Mohammed's Hope for Peace

If you read the Koran or study the life of Mohammed, it's pretty clear the one thing he really wanted was peace for his people, yet considering the violent strife within the Islamic community and violent strife at almost every border of the Islamic community, peace is something that's eluded Mohammed's followers, almost from the beginning.

Although we, in the west, tend to concentrate on violence between Islam and other cultures, violence within Islam is almost as prevalent. Mohammed himself was threatened by the violence of Arabic tribalism which is why he entered a period of self-imposed exile in Medina. For the lack of peace, he left his home and became a refugee.

I have no idea what it means to receive messages from God, but I do know what it's like to be a man who deeply wants peace and happiness for his people, so it's easy for me to sympathize with Mohammed on that level.

Mohammed created the Constitution of Medina, which was a watershed accomplishment in the very concept of peace among differing people and the traditional greeting among Islamic people is "As-Salamu Alaykum" meaning "peace be upon you". Despite all this, almost from the beginning, Islam has been embroiled in violent confrontation.

You would think peace was possible. Islam is a very disciplined religion, much more so than Christianity and its followers are very devout. If Mohammed wanted peace then there should be peace both within Islam and without, but why isn't there?

Part of the answer may be that, from the beginning, Islam had violence thrust upon them. Mohammed had attained peace in Medina, but soon afterward armed forces from Mecca attacked them. In response, Mohammed left the path of peace and became a man of war.

By unifying the people of Medina and using ideas from outside his own culture (see Salman The Persian), Mohammed was able to repel the attacks from Mecca and force Mecca into a treaty.

That may have been the turning point. To protect his followers, Mohammed made the transition from prophet to general and in the years to come he used his army to conquer not only Mecca, but most the Arabian peninsula.

Instead of maintaining peace in Medina, he became a man of conquest. Elements of a warrior's code found their way not only into the Islamic culture but also into the Koran itself.

I can't posit that Christians are any better than Muslims in this regard. Christians have their own history of violence to deal with that's at least as substantial as Islam's. Jesus may not have been a warrior himself, but his followers certainly took on that mantle.

I would say though, that it's very difficult for a warrior culture to ever find peace, and for one to truly follow Mohammed, it may be necessary to divorce the prophet's desire for peace from his own actions as a military man.

We're trying to come to a point where the people of the world can practice their different faiths without fear that anyone will attack them for it. To do that we have to eliminate all traces of tribalism or primativism or any warrior's code that tries to tell us that the only path to peace and safety is by eliminating anyone who believes or behaves differently from us.

Islam is truly a religion of peace and Christianity is truly a religion of love, but how far are we from either of these in reality? Particularly, we who descend from the faith of Abraham must rededicate ourselves to the real values of our faith beyond the interceding fallacies of tribalism that followed.

Peace? Love? The choice is ours.

The Cruel God

People say the God of the Old Testament is cruel and if you read it, it seems so.

It's really a matter of perspective though. Writers of the Old Testament ascribed everything in life to God, and since life can be cruel God comes off as cruel sometimes too.

If a city like Sodom is destroyed by a volcano, they felt compelled to come up with a reason so they said the people in the city were sinful and that's why God destroyed them.

I don't know if the people in Sodom were any more sinful than people anywhere else, but there have been several cities destroyed by volcanoes through the ages and people of faith want to know why.

It's hard for people to accept that we don't know why cities are destroyed by volcanoes: probably because they are built near a crack in the crust where magma can force its way through to the surface, but that's not a reason to say God is cruel.

The Old Testament, particularly the Torah, covers a vast period of time and these disasters stand out. It doesn't mean God is cruel though. There are other parts where God is shown as kind and merciful, but those parts aren't nearly as memorable as the more painful ones.

What's missing from the Old Testament is the Jesus message that all things work for the good, and even though life is cruel, it's not the end of the story--there is another life that comes after this one where justice and mercy reign.

If that message were clearer in the Torah and the Old Testament, then God would not seem so cruel. That's why it's so important that Jesus came when he did to give us this message of hope.

Children too think their parents are cruel when they don't get their way and it can take many years for them to understand how much their parents really loved them, especially in the dark times.

God is our parent and the bible is the story some of us wrote along the way of our life with God. There are parts of the story we didn't get exactly right because then and even now our perspective is that of a child and like a child we can't always see how much our parent loves us no matter what happens.

God isn't cruel. God loves us. That doesn't mean things will always be pleasant though. It does mean that we will make it through the unpleasant bits, then and now. There is love and there is hope, no matter what happens.