Presbyopic Myopia
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Idolatry?
Most religions have something to say about idolatry - and it's not something good. Generally, they condemn the worship of something that's not deity. The Abrahamic religions take a particularly strong position against idolatry. Perhaps, that's because monotheism's primary (some might say only) belief is that there is one God. One God and only one God. God has no equal, plain and simple. Any attempt to make images of God blasphemes the religion. Judaism and Islam are especially rooted in this position. Christianity, of course, is monotheistic, but worship of Jesus Christ adds a little softening to radical monotheism.
Islam's beginning was a critique of Christianity's erring path away from true monotheism. Islam holds that God has no equal, period. Any attempt to put something on a par with God is shirk. Shirk comes into being when the faithful fail to uphold tawhid. Which brings me to the point of this post. Is the rioting and unrest across the Muslim world in protest of the desecration of the Quran idolatry? The facts of the Newsweek story about interrogators at the U.S. base in Guantanamo having desecrated the Quran now fall into question. But, whether the report is true or false, the fact remains that Muslims went on rampages, incited by their Imams in some instances, because of the reported desecration of the Quran. Many press photos show protesters carrying Qurans above their heads, as if the book itself were worthy of worship.
Doesn't that amount to idolatry? Doesn't what they did add up to idolatry? If nothing can be on a par with God, then not even the revelation that God gave to Mohammad can be. I am not a Muslim, but I disapprove of idolatry as much as they do. I feel I'm pretty good at spotting idolatry when it comes into my view, no matter the source. I would appreciate knowing how this veneration of the Quran is not idolatry, if someone would kindly tell me. After all, Allahu Akhbar says God is Great. It mentions nothing else.
Comments:
I was actually having this discussion with a coworker about the bible. My coworker believes in the bible as the literal word of god, much as most Muslims believe about the Koran. I actually used the distinction between Islam and Christianity to support a more nuanced reading of the Bible. But all that said, I think it is a little ingenuine to be complaining about whether or not it is idolatry to be rioting in the streets when a foreign power is torturing your countrymen and desecrating your religious artifacts. The question I have is whether or not it is profanation to not be rioting in the street when it is our country doing the torture and desecration.
Disingenious or not, the facts are that what they are doing appears to be one of the most serious sins in their religion. Those people that died in the rioting weren't American infidels, they were fellow Afghans and probably Muslims. What's happening over there is much like the mimetic violence that Rene Girard speaks about.
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