Ernsts Following Muhammad and Siddiquis How to Read the Quran - Essay Example

Comparative Book Review Introduction An in writing a book, decides on a particular then goes about digging for information to jot down in their writing as they seek to present their readers with as much information as they can find. In the search for information as well as in their writing, they may find different sources of information. This translates to the fact that if two or more authors decide to write about a common subject or topic, the different sources of information and other variables such as their points of view mean they end up with different writings. In their complete writings, similarities and differences will emerge although the topic or subject is similar. To evaluate on this occurrence, the following study will conduct a literature review on two religious texts; Carl Ernst’s Following Muhammad, and Mona Siddiqui’s How to Read the Qur’an. Within it, the similarities and differences as appearing in the expression of religion’s understanding and themes will be highlighted. Ernst’s book, Following Muhammad is created from a Muslim perspective. This is the same with Siddiqui’s How to Read the Quran book. Ernst’s perspective takes to explaining the spirituality of Islam’s resources by elaborating on controversies and diversity within Islam. The central rib of his arguments is focused on the effects that anti-Islam prejudices and Protestantism have inflicted on the religion. Issues such as religion, the new world order, veiling and gender are expounded upon as an understanding of religions is sought. Additionally, the importance of Islam is explained in both the contemporary and traditional settings. On the other hand, Siddiqui’s perspective takes on Islam’s holy book, the Quran. She explains the importance of the Quran to Muslims, which includes understanding God more, and as an assistant to praying. Similar to Ernst, she explores the conjunction between the Islamic and non-Islamic world. In her book, important themes such as salvation, sin, teachings of the Quran, law, and prophecy are featured. The authors Ernst and Siddiqui discuss relatively the same thing in their books. Collectively, their idea is to “bisect” into the Muslim world and define it clearly to the world, and particularly non-Muslims who seem to wrongly perceive of the religion. In his book, Ernst provides a century-long standoff between Muslims and the Western world in which he reveals that the two have always been suspicious of each other. However, the reality broke surface after 9/11. Ever since, the West no longer tells a difference between Arabs, Muslims, and Terrorism. Ernst states that these three mentalities have not only affected all non-Muslims the world over, but it is also affecting the way Muslims perceive of themselves today. Ernst provides examples of how negatively-created Muslim perceptions are, for instance “…Muir entertained the suggestion that Muhammad was inspired by the devil… that Muhammad’s prophetic experiences were caused by Epilepsy” (Ernst 22). Siddiqui also seeks to defend the existence and “normalization” of the Muslim fraternity. In How to Read the Quran, she goes into in-depth evaluation on the teachings of the Quran and seeks to clear the misconceptions which emerge from non-Muslim’s misunderstanding of the holy book. Generally, her subject is to portray the Quran as a book which guides Muslims towards God, and that Muslims should not be considered any inferior, or as frightening in any way. Siddiqui explains phenomenon such as Jihad and how such occurrences have led to the blacklisting of the entire religion as terrorists. These two books are the same in subject because both address the problems faced by Muslims in the recent decades. In light of these, they strive to clear the mysteries so that Muslims can live freely, away from suppression. There are overly interesting things to learn in both books. In Following Muhammad, the topic of how the Israel-Arab conflict came into being is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking revelations. Ernst comes clean on the matter, stating that Jerusalem was once a Christian stronghold, but they had moved long ago upon which the Palestinians moved in. There was no conflict at this time. However around 1905, one Theodore Herzl inspired the Zionist movement comprised of (Christian) Jews to return to “their homeland”. This resulted in mass displacement of the Arabs (Palestinians). Ever since, anti-Muslim nations support Israel while Muslim states support Palestine, thus the ensuing, never-ending war in the Gaza Strip (Ernst 24). In Mona’s book, the discussion of Jihad is an equally interesting subject. Before reading the book, most readers will always have this perception that Jihad means bombing embassies, killing non-Muslims, inflicting caliphates and embarking on mass killings. That is the mentality of the word today. Conversely, Siddiqui (85) reveals that Jihad simply means to fight or struggle towards Allah’s will of righteousness. The interesting fact here is that Jihad is actually an important duty to the Muslims, but is does not at any one point support violence against anyone. The extremist Jihad of suicide bombers and killings is simply a misguided context of Muslims. These two discoveries add a lot of important knowledge towards achievement of the authors’ objectives. One reason why these literatures are readable and very attractive to the reader is that the authors have organized the readings such that they create an interest of reading deeper. The inclusion of interesting topics such as the Israeli-Palestine conflict and the true meaning of Jihad are just a tip of the iceberg. Siddiqui’s book provides a background of the Quran by evaluating its teachings of adherence to God’s will. This creates an interest, especially to non-Muslims in that, contrary to previous belief, the Quran is different from the Bible and preaches hate against non-Muslims. In revealing of the Quran’s genuine intent and context, a reader is bound to keep reading to know more about gender, law, prophecy, salvation, and God, all of which are stated in the Quran. In addition, comparing the Quran’s teaching to the Bible reveals multiple connections, and this adds up as an attractive tactic by Siddiqui. Borrowing a leaf from Siddiqui, Ernst’s Following Muhammad is as attractive and interesting. In my opinion, the connection between 9/11 and the parity between the Muslim world and the West which provides the introduction to the book is a sure way of capturing the readers’ attention. Ernst not only provides a dramatic introduction, but gradually juxtaposes his main objective into the literature such that the reader I well-informed about what is going on, and where it came from. In his preface for instance, Ernst reveals how this very literature could not be published immediately after 9/11 since it was promoting Islam while justifying extremism and radicalism such as Jihad. By providing real-time evidence to his subject, the reader is automatically interested in learning more about what had caused such, and how it reflected on the suppression of Islam in the contemporary times. As earlier stated, Following Muhammad and Reading the Quran share a common thesis base; seeking to save Islam from the negative attribution it has been branded. The evidence provided in the two texts is sufficient and credible to the extent that it leaves the reader with no choice but to agree with the theses. Personal experiences, social injustices, western brainwash, holy readings, and explanations of some of the biggest dividing misconceptions make up this list. “…The essence of a religious belief cannot be grasped by simply observing ritual practice… This is particularly true of Islam, where faith is presented as a process of surrender to faith and doing good” (Siddiqui 57). This quote from Siddiqui’s book is an example of the Quran’s calling for believers to not adhere to purely rituals, but to the main aim of doing God’s good. This supports the thesis in two ways; first, it is against rituals such as violent Jihad and/or radicalism. Second, it supports the fact that Islam is not about war, but peace with both Muslims and non-Muslims. Ernst also supports the thesis by providing information on matters such as the bias of the U.S. in resolving conflicts in which Muslims are involved in which case it is usually against. Additionally, the cause of the Gaza conflict and being barred from printing his book suggest that indeed, the Muslims are marginalized in a large way. God is portrayed as a common factor between Muslims and all other religions. This is evident in both literatures. Since God is the center of all religions, the authors seek to portray Him as the same Supernatural being to which all living beings should worship and adhere to. The possible idea of the authors is to bring all religions to a common ground so that they can focus on genuine religion rather than misleading conceptions created by time. Siddiqui furthers this by stating, “If God is mine, he is also yours” (87). Such writings imply that in as much as religions may differ, the only one supreme God is known and because of that, He should be a unifying factor. Ernst (15) adds that Muslims recognize Jesus and Muhammad as prophets of the Almighty God. It is true that Muslims do not regard Jesus as God’s son because God could not reproduce with a human being, but that does not lead the Muslims into cursing Jesus. In short, recognizing Jesus and Muhammad as prophets of God means that all religions pay reverence to one God and for that, religion should not be divisive as is the case today. Apart from God, sin is also a major theme discussed in the two literatures. Collectively, Ernst and Siddiqui imply that sin is any wrong committed against God’s will. Bearing in mind that God’s will is noted in Holy Books, not adhering to the teachings is sin, and these include injustice to others, as well as blasphemy. In the Quran, sin is defined as incorrect behavior, and is not allowed since it denies one the right belief which is the only path through which one can acquire salvation (Siddiqui 89). One segment of this statement implies that any kind of act done against the Holy Books, or against another human being is sin. Second, and from a Muslim perspective, it calls for “fighting” sin. This explains why some Muslims will demand for their rights or inflict laws which seek to defend their teachings. Sin has become part of human society today and this explains one reason why human decisions are bearing negative effects. Ernst (134) feels that the acts of the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are not violent groups, but are social organizations criticizing sin brought about by their governments. Concisely, sin is portrayed as the cause of all deterioration of human existence. The final theme as shared by the books is gender. Gender is one of the major causes of controversy towards Islam by non-Muslims. The general attribution is that in Islam, the women have no voice, and should always be subordinate to men. However, Siddiqui’s book seeks to unravel this mystery. She states that women are allowed to participate in all activities as men. The difference, she says, emerges in that the roles are assigned differently. To support that Islam does not look down on its women, she writes that, “Muhammad was sympathetic and generous towards women” (Siddiqui 60). This suggests that the true men of Islam should follow suit, and oppressing women is wrong. The New Testament in the Bible defends the rights of women by calling for equality, and this makes the two religions similar in yet another factor (Ernst 143). It is therefore sufficient to say that gender is a sword cutting both ways in the two parities, and that is one reason why the authors had to major on it as a theme. The two authors are seeking to alienate Islam from the evil shell it has been enclosed it. They however tackle the issue from different approaches. Reading the Quran applies a more religious standpoint in which the teachings of the Quran are explained and related to everyday matters. Siddiqui thought that the Quran was not understood well and therefore used direct reference to the Book in explaining what is exactly demanded of from it. On the other hand, Ernst selected instances in life where Islam has been misquoted, misinterpreted, or mistreated. He then compared these things happening to Muslims as they apply to other religions. For instance, he felt that it was unfair of Christians to look down on Muhammad as just a human being when the Muslims recognize and respect Jesus as a prophet of God. The authors presented similar approaches by contrasting the Muslim and non-Muslim world, as well as regularly referring to the Holy Books in support of their points. On average, the authors attained their objectives of defining true Islam and revealing the torment it has been experiencing. To them, they feel that a need to redefine the perspective at which the world looks at Islam and this can be achieved by destroying the blasphemous conceptions which have been maliciously created. Again, they feel that these injustices towards Islam exist just because Islam is not well understood. In a nutshell, the books are excellent reads which should be recommendable to any reader interested in religious controversies, or the standoff between the Arab East and the White West. Conclusion This review justifies that indeed; authors may focus on a common topic or subject and apply different approaches in arriving at the objective (intent). The issue of Islam’s suffering has been approached from different angles by Ernst and Siddiqui. This did not however create any differences in terms of objectives, evidence, themes, and presentation of their text. In the review, the two books are evidently calling for the same course although different approaches have been applied. The different approaches pass the message of redefining Islam differently in that each approach will convince an audience of its own depending on their preferences of reception. Works Cited Earnst, Carl. Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2004. Print. Siddiqui, Mona. How to Read the Qur’an. W.W. Norton & Co., 2008. Print. Read More