Posted on June 17, 2014 by shantanup
I wrote a tweet today as follows: A Muslim can never be truly British because He is Allah’s and Quran’s servant which means dismantling British values. It has answered a long standing question in my mind as to whether the God I came into contact with is the same as the one that Muslims worship by the name of Allah.
The fact that for the past month my God has left me alone to discover my own path in life and make my own mistakes and judgments after a long history of close association with me shows to me that I am not to live like His servant as Muslims are brought up to do with respect to Allah. This is sufficient reason for me to now make the judgement that the God I have come to know is not the one that Muslims call Allah. I have never sought to dismantle British values a lot of which I find endearing, like politeness, alcohol-based relaxation, democratic law making, freedom of expression (within limits), patriotism in the form of nationalism, etc. Further, going to paradise (heaven) or going to hell was never a consideration in the guidance that I received from God, nor did God permit the abuse of women in terms of their right to the same freedoms that men enjoy in their daily activities. Above all, the God I knew emphasised the need to adhere to truth discovery and exposure, not to live life according to a so-called prophet’s or messenger’s vision or imagination as prescription. All He was interested in is proving to me that He exists, and in doing so he was only responding to my intense search for the truth about life and God. As far as ethics of living was concerned he left me to find my own truths to believe what I would from my personal studies. Whilst He was with me at no point did I have an urge or inclination to follow the tenets of Islam (I have never read the Quran) even though I seriously wondered whether my God had facilitated the aeroplane bombings of New York Twin Towers (the World Trade Centre) in what is known as the 9/11 event of history as a punishment on America for the way it operated around the world with impunity. This is to say that God can and does intervene in human affairs violently as well as peacefully but just because it was Islamic terrorists who had perpetrated the 9/11 attack on America it does not imply that God upholds Islam as the best way of living.
My analysis of God’s role in human affairs comes from believing that nothing happens on Earth without God’s knowledge and approval so that a scholars job is to simply rationalise the major events of history in that light. This is because God is hidden inside each and every one of us and so can make us do things for ourselves in life. By that reasoning one has to accept that the culture of Islam is part of the creation that He has allowed possibly to make life interesting for us humans to ponder over the fact that there are human beings who can live in that way. However, the religion of Islam is not for me for I am a truth accommodationist, a free-living Hindu, who cannot subscribe to a life of service to a written religion that takes away a person’s freedom to think and acquire knowledge from basic facts. And because God has come to me, I have to deduce from that fact that this must be the ideal way of living that has His blessing, not living to Islam according to Allah as revealed to Mohammad in Arabia 14 centuries ago or to live according the Bible or follow Buddha’s recipe for that matter. In India we Hindus are taught differently on how to live along the truth path on which dharma (duties and righteous actions) are based: God has reinforced that upbringing of mine and fine-tuned it in my late adult life in this relentless truth-search that I have undertaken which has led to this deciphering of the relationship between man and God.
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