Karen Armstrong In Focus
Nazma Yeasmeen Haque is impressed by a life of Islam's founder
WHILE reading this book, I could hear the whispering of my intuition telling me that such a work most probably has not even been produced by someone subscribing to the faith of Islam. One is imbued with awe from the very beginning, that is, by reading the allusion that goes with the title of the book itself, till the end where the author upholds her conviction that the world in the 21st century is so full of turmoil and aggression that unless and until the Muslim and Western worlds strive to understand each other and act accordingly, the only planet we inhabit, which is one and the same for everybody, is very likely to crumble. She goes further and says, 'A good place to start is with the figure of Muhammad: a complex man, who resists facile, ideologically-driven categorization, who sometimes did things that were difficult or impossible for us to accept, but who had profound genius and founded a religion and cultural tradition that was not based on the sword but whose name - Islam - signified peace and reconciliation.' There cannot be a better appraisal of a person and his work. It has all been put so succinctly in so few words. And this makes Muhammad (peace be upon him) the greatest of all mortals who have traversed this earth and will yet traverse. The connotation of the word Islam, meaning surrender to Allah rather than following a particular faith, has been pronounced in a most unambiguous manner that echoes through the whole book. It is a compendium that is stashed with facts and events in their historical, sociological, political and geographical details, drawing serious readers' attention to the multitudinous internecine conflicts both inter- and intra-tribe, ever present suspicions that are virulent in nature and threat of a fierce battle about to erupt any time among the inhabitants of every hue. Against this backdrop of a very long and complex subject, Karen Armstrong, an extraordinarily diligent writer, recreates Arabia from the time before the birth of Muhammad (pbuh) to the felt need of an exemplar like him whose aim is 'peace and practical compassion,' the crying need of the 21st century. No wonder the author sub-titles her book as Prophet For Our Time. The point that Armstrong drives home is Muhammad (pbuh) has been thoroughly and willfully misunderstood and vilified by the Western world. She dwells at length on the implication of the word Jahiliyyah as she does with a number of other words in Arabic in order to convey their correct meanings, that is, etymologically. Thus, the exact meaning of jahiliyyah is not 'time of ignorance'. 'Recent research shows, Muhammad (pbuh) used the term jahilliyyah to refer not to an historical era but to a state of mind that caused violence and terror in seventh-century Arabia.' Armstrong goes further and makes a rather bold assertion when she says, 'Jahiliyyah, I would argue, is also much in evidence in the West today as well as in the Muslim world.' Muhammad (pbuh) emerges as a great social reformer who struggled 'to change people's hearts and minds', for realizing which he waged a relentless struggle -- a jihad, as is the correct meaning of the word that has been entirely abused in the present day by extremists in the Muslim world. It is as if jihad means holy war. Rather it connotes an 'effort or struggle necessary to put the will of God into practice' on all fronts, that is, intellectual, social, economic, spiritual and domestic. The author quotes an utterance of Muhammad (pbuh), made when the prophet along with his men was coming back home from Badr: 'We are returning from Lesser Jihad (the battle) and going to the Greater Jihad.' This carries serious implications. It is only the beginning of a far more difficult struggle waged with the aim of reforming their own society and their own hearts. At this stage one wonders if those who use the rhetoric and practice of jihad nowadays have ever gone through the teachings of the prophet in this regard. Moreover, the didactics inherent in this precept serve as a strong reminder to us in Bangladesh of the necessity of cleansing our hearts in order to make any effort to reform our society, one that is coming apart at the seams. Thoroughness and clarity of ideas, philosophies, a keen sense of historiography, comparative analyses of teachings and practices of different religions, particularly those of the Abrahamic family, bear ample evidence of erudition, expertise and incisiveness in the thought process of the author. A. N. Wilson, the British writer, pays her the ultimate tribute. 'Karen Armstrong is a genius', says he. Of the five chapters, all of which are equally comprehensive in terms of content, the one on jahiliyyah is especially remarkable for being a thoroughly analytic discourse on the holy Qur'an, its language, expressions, mode of recitation, effect of the verses as one hears them and, on top of everything, how to hear when one hears someone recite. In other words, listeners are to be trained as well to absorb the teachings of the Qur'an, for they help them 'to slow down their mental processes and enter a different mode of consciousness.' The author corroborates it by quoting Michael Sells, an American scholar who describes the cool effect of Qur'anic recitations when played on cassette in a hot, crowded bus in Egypt. The recitations transform tired and restless people into relaxed souls. 'A meditative calm begins to set in.' In a masterly way, Armstrong explains the exercise of breathing and its control and draws a parallel to the breathing of the Yogins 'who have found that it brings a feeling of expansiveness, comparable to the music...' Here the therapeutic effect of breathing on the part of the audience is stressed alongside. There is much more to marvel at in this chapter when the author explains that in the invocation, 'In the name of Allah, the compassionate (al-Rahman) and the Merciful (al-Rahim) are not only grammatically feminine but related etymologically to the word for womb.' She qualifies it further, saying that in nearly all the earlier revelations, 'a partially personified female figure' was perceived to be central. And at this point the author infers that this fact 'may explain why women were among the first to respond to the message of the Qur'an.' Perhaps the high reverential status of a mother in Islam accrues from this perception as well. Armstrong's very objective study of the Prophet, his work and achievements is a grand way of paying homage to him, revealing as it does the person in his totality in a multi -dimensional way. A hitherto less familiar Muhammad (pbuh) is presented to us who in spite of his daily struggles in a volatile environment remained a very natural person. He would take his wives even on military expeditions and refresh himself by challenging his beloved wife, Ayesha, to a foot race and similar other fun-filled exercises. All these draw us much closer to him than ever before. As a reader of this book, I feel extremely indebted to the author, who comes from a different faith and has been a nun in a Roman catholic order for seven long years, for her espousal of inter-faith understanding through an ardous task. The result is indeed a magnum opus. Khushwant Singh's recommendation to read this book is duly acknowledged.
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