When I was first moved to speak on this subject, a few years ago in another congregation, it was because I had noticed that my calendar said the month of Ramadan began on January 10 that year, "subject to the sighting of the moon". It made me curious about Islam and its relation to the moon's cycles and, naturally, the best way to learn about something is to teach about it. So I learned a bit, in order to speak about Islam, and I'll learn more today as I speak about it again. But I have absolutely no expertise, and I'll be very glad of any factual corrections which need to be made to what I say, although I hope you'll let the ideas percolate in your minds for a while as worth considering even if they don't represent a fully-informed Muslim view. And by the way, Ramadan begins this year on November 19, so you can see how variable it is.

I also want to be very clear about my approach to the topic, especially in light of the current world situation and the heightened interest in understanding Islam: I am taking an entirely positive and non-critical and therefore obviously one-sided perspective. This will not be a critique of Islam, just as it's not a scholarly dissertation. It's an attempt to see at what points we can find connections with a faith which is very different from our own. I take for granted two things:

Unitarian beliefs are very different from Muslim beliefs, and
Unitarians do not wish to be at war with Islam.

In the list of the acknowledged sources of our faith, which you can find at the front of our hymnbook, the third is "wisdom from the world's religions" and we shall look for wisdom in Islam today, rather than looking for our very evident differences.

Islam, which is a major world religion, was founded in Arabia in the seventh century of the Common Era, and it's based on the teachings of Mohammed, who is called the Prophet, and who lived from about 570-632 C.E. (C.E. is what we used to call A.D. -- Anno Domini, the year of the Lord, as if all the world were Christian.) Sometimes it comes as a surprise to people to find that this religion is a good bit newer than Christianity, while three other major religions of the world (Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism) are much older. Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity, and may soon overtake Christianity in number of adherents - currently well over a billion people, about 20 percent of the world's population.

The Arabic word "islam", the name of the religion, literally means "to surrender," but as a religious term in the Koran, the Islamic scriptures, it means "to surrender to the will or law of God", so it has the sense of willing obedience to the divine. One who practices Islam is a Muslim. According to the Koran, Islam is the original and universal religion, and even nature itself is Muslim, because it automatically obeys the laws God has ingrained in it. There is no concept in Islam of a "fallen" or corrupted Nature, nor of original sin in human nature.

Although a Muslim is a follower of the message brought by Mohammed and recorded in the Koran, Muslims resent being called Mohammedans, which implies a personal cult of Mohammed, which is forbidden in Islam. Mohammed is absolutely not seen as God, but as the prophet of God. Like liberal Christians within our own movement, Muslims practice the religion of their founder rather than a religion about him.

The two sacred texts of Islam are the Koran, which are the words of Allah "the One True God" as given to Mohammed, and the Hadith, which is a collection of Mohammed's sayings. Muslims regard the Koran as the speech of God himself to Mohammed, mediated by Gabriel, the angel of revelation, and therefore infallible. In the early Islamic period, whether or not the Prophet himself was infallible, apart from the revelations in the Koran was a point of controversy. Later, however, the consensus was that both he and the earlier prophets (Abraham, Moses and Jesus among them) were infallible.

The central belief of Islam is monotheism - a belief in only one all-powerful God, as in Judaism and as in Unitarian Christianity before this century. God is believed to have created all nature and to have provided each element of his creation with its own proper nature, or laws governing its conduct, so that it follows a characteristic pattern. The result is a well-ordered, harmonious whole, a cosmos in which everything has its proper place and limitations. Violations of the natural order in the form of miracles are believed to have occurred in the past, but the only important miracle now is the Koran, miraculously transmitted to Mohammed, something which no human being could have produced of his own accord.

According to Islam, God interacts with the universe, and with humanity in particular, in four ways: through creation, sustenance, guidance, and judgment. Nature has been made subservient to humanity, so that humans may use and benefit from the natural world. The ultimate purpose of humanity is to be in the "service of God," that is, to worship God alone and to construct an ethical social order, which would mean, among other things, one free from the misuse of nature. The Koran in fact declares that "reforming the earth" is the supreme task of human endeavor. Environmentalists and ecologists within Islam, as within our movement, would undoubtedly interpret this as providing an affirmation of their work. It might be well to note here that the Koran can be interpreted endlessly, just like the Bible.

The basic attitude towards human nature in the Koran is that it has limitations -- it is both too proud and too petty, narrow-minded, and selfish. "Man is by nature timid," says the Koran. "When evil befalls him, he panics, but when good things come to him he prevents them from reaching others." Because of their shortsightedness, people fear that altruism and giving to others will result in their own impoverishment -- in other words, we're greedy by nature because we're afraid of not having enough. But according to Islam, God promises prosperity in return for generosity to the poor, and the Koran insists that individuals need to transcend their pettiness and fear, so that they can discern right from wrong and evaluate their own actions properly and without self-deception. Each person's goal should be the ultimate benefit of humanity, not immediate pleasures for oneself.

Because human beings are morally weak, God has sent prophets to teach both individuals and nations about moral and spiritual truth. Although Islam teaches that there's an innate knowledge of right and wrong in the human heart, the fact is that many people are unable or unwilling to recognize it, and so need divine guidance, through the prophets. Adam was the first prophet, and Muslims believe that after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden, God forgave him his lapse. The fact that Islam does not accept the doctrine of original sin is a radical difference from Christianity. The messages of all prophets is believed to emanate from the same divine source, and religions therefore have an underlying unity, even though their institutionalized forms may differ.

It's necessary to believe in all the recognized prophets, because to accept some and reject others amounts to a denial of the divine truth which is all one. All prophets are human, not divine, but they are the most perfect examples of humankind. Not surprisingly, Mohammed is described as the "Seal of all Prophets," which leads to the Islamic belief that prophethood culminated in Muhammad and that the Koran is the final and most nearly perfect revelation of God, superseding all earlier revelations. As you can see, this is quite different from our own sense that "revelation is not sealed", although there is certainly room in Islam for an ever-deepening knowledge and understanding.

Muslims believe that the divine activities of creating, sustaining, and guiding will end with the Day of Judgment, when all humanity will be gathered and judged according to their deeds. The "successful ones" will go to heaven, which is called "the Garden" (I can relate to that!) and the "losers," or evil ones, will go to hell, although God is merciful and will forgive those who deserve forgiveness. Besides the Last Judgment of individuals, the Koran recognizes another kind of divine judgment, which is shown in the history of nations, peoples, and communities. Nations, like individuals, may be corrupted by wealth, power, and pride, and, unless they reform, these nations are punished by being destroyed or subjugated by more virtuous nations. This suggests a kind of survival of the morally fittest which most of us probably would have difficulty accepting, but I think we can recognize the reality that societies as a whole may indeed become morally corrupted and decadent.

On the subject of morals, there are five duties, known as the "pillars of Islam," which are central to Islamic life. The first duty is the profession of faith (the Shahadah): "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet." This declaration must be made publicly by every Muslim at least once in his or her lifetime "by the tongue and with full assent from the heart"; it's what makes one a Muslim, equivalent I suppose to the importance Christians attach to accepting Jesus as personal Saviour.

The second duty is that of five daily prayers. The first prayer is offered before sunrise, the second in the very early afternoon, the third in the late afternoon, the fourth immediately after sunset, and the fifth before retiring and before midnight, always facing towards Mecca, the holy city of Islam, in Saudi Arabia. All five daily prayers are supposed to be offered with a congregation, in a mosque, but they may be offered individually if, for some reason, a person cannot be present with a congregation, and as you can imagine it's rarely possible these days for Muslims to be at a designated place of worship five times a day every day.

In some parts of the world, women join in the congregational prayers, although they pray in a separate room or hall; in other places, Muslim women pray only at home. The Islamic attitude towards women, which is one of great respect but not of equality in the sense in which most of us use the word, is obviously a problematic area for non-Muslims. I think there's a delicate balance to be sought as we try to stand firm for our own convictions while respecting differing ideas, and I think it helps to be aware of the ways in which we, too, make distinctions between respect and full equality. For example, while we profess to believe that everyone is equal, most of us seem not to believe that everyone is entitled to the same material standard of living.

The third cardinal duty of a Muslim is to pay zakat. This was originally the tax levied by Mohammed on the wealthy members of the community, primarily to help the poor. It was also used for winning converts to Islam and for jihad, the struggle for the cause of Islam, or holy war. Only when zakat has been paid is the rest of a Muslim's property considered purified and legitimate. Even in most Muslim states zakat is no longer collected by the government and is a voluntary charity, but it's still recognized as an essential duty by all Muslims, rather as tithing is by many fundamentalist Christian churches.

I wonder if we've lost something quite important by our emphasis on the completely discretionary nature of giving to our Unitarian congregations, and if we might at least consider the idea of suggesting what constitutes a "fair share". At the denominational level this is certainly recognized as the only way to go -- each of our congregations is assessed an annual amount for each member to support the Unitarian movement. I might have something more to say about this during our Canvass time!

The fourth Islamic duty is the fast of the month of Ramadan, which brings us back to the reason for the original version of this talk -- the fact that I noticed the relationship between Ramadan and the moon on my calendar. The Islamic calendar is lunar, so they don't follow consistent dates (it's like Easter rather than like Christmas), more in touch with the cycles of nature than with the artificial calendar. During the fasting month, observant Muslims must, and do, refrain from eating and drinking from dawn until sunset. Those who can afford it must also feed at least one poor person. If you're sick or on a journey which would make fasting difficult, you must compensate by fasting later -- there's no way out, at least if you're in normal health!

The fifth duty is the pilgrimage to Mecca. Every adult Muslim who is physically and economically able to do so must make this pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. During recent years, easier travel has allowed Muslims from all parts of the world to perform the pilgrimage, and somewhere around 2 million people do it each year. We Unitarians have a hymn which says that our holy place is within our souls, but some of us have just enough of a sense of respect for particular places that we can perhaps understand about pilgrimage. We travel to see our relatives and the places we grew up; we travel to experience places and cultures very different from our own, perhaps not overtly from duty, but with a sense it's A Good Thing!

Besides these five basic institutions, other important laws of Islam prohibit drinking alcohol and eating pork. Islamic social philosophy is based on the belief that all spheres of life-spiritual, social, political, and economic-form a unity that must be thoroughly imbued with Islamic values. This accounts for Islam's strong emphasis on social life and social duties. The belief in an essential unity between our religious, social and political convictions is very close to my heart and to the heart of many Unitarians, with our uniting, Unitarian, ideals, our belief in the oneness of all existence.

One of the aspects of Islam which many of us have trouble with is the concept of the jihad, or "holy war", perhaps better translated "struggle". It means the struggle toward the Islamic goal of "reforming the earth," which may include the use of armed force if necessary. This may be what we find a bit worrying about the idea of mixing politics and religion, and why we like to draw some lines between them. The prescribed purpose of jihad, however, is not territorial expansion or converting people to Islam by force, but gaining political power in order to put the principles of Islam into practice through public institutions. Still, the concept of jihad, as we all know now, can be used to justify wars motivated by a powerful combination of ideological and political ambitions. Among mainstream Muslims, however, jihad has come to be interpreted more in defensive than offensive terms.

The Koran, like the Jewish and Christian scriptures, stresses family values and the honouring of parents. Sexual fidelity is strictly required and enforced, with severe punishment for adultery. The killing of baby girls, which used to happen in some tribes, is now forbidden, and girls are given a share in family inheritances, although only half of that given to boys. The Koran emphasizes kind treatment of women and grants wives the right of divorce in case of maltreatment, but it approves polygamy, allowing men to have as many as four wives. It also states, though, that "if you fear you cannot do justice among co-wives, then marry only one wife." The abuse of polygamy and of the husband's right in traditional Islam to repudiate his wife without cause, has recently led to family law reform in many Muslim countries. Afghanistan is the most obvious exception, and a cause for shame, embarrassment and fear to other Islamic countries and individuals.

Clearly Islam has the internal disputes and differences of theological opinion which are familiar to those of us with a Christian background or perhaps even with a Unitarian or Universalist background. There's the tension between salvation by works or by faith, the question of individual free will, whether or not human reason is sufficient to distinguish between good and evil or needs to be supplemented by revelation, and, especially, the clash between extremism and liberalism.

In mediaeval times, Islamic philosophers were influenced by the works of Aristotle and Plato, and some of them argued that philosophical truth is the same throughout the world and that the many different existing religions are symbolic expressions of an ideal universal religion. As you might guess, this was not acceptable to orthodox Islamic thinkers, particularly when the philosophers denied belief in personal immortality and in the creation of the world, or suggested that religion is merely philosophy in a metaphorical form that makes it palatable to the masses. Still, these Islamic philosophers had a considerable influence on Western thought, and particularly on the mediaeval Christian movement known as Scholasticism.

The mystical movement called Sufism, the tradition from which Peggy told the children's story this morning, originated in the eighth century, when some pious Muslims reacted against the growing worldliness of the Islamic community and began to emphasize the inner life of the spirit and moral purification. Gradually, Sufism developed into a mystical doctrine, with direct union with God as its ideal. This violated the orthodox Islamic concept that God is absolutely beyond and other than human beings -- that no person can be divine in any sense. But since then Sufism has developed into a more popular movement. The Sufi emphasis on intuitive knowledge and the love of God increased the appeal of Islam and has helped its spread beyond the Middle East. Insofar as Unitarians are attracted to Islam, which is much less common than being attracted to Buddhism, for instance, it tends to be to the Sufi movement.

You've probably also heard of the Shiites, an Islamic sect which emphasizes special, elite knowledge rather than the general consensus of the community. Several smaller sects have developed out of the Shiites, the most important of which is the Ismailis. Their theological ideas are more radical than those of other Shiites and come largely from Greek philosophy. Ismailis are found mainly in India and Pakistan; others have emigrated from East Africa to Canada; an offshoot of the Ismailis is the Druse sect. And, alas, at the extreme right, there's the Taliban. As someone has said, the Taliban is to Islam approximately what the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity.

The Bahai faith also came out of Islam. In 1841 a young Shiite in Iran proclaimed himself the "gateway" to God. His followers were severely persecuted by the Shiite clergy, and he was executed in 1850. Under his disciple, Bahaullah, the Bahais developed a universalist doctrine to which many UUs can relate, declared Bahai to be an independent religion, and won many converts in North America.

Islamic fundamentalists accuse the mystics and modernists of pushing Western morality. They believe that the Western emancipation of women is responsible for the disintegration of the family and for permissive sexual morality -- in this respect, Islamic and Christian fundamentalism are alike. Some fundamentalists are suspicious of democracy because they don't trust the moral sense of the general population. And the continuing resentment of many Muslims toward the current global inequity and injustice has made them regard everything Western as evil. A dichotomy has been set up which is going to be awesomely hard to overcome, but surely not impossible, if we can find some method better than bombing.

The wisdom I find in Islam includes the sense that (at least sometimes and to some extent) there is value in surrender to the way things are, to going with the flow as some Asian religions put it. And the emphasis on the leader's teachings rather than his personality. And the teaching that our task is to make this world a better place. And the insight that our selfishness comes from fear that we will not have enough. And the idea that heaven is a garden! And the recognition that whole societies and nations can become corrupt and need to be healed. And the sense of duty, towards the religious community, towards the poor, towards family -- the overall concept of a "fair share". And the sense of unity between religious and social and political life. That's a goodly amount of wisdom. The values you take out of Islam may be different. I'll leave you with this Muslim prayer:

Save us, our compassionate Lord, from our folly, by your wisdom, from our arrogance by your forgiving love, from our greed by your infinite bounty, and from our insecurity by your healing power.