IN ISLAM, OUR BODIES BELONG TO GOD

According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a Muslim savant, the term religion in Arabic comes from the word al-dayn, which means debt. We owe God for all the things we enjoy in this world and, most importantly, for our lives. As a result, Islam dictates that we dedicate our whole lives to the purpose of repaying that debt (Hossein 439).

In Islam, religion is not something we should do on a particular day of the week. It is not something we should attend to after or aside from all other activities or duties like work, politics, and family. Instead, it is a way of life. We must think and act with God in mind at all times (Hossein 439-440).

That all this seems a little overbearing is an understatement. Do not get me wrong. I am grateful to God for my life, for my family, and for the richness of this world; but I cannot live my life freely, if I have to remind myself constantly God made it possible. Moreover, freedom is the natural state of the human being. When we are born, our only tie is to our mother through the umbilical cord, and even that the attendant cuts off so that we may be free.

The truth is that God did not impose a debt on us. God brought us to this world in freedom. Life is a total gift, a gift with no strings attached. We should live our lives as we desire, as long as we take into account the rights of others. I say that as somebody who believes in God. Atheists and agnostics have the right to go beyond my statements to claim they never agreed to a life contract with God. After all, a debt is not a one-sided imposition. One party incurs a debt when he or she agrees to repay another party for goods or services rendered. If there is no contract, there is no debt.

In the Islamic spirit, Hossein Nasr writes:

Our bodies and our lives are not our own; they are God’s. We did not create either our bodies or our lives. They belong to God, and we must treat them with this truth in mind and with a sense of duty and responsibility in the light of God’s injunction as revealed in the Qur’ān and explained by the Prophet (Hossein 442).

On one hand, I disagree with Islam. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Our bodies are our bodies. God relinquished possession when Ert* made this world possible. On the other hand, I agree with Islam that human beings have duties and responsibilities, if we want to live the kind of lives that are conducive to the creation of great societies. Great societies embrace freedom, however, and that is the reason for my disagreement with Islam or with any religion that wants to impose its views on the rest of us.

According to my arguments in Ercian Testament - Part Two, neither the Qur’ān nor any other book contains the Word of the ultimate God. If we want to learn what duties and responsibilities are desirable, then we should engage in the free exchange of ideas through ethical communication. To do anything else is intellectually and morally irresponsible. Our first duty is to the mind God gave us, not to the mind of anybody who claims to be God’s messenger.

*Ert is God’s article. I use “Ert” instead of “He” or “She.” See Ercian Testament – Part Two, chapter 9, “Erc, Ellael, and I.”

Bibliography: Hossein Nasr, S. (1993). Islam. In Arvind Sharma (Ed.), Our Religions (pp 427-532). New York: Harper Collins Publishers.