Daily Times

Religion can be simply defined as an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods. There is one fundamental question that has baffled the man since his birth, revolving around his anxiety to know where did he come from, and where will he go after his death?

If a cogent answer to these questions could not be found, man’s existence on this earth becomes meaningless. Hence, it was the first fundamental concern of all great religions to give cogent answers to such questions to make Man’s creation and his journey through his life have a strong object and meaning under a well-thought-out plan.

Without such a plan, Man’s creation and his life on this earth would become completely meaningless. Thus, all great religions gave a sense and purpose to life and made Man’s existence a measure of honour, dignity, humility and charity to live peacefully with his fellow human beings. However, many people turn to religion for comfort in a time of crisis.

With the advancement of science and technology, it is generally believed that religious beliefs are on the decline. But based on demographics, migration and conversion of all great religions, the Pew Research Center in 2015 carried out a survey which far from showing a steep decline in religiosity predicted a modest increase in believers, from 84 percent of the world’s population today to 87 percent in February 2050. This indicates that despite many harmful effects of religion on human society, it is bound to stay.

History of Religions show that religions are born, grow and die – but we oddly remain blind to that reality. During the peak of these religions, their adherents believed that their faiths are there forever to stay, but history tells us that all religions over time are subject to change, with the evolution of cultural ideas and concepts. No religion forever remains in its original form and their transformation remainstheir constant features.

Great religions endure for centuries because they offer tangible benefits to their adherents.

It is man’s psychological need to believe in an entity that has to live forever. All the creations of God gradually die and it is He alone who is permanent. Hence it is Man’s primary urge to keep alive the concept of God. Voltaire, the 18th Century French polymath, who was otherwise a critic of religions, was compelled to write: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Thus he showed his perfectly sincere feeling that there was a genuine human urge to believe in the concept of God.

Great religions endure for centuries because they offer tangible benefits to their adherents. Christianity and Islam have only survived by their emphasis on honour, humility and charity. Christianity remained close to the hearts of its adherents because of its ethos of caring for the sick and the deprived. Islam, too, initially attracted its followers by highlighting the virtues of honour, humility and charity – qualities which were also the hall-marks of the Founder of Islam. Islam spread in many continents of the world because of its high emphasis on morality and extremely inspiring character of the Holy Prophet.

Despite the multiple benefits of religion, it also shares the blame for bringing much cruelty and bloodshed. For instance, Christianity became responsible for murdering tens of millions of people during the Crusades, and later shedding much blood during the persecution of Jews. There is another school of thought which absolves religions from causing so much bloodshed. It says that religions have been used as an excuse in history for other motivations. Even if one eliminated every religion from the earth, bloodshed would still be ever-present, because men are moved by their temptations of greed and power. The followers of religions cause bloodshed due to their personal or political motives, while religions in their pristine nature denounce the killings of fellow human beings.

The fundamentalism that has infected modern religions in general and Islam in particular like a virus has become extremely destructive to human life. Due to the recent growth of fundamentalist political parties in Pakistan, its followers perpetrate violence, attack people and institutions, set ablaze valuable property, commit willful murder of peaceful citizens, and shamefully resort to all acts of vandalism on the streets to disturb public peace. Brazen facedly, all this is done in the fair name of Islam and quite ironically to save the honour and dignity of our Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) whose instructions and teachings to his followers were opposed to such inhuman crimes against humanity. Pity, that these criminals are supposed believers of a creed that regards the murder of one single individual as the murder of the entire humanity. Religion is necessary because it helps us in creating an ethical framework to regulate good values in day to day life. In other words, Religion acts as an agency of socialization by building values like love, empathy, respect, and harmony.

To ascertain where religion is heading at present time, I deem it proper to keep my focus on the religion of Islam only which is our primary concern. The same factors would, more or less, also apply to all other organized religions.

In the context of Islam, there are presently three eminent living writers namely Karen Armstrong, and Lesley Hazleton (who have made substantial contribution on the development of present-day religions), while Yuval Noah Harari, a noted philosopher and historian, has explored human history from the earliest times to the 21st century with important discoveries. All three are great philosophers, historians and religious thinkers. Because of the constraints of space, I cannot refer to their works, but I will briefly describe in what manner they have contributed to the development of religion.

Karen Armstrong is a British author of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religions. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, with a special emphasis on Islam and the prophet of Allah whom she greatly admired and wrote three separate books highlighting his character and great achievements. She finally concludes that the main purpose of religion is to create compassion with fellow human beings, based on the Golden Rule which says, “Do unto others, as you wish them do unto you.”

Lesley Hazleton is a British-American author whose work focuses on the intersection and interactions between politics and religion. Professionally she has been a reputable journalist who in her later years, migrated to the US, and settled in her floating home in Seattle where she has devoted herself exclusively to Islamic research from sources. She shot into worldwide recognition when she wrote her classical book “After the Prophet: The Epic story of the Shia-Sunni Split.” The book is based on the most ancient accounts of Abu Jaffer Al-Tabra, a noted historiographer of the second century A.D from sources which had directly interacted with the Holy Prophet. Thus her book is the most authentic account of how the Shia-Sunni split occurred soon after the demise of the Holy Prophet. But Lesley’s real prominence was put on the Western electronic media through her un-forgettable TED talks in 2010 and 2013 highlighting in her inimitable style how the Prophet received his first revelation and whether his initial doubt was an an essential part of the faith, and some other matters throwing fresh light on the great character of the Prophet of Islam, which was also later included in her book “The First Muslim” (a biography of the Holy Prophet in which she presented Islam in a new light by removing many misunderstandings of critics of Islam).

An overview of the contributions of both these great writers and their fresh discoveries and outlook on the personality of the Holy Prophet and his legacy has been unveiled before the Western world in such superlative terms that appear to resurrect its decaying frame into a living faith of its former glory by removing the crust of misunderstandings gathered over several years of miscalculations by the Western world. This goes a long way in foretelling the strong impact Muslim religion will have on its present and future believers as also other religious thinkers anywhere around the world. But all this will be possible only if the Muslims are lifted from their present poverty and ignorance by the sheer force of Education. There is nothing wrong with the religion, which is bound to stay and grow with time.

Yuval Noah Harari (in his landmark treatise The Sapiens) writes that with the advancement of humanism and liberalism the traditional religions are making way for secularism and agnosticism. But with his deep insight into the history of religions, he does not spell doom for organized religions but thinks that the present trend of syncretism will rub-off superstitious myths and introduce new forms and dimensions acceptable to the modern man. He believes that humanism is sacred and more tolerant to organized religions than their followers. In course of time, a humanist will value human liberty and rights more deeply than the adherents of organized religions. Based on Liberal Humanism, Man would become more conscious of his rights and duties as a citizen, without forsaking the aims and objectives of the organized religions.

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service, and an author of Moments in Silence.