Offering love to radical Islam

You might guess by my title that the unspeakably violent murder of Jordanian Pilot, Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, is invading my thoughts. As you know, Muath was caged and burned alive by people claiming to be devoutly religious.

I’m not the most adept religious scholar…so I can’t seem to find the religious teachings that direct us to do things like that. I like to study and question literal teachings and when I pray asking God to “set our hearts on fire,” I mean it as a metaphor.

Metaphors, stories, and poetry are some of our limited human means to describe the Divine indescribable. None of our words or phrases or books are big enough to hold or capture God. All our words can do is help point us toward God.

Scriptures attempt to point us in that direction by describing the critical pieces needed to practice religion in an ideal manner - all the pieces for us to build a strong religious core: worship, service, prayer, and witness.

Burning people alive doesn’t seem to be in there.

I’m so disgusted by murderous criminal psychopaths posing as devout religious Muslims, that I can hardly manage my contempt.

While Muslims revere Jesus, the brutality we have witnessed in recent months by the leaders of the radical militant Islamic State, looks nothing like Jesus’ teachings.

I am strongly condemning radical Islam, not Muslims in general. Sadly, much blood has been shed on account of Christianity as well, lest we forget the Inquisitions and Crusades.

There were peaceful centuries when Spain was ruled by a deposed Muslim prince’s family. That dynasty valued education, science, and math and built many libraries filled with books at a time when most of Europe was barbarian.

They were cosmopolitan for their day tolerating Christians and Jews while advancing civilized society. The majority of Muslims today practice tolerance and desire peace.

I’m even less of an Islamic scholar, but I know that there are many forms of Islamic law - beyond the sharia we hear of. In medieval times, a law that was valued was called ijtihad. Today we hear of jihad instead, not the law of ijtihad.

Jihad means to struggle against nonbelievers as a way of turning to God.

Ijtihad means to struggle with oneself as a way of turning to God. It requires diligence, independent critical thinking, and reasoning, especially on matters where the Quran is silent. It requires more than imitating religious leaders. One has a responsibility to think for oneself.

Today, there are websites about ijtihad trying to promote its revival. More than half a century ago, independent thinking Muslims of the Iberian peninsula were overthrown and ijtihad was suppressed.

I believe we need to talk about it more than we do jihad or violent sharia law.

What we attend to grows.

Rather than focus on the negative, I believe our efforts are better spent building up the positive so that it overtakes the negative.

There’s an ancient Islamic female saint named Rabia of Basra who lived in what is now Iraq. Supposedly, someone once asked Rabia if she hated Satan.

She replied: “My love to Allah has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating any save Him.”

Evil can not stand, unless we give it support. We should do what we can to prevent innocent lives from being taken, but we also can not allow evil to steal our love, our minds, hearts, souls, and our religion.

In the face of grave evil, I remind myself that God’s love is abundant and I do not wish to be fueled by hatred. I may complain loudly, but I know my heart will be lightened by following the advice of St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.”