10/27/2014
Allah's Power
One thing that continuously stood out to me as I was reading the excerpts was the notion that if you did not "believe," then you would consequently be punished. For instance, in "(Yunus) Jonah," Shakir declares: "that He may with justice recompense those who believe and do good; and (as for) those who disbelieve, they shall have a drink of hot water and painful punishment because they disbelieved." Yes, I wholeheartedly believe that those who practice noble, justice, and sound deeds should be rewarded, and those who are wicked should be punished. This is what we have been taught all of our lives by society: to be good people and good things will happen. What goes around comes around, and we should never stray away from performing acts of love and kindness. Because of my ideals, I had originally read this line without batting an eye because this line seemed to resonate with me, and match all of my beliefs and ideologies that had been instilled in me, and that I had practiced from birth. However, after rereading it, I questioned a notion that I had not previously thought about. Did Shakir mean the people who do not lead a just lifestyle, or those who did not believe in the same God as he did? Is this text implying that those whose beliefs do not perfectly adhere to that of this text are wrong? Are they wicked? If somebody does not believe in a God, are they wrong? Should non-believers in a God's existence in general or disbelievers in a God's teachings be punished? Or, is this text implying that both of these categories should be? Just because somebody does not believe in this God does that mean that Shakir is implying that they are evil?
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I ask similar questions when I have to deal with this topic and the one question that I always end up asking every time is "what about the civilizations with non-western religious views? What happens to Buddhist monks when they pass on? Did they not lead good lives? What about all of the other religions? Did they simply go to hell because they simply had not realized that they were not following a religion that had not yet been conceived?" These questions are hard to answer!
ReplyDeleteI had the same first reaction that you had to the Qur'an's message, but after reading your post, I am also questioning whether the "disbelievers" refer to anyone who believed something different from the authors of this text. Coming to the conclusion that people with different beliefs are faithful can be blocked by judgment, but I would like to believe that religions can be tolerant enough to accept the faithfulness and goodness of people who hold different beliefs.
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