In these chapters, we delve into an area that I do not know much about. Again, I know the general idea, but I do not know great detail of the creation of the religion of Islam.
What I found interesting was that the idea of coexistence appears very early in the history of Jerusalem. "Muhammad had not expected Jews or Christians to convert to Islam unless they especially wished to do so, because he believed that they had received valid revelations of their own" (227). If this idea shows up in the early history of this city, why is it that in present day we can't accept that other religions exist and that they have right to be there?
I don't think there is any validity in denying that the Jews were present in the land of Israel first. The Jews many have struggled and were exiled many a time by many different groups of people, but in the long run their presence is the oldest. If we were in kindergarden, we would be hung up on the idea of "first come first serve", or "finder's keepers". However, with the occupation of Jerusalem being so ambiguous throughout history, I think that multiple groups have claim on the land. And when I say groups, I don't necessarily mean just the Jews and the Palestinians. What keeps the Greeks from coming in and saying "this is our land as much as it is yours"? Has it come down to that the two groups that are fighting for it place greater emphasis on the idea of sacred space and that we want that sacred space to be where it actually was in history?
As I see it, the religion of Islam felt out of the loop. As a religion, they did not have a monument to identify with. For some reason, they chose the sight of the temple of the Jews to build their sacred monument on. I wonder why. Why is it that they chose to build it there? There are so many other places to build it. I think about it like this. Had the Muslims chosen to build even just a little bit to the left, the Jews could have their holy space and the Muslims could have their holy space. There could be a clear cut line drawn, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could be solved in a pinch.
There was one point that I highly disagreed with. I disagreed with the idea that Abraham was not a Jew or a Christian, but a Muslim. In the time that Abraham lived, there was no such thing as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Abraham can be accredited with the contribution to the creation of all three of them, however Abraham was commanded to become circumcised, therefore making him a Jew. His offspring may have gone their separate ways, but I strongly believe that if Abraham were to be defined as one of the three that he would be a Jew.
Another thing that was mentioned in these chapters is the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I really don't know much about them, but I would really like to learn more about them in the future, because I think the idea of them is really intriguing.
Tonight is the second night of Passover, so I have been immersed in the idea of freedom and pilgrimage to the land of Israel. To those who celebrate, !חג שמח
The point Armstrong was making about Abraham being a muslim (note the lower-case "m") is that in Islam, the first and foremost thing is to recognize and honor the existence of God as one and indivisible. The thing that comes right after that is the submission to God. Everything else follows from those two things, and so it's pretty simple to be a Believer and a muslim. And that's how Abraham is seen--not as a "capital-M" Muslim in the sense of the community of Believers that formed around Muhammad, but as a "small-m" muslim who submitted to God's will.
ReplyDeleteSince there was no scripture, simply Abraham following God's will, he was neither Jew nor Christian nor ("capital-M") Muslim: he was a "small-m" muslim, and early Islam sought to return to that simplicity of worship.
Regarding circumcision, that was mitzvoth as part of the Covenant, which came long after Abraham, right? So if Abraham was circumcised, that predated the Covenant and the creation of Israel (as a nation, as the Chosen People), and therefore wasn't part of his identity. I think.
This gets messy when one tries to define what a "Jew" is, or who was the first Jew. Because isn't it that one's mother has to be a Jew for one to be a Jew themselves? Outside of conversion, that is. I think Armstrong goes to great length to separate out different streams of thought within the religious traditions that can be categorized as "Judaic" when she refers to them as "the cult of Zion" or "the Yahwihsts," etc. I think exactly what she's doing is problematizing the notion that a Jew today is equivalent to a Jew 2000+ years ago, that Judaism isn't static and never was.
I think the importance here is that it's hard enough to define the spiritual identity of a figure held dear in all three religious traditions, and if there are contesting "claims" to something as cloudy as Abraham's religious identity, no wonder it's so difficult to sort out contesting claims to something as tangible as territory!