Islam: is it a religion of peace? a religion of war? a religion at all?
The mullahs will tell you that Islam is a perfect religion which consists of the Quran and what they call the sunnah. But this is an assumed conclusion and not one which finds support in the Quran.
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One of my backgrounds is as a linguist, and as a
linguist, when you study languages, you acquire a certain sensitivity to
the mechanics of words and the mechanics of language. When I first
became alive to this particular question, not actually as regards to the
word Islam but as regards the word "salat," because such an almost
cultic fuss is made about the word "salat." As part of my analysis of
the word "salat," which you can find in the appendix section of my
translation of the Quran, which you can download in its entirety for
free using the button in the top right hand corner of the site, I began
in my study of the word "salat," and I'll come back to the word of Islam
in a moment because there's a correlation. As I was investigating what the word "salat" means and I came across one of the first instances of that word in al-Baqarah, which is: and make use of "sabr" and "salat."
Now, what's interesting in this case, is that you have one verb taking
two objects. One object is "sabr" and the other object is "salat." Now,
it's an interesting feature of language that there are such things as
abstract nouns, common nouns, and proper nouns. Now, it's very difficult
to use, in fact I would suggest impossible to use the same verb in a
meaningful and natural way to take two objects, if both those objects
are of a different nature. So, let's start with an abstract noun. And
this is really my point, we need to be clear what we're talking about.
Are we talking about abstract nouns, are we talking about proper nouns,
or are we talking about common nouns? So, let's take an abstract noun.
We all agree, at least in my experience, and I have heard some pretty
incredible assertions coming from traditionalist Muslims, but to date,
anyway, nobody has yet claimed that they do not know how to have
patience because they haven't had it explained to them from some other
source. If I say to you, have patience, or he has patience, be patient,
we all know what this means. Patience is an abstract noun. However, a
Big Mac is not an abstract noun. It's a concrete noun. It's not
possible, really, to connect patience and a Big Mac using one verb. You
can't eat patience, you can eat a Big Mac but you can't eat patience.
Whereas a Big Mac and fries, you could use one verb for those two
because they're of the same type. Whereas patience and hope, or patience
and love, can serve as the objects of the same verb. Why, because they
are of the same linguistic stuff. Now, to go back to the word Islam, the
assumption a little bit in the question is that this thing, Islam, is a
proper noun. It's an actual thing, like Mount Everest or Fido the dog.
It's something with a name that has set characteristics. And the
question rather presupposes that I might know or at least I should guess
at what those characteristics may or may not be. But my answer is that
the noun is of a different type, it's an abstract noun. It simply means
submission, and that's all it means. So, if I say have patience, now for
one man to have patience, it may be that he will grit his teeth and
clench his fists and tense his muscles and bear with fortitude whatever
it is he's experiencing. Because in the circumstances, that is what
having patience is for him, that's his way of having patience. But
that's a very different thing to saying that's what patience is. Now,
for another person, having patience, he may be running a marathon. So if
he were to do the same thing in those circumstances he wouldn't be
having patience, he would be having a seizure. For me, in my
understanding, the word Islam simply means submission to God.
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See: "VIRTUE MADE SIMPLE IN THE QURAN: what you need to do to live a godly life in one verse – 2:177"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ7-GXnl_JM
