Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

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Now, did his philosophical approach to Islam corrupt the Muslim ummah's concept of Allah, as Dr. Wesley proclaims? I do not accept this assertion. While it may be true that Al-Ghazzali's idea of Allah is the same as the majority of today's Muslim world, most Muslims have not studied Al-Ghazzali's writings on the subject. I understand the idea of G-d the way I do, not because of Al-Ghazzali; but, because it makes more sense to me than to believe in anything in creation as a G-d, whether it is a man or divine man, a bird or divine bird, a statue, saint, angel, or divine bird, divine statue, divine saint, or divine angel. It has nothing to do with Al-Ghazzali, it has to do with reason and the experience of history. My reading of the Qur'an does not make me see Allah as a man; it makes me see Him as greater and bigger than anything. AL-GHAZZALI OR SCIENCE? Admittedly, I am not a historian and I am no expert on the influence of Greek philosophy on Imam Al- Ghazzali. However, what I do know is that world history shows a progression of human belief and knowledge from its early superstitious and pagan understanding of the planet and world we live in to a more rational, scientific, and educated understanding of ourselves and our world. Early man worshipped things in creation as Gods; the wind, fire, rain, etc. We believed in powerful spirits, demons, ghosts lurking in the night. We worshipped the sun, the moon, stars, angelic beings, statues; all kinds of things, including powerful men and women, who were our witch doctors, kings, pharaohs, popes and the wizards of Oz. As man became more knowledgeable of himself and his world, he began discarding those beliefs and began reducing the number of supernatural, "divine" beings in his world. Eventually, a good number of humans realized that even the powerful and great men and women who claimed to be G-d or claimed that G-d ordained them with the right to rule were only mortal men like the rest of us. This is history 101. It is not surprising that the Arabs just coming out of paganism, polytheism, and idolatry still struggled to overcome the cultural tendencies of their past. Look at how even today we talk about how Muslims mix their culture with Islam and think that their cultural proclivity is the religion. Even in the midst of the most educated society in human history, there are many who hold superstitious, pagan, and polytheistic beliefs. What can we say? I make this brief summary to say that people of all cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities originated in superstitious beliefs and gradually began growing out of those superstitions with the growth of reason and science. We should not condemn Al-Ghazzali because he picked up the tool of his rational mind to analyze and deduce explanations of religion. He is not responsible for the majority of mankind rejecting the notion of a tree, bird, lion, man, king, pharaoh, emperor, pope, self-proclaimed or mysteriously designated divine man as G-d of the universe. It is not Al-Ghazzali's fault, it is education's fault. Despite the superstitious proclivities of many 21st century people, we have too much documented human experience showing us that nothing in creation is a G-d to be worshipped; not even the most knowledgeable and talented people or most powerful civilizations. It is interesting that Dr. Wesley would cite the influence of Greek culture and thinking on the non-Arabs who converted to Islam and brought this influence with them to corrupt the true concept of Allah. I say it is interesting, because what he is referring to is Greek philosophical thinking, not Greek religion. Had the Greeks not started thinking with reason, they would have remained believers in a concept of G-d not too dissimilar from what Dr. Wesley would have us believe is the Semitic concept of G-d. 56
We are all familiar with the Greek mythologies of the 12 Olympian G-ds residing above the heavens on Mount Olympus, with Zeus as the Chief G-d or Supreme Being. On occasion, as the G-ds observed life on earth from above, Zeus or one of the other G-ds would have reason to manifest themselves as a man or a woman or a cloud, etc. to earthly beings. You would see them sitting on their thrones on Mount Olympus as giant divine human beings chatting about the affairs of their little toys on earth. This is the classic Greek religion and sounds closely related to the perception of G-d Dr. Wesley calls us to accept (minus the other secondary gods). Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle took a turn away from such superstitious beliefs in G-ds as men and women on top of Mount Olympus; sitting on their thrones. They ushered in an age of reason, which, notwithstanding its own problems and their own "religious" speculations, they helped humans step further away from idolatry. It is the philosophic rational method of inquiry used by philosophers to whom Al-Ghazzali and Ibn Sina are compared. Perhaps, these men helped Muslims use reason and logic to resist the belief in a divine man G-d, just as the Greek philosophers moved people away from the worship of Zeus, Apollo and the other "divine" super human beings. The Ancient Greeks and Ancient Hindus had concepts of man gods and they were not Semitic people. Many people in Africa, Asia and Europe had Man god concepts and they are not Semitic peoples. The worship of man as god is not a Semitic idea, it is a superstitious idea resulting from a time in human knowledge when we didn't know any better. Humans may have predominantly believed in god this way at some point in human history, just as we predominantly believed in witchcraft and rain gods at one time. But, as human knowledge increases our understanding of the Creator and the scriptures should also increase. What Dr. Wesley extends to us, however eloquently, is an invitation to return to the worship of creation rather than Creator and an understanding of the scripture that would lead us back into superstition. I believe human reason, education, and scientific discovery is responsible for our current monotheistic concept of G-d than Greek Philosophy or non-black, non-Arab foreign ideas. I believe it was Al-Qur'an, Prophet Muhammad, and the Muslim Ummah that brought the world out of the dark ages of superstition and creation worship so that we would study creation properly and be catapulted into the scientific age of today where many are free from the worship of created things as G-d. We do still battle with man's desire to see himself or his image as the Creator though. Abraham had to battle against a man-pharaoh who believed he was the manifestation of god. I had a brother in my Masjid try to convince me that after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad died, the god came into him and therefore, I should follow him rather than Imam Mohammed. Even as a young man, I knew better than this. He told me he had some special powers that he could use with his mind on people. At that point, I quickly got out of his car (smile). It was the physicalization of religious knowledge and ideas that has put the religious world to sleep. It is reading revelation as purely literal text that has locked us out of religious understanding. It is the attempt to portray physical images as divine; that is, ascribing divinity to things created that has caused people to believe the stories in scripture as literal truths and turn religion into comedy for the thoughtful. To be continued... Mubaashir Uqdah 57
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Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? The Long O
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ARGUMENT 1 First, Dr. Wesley refers
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Page 49 and 50: Fakhr al-Din Razi (d. 1209) who, am
Page 51 and 52: which He bestowed on Mary, and a sp
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Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

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