Maroc - EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 10/Nov 01:01

Tawhid, Torah And Three Unique Abrahamic Religions – OpEd

There are hundreds of millions of people today who have two or three self-identities. This was also true 3,500 years ago; although to a much lesser extent than today. For example, Prophet Abraham is called a Muslim in the Arabic Qur'an; and in the Hebrew Bible he is called a Hebrew [speaker] and a Babylonian immigrant who crossed the Jordan River. The term ivri (the Hebrew) first appears in the Torah, when Prophet Abraham is called "the Hebrew: "And it was told to Abram the Hebrew" (Genesis 14:13) Prophet Joseph uses the name Hebrew as both a geographical and an socio-ethnic term: "I was kidnapped from the land of the ivrim" (Genesis 40:15), and "The Egyptians would not eat with the ivrim, since that would be an abomination" (Genesis 43:32) The word Muslim is a religious identity term that refers to all faithful monotheistic believers who submit to the one and only God who created the universe. The word Hebrew is a linguistic, geographical and ethnic identity term like German [a language], Germany{a country] and Germans [a people]. The word descendent is a biological inherited birth identity term like nobility or tribe. Islam is a religion designed by God to overcome all other self-identities: "O mankind, We created you from male and female, and made you (into) peoples and tribes, that you may know (respect) one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted." (Quran 49:13) "Once all humans were but a single community; then they disagreed (formulating different beliefs and rites). Had it not been that your Lord had already so ordained, a decisive judgement would have been made regarding (the truth of) their disagreements." (Qur'an 10:19) In those generations all human communities created different religions of their own with different creeds and ways.  Now, if you desire that Allah Himself should uncover the truth and present it to you to enable you to decide which religion is the true one, you should know that this will not be done in this lifetime, because God now requires you to decide this yourself by using your own intelligence and your moral kindness. This worldly life is a trial to see whether or not you yourselves recognize truth by competing in doing acts of kindness, toleration and welcoming others who are different into your lands. This is why the Qur'an declares: "Let there be no compulsion in Religion: truth stands out clear from error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah (one God) has grasped the most trustworthy unbreakable hand hold: Allah hears, and knows all things." (2:256) The three Abrahamic religions; Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, are closer to each other than each of them is to any non-Abrahamic religion. Yet each of the three religions is very unique; and each relates to the other two in its own unique way. "And who is better in religion than one who submits himself to Allah while being a doer of good; and follows the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth? And Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend." (4:125)  There could be no Christians before the birth of Jesus; and although there have been many hanif muslim monotheists, they could not be members of the Muslim Umma prior to the revelation of the Qur'an to Prophet Muhammad. Judaism is unique because the Jewish People actually proceeded the Jewish religion. Thus Qur'an 3.67 states: Abraham was not a Jew, nor a Christian; but he was one pure of faith and a muslim (submitting to the one God). He was never of those who associate partners with God." Abraham could not be a Jew or a Christian, because both the Torah and Gospel were revealed centuries after Abraham. Historically, Judaism and Christianity are the names given to the religions revealed to Prophet Moses and Prophet Jesus, respectively by their faithful followers. The diversity among mankind mentioned in Qur'an 49:13 is mentioned with a comprehensive affirmation that its purpose is that different groups and individuals were enabled to learn to know each other. This point is underlined in several verses teaching that diversity in ethnicity, colour, faith and culture was intended by the Creator: "If God had so willed, He would have made you one community, but He wanted to test you through that which He has given you. (5:48) "If your Lord had pleased, He would have made all people a single community, but they continue to have their differences. (11:118–19) And "Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. So can you [Prophet Muhammad] compel people to believe? (10:99) Among attributes most American Jews consider essential to being Jewish, 82% say caring about Israel, with 58% saying that they feel attached to the nation of Israel; 76% say remembering the Holocaust; 72% say leading an ethical life; and 59% say working for justice and equality. Jews do have many names to self-identify because they have been immigrants for a little more than half of their 36-7 centuries of Jewish history. Even more important, by God's design Prophet Abraham's biological descendants through Isaac and Jacob became the first ongoing monotheistic community to last to this very day. "And remember Our servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – those of strength and [religious] vision. Indeed, We chose them for an exclusive quality: remembrance of the home [the "safe haven" Land of Israel]. And indeed they are to Us among the chosen and outstanding." (Qur'an 38:45-7) The Christian community and the Muslim Umma were formed by those individuals who became faithful believers in the Gospel or the Qur'an. But the Banu Israel-the Jewish People only received the Torah after several generations of oppression in Egypt, when the Jewish People escaped and stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah from Prophets Moses and Aaron. This is why the history of the People of Israel Hebrews makes up such a large place in the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, the name "Israel" is mentioned 2,319 individual times in the Hebrew Bible because the historical experiences of the nation of Israel (the descendants of Jacob/Israel) is the central focus of most of the books in the Hebrew Scriptures. As the Qur'an states: "And We certainty settled the Children of Israel in an agreeable settlement [Israel] and provided them with good things. And they did not differ until [after] knowledge had come to them. So your Lord will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they used to differ. So if you [Muhammad] are in doubt, about that which We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you. The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters." (Qur'an 10:93-4) Judaism, as the abstract term is understood today, did not exist. There was not even a word for "religion" in any traditional Jewish language. Rather, what we call "Judaism" today was generally understood as a complex amalgam of religious belief, practice, and national/ethnic identification.  That view prevailed in many Jewish circles until modern times and is best exemplified in the Biblical Book of Ruth. Ruth clearly states that she identifies first with the people of her mother-in-law Naomi, and only after that with Naomi's God (1:16). In other words, Ruth was adopted into the Jewish people first because of her identification with the Jewish people, followed by her attachment to the God of Israel. Ruth's oath is still stated by converts today: Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, ever so severely, if even death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17) Although most Jews share a common gene pool, they are not a race because any non-Jew who converts to Judaism will be recognized as being Jewish by all those rabbis who share a commitment to the same denomination of Judaism as the rabbi who did the conversion. But what about the Jewish law that defines a Jew as anyone who is born of a Jewish mother. Isn't this evidence of Jewish racial thought? For Christians, who believe that only adult baptism as a result of personal belief (Protestant), or infant/child baptism by an authorized church sacrament (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) makes one a Christian, it seems strange that children of any Jewish mother, religious or not, are Jewish; even if the father was not Jewish and the children know little or nothing about Jewish beliefs.  But Muslim law says the same thing for the male gender: children of any Muslim father are Muslim, even if the mother was not Muslim; and Muslims are clearly not racist. In truth, Christianity is an unusually disembodied religion compared to Judaism, Islam and many eastern religions, and there is no reason other religions should be equally disconnected from the ethnic body of their original believers.  When it comes to Jews who are non-religious or even anti-religious, they are considered secular or cultural Jews, unless they as adults convert to another religion. Like most nations, Jews have a national language, a shared history, which is much longer than most nations, and a style of cooking and thinking that is as distinctive as that of many other nations. But the Jewish People is a very unusual kind of nation: a transnational mobile nation; what Russian Communists used to call 'unrooted cosmopolitans'. From the very beginning. when Abraham and Sarah left their families and homeland to immigrate to the Land of Israel, the majority of the Jewish People has been subject to major geographic relocations. What the Jewish People have lacked for most of their 3,500 year history was an independent Jewish State located in one geographical area. However, states come and go (Yugoslavia) and go and come (Poland and Israel) so having a state, and a stable territorial location, is not in the Jewish experience, the most important aspect of being a nation. Being a faithful part of the Jewish community in terms of group connection and religious action is more central to being Jewish than adhering to credal statements.  That is why the majority of Jews do not view "Jews for Jesus" or Messianic Jews as belonging to the Jewish community. The answer to the question of what are Jews is that Judaism and the Jewish People are so deeply intertwined they cannot and should not be separated. Individuals Jews act in all kinds of ways, but the historical community of Jews is a blend of Jews by birth (genes) and Jews by belief, behavior and belonging. As anyone who has visited present day Israel knows, Jews come in many shades and looks. This is because even in the diaspora, and even against the will of the ruling religious authorities, Jews have almost always, when they were free to do so, proselytized their neighbors, and quietly welcomed converts into the Jewish community, even against the formal rules of medieval rabbis. That is why most Jews in different geographical locations tend to look similar to the local majority after a few centuries. This could not happen without significant marriage with converts to Judaism.  The rabbinical rule that one should not refer to any Jew's convert status is evidence of the desire of Jewish leaders to keep Jewish proselytizing activities hidden from the ruling non-Jewish religious authorities. Yet from the very beginning converts to Judaism and their genes, have entered the Jewish gene pool. In the west today many converts are descendants of ex-Jews from previous generations who are now returning to the Jewish People, and bringing home some lost Jewish genes; as well as some non-Jewish genes with them. This is how it has always been to a greater or lesser extant. Thus it is clear that Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people because non-Jews can always enter the Jewish community, and become a part of the inter-national Jewish community.