as gifts if they happened to be newly captured beauties, or to be circulated among friends if they happened to be concubines. Within the millat itself, the Quraish had primacy over the plain Arabs at the start of Islamic imperialism. The civil list devised by Caliph Umar for monetary grants given to Arab families out of the booty obtained in wars, reflects this class hierarchy in Arab society. As the Arab empire expanded east and west, the non-Arabs everywhere were treated as inferior people, in law as well as in practice, even when the latter became mu�mins. Later on, the Turks took over the Arab legacy of being a master race. Islam has never known any brotherhood or equality even within its millat.
But the theologians of Islam look the other way when Islam gets sold in a new garb, and that too by people who do not profess Islam. They are also prepared to participate in the crudest casuistry in interpreting the Quran in line with the latest demagogies of social philosophy. The �only true faith� has to be served even if it means a fraud on the �hallowed scripture�.
The Quran is quite frank and straight-forward on the subject of human brotherhood and social equality. It says: He who seeks a faith other than Islam will never be accepted (3.85). You fight them till not a trace of unbelief is left (8.39). When you meet the kãfirs, cut their throats until you have made a great slaughter amongst them, and when you have defeated them, take them prisoners so that you may earn ransom. Fight them till they surrender (47.4). War is prescribed for you, and you dislike. But it is possible that you dislike what is good for you (2.216). And so on, it all reads like a manual of war on mankind rather than a charter of human brotherhood. It neatly divides humanity into mu�mins and kãfirs, and leaves not the slightest scope for any mutual understanding or normal morality between the two.
So much for the second pretension of Islam.
ISLAM BRUTALISED ARAB SOCIETY
The third pretension of Islam is . . .
[continued at
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/siii/ch12.htm]
. . . you'll have to go there to read about it. Well worth your while, though, if you want to know more concerning what Islam is all about.
from
THE STORY OF ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM IN INDIA
by SITA RAM GOEL
Voice of India, New Delhi
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/siii/index.htm