THE TRUE SPIRIT OF ISLAM

THE TRUE SPIRIT OF ISLAM Mankind as One Family A CCORDING to a news report in The Times of India on July 12, 2016 at least three youths from Kerala are suspected to have joined the Islamic State (IS). In a voice message to his family, one of the youths said that they had reached ‘Dar al-Islam’ from ‘Dar al-Kufr’, meaning that they gone to the land of Islam from the land of disbelievers. The terms ‘Dar al-Kufr’ (Land of Disbelievers) and ‘Dar al-Islam’ (Land of Islam) are not Islamic terms: both are bidah, or innovation. These terms were invented in the later history of Islam by certain jurists. The Prophet of Islam and his Companions never used such phrases to refer to people or places. This kind of terminology promotes the ‘we and they’ concept, which leads to hatred and other evils. Islam believes in the human family concept. Islam is a peaceful mission, one that cannot afford to foster a separatist thinking in its followers. If a person reads the Quran from the beginning to the end, he will find that it repeatedly uses this form of address: ‘O people’ or ‘O mankind’. According to this, the whole world is ‘Dar al-Insan’ or the land of human beings. When the Prophet of Islam was in Madinah, nearly half of the population of the city consisted of Jews. Once when he was in Madinah, the Prophet stood up in respect of a Jew’s funeral procession. When one of his Companions indicated to him that the person was a Jew and not a Muslim, the Prophet replied: “Was he not a human being?” The Prophet of Islam began his mission in 610 CE in Makkah. At that time, the overwhelming majority of the citizens there were polytheists. Thus the Makkah of that time, according to the above terminology, was a ‘land of disbelievers’, however, the Prophet never referred to ancient Makkah as ‘Dar al-Kufr’. When the Prophet migrated to Madinah, the majority of its inhabitants embraced Islam, making the city a ‘land of Islam’. But the Prophet never called Madinah ‘Dar al-Islam’. Such terms are undoubtedly an innovation in Islam. According to a tradition of the Prophet, ‘One who innovates something in our religion which is not part of it, then that will be rejected.’ (Bukhari) Islam is a peaceful mission, one that cannot afford to foster a separatist thinking in its followers.