Religious Liberty: Islamic Teachings

“And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge. Thus We have made pleasing to every community their deeds. Then to their Lord is their return and He will inform them about what they used to do.” (6: 109)

Respect for other faiths is an essential part of Islam as it should be for all faiths also. Respect for each other’s religion plays a vital role in maintaining peace at familial, social, environmental, national and international levels.

To each Muslim, liberty of religious belief and practice must be dear since tolerance is a vital part of Islamic faith. Religious liberty practiced in any society guarantees also liberty of scientific discussion within it and a tolerance of the views of others, so essential to the growth of science.

'Ethnic Cleansing' of Muslims in Central Africa

LIBREVILLE: "Ethnic cleansing" is being carried out against Muslim civilians in the Central African Republic, with international peacekeepers unable to prevent it, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. France's defence minister earlier called on international forces deployed in the Christian-majority country to put an end to attacks by the militias "by force if needed". Amnesty said it had documented at least 200 killings of Muslim civilians by Christian militia groups known as the anti-balaka, set up in the wake of the March 2013 coup by the mainly-Muslim Seleka rebellion. (Inset: Burning/looting of Muslim property and a mosque in PK 26 area, north of the capital Bangui in late January.© Amnesty International)

"Ethnic cleansing' of Muslims has been carried out in the western part of the Central African Republic, the most populous part of the country, since early January 2014," Amnesty International said in a report. "Entire Muslim communities have been forced to flee, and hundreds of Muslim civilians who have not managed to escape have been killed by the loosely organised militias known as anti-balaka." 

When the Qur'an spoke English

The earliest direct English translation of the holy book is a testament to its translator's resourcefulness

The first Muslim member of Congress assumed office in January 2007. For his swearing-in ceremony, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., chose to pledge on the Quran. The copy he used, specially loaned by the Library of Congress for the occasion, had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. [Inset: The Qur'an once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Photo by  Haraz N. Ghanbari /AP] 

Why did Jefferson own a copy of the Quran? The third president was interested in Islam for many reasons, as Denise A. Spellberg explains in her book “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an.” He was able to read the holy book of Islam in the first place, however, only thanks to a recent translation, the first direct one from Arabic into English, a copy of which he purchased as a law student in 1765. That translation, by a young English lawyer named George Sale, would prove to have an outsize role in the Western study and understanding of the Quran. 

European interest in Islam

Long before Europeans governed Muslim colonies, interest in Islam and its cultures ran high in Europe. Part of the reason was political. Three Muslim empires dominated large parts of Asia: the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Mediterranean and Arabia; the Safavids in Persia; and the Mughals in India.

These Muslim dynasties were not just powerful but were also admired for their refined arts and culture — music, poetry, gardens, ceramics and textiles. Moreover, books in Arabic offered knowledge of many fields to those who learned the language. Not just the sciences and philosophy but even Arabic literature enticed European translators. Thus, in 1704 a Frenchman first translated the “1001 Nights,” whose tales soon became an enduring classic of European as well as of Arabic letters.

Above all else, the religion of Islam itself seemed an especially compelling field of inquiry to a variety of European scholars and thinkers. How had a handful of Muslims emerged from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century to conquer so much of the known world? This was one of the great questions of world history, as both the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire and the English historian Edward Gibbon agreed. In addition, philosophers and freethinking Christians deemed the central tenet of Islam, the unity of God, more rational than the mystery of the Christian Trinity. Thus, many different Europeans attributed singular importance to Islam and the language of its revelation, Arabic.

True Belief: Trials and Rewards

Abdullah ibn Mughaffal relates: 

A man said to the Holy Prophet (pbuh): “Messenger of Allah, I love you”. 

He said: “Watch what you are saying!” 

The man said: “Indeed, I love you”; and repeated it three times. 

The Holy Prophet (pbuh) said: “If you do love me prepare for poverty, for poverty advances more rapidly towards one who loves me than does flood water towards its objective.” (Tirmidhi)

If there was such a love which existed in the times of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), it was love which was bonded a believer to another believer, only for the pleasure of Allah. And a greater love which existed is the love which a believer has for the prophet of Allah (pbuh) and a yet greater love is the love which the prophet had for the believers. Yet a greater love existed more than this love, and that is the love which the Holy Prophet (pbuh) had for Allah; but love, the true one is the one which Allah has for His prophet; after that love, then comes the love which Allah has for His creatures; especially His sincere servants. Therefore, it is such a great and beautiful love that the prophet loses himself in Allah, and Allah bestows upon him His favours and makes the hearts of the sincere people, and the seekers of truth to attach themselves to it (Allah, Allah’s love).

Divine Elects in the Garden of Islam

اِنَّ الدِّیۡنَ عِنۡدَ اللّٰہِ الۡاِسۡلَامُ ۟

‘Innad-Diina ‘indallaahil-Islaam.

Surely the (true) religion in the sight of Allah is Islam. (3: 20)

If Islam is the vehicle of life, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the representation of true life, in that which he is the perfect example of how a human, and especially a true servant of Allah must be for Allah in this temporal world despite living among the mixed existence of man, sometimes good, sometimes evil. 

Islam guides man towards perfecting himself for Allah, not the world and all that it contains. The world is temporary whereas the Creator of mankind exists for ever. Indeed, He has neither beginning nor end. He is there for all times, and His presence and appearance are beyond the conception of man. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) during his life on earth showed the correct way of life, by his own example. This is one of the fundamental duties of the seal of the prophets, that he provides such guidance which shall not only mark the people of his era, but humankind as a whole, and that till the Day of Judgement.

Allah says the Holy Qur'an:

“You are the best community that has been raised for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah.” (3: 111)

Further in the Quran, in (14: 25-28), Allah says: 

“Have you not considered how Allah presents an example, (making) a good word like a good tree, whose root is firmly fixed and its branches (high) in the sky? It produces its fruit all the time, by permission of its Lord. And Allah presents examples for the people that perhaps they will be reminded. And the example of a bad word is like a bad tree, uprooted from the surface of the earth, not having any stability. Allah keeps firm those who believe, with the firm word, in worldly life and in the Hereafter. And Allah sends astray the wrongdoers. And Allah does what He wills.”

Obama on Freedom of Religion

President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, a decades-old Washington tradition, on February 06, 2014. "To harm anyone in the name of faith is to diminish our own relationship with God", says the President.

As instances of persecution and other violation of basic freedoms scar the lives of millions of people in different parts of the world, the President reminds that to respect human rights, particularly religious freedom, leaders everywhere must do more. Among the cases of egregious violation of religious freedoms, the President remembers the plight of, among others, the Ahmadi Muslims of Pakistan.

Read the Extracts from the Speech:

So each time we gather, it’s a chance to set aside the rush of our daily lives; to pause with humility before an Almighty God; to seek His grace; and, mindful of our own imperfections, to remember the admonition from the Book of Romans, which is especially fitting for those of us in Washington: “Do not claim to be wiser than you are.”

So here we put aside labels of party and ideology, and recall what we are first: all children of a loving God; brothers and sisters called to make His work our own. But in this work, as Lincoln said, our concern should not be whether God is on our side, but whether we are on God’s side…

Meaning of “Khatamun-Nabiyyin"

The term “Khatamun-Nabiyyin” which when literally translated means ‘Seal of the prophets’ is grammatically a compound phrase. It is a matter of common knowledge that when two words join together to make a phrase, they do not necessarily give their literal meaning. For example, ‘Ibn’ means ‘son’ and ‘Sabil’ means way; but when these words is joint together to make ‘Ibn-Sabil’ it does not reflect an absolutely literal meaning. We thus don’t consider it to mean: ‘Son of the path’, it only means a traveller. 

Such titles was also a practice of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) whereby he used to name his companions according to sometimes memorable events or simply because of the situation in which he found them. For example, he named his cousin, son-in-law and his fourth successor Ali (ra), Abu Turab, which literally means: Father of the soil/sand, which of course Hazrat Ali (ra) was not literally one, but the Prophet of Allah (pbuh) gave him the name as an adjective or attribute and not as a literal meaning. So the real sense of a phrase is determined by grammar, its usage in language and the context in which it is used.

It is an established and unchangeable rule of Arabic grammar and language that when the word ‘Khatam’ is used in the praise of a person and its combining word is a ‘group of talented people’, it never means that the person called ‘Khatam’ is the last or final to appear in respect of time. It always means that in the opinion of the user, the person concerned is the perfect and supreme in that ‘group of talented people’ and that he has achieved the last and final grade in that particular excellence. The Islamic literature is full of such instances and not a single example can be cited against this rule.