Only One God
Two weeks ago the only Christian member of the Pakistani government was ruthlessly murdered. This was his punishment for attempting to amend the outdated and indiscriminate blasphemy laws of Pakistan. Please allow me to explain.
If someone in Pakistan is found guilty of blasphemy, their fate is invariably to be buried up to their neck in sand and stoned until they are dead, either from a crushed skull, from brain damage, or else from excessive bleeding. Quite often the blasphemy law is used simply as a means to settle a grudge against another human being, with the accusation being completely unfounded.
Those accused of blasphemy do not enjoy the luxury of a fair trial or the opportunity to put forward a defence, but instead their fate is decided by the local Imam, whose ruling generally reflects what the people themselves demand.
What would the prophet say were he present to witness such an event? He would probably weep to see such ignorance, and to observe how his own teachings had become so corrupted. It was he himself who said;
“Whatsoever you do unto another human being, you do also unto me.”
These words were recorded in the Koran for all to read and for all to see. His was a message of peace, the same message that Jesus delivered in his own time.
“That which each of us seeks resides within.”
When Mohammed (peace be upon his name) spoke about Fatwa, he was not implying that Muslims should go around killing everyone else, but rather that they should engage in the inner battle against hatred, anger, jealousy, greed and lust.
Instead of following his direction, some Muslim fundamentalists have made hatred and violence their creed. By so doing they have brought shame upon their prophet, tarnished the name of Islam, and have cause people from all around the world to regard the followers of this noble religion with prejudice and mistrust.
It is the same destination that all of us seek, and we have but a single lifetime in which to achieve this. We should not be diverted by differences of opinion on the way, because all religions direct us to the same goal. It is our own misunderstanding of what our own prophets have said that has led to all the confusion, but the experience that each of the masters revealed in their time was the same.
God is one and cannot be divided. God is father to all, whether they be Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or whatever faith we might choose to follow. God makes no distinction. There are good Christians who are sincere in their practice and beliefs, and there are those who seek to corrupt the teachings of Jesus to their own ends. The same holds true for those who follow Islamic faith.
Those who corrupt their faith in order to justify brutality and murder should think carefully about their actions. Should Mohammed (peace be upon his name) return to our midst, I am left in no doubt that he would be the first to demand a repeal of the blasphemy laws. I suspect too that it would be the same group of people responsible for murdering the Pakistani minister who would also put him to death, no doubt with a car bomb, for history is after all a pendulum and very little has changed.
How many of those who support the blasphemy laws have read the Koran for themselves? How many of them can even read? I would respectfully like to suggest that for all those who profess to follow the Islamic faith, not having read the Koran is perhaps the greatest insult of all to a prophet who dedicated his whole life in an attempt to bring peace to mankind.
Whatever religion we follow, however we might choose to express our faith, and whatever name we call Him by, the truth remains. There is only one God./TE
No comments:
Post a Comment