The Cool Water of the Koran (Part IV)
Koran is particular but not unique. There are other Revelations, but the universal is contained in the Koran as in the flame of the candle is to be found the secret of the sun.
This is the fourth Letter on Islam written by Salim Mansur in response to a non-Muslim writer. Letter I is HERE. Letter II is HERE.
Letter III is HERE.
“To God [Allah] belong the East and the West; whithersoever you turn, there is the Face of God; God is All-embracing, All-knowing.” Koran (2:115)
Dear friend:
I take your words that you “will bear with me” despite “our differences” and your “reservations and criticisms of Islam and Muslims” kindly. I read this as willingness on your part to continue our exchange, and this is all that you and I need ask for and no more. I am very much a part of our world, as you are. We are both engaged with it, aware of its history abounding with paradoxes, surprises, despair, rancour, and yet sustained with love.
Our differences are important for through them in our finiteness we are engaged with the infinity of which you and I are fragments. I would not want to see you forsake the vessel from which you draw your life-giving sustenance, nor do I insist that you drink from my vessel. But I do believe what we drink as life-giving from our respective vessels — each shaped and painted to our individual preferences — is the same. I often remind my students that while our fingerprints are unique our organs inside of us can be readily transplanted.
Revelation is the communication in time of the sublimely transcendent with the triflingly bounded, of the eternal with the ephemeral. Revelation is the speech of the Infinite Mind (God) compressed into the grammar of the limited mind (man). Words emanating from beyond time are meant for the bounded intellect of human beings so that they may have a sense of the Unbounded Intellect whose emanations they are. Revelations do not cease, only the form in which they occur changes in history relative to the evolution of the human mind to grasp the Infinite within the flux of time.
Muslims take the Koran as revelation, as God’s Words addressed to one individual (Muhammad) at a particular time among a particular people within specific circumstances of that people’s history. But God’s Words have resonance beyond the particular coordinates of time and space for anyone hearing those Words and discovering in them the eternal unblemished by the limitations of the transient.
I am reminded of the opening verse from William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” that reads:
To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.
Walt Whitman, America’s truly most generous and wide-hearted poet, expressed himself similarly in his huge uncontainable and incomparable poetry – “Come, said my Soul,/Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)” – found in Leaves of Grass. Whitman declaimed,
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,….
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
Poets have always understood, as have scientists, that the particular is the window opening to the universal. Koran is particular but not unique. There are other Revelations, but the universal is contained in the Koran as in the flame of the candle is to be found the secret of the sun.
The uniqueness of the Koran is in the nature of a particular people’s language – its grammar and idiom – by which the presence of the Infinite is disclosed. Language veils the Infinite as the shell of an oyster hides the pearl. Once we are prepared to overcome the difficulty of language – Arabic for the Koran, Sanskrit for the Vedas, Hebrew for the Torah, Greek for the New Testament, etc. – we are in the presence of the Infinite, only limited by our capacity to comprehend this presence which surrounds, penetrates and sustains us as fragments of the totality of creation.
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, is often quoted for the saying referred to God: “I was a hidden treasure. I longed to be known, so I created all of creation.” In the Koran God reveals Himself to man in words, similes, metaphors and by reference to the marvel of His creation. In knowing God man finds his orientation and destiny – serenity of mind and tranquility of heart – despite “a sea of troubles” as the magnetic needle in compass remains steadily fixed to true North despite the rough motion of ships.
God discloses Himself in the Koran by His attributes. He is the Merciful and the Beneficent. He is the Just, the Generous, and the Magnificent. He is the Truth, the Creator and the Loving One. He is the Friend and the Protector, the Giver and the Taker of life. He is the Manifest and the Hidden, the Everlasting and the Patient, the All-Powerful and the Source of all power. He is the Lord of the Universe and the Master of the Day of Reckoning.
The Koran reads, “Say: ‘Call upon God, or call upon the Merciful; whichever you call upon, to Him belong the Names Most Beautiful.” Then there is the verse of the Koran (in A.J. Arberry’s rendition into English) often recited in recalling the Majesty of God which reads:
God
there is no god but He,
the Living, the Everlasting.
Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep;
to Him belongs
all that is in the heavens and the earth.
Who is there that shall intercede with Him
save by His leave?
He knows what lies before them
and what is after them,
and they comprehend not anything of His knowledge
save such as He wills.
His Throne comprises the heavens and earth;
the preserving of them oppresses Him not;
He is the All-high, the All-glorious.
My favourite, and of many others, are the following verses of the Koran (also in Arberry’s rendition) in which God speaks of Himself.
God is the Light of the heavens and the earth;
the likeness of His Light is as a niche
wherein is a lamp
(the lamp in a glass,
the glass as it were a glittering star)
kindled from a Blessed Tree,
an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West
whose oil wellnigh would shine, even if no fire touched it;Light upon Light;
(God guides to His Light whom He will.)
(And God strikes similitudes for men,
And God has knowledge of everything.)
in temples God has allowed to be raised up,
and His Name to be commemorated therein;
therein glorifying Him, in the mornings and the evenings,
are men whom neither commerce nor trafficking
diverts from the remembrance of God
and to perform the prayer, and to pay the alms,
fearing a day when hearts and eyes shall be turned about,
that God may recompense them for their fairest works
and give them increase of His bounty;
and God provides whomsoever He will, without reckoning.
God creates and fashions things out of nothing for “when He decrees a thing, He but says to it ‘Be,’ and it is.” He is Incomparable and Alone. And “had there been gods apart from God, both (the heavens and the earth) would have been despoiled.” But God’s creation is faultless, perfect and beautiful.
Thou seest not in the creation
of the All-merciful any imperfection.
Return thy gaze; seest thou any fissure?
Then return thy gaze again, and again, and thy gaze comes
back to thee dazzled, aweary.
And yet God in His awesome majesty is not at any distance from man. The Koran informs, “We are nearer to him than the jugular vein.” Muhammad is quoted saying about God, “I cannot fit into my heavens or into my earth but I fit into the heart of my believing servant.” Or another of his sayings also referring to God is: “The heart of the believer is the place of the revelation of God. The heart of the believer is the throne of God. The heart of the believer is the mirror of God.”
The Koran as Revelation then is the bridge which connects man to God, or the ladder lowered from above for man to make his ascent towards God which is also his destiny. It is the knowledge revealed of the bliss which is with God and in God. It makes “the desire of the moth for the star” (in Shelley’s poetry) a wish to be consummated.
“Light upon light” is the simile for eternal joy and echoes similar descriptions of heavenly bliss found in the Bible and the sacred texts from ancient India. In Isaiah we read,
The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.
Similarly, in the Upanishad (from India) we find the following description of the Infinite as Brahman:
And then he saw that Brahman was Joy; for from Joy all beings have come, by Joy they all live, and unto Joy they all return.
I will end until next time quoting you Walt Whitman’s “A Persian Lesson.” It reads:
For his o’erarching and last lesson the graybeard sufi,
In the fresh scent of the morning in the open air,
On the slope of a teeming Persian rose-garden,
Under an ancient chestnut-tree wide spreading its branches
Spoke to the young priests and students.“Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest,
Allah is all, all, all – is immanent in every life and object,
May-be at many and many-a-more removes – yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there.“Has the estray wander’d far? Is the reason-why strangely hidden?
Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world?
Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;
The something never still’d – never entirely gone?
the invisible need of every seed?“It is the central urge in every atom,
(Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,)
To return to its divine source and origin, however distant,
Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception.”
Peace, and may God’s blessings be with you.
Respectfully,
Salim Mansur
“From water God made every living thing.”
-Surah Number 21 Ayah Number 30, Koran
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario and a syndicated columnist in Canada and the United Kingdom. A Muslim native to Calcutta, India, and a noted Islamic scholar, Prof. Mansur has written extensively on Islamic extremism and the challenges facing contemporary Islam.
The assumption, not proven here or anywhere in Islam, that a revelation can be universal is not necessarily true, or at least has a higher burden of proof than a few verses of poetry comparing Allah to a variety of natural phenomena, so I take it that there is no universal message in Islam. So Muhammed copied a few ideas about God from the Old and New Testaments and added in some other stuff relevant to the people he was trying to recruit. That is the foundation for some kind of universal message?
I’ve studied enough philosophy in my day to make a qualified judgement and if this guy is the best explainer of the actual philosophy underlying Islam, the religion itself is more worthless than I initially thought. It’s pitiably laughable that anyone really believes this stuff, which is a bunch of derivative crap from a philosophical perspective. When Mohammed accused the Jews of corrupting their scriptures, he should have been more concerned with how he corrupted the message with his tendentious plagiarism.
If Muslims are all gung-ho for comparing Allah to natural phenomena maybe they should study Spinoza’s metaphysics. And while they’re at it, study his ethical views and reform Islamic ethics from the infidel-hating cesspool it currently is.
Prof. Mansur says: we are in the presence of the Infinite, only limited by our capacity to comprehend this presence which surrounds, penetrates and sustains us as fragments of the totality of creation.
But the god of Judaism or Christianity is not the “presence of the Infinite”. Hashem is specific: the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If this being is real, he is so because he has revealed himself as being in covenant with a particular people.
Christianity then claims that this G-d has also revealed himself as the Father of Jesus Christ, who raised him from the dead. Whether the Christian claims–either as to Jesus’ purported resurrection, or to the continuity between the Father of Jesus Christ and Hashem–is justified, is not on point.
What is on point is the conclusion that both the G-d of the Jews and of Christians is a specific diety, a being linked to a people, a history, an embodied identity (either in the Jewish people, or in Jesus Christ).
So is the God of the Quran identical to either Hashem or the Father of Jesus Christ? If what Prof. Mansur says is a valid presentation of the Quran, then the answer must be no.
The critique of Islam in Franz Rosenzweig’ The Star of Redemption remains valid: Islam is a monistic paganism, a conglomeration of all the attributes of diety, but separated from space and time, from the lived experience of divine revelation and redemption in the here and now.
Put another way: the Quran postulates a universal diety, which it thinks is the same God as Hashem and the Father of Jesus Christ, but is simply Infinitude hypostatized.
I agree with venividivici, although for somewhat different reasons.
Prof. Mansur says: we are in the presence of the Infinite, only limited by our capacity to comprehend this presence which surrounds, penetrates and sustains us as fragments of the totality of creation.
But the G-d of the Jews and the Christians, is not universal, he is specific.
Putting aside the important question of whether, and the extent to which, the G-d of the Jews is identical to the G-d of the Christians, both deities are rooted in a particular history, and defined by the characteristics expressed in that ongoing relationship.
For Jews, that is the relationship established in the covenant Hashem made with Abraham, and ratified in Torah, a relationship embodied in the life of a particular people.
For Christians, deity is the Father of Jesus Christ (whom Christians claim is the same deity revealed to the Jews). This “Father of Jesus Christ” is revealed in the life, death, and purported resurrection of J.C. That is his character, his identity.
Neither deity is a “god-in-general.” Too be sure, both religions affirm that their deity is the “only true god,” but that is not the same thing.
In contrast, as eloquently illustrated by Prof. Mansur, Allah is (assuming the accuracy of his description) simply Infinitude rendered in the concrete words of the Koran.
The critique of Islam by Franz Rosenzweig in The Star of Redemption applies: Islam is simply a monistic paganism. All the attributes of deity are collected in and ascribed to a single, universal deity.
Paganism discovers deity in the direct deliverances of nature, of life as it is.
Jewish and Christian revelation discovers deity in particular acts in space and time (Exodus and resurrection, respectively), and defines deity by those actions.
Paganism knows only life as it is, the natural ebb and flow; Judaism and Christianity knows the new, the unexpected, the supernatural. G-d speaks and acts, and something new comes into the world.
The question for Prof. Mansur is: with the Koran, what new thing came into the world? What do we know about the deity, that we would not otherwise know?
A Question:
“With the Koran, what new thing came into the world? What do we know about the deity, that we would not otherwise know?”
A completely snarky Answer:
“God prefers Arabic.”
I apologize for what is, in effect, a double posting. The 3:20 pm posting was written first; when it was not posted immediately, I wrote another version via Typekey, which was posted immediately. So now the reader can get both versions.
To Ethan: LOL, and in my judgment, quite insightful.
What I want to know is when this guy is going to
1) publish the letters from the non-muslim that he is responding to.
2)Stop pretending as if noone here has said anything, as if noone could possibly fail to be swept away by your efforts.
3) Stop having some kind of spiritual orgasm over some over-blown poetry that noone apparently can appreciate outside of the Arabic.
Hint 1 to Mr Mansour, its all the rocking and special chanting and years of brainwashing from the cradle that makes you think you see God flashing his ankle at you ,so to speak, in that book.
Hint 2 to Mr Mansour. It would really be impressive if the Koran as a whole, as opposed to little carefully selected bits, was impressive in any language. But its not is it?
What I would be impressed by is if you would reply to me and to others.
I hate to get crass here, but it really seems like you are getting off on these words. I see you getting way too excited and going way overboard and overblown. (Must be all that training in extremely cheesy and excessively florid Arabic poetry.) But if you arent already primed by either your whole upbringing or else a non-native desparation to find a way to go all exotic or native, then, listen carefully, the words do not impress anyone else.
I ask again, how can you love an abstarction like, infinitude? Or a flame? How can you love something that you don’t really know and can’t know? How can you love a list of names or attributes? I got news for you. Whatever it is that you feel its not love because you can’t love those things any more than you can love some distant Hollywood star. Lots of people think that their passion for the stars is real, but it just isn’t. You are perhaps in love with the feeling of love or of desire for something that you can’t really get close to, but that is not love.
You are obsessed like some old knight mooning (pun intended) over some cast off token from an unattainable lady. You are swooning over what amounts to a get well card from a lover who could visit you but never has. Your room is wallpapered with his love notes but its just you and some scractches on paper in there. Its pitiful, especially in contrast to what is happening in the next room. In that room, the Lover and Healer of All sits by the bedside curing the patient with infinite care and wisdom greater than any human physician. Around these two figures the whole family is gathered close sharing a meal in thankgiving for a gift already given and the room is full of real warmth, the kind that you can’t manufacture no matter how much you get yourself worked up.
Christians and Jews are two different versions of that warm room. We may disagree on some important particulars, but as has already been said here, we are alike in that intimate and warm experience of God. We experience a God who has reached down and touched us with his own hand or his own body. When the Israelites wandered the wilderness, they didnt have to fight in order to eat. God provided manna and water from the rock. He fed them with his own hand in a way that could not be mistaken for human effort. Jesus healed and provided food and rescue and gathered in the unclean under his wings. The Holy Spirit dwelt with the Church and preserved it from destruction without there being raised a single Christian army.
In this time of Lent, we Catholics sing an antiphon in which there is an image found in both the First and the New Testaments. God’s word says that He, himself, will wash us and we will be cleansed. Think about this arrestingly intimate image for just a moment then compare this to the god depicted in the Koran who remains off stage, who waves a hand in the darkness like some oriental potentate behind a screen or something like that and sin is just forgotten. Its a sanitary transaction. No intimacy involved.
I know that my words sound harsh, Mr Mansour, but they are harsh out of frustration that you still act as if there was no chasm between what you believe and experience of God and what Christians and Jews believe and experience of God.
There is one God. He is a fact no matter what impression or idea that we have of him. But some notions about who He is are farther from the truth than others to the extent that the understanding of some people is so far from the the understanding of others that they might as well be worshipping two different Gods. In this sense, Christians and Jews on the one hand and Muslims on the other worship two completely different Gods. They have almost nothing in common apart from some abstractions. I dont think there is any question which understanding is better. It is better because it is a true and confirmed by presence and actual contact as opposed to some high-flown idea found in some over-wrought verse.
PS.
(As if I havent already written enough)
Here is another thing to think about. You have all this lofty infinitude that you pant after.
We have that too and something more.
For all that infinitude, what you have is actually incomplete. It is all distance without personal presence. All abstraction without specifics. It is talk about love and its diamonds and jewels and nice sentiments sent from afar without any real cost to the giver. All that you have are His tokens because that is all that you are willing to accept.
But in the Christian experience of of God we have accepted the tokens and know that there is much more. The jewel of Creation that we all enjoy is just a bauble from God’s infinite store. He is happy to give it to everyone but it costs him nothing. But what we have in the Gospel is a testament that the infinite God has demonstrated his true love for all by willingly paying an unfathomable cost for our sake. He does not stop with the cheap love of a rich man handing out baubles. He is not content with anything less for us than gifting us with the most costly love imaginable because its the cost that makes it truly love, makes it something more than a lovely sentiment. What we Christians have accepted is the fullest possible knowledge of God’s love for us. It makes for a universe of difference in our lives. We truly have it all. Our cup truly runs over. And the good news is that there is enough for all and all are welcome to God’s table to join the feast.
One last comment as I have re-read this letter and want to reply to something else that has stood out to me.
You quote words from the Koran describing God as a friend, as having a face, as being close, as fitting in the believers heart, but these are all generalities, attributes without specifics, without flesh, without real touch or contact. They are just words. All spirit, no flesh. All talk, no touch. A faceless face. A friend who has never really sacrificed for the good of the friendship.
It is possible to say the word love but not really show it. It can be said that something is close when its really not. The word friend could be used without any real investment in the friendship. It is only when words become “flesh” that they become true.
The face of God in the Koran might as well be a blank. It is so wide open, so fleshless, that it could be anything at all. It can be anything that you want to fill in but what you would fill in is unlikely to be true. You can convince yourself that this faceless generality of a deity is something that is really present and dwelling in your heart etc. You can say that the Koran is a bridge or a ladder, but it is a bloodless one and you have to do all the work to climb it. You do the climbing and the reaching and the striving and never really and truly arrive until maybe in the afterlife. Its that lack of specificity that is the distance.
You can believe with all your heart that there is no real distance but if God in particular stays on the page and gets no closer than that, then the distance is as real as the distance between you and the page. No amount of insistence or effort or passionate feelings otherwise can really overcome this problem. Whatever sense you have of a presence apart from the page has no body, no flesh. It is a white wall, white light, white noise in which some vague attributes float like dust. Its talk. Its words. Nothing more no matter how excited you get about them.
But the Gospel is a whole order of magnitude more specific. The Bible itself is not the particular. It is the witness and a sobriety check. The real Gospel is what it speaks of. The real Gospel is God in particular coming off the page to embrace us. It is Him backing up his talk and his promises with flesh. It is He who is the bridge and it cost him dearly. It is He who comes down the ladder to restore us and then it is He who pushes us from behind on the climb. In this way He truly envelops us as opposed to saying so. God Above, God Within, God Behind-The Trinity as C S Lewis describes it is God truly embracing, penetrating, and motivating us. The Infinite doesnt just talk about having a face. He shows it. He doesnt leave it to us to fill in the infinite blank with our fallible images. We sit, abide and dwell in his Presence. We eat with him at his table. He washes our feet. His is closer to us off the page than he is on the page because He is more specific and real than any words could ever hope to be. His real Presence exceeds the closeness that we might find on the page because it is more specific. When we close the book, God is still in focus. That focus is independent of the book as opposed to being dependent.
When you close your book, you are taking off your glasses and God becomes a blur again. When we close the book, and enter into communion with God our vision of him improves. The book is supports the drawing near and the union. It is not the drawing near and the union itself.
We dont hear about some Words being like water. We are washed with real water in which the material meets the spiritual. The spiritual actually touches us, it really washes us in the water. It doesnt just declare us clean because we have washed ourselves. We eat the Bread and Wine of the Presence. The spirit and the flesh combine in the material object and we are truly touched and fed by it. God is as close to us as His food and drink in our bellies. The Infinite and the particular combine as opposed to remaining separate. The Infinite doesnt remain behind a screen content to let some light shine though it on to us. He walks beside us and we are transformed by his Presence until we shine.
Two last quibbles.
If the Koran is as you say, God revealing Himself in particular, but then The Gospel is even more particular than that, can it really be a matter of preference? Who would choose a less specific, less focused, less particular revelation over one that is more of all these things, the Infinite and the sharpest and clearest of particulars combined?
If God can fit into the believer’s heart, why couldn’t he fit into a man’s body without becoming less than infinite? How could becoming flesh make him less great, less God if he can fit anywhere and be anywhere and still be God? Or is it the case that the book that you happen to prefer simply insists on a contradiction ie There is no distance between us and God and yet there is such a thing as a degree of nearness which would be too much because it would somehow cause God to be too definite and particular and therefore somehow less than God?
I would really love to know if you are even hearing me. How can I contact you directly?
To help clarify the purpose of this comment, I’m absolutely NOT subtly or openly urging people to become Muslims. Even as I’m not suggesting we should all become Jews or Christians. But if “enough people” (whatever that number must be) embraced the three religions’ COMBINED revelations about God and the Messiah He promised to send us, they could end the Religious War that is currently emerging throughout the world, in which militant Muslims seek to cleanse the earth of “unbelievers.” Still, there remains the sad thought that no one with the slightest knowledge of religious history can reasonably expect “believers” to bring peace on earth!
To make “real peace” among themselves, members of all three religions would each have to alter some portion of their own manmade beliefs. But, in a typical example of “religious unity,” Muslims, Christians and Jews, alike, have always been unwilling to alter any part of their own beliefs! So, each embraces their own clergy’s interpretations of their own Sacred Book – interpretations that have provoked hatreds and wars throughout their shared religious history. And those are the same interpretations that are now driving us into a “shared” nuclear war.
Of course, so many self-centered Christians are so convinced they will be “whisked away” before violence consumes the rest of the world that they have no incentive to alter their own understanding. And stubborn Jews are so accustomed to being persecuted and ostracized, they have long since closed their ears and their minds to the beliefs of “outsiders.” And self-satisfied Muslims believe, so thoroughly, that the whole world will someday be “Islamic”- in whatever way they define “Islam” – they can scarcely bring themselves to denounce the violence their “extremist” members are wreaking. After all, what the “fanatics” are doing could be “God’s Will.”
So, here we are with each religious family too convinced their understanding is too right to be altered. Each convinced the others should change. Each “deep-down” resigned to enduring whatever happens or gladly anticipating their own “deliverance.” And each convinced that all they can do is urge their fellowmen to “convert” or urge them to practice “tolerance” – as though “believers” have ever proven truly tolerant of other beliefs for more than an occasional public minute!
All the while, Jews need to recognize the world’s Messiah, rejected by their presumptuous clergy, because Jesus did not do what they expected the Messiah to do for them. And Christians need to recognize Abraham’s One and Only unseen God, Who, throughout the Hebrew Scriptures which introduced Him to the world, never inferred He was one of three gods, as Christianity’s brazen clergy identified Him. And Muslims need to recognize that they have not become God’s “chosen people,” whose “Holy Land” has been usurped by Jewish “infidels” supported by Christian “infidels” (another name for “unbelievers”), as their egotistical clergy declares.
Ms. Drake:
Your ostensibly peace-making proposal is flawed in almost every factual detail.
1. But if “enough people” (whatever that number must be) embraced the three religions’ COMBINED revelations about God and the Messiah He promised to send us…
But I have already argued that Islam, at least, is fundamentally different from Judaism and Christianity, even if we assume (which is not self-evident) that the Jewish and Christian revelations are identical.
Furthermore, the revelations about the “Messiah” this “God..promised to send…” are fundamentally different. The Christian Messiah is a crucified Messiah. This is one of the basic reasons the Jews rejected Jesus’ messianic claim. Messiahs were to conquer the enemies of the Jews, not be crucified by them. Islam claims to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, but denies he was crucified. So the Muslim Messiah is simply not the Christian Messiah.
2. …members of all three religions would each have to alter some portion of their own manmade beliefs… But who decides that? You give your own highly idiosyncratic version of each of the traditions–they look man (? woman-) made to me.
3. …each embraces their own clergy’s interpretations of their own Sacred Book – interpretations that have provoked hatreds and wars throughout their shared religious history.
In the first place neither Jews nor Muslims have clergy. Rabbis (ulama for Muslims) are not priests or clergy; they have no supernatural power. They are simply scholars of religious law (halakhah for Jews, and shariah for Muslims).
In the second place, Jewish and Christians leaders attempted to ameliorate the use of violence.
There are bloodthirsty texts in the Tanak (see especially the Psalms); the rabbis chose to abandon the quest for worldly power and seek their G-d within their halakhic and liturgical life.
The medieval Christian leaders tried to temper the endemic violence of the converted warriors–look up the “Peace of God” and “Truce of God”.
I’ll let others deal with the Muslim case.
4. Jews need to recognize the world’s Messiah, rejected by their presumptuous clergy…,
It was not presumptuous for the Jews to reject Jesus as the Messiah. He simply did not fit their historic “job description.”
5. And Christians need to recognize Abraham’s One and Only unseen God, Who, throughout the Hebrew Scriptures which introduced Him to the world, never inferred He was one of three gods, as Christianity’s brazen clergy identified Him.
The “one and only unseen God” is a late development within the “Hebrew Scriptures” (Tanak). Abraham was most certainly not a monotheist.
Even the Ten Commandments begins, not with monotheism, but with a variant of “henotheism.” The God of the Hebrews was one deity, but it recognized others deities existed: “I am the L-RD [the sacred name] your G-d [Elohim: lit., "deities", a plural word], you shall have no other g-ds [Elohim] before me.”
If we take the Tanak at face value, monotheism is not known until about 500 BCE (read Jeremiah 10 and Isaiah 44).
So monotheism is not taught “throughout the Hebrew Scriptures,” but is in fact a late development in the Jewish tradition.
Christianity does not claim “three gods,” professes 3 “faces” or “masks” [Latin persona] within a divine unity.
This claim is based on the experienced reality of the divine power of Jesus Christ. So J.C. must be God. That Christian claim is just as valid as is the Jewish or Muslim.
As a true infidel (non-believer), I find the dialog of the believer’s quite amusing. Each side uses scripture to “Prove” their assertions are correct apparently not realizing that “faith” in those scriptures are required to give them any relevance. Islam today is every bit as dangerous as Christianity was in the middle ages. Why is it that the people of these faiths, who claim to believe in the same Deity, are killing each other over the details?
Terry,
The last that i checked this was a philosophical discussion about the nature of God.
I can’t find a single place where I or anyone else for that matter uses the argument that because such and such scripture says it, then it must be true.
The question of God has been taken seriously by philosophy as part of the search for the truth about reality for millenia and it continues to this day but muchmuch smarter people than you, by both believer and, now pay attention here, non-believers as well.
The question of God is ultimately a question about reality and truth. Everyone here except for you are trying to discuss and reason about some important concepts, like what is true love, and the difference between pretty words and actually backing them up with actions.
If you dropped sneering the contempt for other people for just a second and laid aside your assumptions, you just might find that there is something valuable and thoughtful about this discussion.
But i wont hold my breath. While you are sneering at other people acting like an obnoxious teenager (oooh you rebel you), I prefer to listen to other people and respectfully respond to their arguments. I assume a person’s intelligence and good intentions first until proven otherwise. I learn alot about the world that way. But you assume that there are oh so smart and rebellious people like yourself and then there are the ignorant masses who have nothing to say anyway so why bother listening. You can’t learn anything that way. Its sad.
By the way, the last time that I checked this was a civil, reasonable and free discussion. Until you came along that is with your playground “nah nah’s” There isnt a person here who has tried to kill anyone over these issues and we arent going to. There are some Islamic fanatics out there killing in the name of their religion, but as far as I know there isnt a single equivalent Christian terrorist organization trying to kill muslims just because they believe the wrong thing.
Funny thing about living life based on assumptions. You never have a real picture of anything. You only see what you want to see.
Same goes for Jane. There is a huge difference between the kind of discussion we are having here and people killing each other over religion. Learn it. Maybe you too could learn to respond to things as they really are instead of how you assume that they are.
Why is it that the people of these faiths, who claim to believe in the same Deity, are killing each other over the details?
On a deep level, as has been the contention of some of the posts in these comments, they aren’t believing in the same deity. But, since the deity of the Jews (and lesser extent Christians) has some qualities that the Muslims want for their deity Allah, they find a need to try to tie their “new” deity back to the deity of the Jews.
I find myself using Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” hypothesis to explain at least part of the Muslim-Jew hatred. Muhammed knew how inferior anything the Arab culture had created, or could have created at that stage of development, was to the Hebrew deity, so he had to re-interpret that deity through a rhetorical strategy of denigrating the Hebrew scriptures as corrupt, which isn’t too, too hard in an illiterate society that knows nothing of true historical analysis.
In address to Mr. Laymen’s idea that, “Hashem is specific: the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If this being is real, he is so because he has revealed himself as being in covenant with a particular people.”. Mr Laymen’s idea is not the accepted Jewish concept of G-d.
The primary thought of Jews as regards G-d is that He is the one true G-d and that he is the G-d of all creation. This is, by no means, specific only to The Children of Israel. One of G-d’s names is Ein Sof, which translates to, Without End. Considering the confines of the finite mind, this is perhaps the most purely abstract idea we might have of G-d and does not hold to your idea of G-d’s specificity. Being without end or beginning there is nothing to compare this aspect of G-d to. There is no generality from which to derive specificity. Hashem, The Name, is quite a bit more specific then Ein Sof but still, it is a generalization of a name being referred to and which cannot be uttered, YHVH.
As for the revelations in the Hebrew Bible, up through Noah, G-d provides laws for all Man. In Hebrew, the word for mankind is, Bnei Adam. This translates as the Children of Adam. When Noah recovered from the flood he entered into a covenant with G-d that bound him and his children to the seven Noahnic Laws. As the story tells us, being the only survivors of the flood, all human beings are Noah’s decendants. So, these laws and covenant are applicable as a universal, human, revelation and promise.
The revelations and covenant between G-d and Abraham are specific to him and his descendants. Those laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai are laws that set the Children of Israel apart as the chosen nation of servants to G-d. These laws, whether by design or not, create a holy peculiarity for the Children of Israel, of which Jews are one branch. The most peculiar branch of this tree would be Moses’ Levite branch, who are the only other known surviving branch of Israel’s line. These survivng lines of the Children f Israel are the only people currently bound to the laws given by Him to Moses at Mount Sinai. The tribe of Levi are a tribe set aside to serve the temple and their priests who are the descendants of Aaron, the Cohenim. The Cohnim are set aside, most peculiarly, to act out the most holy of services to G-d in the Temple.
The point of this little essay is to point out the false premise of Mr. Laymen comments above. Reading the Hebrew Bible and the Rabbinical commentaries make it very clear that G-d, HaShem, Ein Sof, Adonai and Elohim are all the same being, the one true G-d who created the Universe and set all of history into motion. He is everyone’s G-d, and has set aside a people to carry out His peculiar laws. G-d is quite general but it is His people, chosen to be His servants who are peculiar and specific.
P. Ami begins by quoting me as follows: “Hashem is specific: the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If this being is real, he is so because he has revealed himself as being in covenant with a particular people.”. Mr Laymen’s idea is not the accepted Jewish concept of G-d.
Later Mr. Ami says The revelations and covenant between G-d and Abraham are specific to him and his descendants. Those laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai are laws that set the Children of Israel apart as the chosen nation of servants to G-d.
I fail to see the difference between my formulation and Mr. Ami’s.
Secondly, Mr. Ami identifies HaShem (“the name,” the holy unexpressible name for non-experts) with Ein Sof. But Ein Sof is a specifically Kabbalistic (mystical) formulation. Mysticism and rabbinism are two very different traditions, even if some rabbis were also Kabbalists.
Of course Ein Sof “looks like” and “sounds like” Prof. Mansur’s version of Allah. They are both fundamentally a mystical version of the deity: an infinite power, beyond naming, beyond identification, finally only known in transcendental unity with the cosmos.
With all due respect to mystics of all the monotheistic traditions, I do not think it is the same deity of the Bible. To simply assert that it is, is to assert what must be proved. My all-too-summary brief against Prof. Mansur is also a brief against all mysticism.
From the standpoint of the Jewish tradition, rabbinism was generally opposed to the kabbalistic interpretation. It was in any case a secret, esoteric lore, restricted to a tiny number of wise and mature adepts, not general knowledge for the average Jew.
I am certainly no expert in the Talmudim (the Bavli and the Yerushalmi), but I request from Mr. Ami a rabbinical text which identifies HaShem with Ein Sof. Until I see that, I suggest he is conflating two very different traditions within Judaism.
Mr. Leyman,
I will respond to your various ideas in text.
“P. Ami begins by quoting me as follows: “Hashem is specific: the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If this being is real, he is so because he has revealed himself as being in covenant with a particular people.” Mr. Laymen’s idea is not the accepted Jewish concept of G-d.
Later Mr. Ami says the revelations and covenant between G-d and Abraham are specific to him and his descendants. Those laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai are laws that set the Children of Israel apart as the chosen nation of servants to G-d.
I fail to see the difference between my formulation and Mr. Ami’s.”
— You have chosen to remove the context of my statement. Return to my original response and you’ll find my discussion of Noah and how the revelation of G-d’s laws to Noah is for all mankind and not only for Jews. The G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob (known to Noah as Elohim) is also Adam’s G-d and thus not specific to the Jewish people.
“Secondly, Mr. Ami identifies Hashem (“the name,” the holy inexpressible name for non-experts) with Ein Sof. But Ein Sof is a specifically Kabalistic (mystical) formulation. Mysticism and rabbinicism are two very different traditions, even if some rabbis were also Kabbalists.”
— Ein Sof is a name used to refer to an aspect of G-d. This endless aspect to G-d is referred to in many texts besides Kabalistic ones. They do not always use the name Ein Sof but that concept is clear. You seem to imply that Jewish mysticism is a post Talmudic phenomenon. This too is a misconception. I will qualify in the following paragraphs.
— The names we use to characterize G-d are partly defined by milieu. The Jewish names for G-d pertain to the only deity, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One” (Pre-Talmudic prayer taken from the Torah). To suggest that Jews are referencing a variety of deities runs counter Jewish thought. The various names are names for aspects of G-d. Being finite human beings we are incapable of understanding, let alone expressing, all of G-d’s aspects. As our culture evolves we come to recognize some other timeless aspect that we did not before. But, the endlessness and beginninglessness of G-d has been a Jewish concept since Biblical times.
“With all due respect to mystics of all the monotheistic traditions, I do not think it is the same deity of the Bible. To simply assert that it is, is to assert what must be proved. My all-too-summary brief against Prof. Mansur is also a brief against all mysticism.”
—YHVH; I Was, Am and Will Be. This is the name Moses used in communion with G-d.
“From the standpoint of the Jewish tradition, rabbinism was generally opposed to the kabbalistic interpretation. It was in any case a secret, esoteric lore, restricted to a tiny number of wise and mature adepts, not general knowledge for the average Jew.”
—Prophesy, is a mystic state of mind. The Talmudic rabbis were aware of this and taught its ways to their top students. According to Jewish tradition the first kabbalistic texts were written in the 2nd century C.E. This puts us squarely in the Talmudic era. If you take secular scholasticism to be more accurate then they were written in the 12th century C.E. This is a full 10 centuries after HaRav Shlomo Ben-Gabriel wrote the Adon Olam. The Adon Olam specifically refers to, “He was, He Is, He Will Be forever and ever”. This same rabbi is referred to in the Talmud a number of times. Many of the writers of the early parts of the Talmud (Mishna) are credited as writers of an early Kabalistic book, The Behir.
—While there are many more examples I will share a conclusive one that comes from a different angle. Maimonides, the great 12th century scholar, rabbi and doctor was a non-Mystic in every sense. Yet, in his 13 Principles of Faith (meaning Jewish faith) he states in his 4th principle “G-d’s eternity”. This is Ein Sof.
— Looking at Biblical period, looking at the Talmudic period and then again, just previous to the flowering of Kabbalah in Sefed, we find the concept of G-d, without beginning or end, fully actualized in Jewish thought. It would be most appropriate to recognize that this aspect of G-d is understood by Moses on down.
— All these concepts are mystical and scholastic in nature. Most aspects of Jewish thought are not for Jewish laymen. The important aspects of Jewish living were taught to whomever asked. People would send letters of advise to the great rabbinical centers, as regarded Jewish Law, and responses were sent back to the community from the rabbis. The most generally relevent questions and responses became the Talmud. These legal arguments were not the only studies made by the Rabbis. The Rabbis meditated on the Torah and other Jewish works. They discussed lessons from their masters. They honed their minds to be capable of dispensing such sound ideas that they survive to this day. What other legal code has been followed, uninterrupted, for over two thousand years? The honing of their minds included mystical practices meant only for the great minds of their time.
“I am certainly no expert in the Talmudim (the Bavli and the Yerushalmi), but I request from Mr. Ami a rabbinical text which identifies HaShem with Ein Sof. Until I see that, I suggest he is conflating two very different traditions within Judaism.”
— Kabbalah is not a separate tradition of Judaism. It is the mystical construction derived from the Jewish paradigm. The Talmud is the legal construction derived from the Jewish paradigm. Kabbalah was practiced by Adam and on down to the last prophets. I have already mentioned Moses’ meditation on the name YHVH. Rabbi Akiva was a known mystic. I have listed HaRav Ben Gabriel, who was a Kabbalist. Study Rebbe Shlomo Ben-Yochai and you will find Kabbalah there. All these men lived before Rabbi Luria or any other classic Kabbalist. To separate Kabbalah from rabbinical thought is like removing vowels from a great novel. You may understand the thrust of the writer’s intent but you will have missed the nuances.
I have to make an apology to this community of writers and readers as I have made an error in the above comment. On March 20th 2007 at 10:10PM I wrote, “This is a full 10 centuries after HaRav Shlomo Ben-Gabriel wrote the Adon Olam” and later in the same paragraph (and referring to the same Rabbi Ben-Gabriel) I wrote, “This same rabbi is referred to in the Talmud a number of times”
In writing this statement I was confused regarding the date when HaRav Shlomo Ben-Gabriel lived and mixed up one sage with another. While Harav Shlomo Ben-Gabriel did write the Adon Olam, he lived and wrote this liturgy in the 11th century and not in the 2nd. He thus was not one of the rabbis mentioned in the Talmud.
Please forgive this mistake and do not take this error to mean that the rest of my reasoning regarding G-d’s meaning in Jewish thought is equally incorrect. The rest of the information is, to the best of my knowledge, correct and verifiable.
If one is looking for further authoritative material on the Jewish concept of G-d (which will contradict Mr. Laymen’s views regarding this issue) have a look at Maimonedis’ works. He wrote exactly on this subject in his magnum opus titled, “Mishneh Torah: Yad HaHazaka”. If you read his section called, “HaMadda” You will find the chapter regarding belief in G-d and Jewish principles of faith. As a scholar of Judaism and the orthodoxy of that faith, Maimonedes is a much better source for its comprehension then myself and is precisely the sort of scholar Mr. Laymen asks for when he requires a non mystical, Jewish approach to G-d.
On another note, the long comments I have left on this page have focused on one idea in criticism of Dr. Mansur’s writings. I intended to correct Mr. Laymen as to his concept of G-d in Jewish thinking and this correction has since taken over my attention. I maintain my original thoughts regarding Dr. Mansur’s position on Islam, which I read to be, that Islam is correctable and can be tolerant of other faiths. History has shown that Islam can be tolerant and it’s Sufi ideas certainly have universal appeal. That said, we are engaged in a war with the dominant and dominating form of Islam and we must focus our attention on destroying this enemy. When this has been accomplished we can then agree on the peaceful aspects of this faith as we will have made peace.