The Fate of the Faithful

Study Islam or speak frequently with a practicing Muslim, and you will become familiar with the phrase “In sha Allah”, which means “if God wills” (literally, “whatever happens is God’s will”).

Unlike Christians, Muslims do not worship a god they can really know. According to the Qur’an, Allah’s moral character is veiled in secrecy. He has 99 names, ranging from The Creator of Death to The Dishonorer. His demands must be obeyed, but his ways are beyond all understanding. As a result, Muslims have no assurance of Allah’s forgiveness—they cannot be certain if Allah’s ultimate use for their lives will be for good or evil.

Uncertainty about the will of Allah has consequences. Churchill and Patton, who both traveled in the Arabian Peninsula and saw Muslim lifestyles up close, wrote about the oppression of Muslim women, and the apathy engendered by the fatalistic doctrine of Islam. Churchill says that the concept of women as “property,” along with the idea of heaven as a 72 virgin paradise, degraded Arab culture and made Islam an odious form of slavery:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy…A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it." - The River War | Sir Winston Churchill

What 24-year-old Churchill observed in 1899 is true today, as is evident by the living conditions of women in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, France…the list goes on. General George Patton, a bold, brave and blunt man, made a connection between the quality of life in Muslim countries vs. the quality of life in Western countries that holds a lot of truth.

"It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing."

I believe that these men would agree that the phrase “it is God's will” is an inadequate response for the painful and degrading practices of female circumcision, child-brides,  wife-beating, and the imprisonment of purdah. It seems that the fate of the faithful is to always be uncertain about the intentions of Allah, and that is one of the most troubling aspects of Islam I have encountered thus far.

~carry on, pilgrim

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