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ASSA LAMU ALAY KUM
PEACE BE UNTO YOU ALL
When conducting a service for Unitarians I often start with these words: -
“ We believe in a community which shall unite people, not in the bonds of Confucian, or Jewish, or Christian, or Muslim love, but in the holier bonds of human love.”
Slightly adapted from Alfred W Martin
Later in the service I sometimes use the words of a short prayer by Muhammad but you must forgive me if the translation is incorrect.
“O Lord, grant us to love Thee,
Grant that we may love those that love thee,
Grant that we may do the deeds that win thy love.”
Those two quotations describe your generosity in welcoming us here today.
Firstly then, thank you for inviting me to speak, the more we share our ideas in a spirit of tolerance the better the world will be. Our own Unitarian congregation in Oxford was delighted some weeks ago to hear Dr Taj Hargey speak to us of Islam and of our common heritage going back to people like Abraham and then on to Jesus and Muhammad. His plea is my plea – that we should look at the basic teachings from the founders of our faiths and follow them. In words that come in slightly varied forms from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, “Love God/ Allah and your neighbour as yourself.” As a member of our chapel emailed me on Wednesday, “Why does the thought of people trying to be happy together cause some to explode with rage?
Secondly let me briefly mention how I came to have a great affection for Islam of the kind that you follow in this place. At the age of nineteen I was on National Service as a musician in the British Army and we were in Cyprus. A group of Muslims from Pakistan ran the canteen and gift shop. One night I went for a cup of tea and planned to read this book from an American Unitarian. (“Together we advance”). On the dedication page are words from Thomas Jefferson, “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation.” The man serving me tea asked me about my faith and in return I asked him about Islam of which I knew nothing. Now the man was not an academic but he gave me a brief outline of your faith and here it is in his words as I wrote them on a blank page at the back of my book: -
GOD-ALLAH
MUHAMMAD the last great prophet
Declaration of Belief: Repitition of the word God is most great. Use of the Qur'an
Prayer: Five times daily, Friday in the Mosque
Pilgrimage: To Makka
Zarat: Tithing for the poor and needy
Fasting: Ramadan, creates sympathy for the hungry
Following that outline another Muslim invited me to attend the mosque with him on Friday and we went to the mosque in Limassol. The visit impressed me greatly and gave me some insight into your faith. Years later the young Muslim Mukarram Khan settled in Aylesbury and regularly sent me a Christmas card and I sent him greetings at the end of Ramadan. When he moved to Blackpool we lost touch with each other but he was a man in the true spirit of Islam.
My next example of a kindly deed from a Muslim came a year later when our band was in a camp at Tarhuna near Tripoli in North Africa. As I walked back to camp an elderly Arab was crouched over a fire making some tea and I stopped to watch him and smiled. He smiled back and offered me a small cup with tea; I drank the tea just as an officer was returning. The officer spoke and told me not to fraternize with Arabs. My reply was that I welcomed acts of kindness and he could charge me with misconduct if he wished to but I heard no more. I am absolutely certain that both Jesus and Muhammad would approve of those kindly acts done in the true spirit of Islam. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’”
Now I move to the Unitarian Concept of Monotheism. Monotheism is simply the doctrine that there is only one God. Amongst the major faiths this includes Judaism, Christianity and Islam. My brief today is to look at why the Unitarian view within Christianity differs from the orthodox view. Orthodox Christians believe in the Trinity, the Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit constituting one God. As a hymn of my orthodox childhood put it, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” Such a view claims that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, specially chosen to die on the cross and resurrected. That plan of God’s is seen to be an action to redeem humanity and so Jesus is seen by many Christians to be the one Saviour for the world. This outlook led to many Christian missionaries going abroad to convert people. This is not to attack such missionaries, many of them did good work but it does explain why they felt the need to convert people, they wanted to save them through what they saw as the one true faith.
We must now ask, “Is that kind of belief in the true spirit of Jesus of Nazareth?” Whilst the idea might be comforting to millions it is not the Unitarian view and I doubt if it was the view of his early followers. The broad view of Unitarians is that Jesus remained a Jew all his life and wanted to reform some of the legalistic aspects of his faith then open the faith to people like the Greeks and Romans. We see Jesus in the line of the great prophets and teachers, as one who tried to unite people, rather like Muhammad united many tribes.
Jesus saw God as the father/mother of humanity and taught that life should be lived according to God’s law. As an exercise I once tried to outline the teachings of Jesus on a postcard and from memory I wrote down, “Prophet and Teacher, story teller, especially in the form of Parables like The Good Samaritan, The Widows’ Mite, The Sower of Seed, The feeding of the Five thousand, Martha and Mary, The Pharisee and the Publican.” Then I wrote, “A great ethical Teacher, The two great commandments, Love thy God and thy neighbour as thyself, The Sermon on the Mount.” My postcard ended with a description of Jesus as one who treated people as human beings, as children of God. It seemed to me that all else was commentary and the view of later individual writers of the Christian Scriptures. The first three of the Christian Scriptures, Matthew, Mark and Luke are probably the closest we get to the actual teachings of Jesus and Mark (still thought to be the earliest Gospel) doesn’t even mention a miraculous birth. The treasured mythical Christmas stories come from Matthew and Luke and stem from much older stories of miraculous births.
Later writers and thinkers claimed many things for Jesus – that he was part of a holy trinity, that he wanted to convert the whole world, that only he had the truth. It was not until 325 AD (in the Christian calendar) that a Council gathered at Nicaea for a great debate. The Council was called by Emperor Constantine to deal with the Arian controversy. Arius was a Christian who believed that Jesus was subordinate to God, more than man but less than God. Athanasius championed the idea of a Trinity and he won the debate with Arius being banished.
When I looked recently at the definition of the Trinity in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, it began by stating, “This doctrine is held to be a mystery in the strict sense. It was challenged in the 17th century by Socinianism and Unitarianism.” I don’t want to bore you with Unitarian history but as a denomination we were only really organised in the 16th and 17th centuries yet throughout the history of Christianity there has always been a few people who challenged orthodoxy and felt that monotheism meant simply one god and many prophets.
This all leads me to ask what Muslims and Unitarians have in common?
Firstly the thought of one God.
Secondly the thought of many prophets including Jesus and Muhammad because although we are rooted in the Jewish/Christian tradition we welcome insights from many faiths.
Thirdly a belief that the world needs good ethical codes.
Fourthly that people need a strong sense of community whether it is within a synagogue, temple, church or mosque.
Fifthly I believe that we both have the thought of eternity and that what we do today will affect generations yet unborn, including the beautiful baby that is with us today.
I am grateful for an article “Jesus (Peace be upon him) in Islam” sent out by the Oxford Islam and Muslim Awareness project which begins: - “According to the text of the Qur’an, a Muslim cannot be a Muslim if he rejects Jesus (peace be upon him); and Jesus is regarded as one of the five greatest prophets of history, the others being Noah, Moses, Abraham and Muhammad (peace be upon them all).”
If only the great monotheistic religions could value each other’s prophets and their essential teachings then the world would be a happier place. Peace be upon all our prophets.
Let me leave you with this prayer from Abu Bakr the father in law of Muhammad, a prayer which I have used in Unitarian services.
“I thank you Lord for knowing me better than I know myself
And for letting me know myself better than others know me.
Make me, I ask You then, better than they suppose
And forgive me for what they do not know.”
Friends, thank you so much for inviting me here.
ASSA LAMU ALAY KUM
PEACE BE UNTO YOU ALL.