Islam and the Destiny of Man

I was thirteen when I first visited Britain with my parents during the summer vacations. We stayed there for a couple of weeks and spent most of our time in London but one fine weekend my father and I went to Oxford on a train. 

At Oxford our first stop was the Christ Church college which also functioned as a cathedral and a Christian seminary. There we met an Anglican Priest called Arthur Hudson Wellesley. The reverend Wellesley was the archetypal British gentleman, a man with a great deal of patience for a thirteen year old asking too many questions.

Right before leaving Tripoli, I had just finished reading a book called Caesar's Messiah and had A LOT of questions about the modern Christian narrative namely the trinity, it's origins, and how starkly in contrast it was to the Jewish law of which Jesus and the early church fathers were ardent adherents.

The reverend was kind of enough to spend an awful lot of time trying his best to answer my questions but I wasn't really satisfied with any of his answers. In fact the amount of mental gymnastics he had to perform to try and explain the trinity left me astonished to say the least. 

The reverend described the trinity as an egg. The egg has 3 parts, the outer shell, the white of the egg and finally the yolk. The reverend said God was akin to the egg. I am yet to hear of something more blasphemous than such a mischaracterization of the God who has created the universe and all things within it.

Once the reverend had wrapped up his two hour mind bogglingly long sermon on the trinity, he asked me why I had such an interest in theology. I didn't have a good answer to this question. I didn't and still don't know why I have such varied interests. Anyways once me and my father got up to leave the reverend's chambers he looked at my father and said "you have an extraordinary boy, may the lord bless him and reveal to him truths unseen, unheard" and then handed me a copy of Islam and the Destiny of Man.

At first I didn't really know what to make of the book and judging by the cover, it seemed as if it was one of those Islamophobic Christian propagandas pieces, I mean it was written by a certain Charles Le Gai Eaton. However I didn't let my skepticism get in the way of me reading it.

I read it and it changed my life. It changed the way I looked at the world. It made me a better Muslim. 

My Favorite passage from the book are the final few paragraphs. They are as follows:

The Prophet said that a moment will come when God asks the blessed if they are content, and they will reply, 'How should we not be content, Lord, when Thou has given us what Thou didst not give to any of Thy creatures?' Then He will say, 'Shall I give you something more excellent than this' and they will ask what could be more excellent. He will reply: 'I shall cause My ridwan to alight upon you' And the Prophet said also: 'While the people of Paradise are in their enjoyment a light will shine upon them and, raising their heads, they will see that their Lord has looked down upon them from above. He will say: "Peace be upon you, O people of Paradise!" He will then look at them and they will look at Him, and they will not turn aside to any of their enjoyment so long as they are looking at Him until He veils Himself from them, though His Light remains.' 

And again, the Prophet said: 'By Him in whose hand is my soul, no gift of His is more precious than this looking upon Him!' and when the vision fades, and they have come back to themselves and return to their celestial household, their companions in delight observe that they are now 'more beautiful than they were before'. This is journey's end and landfall for those who prayed during their earthly lives: 'My Lord, cause me to land at a blessed landing-place, for Thou art the best of those who bring to landfall' (Q.23.29). 

There is here a perfect matching. If we translate ridwan as 'acceptance' on the part of God, then Islam may be translated as 'acceptance' on man's part; he 'accepts' God, with all that this implies, and 'accepts' his destiny, with all the distress it may contain, and he takes the 'straight path' which leads to Paradise and, beyond, to the beatific vision; and, because of this, God 'accepts' him and gives him 'Light upon light'. 

When, in accordance with the first Pillar of his religion, the Muslim makes the Confession of Faith he attaches himself to the essential and puts aside all that is — in appearance — other-than-God, and he acknowledges the truth brought by the messengers. 

When, in accordance with the second Pillar, he prays — whether in a mosque or on the desert sands, in a Western city or in the polar regions — he places himself at the center of all possible worlds, for God has promised that He will be present wherever His name is mentioned, and the place where He is present is necessarily central in every dimension. 

When, in accordance with the third Pillar, this Muslim pays the poor-due and observes the obligation of loving-kindness towards his fellows, he acknowledges the rights of other creatures — made in the same image as himself — and recognizes that God, who is close to him, is close also to them.

When he fasts, in accordance with the fourth Pillar, he detaches himself from the locality in which he is temporarily housed, the better to prepare himself for his everlasting home.

And when, as a pilgrim, he stands before the Ka'ba in Mecca (after circling it seven times), the centrality already prefigured by his orientation when he prayed far off is made actual. Clothed only in two pieces of plain, unsewn cloth, he has left behind him the characteristics which identified him in this world, his race, his nationality, his status; he is no longer so-and-so from such-and-such a place, but simply a pilgrim. 

Beneath his bare feet, like mother-of-pearl, is the pale marble of this amphitheater at the center of the world, and although he is commanded to lower his eyes when praying elsewhere, he is now permitted to raise them and look upon the Ka'ba, which is the earthly shadow of the Pole or Pivot around which circle the starry heavens. Although Paradise may still seem far distant, he has already come home.

My dear Milena I hope this book changes your life much in the same way as it did mine.