ISLAM
Judaism
| Christianity
How is the human condition understood in the religion?
by John Kaltner
Islam
celebrates the diversity that is found within humanity. Qur’an
49:13 states that the differences among people are ultimately a
gift from God that enables us to learn about each other. “Oh,
humanity! (God) has made you male and female, nations and tribes,
so that you might know one another. Truly, the most noble among
you in God’s eyes is the most devout.” The variety within
human life should therefore be recognized as a God-given opportunity
for growth and knowledge.
Despite
that diversity, however, there is a firm belief in Islam that, at
their core, all human beings are the same. As finite creatures that
have been created by God, we all share the same basic human condition
regardless of differences in gender, race, nationality, and religion.
The thing that cuts through the distinctions among us is our complete
dependence on God for our life and our survival.
That
reliance is vividly portrayed in the account of human origins in
Qur’an 15:28-29, when God addresses the angels and tells them
how humanity will be formed. “I am creating a human being
from clay, formed mud. When I have fashioned him and breathed in
him my spirit prostrate yourselves to him.” God animates Adam,
the first human being, with the breath of life that allows him to
become a sensate, thinking person. This is the paradigm that explains
how all subsequent humans are created.
Consequently,
Islam teaches that all people
are born muslims. Not Muslims, which designates those who follow
the religion of the Prophet Muhammad, but muslims in the sense of
“submitters.” Our birth is completely
out of our control. We are each brought into existence by God, who
breathes the spirit of life into us, and that divine act puts us
in a position of submission whether we realize it or not. As we
grow and mature, we can choose to reject or ignore our dependence
on God, but that does not change the fact that we are muslims until
the day we die. We constantly submit ourselves to the divine will
because that is what it means to be a human being.
Islam
does not teach that humanity fell from a perfect state and that
the effects of that fall are passed on to succeeding generations.
In other words, it does not ascribe to the notion of original sin
that characterizes many Christian denominations. According to the
Qur’an’s version of the events in the garden, humanity
disobeyed God, but that transgression did not lead to a change in
the human condition. The account in Qur’an 7:22-25 picks up
the story after Satan (not a serpent) has tricked the couple.
Their
Lord called out to them, saying, “Did I not forbid you to
approach the tree, and did I not warn you that Satan is a clear
enemy to you?” They said, “Our Lord, we have harmed
ourselves. If you do not forgive us and have mercy on us we shall
surely be among the lost.” He said, “Go! Some of you
will be enemies of each other. For a while, the earth will provide
you a dwelling and life’s necessities. There you shall live
and there you shall die, and from there you shall be brought out.”
The
outcome of this version is different than what we find in Genesis
3:14-19. In the Bible the couple is punished and they are told they
will die because of their disobedience. The Qur’an does not
present such a bleak picture of the aftermath. Adam and Eve are
the same people at the end of the text than they were at the beginning.
They are expelled from the garden, but God does not curse them and
it seems that mortality has always been part of their human condition
because they are not threatened with it in the Qur’an if they
eat of the tree.
In
the Muslim understanding, humans were created mortal with an innate
capacity to do good. The first couple was tricked into disobeying,
but that does not make them the first link in an unbroken chain
of human sinfulness. If a Muslim sins, it is his or her fault and
not the consequence of some primordial transgression. One of the
most drawn-out and contentious debates within the Muslim community
was that of free will vs. predestination. Are humans truly free
to make their own decisions, or are all acts predetermined by God?
Prominent intellectual heavyweights lined up on both sides of the
issue, but it was eventually decided that humans are free and responsible
for their own actions.
Islam’s
lack of belief in original sin means there is no preordained guilty
condition from which humanity must be “saved.” All
people are born good, and it is up to each of us to make the proper
choices as we exercise our free will. Muslims believe the surest
way to do this is to submit one’s own will to God’s
will as it is revealed to them through their religion.
Copyright
©2006 John Kaltner
John
Kaltner is a member of the Department of Religious Studies
at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee where he teaches courses
in Bible, Islam, and Arabic. Among his books are Islam:
What Non-Muslims Should Know (2003); Inquiring
of Joseph: Getting to Know a Biblical Character through the Qu’ran
(2003); Ishmael
Instructs Isaac: An Introduction to the Qur’an for Bible Readers
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier, 1999).
Excerpts
from What Do Our Neighbors Believe?: Questions and Answers on
Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Howard Greenstein, Kendra
Hotz, and John Kaltner are used by permission from Westminster John
Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. The book will be available for
purchase in December 2006.
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