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I just saw “Fitna,” the new controversial film produced by Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Freedom Party. The 17-minute video shows acts of violence, and expressions of hatred, by Muslims against “infidels.” Heads are cut off, bodies are blown apart, children are taught to denounce Jews as “apes and pigs,” imams call for world domination, and protesters hold signs that read, “God Bless Hitler.” What makes all this disturbing scenery even more provocative, and, in a sense, more meaningful, is the way they are connected to the Koran. After each instance of ferocity, “Fitna” quotes a passage from the Muslim Scripture which, apparently, presents a justification.

The message of the film is clear: The roots of “Muslim rage,” as Bernard Lewis once defined it, is the very sacred book that these Muslims believe in.

But is that really true?

Koran and the Book of Joshua

No, not really. Things are actually much more complicated. And Wilder’s film presents them in a highly prejudiced, or even a fanatical fashion.
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Today you might have made your breakfast before taking a copy of the Turkish Daily News, and might even be sipping coffee while reading this story. For hundreds of millions of Muslims all around the world, though, that would be out of question. Today is the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, and all observant Muslims are expected to refrain from eating and drinking until sunset. It is a religious duty which has been kept unbroken since the 7th century.

In the beginning

Ramadan existed before Islam as one of the twelve months of the Arabic lunar calendar. Thus there have been endless Ramadans in the Arab desert for centuries, but the one in 610 AD would be a unique and fateful one. In this month, Muhammad of Mecca, who had been only a decent merchant until then, received his first message from God. According the Muslim tradition, angel Gabriel approached him in a cave during a time of meditation. “Recite,” the angel commanded, “In the Name of your Lord who created man.” And not just the life Muhammad but also the whole human history changed forever.

Although Muslims believe that their faith is not a novelty in history but just the latest form of Abrahamic monotheism, that first revelation became the genesis of Islam as an independent religion. Those who belived that Muhammad was really the messenger of God slowly grew in numbers and started to challenge Mecca’s idolatrous cults by proclaiming the core of their faith: “There is no god but The God.” (The Muslim term for God, “Allah,” comes from the root “Al Ilah” and literally means “The God.”) The revelations continued for twenty-three years, during which the Muslim community grew from a few fragile individuals into a powerful state which dominated the whole Arabian peninsula. And the revelations turned into a book called the Koran.

In its verse 2:185, the Koran signifies the Ramadan. “The month of Ramadan is the one in which the Koran was sent down as guidance for mankind,” it reminds, “with Clear Signs containing guidance and discrimination.” And then it orders Muslims to honor the holy month by fasting:
“Any of you who are resident for the month should fast it. But any of you who are ill or on a journey should fast a number of other days. Allah desires ease for you; He does not desire difficulty for you. You should complete the number of days and proclaim Allah’s greatness for the guidance He has given you so that hopefully you will be thankful.” Read the rest of this entry »

Many years ago, I came across a book, which claimed to explain “Israeli terrorism” in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures. It was full of photos showing Israeli soldiers attacking and harassing Palestinians, and presented huge captions that included verses from the Old Testament, and especially the Book of Joshua. If the Israelis were breaking the bones of a Palestinian youngster — a globally notorious scene from the ‘80s — then the caption would include a verse with something like “Thou shall break their bones.” The book’s argument was blunt and simple: The Israelis were torturing a nation because that was what their religion ordered them to do.

The more I learned about the Old Testament and the politics of the Middle East, the more I realized that what the book presented was not analysis but anti-Semitic propaganda. It is true that Israel’s 40-year-long occupation is a pretty brutal one, and that the Old Testament included some belligerent passages, but the reality was much more complex. I noticed that Jewish religious sources also include many words of wisdom and compassion, and that there are so many Jews who are willing to have peace with their Arab neighbors. Indeed the militants who advocate and even practice violence in the name of Judaism — as CNN’s Christian Amanpour recently exposed in her superb documentary, “God’s Warriors” — are pretty marginal. Moreover, the source of their hatred is actually not the confrontational passages of the Torah, but the political and social situation that they are in.

In other words, they go angry and violent not because they read their religious texts, but because they focus on the harsher parts of those texts since they are already angry and violent for a myriad of reasons.

The Sloganization of Scripture

In recent years, I often recall my experience with that anti-Semitic book and the way it misread the Hebrew Scriptures, because I see that more and more people are doing the same thing with the Koran. When Islamic terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda bomb innocents, or when some fringe imam in a radical mosque preaches hatred toward non-Muslims, these greenhorn “Islam experts” find some passages in the Koran, which apparently justify such extremists. No wonder that these extremists themselves refer to similar passages in the Koran or other Islamic sources. The situation is very similar to the strange agreement between the anti-Semites and the Jewish terrorists on the wrong notion that Judaism justifies carnage. Read the rest of this entry »

In their recent books entitled Mary: The Mother of Jesus and Mary: A Dogmatic Journey, two “Catholic” writers, the journalist Jacques Duquesne and the theologian Dominique Cerbelaud, display an overt disbelief in the virginity of Mary the mother of Jesus Christ. Mr. Duquesne argues that it is a belief that is “not compatible with science.” Mr. Cerbelaud asserts that the faith in the virgin birth came about “for reasons that spring from collective psychology.”

I believe both arguments to be inconsistent and based on a flawed understanding of science. Before explaining these, however, let me elaborate on why the virgin birth matters for me — since some non-Muslims might wonder why a Muslim cares about this controversy at all.

The Virgin Birth According to the Qur’an

As a Muslim, I am a passionate defender of the virgin birth of Christ, and all Muslims should be so. Why? Because this is one of the very important themes in the Qur’an.

The Qur’an tells a great deal about the birth, works, and miracles of Jesus (`Isa in Arabic). His story starts with the angels’ call to Mary (Maryam in Arabic) by which they declare the miracle of God — a son without a father. Mary is surprised:

She said, “My Lord! How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me?” He said, “It will be so. God creates whatever He wills. When He decides on something, He just says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is.” (Aal `Imran 3:47)

There are many passages in the Qur’an in which Mary is highly praised. We read that angels said to her, “Maryam, God has chosen you and purified you. He has chosen you over all other women” (Aal `Imran 3:42).

In another surah, An-Nisaa’ 4:156, those who propose “a monstrous slander against Maryam” are cursed. Actually, there is quite a long surah in the Muslim Scripture titled “Maryam” (Mary) in which the nobility of Mary and the virgin birth is told in detail. In another surah, we read,

“Maryam, the daughter of `Imran, who guarded her chastity — We breathed Our Spirit into her and she confirmed the Words of her Lord and His Book and was one of the devout.” (At-Tahrim 66:12)

These verses make clear that Mary — along with Jesus himself — is a sacred figure for all Muslims. Thus, any disrespect, insult, or attack on Mary or Jesus Christ is directed also toward Islam. We can add Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, and many other Old Testament figures to the list — they are all praised in the Qur’an.

I suspect this will be news to some non-Muslims. But what is stranger still is that it will be news to some Muslims, too. Unfortunately, we see a lack of passion in the Islamic world when it comes to the defense of prophets other than Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). He is, of course, the Prophet of Islam and very dear to us Muslims, but the Qur’an in Surat An-Nisaa’ 4:152, orders that Muslims should not “differentiate between any of [God' Messengers].”

We Muslims should rediscover that Qur’anic principle. We should also realize that defense of faith is not done by slandering or assaulting its critics in barbarity, but by refuting their arguments in civility. Let me now concentrate on the latter. Read the rest of this entry »

On July 7-13, 2004, in the beautiful city of Barcelona, there was an extraordinary international meeting that gathered some seven thousand people from all over the world. The meeting was for The Parliament of the World’s Religions and the attendees were believers from all different kind of traditions. From many denominations of Christians, Jews and Muslims to Buddhist, Sikhs, Hindus or even self-proclaimed pagans, it was truly a global coverage of the world’s faiths. During the seven days of the Parliament, hundreds of lectures, workshops, panels, concerts, prayers and rituals were performed.

You could see Sikhs chanting with their orange tunics and curved swords in one auditorium, and then watch the whirling dervishes of Sufi Islam in another and then rush to catch the interactive workshops with titles like “The Methods of Interfaith Dialogue” or “Which Islam?”

The proceedings of the Parliament will definitely be a valuable source for many years to come. Yet, even the very existence of such an event is a remarkable phenomenon, since it implicitly manifests the fall of the modernist vision. That vision, which was basically the product of 18th century Enlightenment and 19th century positivism, defined religion as a superstition that would die out with the progress of science and human knowledge. Based on the philosophies of atheist thinkers like Nietzsche, Comte, Feuerbach, Marx or Engels, and supported by the theories of Darwin, Spencer or Freud, the modernist vision foresaw a totally secular world. However, in the last quarter of the 20th century, religion surprisingly emerged as a very powerful force in human lives and world affairs.

The causes of this world-changing phenomenon —� like the inadequacy of modern life to satisfy the human soul or the unexpected scientific discoveries that supported the theistic cosmology —� is being studied by many scholars. The bitter fact for the modernists is that we are living in a “de-secularizing” world as social scientist Peter Berger —� formerly a strong supporter of the “secularization theory” —� calls it. The Parliament for the World’ Religions, which gathered so many “modern” yet religious scholars and intellectuals, has been a picturesque demonstration of this de-secularizing globe.

However, the return of “religion” per se does not necessarily mean a return to God. I have sensed this strongly at the Parliament of the World’ Religions. There was a big hall reserved for publishers and exhibitors and at least half of the booths presented a “spiritual” worldview in which there was little, if any, room for God. From Unitarians to Scientologists, or from pagans to Hare Krishna folks, there were many cults that disagreed with the shallowness of materialism but tried to fill it with exotic faiths in vague deities.
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I have traveled a lot around the US and the UK, lecturing to Muslim audiences. One common trait I have noticed is the concern Muslims feel for the future of their children. Several conferences I attended had topics such as “Saving Our Families” or “How To Raise Our Children As Good Muslims.” The reason for this concern is obvious: These Muslim families are living in a highly secularized society that has cultural traits that are destructive to traditional values. The profane culture of MTV, pornography, consumerism and hedonism — what political scientist Benjamin Barber calls the “The McWorld” — is at odds with Muslim values.

The McWorld is powerful in winning converts. Many Muslim parents living in the West are dismayed to see their kids envying the lives of pop-stars instead of Islamic sages. The solution many Muslim families find is to create cultural enclaves where, hopefully, McWorld cannot penetrate. They want to educate their children in local Islamic schools and keep them in an “Islamic atmosphere” as much as they can. However, such cultural enclaves have little chance of matching Western society in terms of appeal. For Muslim youngsters living in the US or in Western Europe, the popular profane life is colorful and attractive. They may not lose their faith altogether, but they lose a coherent identity based on that faith. They become cultural wanderlings.

The resulting psychological trauma in these young people can has a much worse side-effect: As we have seen in the 9/11 conspirators, an identity crisis can turn some young Muslims into terrorists. Seeking asylum from the distress they feel for being renegade Muslims, they think they can find peace in a radical political ideology, a kind of necrophilic nihilism, hidden under the cloak of Islam.

Let’s Face Modernity

But perhaps Muslims don’t need those cultural enclaves. The colorful life of the West, that we call modernity, may not be totally bad, but only in some of its aspects. There might be no problem in wearing jeans, eating fast food — health problems notwithstanding — or listening to pop music as long as one knows that God exists and that he has a moral obligation to Him. If a young person gains this consciousness, in fact, he will be more powerful and confident in the modern world, by being open to its opportunities and offerings, but consciously aware of the necessity of maintaining his integrity and moral standards.

The core issue, surely, is to have faith in God and see the world out of Godly hearts and minds. Once a believer is standing firmly on that solid ground, he doesn’t need to close the door to foreign cultures. When he has achieved a continuing consciousness of God, then he walks with God in every path that life opens for him.

Yes, but how will the Muslim achieve that consciousness?

To find an answer, first we have to understand the problems we face. The problem with modernity is its neglect of the Divine: It makes people live as if God does not exist. Only doctrinal atheists declare the Nietzschean claim “God is dead”, but many ordinary people live as if this is reality. Movies, books, soap operas and songs portray a lifestyle in which nobody thinks about God. He is absent from their minds, yet they have an appearance of happiness. Advertisements impose the big lie that we can find happiness by consuming some special product. Insurance companies are what people trust. Popular science ascribes to us humans a nature that has originated wholly by natural laws. And opinion leaders dismiss religion as a thing of the past.

The Koran tells us that Prophet Shu’aib, who was sent to the people of Median, warned them that they “neglect God as a thing cast behind your back” (11:91) This is the dominant culture in today’s world. Man turns his back on God and rarely gives Him any thought.

But this neglect does not result merely from ignorance or lack of thought. There is a doctrinal basis for the modern neglect of God. That basis is a grand narrative lying beneath every aspect of the secular world. It is called materialism, and it is the principal foe we must face and deal with.

Materialism As Our Adversary

Materialism is the philosophy that argues that matter is all there is. It denies the existence of all spiritual entities, and, of course, God. According to a materialist, the universe is not created by God; it is self-existent. He therefore assumes that everything in the universe, including the life within it, is the product of blind, purposeless forces of physics and chemistry. Materialism denies the existence of the human soul, too. According to this view, we are nothing but highly organized molecules, and our ideas, feelings and emotions are simply chemical reactions inside our brain cells. In short, materialism is the philosophical underpinning of atheism.
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Prominent science journal Nature, in its November 2006 issue, has mentioned my work in its cover story on “Islam and Science.” It reads:
Some Islamic thinkers are reaching out to the West in surprising ways. The prominent Turkish writer and columnist Mustafa Aykol has creationist views and publishes translations of US proponents of intelligent design. He has been building alliances with US faith-based groups such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington state. In an article for the US National Review last year he wrote: “Intelligent Design can be a bridge between these two civilizations. Muslims are discovering that they share a common cause with believers in the West.”

Well, my surname is “Akyol”, not “Aykol,” I am not a creationist (ID is not creationism), and I haven’t published any translations so far, but that’s all OK. It is good to see that Nature is taking a note of the universality of the argument from design (for God) and the cross-cultural implications of the modern theory of Intelligent Design.
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A reply to Robert McHenry, Former Editor in Chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica

“All truth passes through three stages,” Arthur Schopenhauer declared. “First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

As a proponent of the Intelligent Design (ID) theory, nowadays I am witnessing the first two stages simultaneously. And most recently I owe this to, among many others, Mr. Robert McHenry, who waged a powerful attack on ID and ID theorists in his recent TCS piece, Intelligent Decline.

Although the attack was adroit — and enjoyable to read — its arguments are not convincing. The scientists and thinkers who defend ID have fielded and effectively countered similar critiques many times over the past years. But since their responses have not infrequently fallen on deaf ears, let me re-explain them briefly.

Before commencing, however, perhaps I should say that I acknowledge and respect the intention of Mr. McHenry. His concern seems to be with keeping science separate from religion, and that is fully justified — mixing the two has resulted in pretty unpleasant episodes in history. Yet we, the “IDers” as they call us, are not trying to merge faith into science. What we are trying to do is actually rescue science from a monopoly of a secular faith called materialism, whose application to biology is called Darwinism.

In a nutshell, Intelligent Design is the theory that argues life on Earth is the product of natural laws, chance and intelligence. Darwinism, on the other hand, accepts only the first two causes, because, according to materialist philosophy, intelligence does not exist unless it evolves over time from mindless matter.

The materialist creation story, i.e., Darwinism, could have been true, and if that were the case, we all would have to come to terms with it. Yet whether that story is true or not is a legitimate question to ask. To find a scientific answer, we have to examine the scientific evidence. And when we do so, we find serious flaws in Darwinism, and, moreover, we detect intelligence in the origin of life on Earth.

Many critics of ID wrongly assume that we infer that intelligence from the Bible or the Koran, but in fact we infer it solely from nature. As Mount Rushmore compels an observer to conclude that an intelligent cause was at work there, the “specified complexity” of life points to an intelligent designer.

The identity or purpose of that designer can’t be inferred from the evidence. That’s why ID theory is silent on this subject, although we ID proponents might have personal opinions based on our philosophical or religious convictions. And that’s why Mr. McHenry misses the point when he argues that we “have trained [ourselves] not to be too specific about the Designer” and we “carefully avoid” speaking about God for political purposes. The fact is that we just don’t mix science and religion.

Yet Mr. McHenry is not receptive to inferring design from nature at all, and his objection stems from an argument from neophilia. “Philosophically this is old ground,” he says and adds a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the work of the 19th century natural theologian William Paley.

Yes, Paley was also arguing for design, but what of it? Non-design is “old ground,” too. It dates back to Ancient Greece. As theologian Benjamin Wiker unveils in his book, Moral Darwinism, the first theory of an un-designed and evolving world was developed by Epicurus, the founder hedonism. And his point of reference was not scientific evidence; he simply wanted to get rid of the idea of the divine, which he found disturbing. Epicurus’ ideas about nature were later developed by Lucretius and much later by the modern forerunners of Darwin.

Another argument by Mr. McHenry against ID is that it is not “testable.” Well, neither is Darwinism. Both theories talk about phenomena many millions, or even billions, of years old and never yet to have been observed occurring. That’s why they constitute a specific area of science called “origin science.” Also included in this realm is the Big Bang theory, which explains the origin of the universe. We definitely can’t observe, test and repeat the Big Bang. We just infer it from the evidence. The same holds for ID, too.
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Mustafa Akyol gave a testimony to the Kansas State Education Board during the hearings on proposed changes to the State’s science standards, which was held in Topeka, Kansas, on May 5-7, 2005.

His testimony pointed to the importance of an objective and unbiased education from a Muslim point of view. It is materialism, Akyol says, that put distrust among Muslim towards the Western culture and getting rid of materialist indoctrination in the education system will be an important step in reconciliating the gap between the West and the East.

The hearings in question, with its background, is explained as below by the Kansas State Education Board website:
On December 10, 2004, a group of eight scientists and educators serving on the Kansas Science Writing Committee delivered to the Kansas State Board of Education proposed revisions to Kansas Science Standards. The proposals seek objectivity in origins science. The scientists and educators are members of a 25 member science writing committee appointed in May 2004 by the Kansas State Board of Education.

On March 9, 2005, the Writing Committee issued Draft 2 of the Science Standards. In response, the group of eight reissued their proposals so that they would be responsive to Draft 2. Their proposals have come to be known as the “Minority Report (Draft 2).”

A Committee of the State board held hearings on May 5, 6, 7 and 12, 2005 to provide for an in-depth examination of the Minority Report and its proposed changes… 23 experts (19 with doctoral degrees)… testified during the hearings. The 23 witnesses include five biologists/molecular biologists, four biochemists, three chemists, a geneticist, a physicist, three philosophers of science, a philosopher of religion and education, three biology teachers, a lawyer and a muslim science writer.

That Muslim science writer was Mustafa Akyol.

The transcript of Akyol’s testimony is available at Kansas State Education Board website .

Down below is the written testimony that Akyol presented to the Science Education Board.

Testimony to the Kansas State Board of Education

By Mustafa Akyol — May 7, 2005

First, I want to thank the state of Kansas for kindly inviting me to give this testimony, which I hope will be a contribution to the important discussion on the education standards.
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I have traveled a lot around the US and the UK, lecturing to Muslim audiences. One common trait I have noticed is the concern Muslims feel for the future of their children. Several conferences I attended had topics such as “Saving Our Families” or “How To Raise Our Children As Good Muslims.” The reason for this concern is obvious: These Muslim families are living in a highly secularized society that has cultural traits that are destructive to traditional values. The profane culture of MTV, pornography, consumerism and hedonism — what political scientist Benjamin Barber calls the “The McWorld” — is at odds with Muslim values.

The McWorld is powerful in winning converts. Many Muslim parents living in the West are dismayed to see their kids envying the lives of pop-stars instead of Islamic sages. The solution many Muslim families find is to create cultural enclaves where, hopefully, McWorld cannot penetrate. They want to educate their children in local Islamic schools and keep them in an “Islamic atmosphere” as much as they can. However, such cultural enclaves have little chance of matching Western society in terms of appeal. For Muslim youngsters living in the US or in Western Europe, the popular profane life is colorful and attractive. They may not lose their faith altogether, but they lose a coherent identity based on that faith. They become cultural wanderlings.

The resulting psychological trauma in these young people can has a much worse side-effect: As we have seen in the 9/11 conspirators, an identity crisis can turn some young Muslims into terrorists. Seeking asylum from the distress they feel for being renegade Muslims, they think they can find peace in a radical political ideology, a kind of necrophilic nihilism, hidden under the cloak of Islam.

Let’s Face Modernity

But perhaps Muslims don’t need those cultural enclaves. The colorful life of the West, that we call modernity, may not be totally bad, but only in some of its aspects. There might be no problem in wearing jeans, eating fast food — health problems notwithstanding — or listening to pop music as long as one knows that God exists and that he has a moral obligation to Him. If a young person gains this consciousness, in fact, he will be more powerful and confident in the modern world, by being open to its opportunities and offerings, but consciously aware of the necessity of maintaining his integrity and moral standards.

The core issue, surely, is to have faith in God and see the world out of Godly hearts and minds. Once a believer is standing firmly on that solid ground, he doesn’t need to close the door to foreign cultures. When he has achieved a continuing consciousness of God, then he walks with God in every path that life opens for him.

Yes, but how will the Muslim achieve that consciousness?

To find an answer, first we have to understand the problems we face. The problem with modernity is its neglect of the Divine: It makes people live as if God does not exist. Only doctrinal atheists declare the Nietzschean claim “God is dead”, but many ordinary people live as if this is reality. Movies, books, soap operas and songs portray a lifestyle in which nobody thinks about God. He is absent from their minds, yet they have an appearance of happiness. Advertisements impose the big lie that we can find happiness by consuming some special product. Insurance companies are what people trust. Popular science ascribes to us humans a nature that has originated wholly by natural laws. And opinion leaders dismiss religion as a thing of the past.
Read the rest of this entry »