Success Secrets | Islam Religion Spirituality.

By Clive Simpkins

Many people on religious paths are lousy advertisements for God.I’m sure that if there were some divine psychometric orbehavioural screening mechanism in place, many wouldn’t bepermitted to be card-carrying representatives of theirparticular faith. A cautionary adage urges: “Don’t judge thepath by the people on it.” In the case of Islam, it’sparticularly important to avoid doing so. The fact that thereare, I understand, more than a billion Muslims around the world,means the chances of bad press for Islam, are pretty good.Example: The deeply ignorant evangelist, Franklin Graham,writing that Islam “is a very evil and wicked religion.”

Huge damage has been done and much suffering caused over thecenturies in the name of both protestant and Roman CatholicChristianity. Just as it is presently being done, with biblicaljustification, in the name of ‘preserving Judaism,’ in theoccupied territories of the former Palestine. Please don’t evenwaste your breath on an ‘anti-Semitic’ side-swipe. I have Jewishancestry. Also, this is not an attack on any group or path, butrather some observations on the self-proclaimed practitioners ofall paths. I believe that perpetuating injustice in the name ofreligious ideology is truly wicked.

Indigenous peoples around the world have suffered gravedisrespect at the hands of social and religious missionaries,bringing ‘higher’ teachings or values to them. In the process,traditions and cultural activities which closely bonded people,or communities, have been destroyed. Conveniently tailoredChristianity was used by the fathers of Apartheid as (yet again)biblical justification for the appalling treatment of blackSouth Africans. Apartheid was, in retrospect, a huge success.The destruction of the extended family system by migratory workpatterns, and the now rampant materialism of the neweconomically empowered black middle class, have put a final nailin the coffin of black South African cultural heritage.

But back to Islam. The tenets of the religion have as much meritas any of the other dualistic religions with a ‘book.’ Practicedwith sincerity and purity of mind, there is no doubt that it canlead to the highest levels of what might be referred to, asGod-realisation. The problem is that the crusader-like behaviourof the Western world has succeeded in dangerously politicisingthe name, if not the spirit, of Islam. Many of its adherents arenow bonded together by the notion of, “The enemy of my enemy, ismy friend.” As a simple example, a couple of hundred, or eventhousands, of hand-waving Iraqis, do not a ‘conversion’ toAmericanism make. They’ve survived for more than a third of acentury by adapting to the volatile whims and fancies of SaddamHussein. They’ll do likewise with any other occupying force,however temporary.

Religion is the mechanistic framework of an ideology.Spirituality is its practice. If one clings to the former andisn’t a practitioner of the latter, then any religion is littledifferent from a political movement. It can quite legitimatelybecome a survival mechanism for people under duress. To quotethe oft-distorted Marxist idiom, “Religion is the opiate of themasses.” Not, as one Robben Island tour guide says, the “opium”of the masses. Although, in Afghanistan, that’s a distinctpossibility.

I believe that the biggest threat today is the lack of mentalpurity and ethics on the part of many Islamic clerics and theirpeers in other religions. I was left aghast at some of the videofootage from Friday night prayers in Baghdad, Basra and othercentres in Iraq, following the American invasion. Thehate-speak, from supposedly spiritual leaders, inside ‘houses ofGod’ was literally breath-taking. But Christian and Jewishreligious leaders have done precisely the same thing over thecenturies.

What we need to understand is this: The passive resistancecampaigns of Gandhi were based on ‘ahimsa,’ the principle ofnon-injury. The work of Martin Luther King Jr. was based onsimilar principles of non-violence. It’s vital for both teachersand followers of Islam around the world, to remind themselves ofthe true meaning of their religion, which is “Peace.”

Nothing of consequence is going to be accomplished by beingsucked into using religion as a cloak for politics, powermongering, or even the murder of ‘unpopular’ clerics, ashappened recently in Iraq. Islam deserves better.

It’s becoming a tragic stereotype in the West, that the mostrecognised words from the Islamic vocabulary are Sharia (Law)and Jihad (‘Holy’ War). As a student and lover of all religions,I’d like to see that change, before it’s too late. Onlyspirituality, as opposed to religiosity, can facilitate this. Weall need to remember that anger and hatred are venoms thatpoison the lives of both dispenser and recipient.

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