Muslims traditionally celebrate April 26 as Mohammed's birthday. Of all religious leaders, none is more vilified by Christendom than Mohammed. Many consider him the "false prophet" mentioned in the Book of Revelation, in large part because he came after Jesus, not before.
Many people in the west see Mohammed as the founder of a brand of religious fanaticism who set out to convert the world by force, but while Islam means "submission" in Arabic, the Arabic word for "peace," salaam, is also rooted in the word Islam. So Mohammed really wanted to help humanity reconcile with God, like Moses and Jesus before him.
Mohammed was born in Mecca in 570 AD, a member of the Hashemite clan of the Quraish tribe. Though the Quraish were very influential, the Hashemites were one of the poorer clans. However, the Hashemites were responsible for the upkeep of the shrines in Mecca, the most important of which was the Kaaba, a big black meteor that fell in what is now the centre of the city.
Always respected for his moral character, Mohammed was called El-Amin, which means "the faithful one." By all accounts, he was merchant, jurist, soldier and poet, as well as prophet. He ascribes only one miracle to himself: the Qu'ran, which, Muslims claim, the angel Gabriel revealed to him over several years. He is supreme among prophets, according to the Muslims, because he was the last, but Muslims hold Jesus and Moses in reverence as well; they are behind only Mohammed in importance.
Mohammed began to question the nature of things in the middle of life and often meditated in a cave outside Mecca, where he encountered the angel Gabriel. There, according to Islamic tradition, Gabriel revealed God's word. Three times, Gabriel ordered Mohammed to recite what he had taught him; three times, Mohammed refused. Finally, Gabriel seized him in an embrace so tight that Mohammed was afraid that the angel would crush him to death. So Mohammed submitted and began to recite the Qu'ran, which means "recitation" in Arabic.
At first, Mohammed feared for his sanity. He even asked his wife, Khadija, if she thought that he was crazy, but she assured him that he was still sane. Islamic historians such as Ishaq ibn-Muhammad write of Mohammed sitting with a towel over his head, and of his wife with her arms around him, trying to comfort him as he questioned his sanity.
Central to Mohammed's teaching is the oneness of God, though the Arabs worshiped several gods at the time. He also preached charity towards the poor and compassion towards the widow and the orphan. He expressly forbade the ancient Bedouin custom of burying alive baby girls soon after birth and considered polygamy something to be discouraged, not actively promoted. However, he once had as many as nine wives after his first wife, Khadija, died, Aisha being the favourite.
According to early sources, the devil tricked Mohammed and inserted some "satanic verses," but these verses never made it into the Qu'ran. Undoubtedly, historians like Ishaq ibn-Muhammad wanted to remind Muslims that Mohammed was a man, not a god, and that even their prophet could be deceived by the devil if he wasn't careful.
The Arabs were aware of Jewish and Christian monotheism, but people in Mecca ridiculed Mohammed and his followers, then persecuted them. After Mohammed successfully mediated a dispute in neighbouring Medina, the people of that city invited him and his followers to stay. The year that Mohammed and his followers migrated to Medina, 624 AD, is the year 1 on the Islamic calendar. This exodus is called the hegira, or "migration."
When Medina refused to extradite Mohammed, the Meccans made war on Medina. Mohammed soon became commander of Medina's army of faithful Muslims, the Ansari. Historians like Ishaq ibn-Muhammad admit some of Mohammed's military blunders to show that he was fallible. After one disastrous battle, as he decided upon a new course of action, some of his followers even jested: "Is this God talking, or just you?"
Those "insurgents" who set up roadblocks in Iraq today are using tactics that Mohammed and his followers once used to economically strangle the city of Mecca. People in the west often think of Muslims as bloodthirsty savages, but Mohammed allowed those who wanted to leave Mecca to leave when he captured the city, and nobody had to convert to Islam. However, the Muslims smashed all the idols in the Kaaba in the belief that the one true God had no image.
Mohammed died in 632 AD, soon after he captured Mecca. His followers felt bereft of their spiritual leader, but his closest friend, Abu Bakr, said at his funeral: "We have lost Mohammed, but God and the Qu'ran remain."
With the world's Muslim population increasing faster than the Christian population, Mohammed's stature is increasing in the world. To more than 1 billion people today: "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet."
Source : History of Islam, by Karen Armstrong.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Hendrik Verwoerd: An Evil Genius
The people who loved this man say that he was a kind man, full of compassion. But let us look at this man who was the real architect of apartheid in South Africa in the twentieth century.
Born in 1901 in Cape Province of parents from the Netherlands, Hendrik Verwoerd was probably never completely fluent in Afrikaans, the language of most of the whites in South Africa. Certainly, he held the native Africans in contempt; he didn't even want black waiters serving him food while he was prime minister of South Africa: all of the servants were white. But he probably held the boers in contempt as well, because the typical Afrikaner has no problem employing African agricultural labourers to pick his grapes or spray his cattle with insecticides. No, when this man said apartheid, he meant it: he really wanted to keep the races separate in South Africa.
But what's really aberrent about this man is that he was a psychologist: he should have known better; he should have known that factors like environment go a long way towards shaping human behaviour. Of course, the good doctor probably understood that. As prime minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966, he used his political office to try to create an inferior race among the blacks of South Africa: the townships of South Africa were his "Skinner boxes," his mazes. Even today, the Africans are still scrambling for pieces of cheese that the white throw them.
More than Stalin, Hitler or Saddam Hussein, Dr. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was an evil genius: he used a country as a laboratory to test his "scientific" theories. Only the results were rigged: you would be "inferior" too, if you were a Zulu rickshaw operator in Jo'burg, living on less than a thousand calories a day in a shantytown.
Perhaps as poetic justice, he was assassinated by a mentally unstable boer named David Pratt over a land dispute -- a strange way for doctor and a potential mental patient to come together. Or maybe he was attacked by one of his laboratory rats.
Born in 1901 in Cape Province of parents from the Netherlands, Hendrik Verwoerd was probably never completely fluent in Afrikaans, the language of most of the whites in South Africa. Certainly, he held the native Africans in contempt; he didn't even want black waiters serving him food while he was prime minister of South Africa: all of the servants were white. But he probably held the boers in contempt as well, because the typical Afrikaner has no problem employing African agricultural labourers to pick his grapes or spray his cattle with insecticides. No, when this man said apartheid, he meant it: he really wanted to keep the races separate in South Africa.
But what's really aberrent about this man is that he was a psychologist: he should have known better; he should have known that factors like environment go a long way towards shaping human behaviour. Of course, the good doctor probably understood that. As prime minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966, he used his political office to try to create an inferior race among the blacks of South Africa: the townships of South Africa were his "Skinner boxes," his mazes. Even today, the Africans are still scrambling for pieces of cheese that the white throw them.
More than Stalin, Hitler or Saddam Hussein, Dr. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was an evil genius: he used a country as a laboratory to test his "scientific" theories. Only the results were rigged: you would be "inferior" too, if you were a Zulu rickshaw operator in Jo'burg, living on less than a thousand calories a day in a shantytown.
Perhaps as poetic justice, he was assassinated by a mentally unstable boer named David Pratt over a land dispute -- a strange way for doctor and a potential mental patient to come together. Or maybe he was attacked by one of his laboratory rats.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Chapter 1
Truth is one: wise men (as well as fools) call it by different names.
Disagreement is relatively rare in life, while miscommunication is the norm.
The flowers of happiness in the future are sown from the seeds of happiness today.
You rip what you sew.
He who encounters an angel, a sasquatch or a good woman should get it in writing, take a picture, and get married.
A decent man will often like a woman of doubtful moral character, until he learns that love is not free.
Nothing destroys the feeling of contentment like the awareness of it.
It takes two to miscommunicate as well as communicate.
Love and marriage break down rather than build up when left on their own.
People prefer the tried and the untrue to the untried and the new.
The most profound misconception of our time is the belief that technology is the great equalizer, when it is technology that is increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
Once you have reached the top of Mount Everest, it's all downhill from there.
The solution usually aggravates the problem that it was meant to solve- war, for example.
Language exists to frustrate communication as well as facilitate it.
Mistakes and failure breed caution, which breeds conservatism. Radicalism, we blame on youthful inexperience.
If not for fools, angels might have to rush in where they fear to tread.
A conservative might become a neocon, once he has lost his natural reserve and feels sure that his side will prevail.
Every movement has always had its puritans that spoil the party for everybody else.
Disagreement is relatively rare in life, while miscommunication is the norm.
The flowers of happiness in the future are sown from the seeds of happiness today.
You rip what you sew.
He who encounters an angel, a sasquatch or a good woman should get it in writing, take a picture, and get married.
A decent man will often like a woman of doubtful moral character, until he learns that love is not free.
Nothing destroys the feeling of contentment like the awareness of it.
It takes two to miscommunicate as well as communicate.
Love and marriage break down rather than build up when left on their own.
People prefer the tried and the untrue to the untried and the new.
The most profound misconception of our time is the belief that technology is the great equalizer, when it is technology that is increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
Once you have reached the top of Mount Everest, it's all downhill from there.
The solution usually aggravates the problem that it was meant to solve- war, for example.
Language exists to frustrate communication as well as facilitate it.
Mistakes and failure breed caution, which breeds conservatism. Radicalism, we blame on youthful inexperience.
If not for fools, angels might have to rush in where they fear to tread.
A conservative might become a neocon, once he has lost his natural reserve and feels sure that his side will prevail.
Every movement has always had its puritans that spoil the party for everybody else.
Chapter 2
They laughed at the ones who invented the wheel, learned to harnass fire, and first learned to play jazz.
There is nothing more stupid in life than life itself.
There is no pain without an audience.
By the end of the day, the earth is limping around the sun.
God uses lightning bolts; the devil, axe blows. Thus the devil clears more trees.
If AIDS did not exist, if would have to be invented.
If you hate whores for being whores, and cats for being cats, then the problem is with you.
The man who can give a wife a credit card and a mistress a diamond necklace is prosperous indeed, though not necessarily happy.
He who is happy should conceal his happiness like a poker player would conceal a good hand.
For most people, wedding pictures are a reminder that one has made a terrible mistake.
If you loan money to a friend and get it back, consider it a gift.
If you tell one person a secret, you have usually told the whole world.
Children are God's eyes, because they see everything.
Perhaps the hardest lesson in life is to learn that the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent.
Nearly all deaths are suicides.
All generalizations are dangerous, including this one.
There is nothing more ill-placed than trust.
Don't look behind that curtain! Or you may find that the god you worship is really a devil...
Yes, Jesus had to be crucified, because who could worship a god who died by lethal injection?
Women's liberation has nothing to with liberation, but everything to do with women.
To make peace, we often have to appeal to the baser part of our enemy's nature.
Before you can love God, you must first learn to stand up to him.
In the end, only work gives us lasting satisfaction. All other pleasures are fleeting.
There is nothing more stupid in life than life itself.
There is no pain without an audience.
By the end of the day, the earth is limping around the sun.
God uses lightning bolts; the devil, axe blows. Thus the devil clears more trees.
If AIDS did not exist, if would have to be invented.
If you hate whores for being whores, and cats for being cats, then the problem is with you.
The man who can give a wife a credit card and a mistress a diamond necklace is prosperous indeed, though not necessarily happy.
He who is happy should conceal his happiness like a poker player would conceal a good hand.
For most people, wedding pictures are a reminder that one has made a terrible mistake.
If you loan money to a friend and get it back, consider it a gift.
If you tell one person a secret, you have usually told the whole world.
Children are God's eyes, because they see everything.
Perhaps the hardest lesson in life is to learn that the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent.
Nearly all deaths are suicides.
All generalizations are dangerous, including this one.
There is nothing more ill-placed than trust.
Don't look behind that curtain! Or you may find that the god you worship is really a devil...
Yes, Jesus had to be crucified, because who could worship a god who died by lethal injection?
Women's liberation has nothing to with liberation, but everything to do with women.
To make peace, we often have to appeal to the baser part of our enemy's nature.
Before you can love God, you must first learn to stand up to him.
In the end, only work gives us lasting satisfaction. All other pleasures are fleeting.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Chapter 3
What country is more like a child playing in the traffic than Canada? Yes: "God, keep our land..."
Behind every great man is a little woman, but usually not for long.
Children might be cannibals, if they could only conceive of eating each other. Something every teacher understands.
The cynic is usually a naïf who only thinks he has seen it all, unless he has been to Rio for Carnival.
In the end, most of the Old Testament prophets were old men who forgot that they were young once.
With Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy notable exceptions, successful politicians are rarely accomplished writers. Even rarer is the politician who is a great thinker.
Memory is like the jaws of a dog: it clenches its teeth very tightly.
The miracle isn't that so many marriage fail; it's that any succeed at all.
The most successful politician is the one who can steal part of his opponents' program and demolish the opposition for a generation. Otto von Bismark, who introduced old-age pensions in Germany.
He who gives a woman a wedding ring has paid a prostitute. He who gives a man twenty goats for his daughter's hand has paid a pimp.
In general, men want their freedom while women want security. But again, I generalize...
The wife resents the streetwalker for the same reason that the North American autoworker resents his or her counterpart in China: you can't compete with those who will work for slave wages.
"Survival of the fittest" is only seductive for those who can keep up a rigorous training regimen. After a few twisted ankles and twisted knees, one almost becomes a Christian.
Who can verbally face his mortality without sounding morbid to the people around him?
Where philosophy and religion part, if only briefly: the believer seeks tried and true answers; the philosopher, new questions. But in the end, the philosopher usually only comes up with a new way of asking and answering the same old questions.
Behind every great man is a little woman, but usually not for long.
Children might be cannibals, if they could only conceive of eating each other. Something every teacher understands.
The cynic is usually a naïf who only thinks he has seen it all, unless he has been to Rio for Carnival.
In the end, most of the Old Testament prophets were old men who forgot that they were young once.
With Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy notable exceptions, successful politicians are rarely accomplished writers. Even rarer is the politician who is a great thinker.
Memory is like the jaws of a dog: it clenches its teeth very tightly.
The miracle isn't that so many marriage fail; it's that any succeed at all.
The most successful politician is the one who can steal part of his opponents' program and demolish the opposition for a generation. Otto von Bismark, who introduced old-age pensions in Germany.
He who gives a woman a wedding ring has paid a prostitute. He who gives a man twenty goats for his daughter's hand has paid a pimp.
In general, men want their freedom while women want security. But again, I generalize...
The wife resents the streetwalker for the same reason that the North American autoworker resents his or her counterpart in China: you can't compete with those who will work for slave wages.
"Survival of the fittest" is only seductive for those who can keep up a rigorous training regimen. After a few twisted ankles and twisted knees, one almost becomes a Christian.
Who can verbally face his mortality without sounding morbid to the people around him?
Where philosophy and religion part, if only briefly: the believer seeks tried and true answers; the philosopher, new questions. But in the end, the philosopher usually only comes up with a new way of asking and answering the same old questions.
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