Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity), BS Murthy [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

as long as possible in the face of any threatening situation. The constant Parent, the constant Adult, and the constant Child all result primarily from defensive exclusion of the two complementary aspects in each case.

And this is a situation in which an excluding Parent can ‘block out’ the child or an Excluding Child can ‘block out’ the Parent. Typical of the Parent - contaminated Adult with a Blocked -Out child is the man who is duty dominated. It is as if, at some point in his childhood, he was so utterly quashed by serious, stern, duty-bound parents that he found the only safe way to proceed through life was to turn his Child off completely.

A more serious difficulty, particularly to society, is presented by the Child -Contaminated adult with a Blocked - Out Parent. This condition develops in the person whose real parents, or those who fulfilled the parental role, were so brutal and terrifying or, in the other extreme, so doltishly indulgent that the only way to preserve life was to ‘shut them off.” or block them out. This is the typical of the psychopath.

The Decommissioned Adult is the psychotic who had a Blocked - Out Adult. His Adult is not functioning, and therefore he is out of touch with reality. His Parent and Child come on straight, frequently in a jumbled mixture of archaic data, a jumbled replay of early experiences that do not make sense now because they did not make sense when they were recorded.”

Thus, considering every human being is a product of his own P-A-C, it would be interesting to study the psyche of the religious mind of the average Musalman. Perhaps, there could be no contradiction in the assumption of an ‘average Musalman’ since Muhammadans tend to be homogenous in the socio-religious sense, irrespective of their race, color, occupation and domiciliation.

‘Most Christians might shrug if asked whether they really believed that Jesus turned water into wine, or raised Lazarus from the dead. Muslims by contrast do not doubt that Allah’s angels helped the Prophet at the Battle of Badr. Allah is a living god to them, as palpable and meaningful as an ideal parent might be.’ - M.J. Akbar in ‘The Shade of Swords’.

This clearly indicates the prevalence of the Decommissioned Adult phenomenon, by and large, in the Musalmans all over. But how come such a large multitude of people, many of them living amidst other religious groups, in contemporary times at that, could be so dogmatic about their religious beliefs? And, that too, in a world which is being driven by modernity backed by information technology! It should be our endeavor to understand this unique Muslim intellectual stagnation in psychological terms by wedding the P-A-C theories of Thomas A. Harris to our Islamic borrowings from Roland E Miller’s Muslim Friends - Their faith and feeling, An introduction to Islam.

The Parent component of Musalmans, so well expostulated by Miller, comprises of Allah the Almighty, Muhammad His Messenger, the ulema, the Muslim clergy, and of course the biological parents or family guardian of an individual.

We have seen in the Quran that the relationship between ‘the God’ and the believer is that of the Master and the servant, which provides for a strict religious parentage. Thus, it is but natural, that the role of ‘the God’ as the Parent in the life of the Musalman is considerable as noticed by Miller thus:

“The entire religious context of Muslim life underlines the Reality of God, and is designed to make and keep Muslims aware of that Reality. From birth to death, and in all that lies between, the Reality of God encompasses Muslim life. Muslim faith and life are marked by an overwhelming sense of God. Muslims are the people who simply believe that God is Real, and really to be feared.

They live like people who are standing in the Presence of God. The ordinary Muslim sense of God may be defined as an attitude of deep respect rather than emotional extravagance. Their attitude towards the Almighty is deferential rather than presumptuous, austere rather than excited, devout rather than passionate. Behind that attitude of restraint lies the Muslim understanding of the utter greatness of God.

The Islamic emphasis on God’s transcendent power produces attitudes of awe, respectful fear and solemn praise among believers. Most Muslims are not very interested in attempting to probe further into the transcendent mystery of God’s being. It is a deep sea, venture not into it, said Muhammad, when asked about the decree of predestination. Thus Muslims prefer to bear witness to His greatness and mystery. A Muslim who is alive to God is alive to the praise of God and His power.

Since the Muslims cherish an overwhelming sense of God, it is natural to speak of the fear of God. This does not imply fear in the sense of being afraid, although the emotion cannot be eliminated. It means a rather holy fear, a combination of profound awe and overwhelming respect that maintains the awareness of God in a seemingly godless world. “they only are the (true) believers whose hearts feel fear when Allah is mentioned…(8.2). Perhaps at no time do Muslims feel this emotion more deeply than when they attend the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Finally it is the obedient service to God. The glory of humanity is to be the servants of God. Do not aspire to be more than that, for in being a servant of God you have achieved the highest thing. It’s enough to be faithful servants of God. Muslims do not wish to be less than that, nor more than that. The frame of reference for their obedience is the Law of God, for God the Master has prescribed a way of life, the path, the clear road that believers should tread.”

Millar continues his account of the Mohammedan mind-set thus - “The Muslims believe the God had chosen and called Muhammad to be the final and Universal guide for humanity as confirmed by the Quran:

“And those who believe and do good works, and believe in that which is revealed unto Muhammad… He riddeth them of their ill-deeds and improve their state.”(47:2)

“‘He (Allah) it is who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion… Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” (48.29)

“Since Quran calls Muhammad a noble pattern… for all who hope in God (33.21) to follow him, and to imitate him, is to be authentically on the path of God and it is every devout Muslim’s personal goal.”

“And make our calling down of blessing on him a key, and by it open to us, O Lord, the veil of acceptance, and accept, by the blessing of my Beloved… the litanies and vocations which I now recite, and my love and magnifying of Thyself.”

Further, as Miller found out, the respect for Muhammad’s role and character amongst the believers is so profound that it makes possible the saying: “To understand Islam is to understand Muhammad.”

“The affection for Muhammad is expressed in various ways - by the remembering of whatever he said and did (Hadith), by the celebration of his birthday (milad al-nabi), by the stories of his exploits that are recited in public and in homes (mawluds), but above all by the calling down of blessing upon the Prophet and his family (tasliya). You may have noticed an unusual phenomenon that takes place in Muslim groups whenever the name of Muhammad is mentioned. A sound ripples through the audience, the recitation of the Arabic phrase salla llahu ala n-nabi, that is, “May God bless the Prophet!” When Muhammad’s name appears in print in English-language publications, four letters, pbuh, are added in parentheses behind his name. The letters stand for “Peace be upon him!” The calling down of God’s blessing upon the Prophet is not only an act of due reverence, but it is also an action that brings great personal merit.”

Thus as neither age withers nor custom stale the appeal of Muhammad to the Musalmans, the hadith remains the sacrosanct parent to a Muslim child, the data of which is but the recollections of Muhammad’s followers of his actions and utterances. A few of them as quoted by Miller in his ‘Muslim Friends’ read thus:

“Ibn ‘Umar reported God’s Messenger as saying, ‘Islam is based on five things: the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, the observance of the prayer, the payment of zakat, the pilgrimage, and the fast during Ramadan.

Al-‘Abbas b. Abd al-Muttalib reported God’s messenger as saying - ‘He who is well- pleased with God as Lord, with Islam as religion, and with Muhammad as messenger will experience the savour of faith.

Ubada b. as-Samit said: I heard God’s messenger say, ‘If anyone testifies that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God’s messenger, God will keep him from going to hell.

Ubad b. as-Samit reported God’s messenger as saying, ‘Five times of prayer have been prescribed by God. If anyone performs the ablution for them well, observers them at their proper time, and perfectly performs the bowing and showing of submissiveness during them, he had a covenant from God to forgive him; but if anyone does not do so, he has no covenant. If he wills He may forgive him, but if He wills not, He may punish him.

Malik b.Anas…reported God’s messenger as saying, “As long as you hold fast to two things which I have left among you, you will not go astray: God’s Book and His messenger’s sunna.

Jabir reported God’s messenger as saying. “To proceed: The best discourse is God’s Book, the best guidance is that given by Muhammad, and the worst things are those which are novelties…

Al-Miqdam b. Madikarib reported God’s messenger as saying, I have indeed been brought the Quran and something like it along with it; yet the time is coming when a man replete on his couch will say, “Keep to this Quran; what you find in it to be permissible treat as permissible, and what you find in it to be prohibited treat as prohibited. But what God’s messenger had prohibited is like what God has prohibited…”

However, contrast the above with the following quote in Martin Lings biography about Muhammad’s conversation with Mu’adh on the eve of the latter’s departure to Yemen as a judge:

“How will you decide when a question arises?” He replied: “According to the Book of Allah,” “And if you do not find the answer in the Book of Allah?” “Then according to the sunna of the Messenger of Allah.” “And if you do not find the answer neither in the sunna nor in the Book?” “Then I shall come to a decision according to my own opinion without hesitation.” Then Muhammad slapped Mu’adh on the chest with his hand saying, “Praise be to Allah Who has led the messenger of the Messenger of Allah to an answer that pleased him.”

The Mu’adh model of individualistic intellectualism might have played its role in the early stages of Islamic evolution, but as Miller noted, “As time passed, however, free and independent reasoning seemed to many Muslims to be a source of confusion and even threatening. It is pious obedience, not rational argumentation that is the Muslim way; after all, it was said the sin of the devil was that he had argued with God instead of obeying him! So as to avoid the possibility of Islam sinking into individual anarchism Muslim ethos got wedded to the hadith.”

Herein lay the dichotomy of the Musalmans, as hadith, after all, is the record of the life and times of Muhammad, by no means an autobiographical account of his, but at best attributed to him by his followers, or at worst invented by the enamoured. Thus are caught the Musalmans between the Islamic deep sea of hadithian hearsay and the devil of blind belief. It is one of the many ironies of Islam that its believers should sink into a collective