Islam: The Principle Of Correct Human Devpt (13)

AS I pointed out clearly in the last article, Islam in its intention as a universal purpose of God for man is about the enlightened understanding of the meaning of morality, law justice, faith and love in the life of man. Jesus said something very similar to the religious leaders of His time who were into Judaism. He said they were much more concerned about religious traditions instead of concentrating on the weightier matters of the law such as justice, love and faith. He didn’t ask them to discard Judaism but He told them about the truth they should endeavour to bring out of it. 

  That truth Mohammed came to tell us much later that it is woven around the thorough understanding of the method of submitting to the will of God. He called it Islam. It is a method of the training of the human into the correct understanding of the principles of morality, law, justice, faith and love and how they are inter-related. Christianity came with its organised mode of worship and derailed this understanding. The mission of Mohammed in life was to re-direct the minds of people to the correct understanding of this teaching of Jesus by giving us a precise word —Islam, to focus our attention properly into its understanding. 

  Indeed what is going on in the world of religion today and for all times, is a great battle between the devil and God Almighty. God ultimately will win and the prediction of that is in the coming of the New Covenant. We had the old covenant and God did not deny the fact that He gave the world too, the old covenant. Covenants are about laws. The old covenant is believed to be the body of laws from God given to the forefathers of old — Abraham and Moses in particular. I had mentioned the fact that Islam properly understood will leave no one in doubt as to the fact that the operation of the universe itself is resting on that principle and practice as originally given to the children of Israel by God. In that respect, the old covenant in principle and practice as originally given to the children of Israel by God was to establish the training of the children of Israel into the process of always recognising the will of God in their lives. 

  You can see why Mohammed said Islam is the only religion before Allah. The Hebrews coined the word Judaism as a religion themselves. It was never the pronouncement of God. It was a cultural ideology. The turning of that covenant into a cultural ideology of religion killed the Islamic principle in it. The tradition of the ideology became more important than the understanding of the method of submission to the will of God and that was what made that covenant to begin to get old. Old in this sense actually means stale. In order to re-vivify it or rejuvenate it was what necessitated the arrival of Jesus on earth. Much as Jesus made Himself clear in this respect that He had not come to destroy whatever is known as Judaism but to rejuvenate and fulfill its basic truth, which means to make it new; that did not stop Christianity, which He didn’t found but which came after Him to revert His idea back to the old standardized ways of doing things. 

  The Islamic principle was once more fractured. Mohammed came along to vividly define the efforts of all the credible prophets before Him in one clearly understandable word — Islam. It was all in the effort of renewing what was becoming old or stale. As soon as He left this world, His effort was reverted back into humanity’s comfortable and indolent ways of doing things. Today, certainly the method of human beings to do things has certainly made the original covenant to become old. But God has assured us that what the original covenant is expected to achieve will appear in the new covenant. It is certainly still going to be about a method of the will of God in the ordering of human affairs and that is what my own book is all about – Islam In Its True Concept In The New Covenant. Islam will have its true understanding in what it means as the only religion before Allah.

Ayo-Vaughan, a psychologist, lives in Lagos 

babatund_2@yahoo.com