Miss Buddha (109 page)

Concern about a dwindling clergy also grew
as the Roman Catholic Church continued to exclude married priests
and women.

The Kaleidoscope Religion

A thorough study of how the New Testament
came to be reveals how fragmented and historically revisionist this
book truly is.

Created from the memories of those told by
those who were told by those who perhaps (and perhaps not) had been
told by those present (or who had known someone who had been
present) at one or more of the events chronicled, it is no surprise
that facts and figures might be hard to reconcile, or that they
sometimes feel a bit stretched.

It is a well-known fact
that several versions of the New Testament existed in the
2
^nd
and
3
^rd
centuries CE. Origen, for one, tried to reconcile the diverse
manuscripts. Saint Jerome then tried to translate this kaleidoscope
of a book from mostly Greek into a unified Latin version, and he
had may choices to make (which part from which version?) and he
made them all.

I guess you could say that if anyone is the
father of Christianity—for he provided Rome with the Latin version
of this religion—it’s Saint Jerome.

Founded upon such disputed (or disputable)
ground, it is no wonder that the Church is as fragmented as it
is.

The truth is that Buddhism and “average”
Christianity have more in common than the Roman Catholic Church and
some of the more extremist fundamental Protestant movement.

Add to this the Roman Catholic Church
history as an immensely profitable business venture, fueled by
virtually endless priestly and papal greed, and it is no wonder
that it seems we are looking at many, not one, religion when we
view Christianity of today.

:: Islam ::

Islam is one of the three
major world religions—alongside Judaism and Christianity—that
proclaim
monotheism
, that’s to say: the belief in a single God.

In Arabic, the word
Islam
means “surrender”
or “submission”—submission, that is, to the will of God. A follower
of Islam is called a
Muslim
, which in Arabic means “one
who surrenders to God.” However, the Arabic name for God, Allah,
does indeed refer to the same God worshiped by both Jews and
Christians.

The central teaching of Islam is that there
is but one all-powerful, all-knowing God, and that this God created
the universe. This unbending monotheism, as well as the Islamic
teaching that all Muslims (regardless of class or gender) are equal
before God, provides the basis for a collective sense of loyalty to
God that transcends race, class, and nationality.

All Muslims, in other words, belong to one
community, the umma, irrespective of their ethnic or national
background.

The initial growth of Islam
was nothing if not explosive: within two centuries after its
7
^th
-century rise, Islam spread from its original home in Arabia
into Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain to the west, and into
Persia, and India to the east. In the following centuries, Islam
also reached Anatolia and the Balkans to the north, and sub-Saharan
Africa to the south.

Today, the Muslim community
comprises well over 1 billion followers on all five continents,
and, statistically, Islam is the
fastest-growing religion in the world
.

The country with the most Muslims is
Indonesia, followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh. Beyond the Middle
East, large numbers of Muslims live in India, Nigeria, the former
republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), as
well as China.

One of the reasons—if not the main
reason—for this explosive growth of the Muslim community has been
its openness to new members, and the ease with which you can join
up. Children born to Muslim parents are considered Muslim as a
matter of course.

Also, at any time, a non-Muslim can convert
to Islam by declaring himself or herself to be a Muslim. A person’s
declaration of faith is sufficient evidence of conversion to Islam
and need not be confirmed by others or by religious
authorities.

The Teachings of Muhammad

Muhammad, the founding prophet of Islam, was
born circa 570 CE in Mecca, which at that time was the central city
of the Arabian Peninsula.

Some 40 years later, Muhammad began
preaching a new religion, Islam, which taught that there was one
God, and that Muhammad was the last (and final) in a series of His
Prophets and Messengers.

Through His Messengers God had sent mankind
various codes and laws for living, culminating in the Qur’an, the
holy book of Islam (whispered to Muhammad by the arch angel
Gabriel).

These messengers, according to Muhammad,
were all mortal men, who included, among many others, Moses and
Jesus (whom Christians believe to be the son of God rather than a
prophet).

Muhammad also taught that
both the Christian Bible and the Qur’an are holy books, but that
the two earlier Scriptures (referring to the Old and the New
Testaments) had been altered over time from their original forms
given by God, while the Qur’an would remain perfect, preserved by
God from such distortion—implying thereby that Islam is, and
forever will be, the
best
of all religions.

In addition to distinguishing itself from
the Hebrew and Christian traditions, the new religion also taught
that the God of Islam had, through the prophets and the Qur’an,
provided humanity with the means to know good from evil. Therefore,
on the Day of Judgment all people will be held accountable for
their actions—ignorance no longer holding up as defense for doing
evil.

Initially, Muhammad’s teachings met with
severe and hostile opposition, and in the year 622 he fled Mecca
and sought refuge in the city of Yathrib, as a number of his
followers had already done. Upon Muhammad’s arrival, the name
Yathrib was changed to Medina (meaning “the city”).

The date of Muhammad’s arrival at Medina was
later set as the beginning of the 12-month lunar Islamic
calendar.

The Five Pillars

During the ten years between his arrival in
Medina and his death in 632 CE, Muhammad laid the foundation for
the ideal Islamic state, and by its tenets formed around him a core
of committed Muslims whose community life was ordered according to
the requirements of his new religion.

In addition to general moral injunctions
(many of which have their counterparts in all major religions), the
requirements of Islam came to include a number of institutions that
continue to characterize Islamic religious practice today.

Foremost among these requirements are the
five pillars of Islam: the essential religious duties required of
every adult Muslim who is mentally able.

The five pillars are each described in some
part of the Qur’an and were, in fact, already practiced during
Muhammad’s lifetime:

• The profession of faith
  (
  shahada
  ),
  

• Prayer (
  salat
  ),
  

• Almsgiving (
  zakat
  ),
  

• Fasting (
  sawm
  ), and
  

• Pilgrimage (
  hajj
  )
  

Although some of these practices had their
precedents in Jewish, Christian, and other Middle Eastern religious
traditions, as a group they do distinguish Islamic religious
practices from those of her neighbors.

The five pillars are thus
the most central rituals of Islam and constitute
the core practices of the Islamic
faith
.

Polemical descriptions of
Islam usually focus on and stress the Islamic concept of
jihad
. Jihad—considered
by some Muslims to be
the sixth pillar of
Islam
—is often, in these descriptions,
understood to mean holy war. However, this Arabic word means “to
struggle” or “to exhaust one’s effort,” in order to please
God.

Within the faith of Islam, this effort can
be individual or collective, and it can apply to leading a virtuous
life; helping other Muslims through charity, education, or other
means; preaching Islam; and (its most understood implication)
fighting to defend Muslims.

Current Western media
continue to focus on the
militant
interpretations of the concept of jihad, whereas
most Muslims do not.

The Profession of Faith

The absolute focus of all Islam is Allah,
the supreme, the all-knowing, all-powerful, and above all,
all-merciful God.

The Arabic word
Allah
means “the God,”
and this God is understood to be the God who created the universe
and who will sustain it to its end.

By obeying God’s commands (as received,
interpreted and relayed by the prophets—and especially by
Muhammad), human beings acknowledge and express their gratitude for
the wisdom of creation, and thereby live in harmony with the
universe.

A profession of faith is therefore a firm
prerequisite for membership in the Muslim community. On many
occasions during a typical day, as well as in the saying of daily
prayers, a Muslim repeats this profession: “I bear witness that
there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his Messenger.”

There are no formal restrictions on the
times and places these words can be repeated.

To enter the Muslim community, a person has
to profess and act upon this belief in the oneness of God and the
true prophethood of Muhammad. To represent a true relationship
between the speaker and God, and to be a true profession of faith,
this pledge must express genuine knowledge of its meaning as well
as sincere belief.

While a person’s deeds are subject to
scrutiny by other Muslims, a person’s profession of faith is
sufficient evidence of membership in the Muslim community and
cannot be challenged by other members.

The Five Daily Prayers

The second pillar of Islam
is the religious duty to perform five prescribed daily prayers
or
salat
.

Every adult Muslims is expected to perform
five prayers—each preceded by ritual cleansing or purification of
the body—at different intervals of the day.

In this regard, the Qur’an
also makes mention of standing, bowing, and prostrating during
prayers and facing a set direction, known as
qibla
.

Initially, Muslims were required to face
Jerusalem during prayer, but this was revised during Muhammad’s
lifetime and they were henceforth commanded by the prophet to face
the Kaaba, an ancient shrine in the city of Mecca.

The Qur’an also references the recitation of
parts of the Qur’an as a form of prayer. However, even with its
numerous references, the Qur’an alone does not spell out exact
instructions for this central pillar.

More detailed descriptions
of the rituals for prayer derive from the example set by the
prophet Muhammad himself as preserved in Islamic traditions.
However, although some details of these rituals vary, all Muslims
agree that there are five required daily prayers to be performed at
certain times of day: at dawn (
fajr
or
subh
), at noon (
zuhr
), at midafternoon
(
asr
), at sunset
(
maghrib
), and at
evening (
isha
).

However, the dawn, noon, and sunset prayers
do not start exactly at dawn, noon, and sunset. Instead, in order
to distinguish the Islamic ritual from earlier practices of
worshiping the sun when it rises or sets, the Muslim prayers begin
just after dawn, noon, and sunset.

A prayer is made up of a
sequence of units called bowings (or
rak’as
). During each of these
bowings, the worshiper stands, bows, kneels, and prostrates while
reciting verses from the Qur’an as well as other prayer
formulas.

Wherever Muslims live in
substantial numbers throughout the world, the call to prayer, or
adhan, is repeated five times a day by a crier (or
muezzin
) from a mosque,
the Muslim place of worship. Muslims are encouraged to pray
together in mosques, but group prayer is only a religious
obligation for the noon prayer on Friday.

Women, travelers, sick Muslims, and those
attending to the sick are granted license not to attend the Friday
congregational prayer, although they may attend if they wish.

The Friday noon prayer is
led by an
imam
,
who is simply a prayer leader. This prayer differs from the other
noon prayers in that as a required part of the ritual two sermons
precede the prayer. On other days, Muslims can pray anywhere they
wish, either individually or in groups.

They must however observe the rituals of
praying at certain times of day, facing in the direction of Mecca,
observing the proper order of prayers, and preparing through
symbolic purification. Depending on the situation, this last ritual
of ablution requires either total washing of the body or a less
elaborate ritual washing of the hands, mouth, face, and feet.

In addition to the five
required daily prayers, Muslims can perform non-obligatory prayers,
some of which have
fixed ritual
formats
and are performed before or after
each of the five daily prayers. Others are performed at night,
either individually or with other Muslims.