Cognitive Dissonance in Contemporary Populist Islam That Needs to Be Addressed Urgently as The Worst Creatures in God’s Sight Are Those Who Do Not Use Reason – Q 8-22
By Muhammad Yunus, New
Age Islam
17 August 2020
(Co-author (Jointly
with Ashfaque Ullah Syed), Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publications, USA,
2009.m)
This article is a
rejoinder to Feroze Mithiborwala’s following article dated August 6 and is otherwise
congruous by itself
How Those Indian Muslims Who Support Erdogan On the
Hagia Sophia, Oppose Modi On Ram Mandir?
The article cites some
glaring examples of hypocrisy and double standards in the response of the
Muslim community to some of the sensitive religious issues, invokes their
dangerous consequences and concludes with an urgent call for a public debate on
such issues involving the Indian Muslim community and the secular, progressive
sections to arrive at honest answers.
Why This Rejoinder?
Simplistically, the
article brings across the double standard of some extremist Muslim scholars and
bigoted Ulama for their claiming a monopoly in the right to build places of
worship, to worship publicly, to proselytise, and above all, to enter paradise
and barring the non-Muslims of all these rights.
This line of thinking
goes far beyond double standard and is nothing short of cognitive dissonance or
disorientation – a brazen self-contradiction in thought process that can lead
to a person’s coming to a conclusion that may be diagonally opposed to his own
acclaimed beliefs and values and in stark defiance of rational thought and
logic. As this is a grave charge against many scholars and popular preachers of
Islam (Dr. Zaki Naik for example) of this era, let me illustrate further
1. The notion of Allah, the Most Kind, the
Most Merciful, the Most Wise and the Best of all Judges consigning to hell all
non-Muslims from all across the unfolding world, speaking hundreds if not
thousands of different languages and oblivious of the Qur’an or Islam - for no
fault of theirs is simply untenable and those who hold such a view are beyond
an iota of doubt cognitively disoriented.
2. The Qur’an affirms that God’s name is
regularly proclaimed in monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques and
condemns their demolition (22:40 ). So none but a cognitively disoriented
Islamic scholar or Alim can bar the non-Muslims from constructing their houses
of worship
3. Worshipping is an inborn instinct to
communicate with God or one’s deity according to one’s own belief. Accordingly,
the Qur’an commands the Muslims to refrain from insulting those whom others
worship and leave the matter to God:
“Don’t insult those
whom they invoke besides God, lest they ignorantly insult God in enmity. Thus
We have made their action seem pleasing to every community; then their return
is to their Lord, and He will tell them what they had been doing” (6:108)
Therefore, none but a
cognitively disoriented Islamic scholar or alim will prevent a non-Muslim from
worshipping publicly.
4. Any definitive claim that non-Muslims
will not be admitted to Jannah purports to self-exaltation of the claimant as
the Final Judge (ahkamal hakimin) of all humanity – a position that God and God
alone commands. Any argument on the basis of severity and recurrence of
Qur’anic warnings against the mushrikin is untenable as God retains the
prerogative to judge the mushrikin on Day of Judgment. (22:17) and to grant
pardon to anyone He wishes. This attitude verges on playing God on earth and is
an open case of cognitive dissonance.
5. Some exclusivist Muslim preachers quote
the statement “This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My
favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion” appearing in
the middle of a passage (verse 5:3) and argue that since the Qur’an is made
perfect, all other scriptures must be imperfect and therefore any human being
that does not believe in the ‘perfected’ edict will be sent to hell, thus
reserving the paradise only for the Muslims. But this is simply an absurd
proposition – a cognitive disorientation of great order – if not a blatant
manipulation of Qur’anic message – because:
• The long passage (verse 5:3) relates to
dietary regulations– except for the above quoted announcement.
• None of the renowned exegetes of recent
times - Abul Kalam Azad, Abu Ala Moududi, Muhammad Shafi, Abdullah Yusuf Ali
and Muhammad Asad for example connected this statement with the acclaimed
exclusive theological speculation.
• Reserving the paradise only for Muslims
will render all pluralistic verses and announcements of the Qur’an null and
void, militate against the Qur’an’s repeated claim to be a book of wisdom
(10:1, 31:2, 43:4, 44:4) and a mercy to all believers in God (7:52, 16:64,
27:77) and negate the role of the Prophet as a mercy to all mankind (21:107).
• Practically all scholars regard the
above statement as the Qur’an’s foretelling of its completion that happened
about three months later with the death of the Prophet.
• Abul Kalam Azad connects the statement
with its succeeding statement: But if any is forced by hunger, with no
inclination to transgression, Allah is indeed Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful” and
says the issue of lawful and forbidden had remained contentious and therefore
in its concluding legislative passage (5:3), the Qur’an clarifies that “if a
person is dying of hunger, and has no halal food to eat, he can save his life
by eating the haram food.”
6. Many, scholars and Ulama quote partly
from the passage 3:83-85 to claim that “If anyone seeks other than Islam as a
din (religion), it will not be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be
among the losers (3:85).”
But they skip the
qualifying two preceding verses that bring across the universal dimension of
the above pronouncement: “Do they seek any (religion) other than the din
(religion) of God, to whom all in the heavens and on earth have submitted
(asslama), willingly or unwillingly, and to whom they will all be returned
(3:83)? Say: ‘We believe in God, and in what has been revealed to us, and in
what has been revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes, and
to Jesus and Moses and (other) prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction
between any of them; and surely to Him do we all submit (muslimun)” (3:84).
Such claim of
exclusivity by partly quoting from a passage and ignoring the pluralistic
connotation of the word Islam (as preached by all great Prophets) is a patent
misinterpretation of Qur’anic message if not cognitive dissonance.
7. The Qur’anic dire and repeated warnings
against the non-believing direct audience of the Qur’an (mushrikin, munafiqin,
People of the book) represented the verbally terrifying instruments of the
Qur’an against its non-believing audience. This is illustrated below with a few
examples from Yusuf Ali’s translation. To regard the applicability of such
verses for all time to only mushrikin and non-Muslims to the exclusion of the
munafiqun who were Muslims and were warned likewise is a gross distortion of
Qur’anic message that reeks of cognitive disorientation
“Allah hath
promised the Hypocrites men and women, and the rejecters, of Faith, the fire of
Hell: Therein shall they dwell: Sufficient is it for them: for them is the
curse of Allah, and an enduring punishment” (9:68)
“Whether thou
(O Muhammad) ask for their forgiveness, or not, (their sin is unforgivable): if
thou ask seventy times for their forgiveness, Allah will not forgive them:
because they have rejected Allah and His Messenger: and Allah guideth not those
who are perversely rebellious” (9:80).
“Nor do thou
(O Muhammad) ever pray for any of them that dies, nor stand at his grave; for
they rejected Allah and His Messenger, and died in a state of perverse
rebellion.” (9:84).
“(With the
result) that Allah has to punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the
Unbelievers, men and women, and Allah turns in Mercy to the Believers, men and
women: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (33:73)
“And that He
may punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the Polytheists men and women,
who imagine an evil opinion of Allah. On them is a round of Evil: the Wrath of
Allah is on them: He has cursed them and got Hell ready for them: and evil is
it for a destination.” (48:6)
“They (the
hypocrites) have made their oaths a screen (for their misdeeds): thus they
obstruct (men) from the Path of Allah: therefore they shall have a humiliating
Penalty.” (58:16)
8. The Qur’an does not bar a Muslim from
praying for his parents, dead or alive: “Your Lord has decreed that you lower
your shoulder (of humility) to them (your parents) with affection, and say: ‘My
Lord! Have mercy on both of them - as they nurtured me (when I was) small’”
(17:24). The Qur’an is also a living testimony to Prophet Jesus’s praying for
his followers who committed shirk by deifying him and his mother, in these
words: ‘If You punish them, they are Your servants; if You forgive them, You
are Mighty, Wise’ (5:119).
Hence preventing a Muslim from praying for the dead among the mushrikin (to whom either or both his parents may belong) amounts to restricting the infinitude of divine mercy and is nothing short of cognitive dissonance.
So the problem with
the present day supremacist preachers and Ulama is not merely double standards
but far more grievously, cognitive dissonance or disorientation.
In today’s pluralistic
world where Muslims are living as minorities in most countries and are being
increasingly treated as the ‘others’ largely because of their divisive and
supremacist views not supported by the Qur’an, Muslim scholars need to use
their reasoning and question such views on the strength of the Qur’an as
attempted in this article - rather than passively allow the proponents of such
views to preach and promote them by quoting selectively or out of context from
the Qur’an and from renowned theologians and secondary sources dating from the
Medieval era.
To conclude with a
short prayer, may Allah increase in wisdom the present day supremacist and
bigoted Muslim scholars and Ulama who may be foremost in theological and
Qur’anic knowledge but wanting in wisdom (hikmah) for no scholar in any field –
no matter how well read he may be, can fully grasp his subject without the
mental faculty of hikmah – and this is probably more true of the Qur’an which
lends itself to diverse interpretation unless probed with reasoning and wisdom:
“Indeed, the
worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah are the deaf and dumb who do
not use reason.”
“He gives wisdom to
anyone He wishes, and he who is granted wisdom has indeed received a great
bounty; yet none is mindful of this, except the prudent” (2:269).
Muhammad Yunus, a Chemical Engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, and a retired corporate executive has been engaged in an in-depth study of the Qur’an since early 90’s, focusing on its core message. He has co-authored the referred exegetic work, which received the approval of al-Azhar al-Sharif, Cairo in 2002, and following restructuring and refinement was endorsed and authenticated by Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl of UCLA, and published by Amana Publications, Maryland, USA, 2009.
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