From: d89-gsk@nada.kth.se (Gani Skepi)
Subject: Re: In the proper spirit
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:55:27 GMT


In article <765368d8166206t289@witsend.uucp>, "D. C. Sessions" <dcs@witsend.tnet.com> writes:
|> In <1993Jan19.143528.8746@kth.se>, d89-gsk@nada.kth.se (Gani Skepi)  wrote:
|> # Fulfill can mean different things. It can mean he came to fulfill 
|> # the true law and then tell the Jews of that day, that they shouldn't 
|> # follow things mechanically....
|> # 
|> # You see the Commandments of God had become a bunch of "you shall not 
|> # do this you shall not do that" rules and thus the love and affection 
|> # of God had dissappeared. They had become just a bunch of rules. The 
|> # whole purpose with the commandments is to go back to the pure natural 
|> # state *if* a person has left it and from that learn righteoussness. But 
|> # this should be done through the affection and love a person feels for 
|> # God and his Creation and not only for the rules so to say. 
|> 
|>   Gani, you wouldn't happen to have any documentation for this claim,
|>   would you?  

:-).. To be totally honest with you, *NO*.
But you see if a person believes that Jesus (pbuh) is a messenger 
of God as we Muslims do then there must be a reason for God to 
send him. To clame that Mathew 5:17 means that he came to full-
fill the Law in the sense that he would die for it is unaccept-
able.... So the word fulfill must mean something else.....

When we turn to the Quran to find out as to what were precisely 
the conditions that made the appointment of the Prophets necessary
in the past. We find that there have been four situations which 
made their appointment essential:

1)      A particular nation stood in need of a prophet because 
no prophet had come to it before, nor had the message of a proph-
et sent to another nation reached it.

2)      The appointment of a prophet became necessary because 
the teaching of the former prophet had been forgotten, or temp-
ered with, and it was no longer possible to know and follow his 
message in practical life.

3)      The people might not have received the full message and
guidance through the former prophet and more prophets  were need-
ed to supplement his teaching.

4)      A prophet might have needed another peophet to help and
support him in carrying out his mission.

If I've understood it correctly the Islamic idea for God to send 
Jesus (pbuh) as His messenger to the Jews of that day was point 
nr 2 and 3. According to what I've heard some of the learned of that 
day didn't even believe in the resurrection of the dead.

And from what is supposed to be the words of Jesus (pbuh) recorded 
in the Gospels we see that he claimed a lot of them to be hypo-
crytes and things like that (see for example (Luke 11:37-54; 
12:1-3), (Mark 12:38-40), (Matt 23:1-27)).( Btw if these really are
the words of Jesus (pbuh) or not is another question.. :-)...) 
If we look at them as true then from these passages we can see that 
the situation with *some* of the Scribes and Pharisees wasn't what 
it should have been. 

The way I understand some of the things told by Jesus (pbuh) like 
turning the other cheack and all that stuff is that the Jews of 
that day must have gone to extrems like taking a life for a life 
no matter in which conditions the first life was taken (I have no 
scriptual references to that either.. :-).. just ideas) so Jesus 
(pbuh) had to go to extremes the other way which led to the idea of
*always* forgive. So for example if I stuck out an eye by accident 
my eye would get teared out too, as the Law says "An eye for an eye 
a tooth for a tooth." They may not have taken any notice if it was 
an accident or something like that but instead claimed they where 
only following the Law. The way to neutralize an extreme is to teach 
an opposite extreme. So Jesus (pbuh) taught the opposite way so that 
the people of that day would end up somewhere inbetween. But when 
these ideas came to Europe we didn't understand it as we were not 
raised up in this environment so instead we interpretted it as he 
meant that we should *always* forgive and don't use the Law (think 
about releasing the Georgian who murdered and ate up over 30 persons 
so that he could eat up another 30 humans). So we went instead to ex-
tremes towards the other direction. Or more preciesly we Europeans 
(including Americans :-)) *CLAIM* we turn the other cheack and tell 
*others* to do it but in reality almost *never* do it ourselves...

We should forgive when we can but justice should always be done 
and turning the other cheack and thus releasing a sick person who 
like the taste of humans would be insane.

The so called "golden teaching" of turning the other cheack is in 
the Quran too when it comes to the Law. The only difference is that 
you have different choices:
1. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.
2. Agree on the other person paying compensation for what he have 
done.
3. Turn the other cheek (i.e leave it to the Lord).

It is more a question of how high you have developed spiritually. 
Lets take an example: Somebody murders your brother. 

If you are on a spiritually high stage and you know that the murd-
eror wont do such a thing again, you will propably leave it to God. 
This deed is such a good deed that it gives you a ticket to Paradise.

If you are on a smaller spiritual stage (or by some other reason) 
decide to let the murderor pay compensation for it, that will also
be a deed of great importance on the Day of Judgment.

If you are on a lower stage (or by some other reasons) decide to 
go by the rule an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, there is no
blame on you if you decide to kill the murderor. But there isn't 
any good in it either.

The idea is that after someone has been proven guilty for lets say
murdor and no doubts concerning this exist (and s/he is sane, adult, 
full mind and is entitled to responsibility) the relatives should 
decide the punishment and not some committe somewhere, so that they 
feel that justice has been done. You forgive?? Then fine. You demand 
compensation? Then fine. You demand punishment by the rule eye for an 
eye tooth for a tooth? If that is your decision then we have to fulfill 
it. Justice has to be done.

|> # True faith is based on works *and* belief. A persons may look righteous 
|> # but that doesn't mean s/he *is* righteous. If you do something just be-
|> # cause other people should think you are a very religious person and not
|> # because you truly belive in it, then you are not believeing. Instead you 
|> # are a hypocrite!!!!! And it was this Jesus (pbuh) mostly turned himself 
|> # against....
|>     Here we have a basic parting of view.  I would side with both the
|>     Sages of old and modern psychology that if one ACTS in a certain
|>     way, patterns of thought will follow.  Calling the first steps
|>     along this path 'hypocricy' only serves to turn the
|>     willing-but-uncertain away from righteousness.

I agree with you compleately here but there are cases when this 
isn't correct and it was these cases I were thinking of when I 
wrote the above things concerning hypocrites..

The things I were reffering to was *true* hypocrycism. In the 
history of Islam for example we have cases with people who clai-
med they were Muslims and praticied Islam whenever someone saw 
them, but really weren't Muslims. Some of them did it just to 
infiltrate the Muslim community and try to destroy it from within. 
They looked religious and openly practised Islam but it wasn't 
Islam they really followed.....

Today the same problem exist like the so called "Saddam/Saddat/
Leader X {where X = a lot of people}-syndrom" where people claim 
to be religious just to make people think they are nice and then 
try to use religion to fulfill their own material dreams.

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
(63:1-4)" When the hypocrites come to you, they say: We bear 
 witness that you are most surely Allah's Apostle; and Allah 
 knows that you are most surely His Apostle, and Allah bears 
 witness that the hypocrites are surely liars. They make their 
 oaths a shelter, and thus turn away from Allah's way; surely 
 evil is that which they do. That is because they believe, 
 then disbelieve, so a seal is set upon their hearts so that 
 they do not understand. And when you see them, their persons 
 will please you, and if they speak, you will listen to their 
 speech; (they are) as if they were big pieces of wood clad 
 with garments; they think every cry to be against them. They 
 are the enemy, therefore beware of them; may Allah destroy 
 them, whence are they turned back?"

The above statement had really to do with the problem which a Christ-
ian has as Jesus (pbuh) says in Matthew 5:20 that their righteousness 
must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees if they 
would be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The only way to do 
that according to my view would be to try and follow the Law better 
than they must have done in the days of Jesus (pbuh). Scott then answer-
ed that the way to find righteousness greater than the Pharisees is to 
have your heart cleaned and saying that the people of that day appeared 
righteous but inwardly were full of lawlessness based on some verses 
in Matthew. So that made me answer that true faith is based on works 
and belief. So in that case Jesus (pbuh) must have turned himself 
against the hypocrytes among them. So if they in those days were full 
of lawlessness inwards then following the Law in the right way with 
the right intensions would give a person a clean heart and thus their 
righteousness would be able to exceed the righteousness of those among 
the scribes and Pharisees who where hypocryts.....

Peace
Gani

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