Greetings...
The truth for a person might be a lies to another person. Take religion for example. If anybody put a knife on my neck and asked me to convert my religion, I might defend my belief until the end of my life. I believe most of you will do the same regardless what your religion is. I do not believe the teachings that my Buddhist friends, my Hindus friends, my Christians friends, even my Scientologist friends [if I have Scientologist friend in the future] believe, but I definitely respect them and respect their beliefs. In facts, I believe it is a sin to belittle other Gods and other religions. That is why when I first interested in knowing what is Scientology Church [in which John Travolta, Tom Cruise, etc. are the firm believers and the belief has connection with a story of aliens inhabitant 75 millions years ago], my first impression is 'Gosh, this is ridiculous!'. But then I came to my senses, I should respect what they believe accordingly.
Allow me to go much deeper on this issue...
In early 1990's, I took my A-Level at PPP/ITM Shah Alam, Selangor. There was a time, during our religion studies, a religious teacher or Ustaz asked a very provocative question [this Ustaz was known later as anti-hadith Ustaz according to rumor, and transferred after his first class with us].
WARNING: Please do not continue reading this article if you think you are not up to it.
The Question from the Ustaz was something like this...
'Assuming that you were born in Swizerland, born in a Christian family, exposed to Christian life, went to church every Sunday and did lots of charity works, and then you die... do you think you still go to heaven?' A spontaneous response from one of my classmate, 'Of course not, because I died as a Christian, not as a Muslim'. The Ustaz asked again, 'Who made you born in Swizerland? Who made you a Christian? Who made you live in Christian environment? Who made you died as a Christian? Who put you into hell and not heaven? Is it all of them done by God? So, do you think God is fair?!' [His actual word were 'Jadi, adilkah Tuhan?' and I still remember those words until now.]
I believe I talk on behalf of all of my classmate during that time that our heartbeats literally STOPPED. What the heck man? An Ustaz came out with such question and during that time all of us were very young and immatured to talk about such big issue. That is a very irresponsible act.
To be honest with all of you, the Question really lingered in my mind for years until I found another Ustaz [not a Malaysian] while I studied oversea. I did ask this Ustaz almost similar Question. The Arabian Ustaz answered me in front of everybody, cautiously, and before he gave me the answer, he kept telling all the congregates in the mosque that his answer was taken from a group of Islamic Scholar's Fatwa or Decree in early 1900.
The Answer is, 'God will judge you according to your religion if the truth of Islam is not reach you. The definition of 'the truth of Islam is not reaching you' is up to God Himself. If a community that live in an isolated island and never heard to any of the Islam Gospel, never know the teaching of Islam, never heard of the name of Muhammad as the last Prophet in this world; we are certain that they will be judged in according to their island religion. If they behave well, never harm anybody, obey the islander rules, etc. they will not be put into hell. However, if they already knew about Islam, knew about the teaching of Islam, heard about Muhammad and started to believe in them BUT purposely reject Islam to be their religion just because they do not want to forego their interest in this world, then they will go to hell. This is similar to Abu Lahab and the rest of the Musyrikin 14 centuries ago.
I asked again, 'what about someone who heard about Islam but the words about Islam do not trigger them to know more, to learn more, and they still believe in their own religion not because of the interest of the world, but because they believe they could become a better person as a Christians, or Buddhists, or Hidus, etc. What about them? Could they be classified similar to the Musyrikins or the island people that never heard about the name of Islam at all?'
The Ustaz answered, 'That is something you and me could tell. That is something that only God knows, the Creator knows, not to be known by the creations like you and me.' The Ustaz added, 'We already knew that God is fair and the fairness of God is beyond our understanding as human being. So do you think God will misjudge people whether to put them into heaven or hell; whether to classify them as the Musyrikin or the islander; if according to you, these people might lies in the between? So, your question just now could not be answered and we must believe God is fair in his judgment in the case of the Swizerland guy.'
This is a serious matter. If any of you [who read this article] is a respected Ustaz or Mufti, please do not hesitate to make any correction on the opinion given by the Arabian Ustaz above. But make sure your response is not merely based on emotion and baseless without any supporting argument from Al-Qur'an or Hadith or 'Ijmak Ulamak'.
So what is my conclusion that I would like to share here? Never say that a non-Muslim will definitely go to hell as much as never say that a Muslim will definitely go to heaven [he might be a Muslim in name but non-Muslim in term of behavior]. God is the judge, let God make the judgment. We are human being and as a human being, it is safe not to be judgmental by determining who [in our opinion] goes to heaven or hell. Like what been said by Haji Labu [in P. Ramlee's Labu Labi movie], 'I don't know whether I go to heaven or I go to hell?' But as a Muslim, we strive to be a better person [or putting Robbie William's song into perspective, a 'Better Man'] and hope that God will accept us in the day of Judgment.
Thank you for your valuable time.
Dr. Tahoma
The truth for a person might be a lies to another person. Take religion for example. If anybody put a knife on my neck and asked me to convert my religion, I might defend my belief until the end of my life. I believe most of you will do the same regardless what your religion is. I do not believe the teachings that my Buddhist friends, my Hindus friends, my Christians friends, even my Scientologist friends [if I have Scientologist friend in the future] believe, but I definitely respect them and respect their beliefs. In facts, I believe it is a sin to belittle other Gods and other religions. That is why when I first interested in knowing what is Scientology Church [in which John Travolta, Tom Cruise, etc. are the firm believers and the belief has connection with a story of aliens inhabitant 75 millions years ago], my first impression is 'Gosh, this is ridiculous!'. But then I came to my senses, I should respect what they believe accordingly.
Allow me to go much deeper on this issue...
In early 1990's, I took my A-Level at PPP/ITM Shah Alam, Selangor. There was a time, during our religion studies, a religious teacher or Ustaz asked a very provocative question [this Ustaz was known later as anti-hadith Ustaz according to rumor, and transferred after his first class with us].
WARNING: Please do not continue reading this article if you think you are not up to it.
The Question from the Ustaz was something like this...
'Assuming that you were born in Swizerland, born in a Christian family, exposed to Christian life, went to church every Sunday and did lots of charity works, and then you die... do you think you still go to heaven?' A spontaneous response from one of my classmate, 'Of course not, because I died as a Christian, not as a Muslim'. The Ustaz asked again, 'Who made you born in Swizerland? Who made you a Christian? Who made you live in Christian environment? Who made you died as a Christian? Who put you into hell and not heaven? Is it all of them done by God? So, do you think God is fair?!' [His actual word were 'Jadi, adilkah Tuhan?' and I still remember those words until now.]
I believe I talk on behalf of all of my classmate during that time that our heartbeats literally STOPPED. What the heck man? An Ustaz came out with such question and during that time all of us were very young and immatured to talk about such big issue. That is a very irresponsible act.
To be honest with all of you, the Question really lingered in my mind for years until I found another Ustaz [not a Malaysian] while I studied oversea. I did ask this Ustaz almost similar Question. The Arabian Ustaz answered me in front of everybody, cautiously, and before he gave me the answer, he kept telling all the congregates in the mosque that his answer was taken from a group of Islamic Scholar's Fatwa or Decree in early 1900.
The Answer is, 'God will judge you according to your religion if the truth of Islam is not reach you. The definition of 'the truth of Islam is not reaching you' is up to God Himself. If a community that live in an isolated island and never heard to any of the Islam Gospel, never know the teaching of Islam, never heard of the name of Muhammad as the last Prophet in this world; we are certain that they will be judged in according to their island religion. If they behave well, never harm anybody, obey the islander rules, etc. they will not be put into hell. However, if they already knew about Islam, knew about the teaching of Islam, heard about Muhammad and started to believe in them BUT purposely reject Islam to be their religion just because they do not want to forego their interest in this world, then they will go to hell. This is similar to Abu Lahab and the rest of the Musyrikin 14 centuries ago.
I asked again, 'what about someone who heard about Islam but the words about Islam do not trigger them to know more, to learn more, and they still believe in their own religion not because of the interest of the world, but because they believe they could become a better person as a Christians, or Buddhists, or Hidus, etc. What about them? Could they be classified similar to the Musyrikins or the island people that never heard about the name of Islam at all?'
The Ustaz answered, 'That is something you and me could tell. That is something that only God knows, the Creator knows, not to be known by the creations like you and me.' The Ustaz added, 'We already knew that God is fair and the fairness of God is beyond our understanding as human being. So do you think God will misjudge people whether to put them into heaven or hell; whether to classify them as the Musyrikin or the islander; if according to you, these people might lies in the between? So, your question just now could not be answered and we must believe God is fair in his judgment in the case of the Swizerland guy.'
This is a serious matter. If any of you [who read this article] is a respected Ustaz or Mufti, please do not hesitate to make any correction on the opinion given by the Arabian Ustaz above. But make sure your response is not merely based on emotion and baseless without any supporting argument from Al-Qur'an or Hadith or 'Ijmak Ulamak'.
So what is my conclusion that I would like to share here? Never say that a non-Muslim will definitely go to hell as much as never say that a Muslim will definitely go to heaven [he might be a Muslim in name but non-Muslim in term of behavior]. God is the judge, let God make the judgment. We are human being and as a human being, it is safe not to be judgmental by determining who [in our opinion] goes to heaven or hell. Like what been said by Haji Labu [in P. Ramlee's Labu Labi movie], 'I don't know whether I go to heaven or I go to hell?' But as a Muslim, we strive to be a better person [or putting Robbie William's song into perspective, a 'Better Man'] and hope that God will accept us in the day of Judgment.
Thank you for your valuable time.
Dr. Tahoma
Very interesting. Precisely the same problem has been extensively discussed by Christian theologians, and, there seems to be wide consensus congruent to the view you expressed here. A possible solution could, more specifically, run along this line: there ARE indeed hidden Muslims; these people do not know they are, in essence Muslims; they may even actively deny it, due to communicative failure of sinful and fallible men; Muslim authorities do not recognize these people as believers; but, in essence, they are believers, even if they do not conceptualize their belief; and they say Yes to essentials of Islam, as Allah only knows it, and they practice a sound reading and hearing of the Quran invisibly by heart, even if they never read or heard this book, or even ever knew about it, because Allah has chosen to talk to these people in a covert way, and they have heard Him, without even knowing it; but Allah knows. because He is always greater.
ReplyDeleteThis general solution has won wide acceptance within Christianity, and I see no valid objection to analogy with Islam.
Personally, I am generalist, not to say syncretist, very much in the up-to-date Catholic vein as expressed by former pope John Paul II. So, to rather great, if varying, extent, I consider myself a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist etc; even to some slight extent a Scientologist! Actually, I was in contact with Scientology some two decades ago, and much of it was bad indeed, but, there was certainly some spirit and truth into it as well.
Honestly, I sincerely feel we must'n put limit to God, making ourselves kind of His religious masters, teaching Him what he means, separating Religion from Spirit, making it our fetish and all worldly pursuit in His name as usurpators, because if we do, this is not Faith, but Idolatry; call it Scylla.
On the other hand, we must be equally keen to avoid an allover liberal and relativistic "anything-goes" attitude of westernizing laxity to The Highest, because if we do, this is in effect not Faith at all; that's Charybdis, and certainly no way better.
- Yours sincerely,
Peter Ingestad, Sweden
Gosh...interesting point of view. I tried to share my opinion with others and expect some of their constructive response but... quite often my opinion rejected without strong reason. I understand, religion is not suppose to be logical, but to some extend, logical explanation is needed. I am not familiar with your Catholic belief, but for years I learned about Evangelist Christian, not just for fun but to quench my thirst for knowledge. To know what other people believe keep my mind 'operating' and without such thinking activities, my life could be empty. Enough of that, allow to ask you a question if you don't mind... Some sect of Evangelist in my state, Sarawak (located in Borneo Island), the biggest state in Malaysia, believe in 'No Condemnation in Christianity' since Jesus Christ already paid for all our sin when he was crucified. In fact, feeling guilty of the committed sin perceived as not really believe to the essence of the sacrifice made by Son of God. In other words, no Christians are going to hell as long as he/she accept the Jesus Christ as the Savior. As a Catholic, do you agree with such understanding? Kindly reply and hope to communicate further with you. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I am, with MY outrageous view!
ReplyDeleteMy view: Hell does exist, and so does Purgatorio. We cannot make any prediction whatsoever about who is condemned, not even Judas. From this it follows, that everyone's salvation is indeed possible. In such a case, Purgatorio takes care of God's Righteousness. If we have sinned, we must do well through penance; God only knows how severe that penance must be in the final analysis. God's righteous wrath must NOT be underestimated. Jesus says explicitely, that some sin, is unforgiveable. To sin against Christ, the Son, may be forgiveable; to sin against The Holy Spirit is NOT. Though salvation of everyone is not to be ruled out, we certainly cannot count on it. So, my answer is: NO. It's not that simple. There IS condemnation in Christianity. (Catholicism strongly emphasizes the value of Reason and logical explanaton in relation to Faith. It rejects the reductive and oversimplifying fideism current among Evangelists overstating the Grace of God.)
Myself, I do accept Catholic doctrine, I am a member of the Catholic Church, and happy of this no pride involved. This is the truth, but not the whole truth. To be exact, I call myself Metacatholic rather than Catholic.
One more thing. The Cross delivers us from Death, but NOT from penance altogether. So, those Evangelist sects are in grave error. My opinion, and I believe this congruent to normative Catholic teaching.
To be even more exact: we must die, as Jesus did, and like him, we will resurrect to receive Christ's final judgment, which may very well be eternal damnation. The Cross makes eternal salvation possible, but not certain. The Cross cures Original Sin through Grace. This is how Christ pays for us. Through Original Sin,Man is damaged, but not altogether destroyed, and consequently, we must die. As St. Paul poignantly and paradoxically states, we must die in order to live. IMO, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free from Original sine, so SHE is the on human being that never died. She descended to Heaven without intermediate Death.
And again, as I see it, in the final analysis, there's no contradiction between Christianity and Islam. Allah, who is always greater, is my God too, and I DO consider Mohammed his Prophet. In contrast to Christianity, Islam speaks more to the heart than the brain. As I see it, there is yet very much reason into the Quran and in Muslim creed generally. Again, I reject fundamentalism and liberalism to equal extent. The stern attitude of many Mullahs and muslim authorities is IMO basically sound. So Radical Islamism IMO is not NECESSARILY wrong; there's much good to it, BUT, it must be ENLIGHTENED and updated, and do away with primitivism and sheer brutality. We must not forget, that God/Allah is indeed a god of righteous wrath, but he is no less a God of grace and mercy. Doesn't the Quran tell us this? If so, how can you be a good muslim if you not practice grace and mercy to very considerable extent? Just asking. Again: it's not that easy. What about holy war, Jihad? I don't oppose Jihad, I basically support it. Jihad and Crusade is basically the same thing, and there's certanly a case for it. Many muslims believe in Jihad directed at the West, and for very good reasons. Just remember, if there's much Evil in the West, which is certainly the case, there is good to, and all people of the book should be brethren; IMO brotherhood should be extended, since to very great extent, the Holy Spirit works through Eastern religions like hinduism, buddhism an Chinese spirituality and their best, so, in a covert way and unknowingly, there is many servants of Allah among those strangers. The prophet Issa's fathtful servant, former pope John Paul II, saw this intuitively. I practice I Ching as a servant of God, and the Heaven, and NOT as a servant of the Oracle. Crucial point. Thank you, God, for a good reminder. I will be eager to learn more about Islam from you, and Heaven, not Earth. I will certainly, in due time, study the Quran. (Salman Rushdie`? He's but an abject fool. Let him live, punishment enough for such a miserable book! I tried to read it, and I understood absolutely nothing, it was but scrambled letters all of it; so I gave up after som 100 pages and simply threw this nonsense away once and for all. So, that Fatwah of Khomeini is certainly not without good basis, indeed ther IS good case for condemnation and anathema, BUT: we must not be cruel and primitive. High nosed West and Mr. Rushdie DID deserve some nose blood, and that's what they got, which is good, since this is the only way they will learn anything. This lesson given and taken, the issue should be left at that.)
And believe me, I HATE Western Evil: the Insolence, the Arrogance, the high handed Self-Righteousness, the Hypocrisy, the Bigotry, the Betrayal, the Treason, the Base Futility, the Cowardice, the Duplicity, the Spinelessness, the Debauchery, the Shamelessness, the Worship of Evil Imagery, the Greed, the Avarice, the Disease, the Rape, the Plunder, the Sodomy, the weird Eye, the Pornography, the Latrine, the Christocide, the FILTH. So what about Jihad? You count me IN, not out, I am prepared for martyrdom, and I will be proud and happy to die fighting for Him, wo is always greater; and I know I'm strong enough to do it, because I have once put my life at stake in precisely this war, I encounterend my Western enemy Death and I turned the back on him contemptuously; and I did it with perfect composure and equanimity, and I am still alive to fight many a good day; blessed be He, who is always greater; and GIVE my love to my Brother in Arms and Spirit, Usama Bin Laden, because, if "terrorism" is no way my thing, and it's certainly NOT, he and I are STILL soldiers of one and the same Army, and we will NOT cave in; ALLAH'U AKHBAR! Now DID I make myself clear.
Yours, sincerely,
Peter Ingestad, Sweden.
Peter...should I call you Peter? You are a 'radical' Christian as much as I am a 'radical' Muslim, that is according to the definition of most people out there. 'Thou shall not judge' is one thing among many that Christian and Islam have in common. I might agree to disagree but I don't think that I am better than George Bush or even Benyamin Netanyahu or even Adolf Hitler. We do not know for whatever reason grace of God be upon them rather than us. That what I believe.
ReplyDeleteAnd on Jihad, if I really believe that by putting all the granites on body and then go to Israel and blow myself in the bus full of small kids could give me a one-way-ticket to heaven, TRUST ME, I will not waste my time in front of my laptop. I already 'syahid' long time ago. But for me that is a deviated ideology. Wrong interpretation of Jihad but motivated by wrong reasons (such as their family members killed by Israeli soldier) Again, I believe what they, the suicidal bombers, did is wrong but I do not condemn them. Sufficient to know I with my own wisdom shall not commit to such act.
I used to be in a cult, one of the most influential cult in Malaysia, Al-Arqam. The sense of brotherhood in Al-Arqam was so awesome. I wore a very significant turban, very significant robe, unlike most of the robe that you could imagine, and the most importantly, I obey my leader, Abuya Ashaari without question. That was in from early to mid 90s. We had this understanding that Abuya Ashaari would become the next Prime Minister of Malaysia before the millennium. And such belief was so dominant up to one stage I did not mind to against my own parents. I was aspired to be a part of such changes to see my leader to be the Prime Minister of Malaysia, but I had to go to Wales, United Kingdom to further my study. While in Wales, I received news that Abuya Ashaari was caught by Malaysian Government, under the Internal Security Act and soon after that confessed that what he did, his teaching was deviated from the real teaching of Islam. At that moment, I felt like the whole sky collapsed on me. I was directionless in my life and started embraced so-called Western life style. I am not saying Western lifestyle is no good but being me at that condition I more Western than ordinary Westerner. Furthermore, I flunk in my study and became an illegal immigrant in United Kingdom. It took me years for me to start believing wholeheartedly on religion. I came to the conclusion, what happened to me was due to believing in something without ample knowledge.
I studied Buddhism and a little bit on Anglican. I studied cults in the world to get the understanding why certain people believe in certain thing. I even attended Evangelist Church together with my stone-Evangelist friend who is also my business partner. When they worship, I keep silence. When they have their communion, I pretend looking somewhere else. But when the Elder or Pastor starts to 'preach', I give my full concentration. Sometimes I more concentrate than my stone-Evangelist friend. They have a unique way to put their believe different and special as compare to other religions, even compare to other belief of Christianity. I read book written by Peter Lundren and Pastor Prince (a very famous Pastor who preach Gospel of Grace from Singapore). In my opinion, Evangelist Christian has its own 'charm' to attract people. And I am one of these people. Again and again I told my good friend that 'if only I believe Jesus Christ is not merely a prophet, if only I believe that Jesus Christ is a begotten Son of God or Allah... I should be a Christian right now as much as I should be together with HAMAS and plan to commit suicide 'in the name of God'.
But again, religious is about belief and not about logical explanation even though logical explanation sometimes is needed to strengthen the belief.
Talking about Jihad, once prophet Muhammad and his companions came back from a battle with the non-believers with success. He said, 'we just came back from a small Jihad and now we are facing the real big one'. The companions asked him, 'Is there any Jihad waiting for us in Medina, bigger than what we just faced in Badar?' Prophet Muhammad answered 'Yes, the Jihad to fight with our own sin, our own prohibited lust'. So my friend, if a true Muslim understand what Jihad really mean, he or she should emphasize on the bigger Jihad than the smaller one. Unfortunately, me myself, I often fail to avoid most of the sin in my life. That is why I do believe that I shall not judge other people. Judgment belonged to God not human being.
Talking about sharing the same God...once prophet Muhammad asked one of his companions to go and visit a village located in Arab Peninsular. He said that village are full with Christians, go to them but never treat them as if they are infidels, because they are not infidels. That is from a reliable source of hadith (simply defined as the reliable story about the prophet). Knowing this hadith, I started to investigate whether prophet Muhammad in his lifetime has any confrontation with the Christians. The answer is NO. He even asked his people to get protection from the Christian King of Ethiopia. He even had a Christian friends in which he came to their house and treated with meat and he ate that meat without asking about how the cow was slaughtered. Even the conflict between his government and the Jewish in Medina is nothing about religion but more about political reason. So in the first place, why there are so much conflict between Muslim and Christian AND Muslim and Jews in the first place? Because some of us have this believe 'My religion is right; your religion is wrong; and therefore you must embrace my religion'. Such narrow minded opinion in my opinion caused hundreds of years of Jihad on my side and Crusade on your side. (Commercial break...trust me my friend, if any of my Muslim friend in Malaysia read what I wrote to you, they will called me and ask me to stop hahaha.)
On other matter, currently we have a new Prime Minister, Najib Razak. Prior to that, our Prime Minister was Abdullah Badawi. During Abdullah time, there was a suggestion to have an inter-religious forum in which the leaders of the known religion in this country should share their understanding and belief, and solve any religious misunderstanding. The forum was established and they invite the Muslim representatives to join them. Abdullah Badawi opposed to the idea. His argument is (of course after hearing the 'advice' from his religious advisers) Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, therefore Muslim should not be subjected to such discussion or forum. What a lame excuse? I was shocked beyond words when I first heard such decision from my ex-Prime Minister. I believe if we understand each other better, particularly on the sensitive issues such as religion, we should be more tolerant. Asking other people about their religions does not mean we want to convert, does not mean that we need to agree with other people belief. We just want to have better understanding in this multi-racial and multi-religion country. With better understanding on other people belief we can see clearly why we are different. Can anybody in my government see that? Absurd!
Out of curiosity bro, how old are you? I am 36 and self employed (as a small player in training-consulting industry in own my hometown), MBA and PhD in Finance. What is I Ching anyway? Never heard of it. I thought it is something or some value derived from East or China like Sun Tzu's Art of War. Care to elaborate to me?
Thank you and as what you mentioned before all of the believers or people of the book should be brethren. Have a nice day ahead.
Dr. Tahoma @ Dr. Azhar