The Religion of Islam

JUNE 27 The Religion of Islam The major religions of the world can be divided into two broad categories—the Aryan and the Semitic, with Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism in the first and Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the second. So far as their theological aspects are concerned, there is a difference between these two kinds of religions. While the Aryan religions are basically philosophy based, the Semitic religions are revelation based. The former represent the culmination of the philosophical pursuit of truth by the great minds of the world. In the quest for reality, meditation and contemplation brought these saintly souls to the conclusions which gave rise to the principal, organised religions of the eastern hemisphere. The creeds of the Semitic religions on the other hand, are based on divine revelation. That is, God chose a series of Semites to be His apostles and then imparted to them His commandments, frequently in the form of Scriptures, through His angels. These messengers were not only the bearers of divine scriptures but also their interpreters. It was these revelations and their divinely inspired interpretations which provided the fundamentals of the Semitic religions as they exist today. The basic difference in respect of beliefs of the Aryan and Semitic religions can be briefly described in terms of monism and monotheism respectively. Although both traditions—monism and monotheism—have the idea of God in common, there are fundamental differences in their conceptualization of God. In the Aryan tradition, God is an all-pervasive force rather than an independent reality. Monism posits the totality of a single reality, with all the diverse phenomena of the natural world seen as different manifestations of the same reality, according to this concept, therefore, there is no real difference between the creator and the creature. Thus in monistic theorizing, the concept of an individual, personal God does not exist. In Semitic religions, particularly in Islam, the concept of God is entirely based on monotheism. This concept can also be termed dualism, that is, the Creator and the creature, in their nature are completely different from one another. God has a real and eternal existence. As the Creator of all things, he is distinct as an entity from all that He has created. His creatures in their seemingly independent existence totally depend upon the will of God. The sole possessor