Islam, the Essence of Faith and Love

(This article is translated to English version by Lanny Octavia and edited by Jonathan Zilberg, previously published in Indonesian on 25/10/2004)

Whenever one is asked about the essence of his or her religion, the simplest and wisest answer could be faith and love. What is Islam? The wise answer will be faith and love, exactly like the slogan that Islam is a blessing for the universe (rahmatan lil alameen).

Hence, what is the significance of a long and complicated answer about Islamic theology, Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic tradition? To me, these are formal instruments accompanying the faith and love of Islam. Religious theories, Islamic culture and civilization are an implementation of faith and love.

It means that whatever is actualized by Muslims in a concrete form can be perceived as a logical expression of their faith and love. They may express their love and faith in physical disciplines (rituals), or by founding communities of culture and traditions of thought, or by establishing a high and great civilization. There is no compulsory limit to his perception about the essence of faith and love.

Hence, why do internal conflicts occur among religious groups? In the religious context, we can understand it as the climax of symbolic struggle. Symbols are the strongest part of human nature, as Ernst Cassirer said, the human is a symbolic creature (animal symbolicum). Through symbols humans can form culture and express feelings. Finally, Thomas Mann said that symbolic expression is a form of freedom.

Does inter-religious community conflict happen because they don’t understand the reality of symbols? It could be, since there are various images and hidden interests behind symbols that lead people to violence and aggression. Regarding the name of Islam as a symbolic image of a religion, Abdul Karim Sorous, an Iranian Muslim scholar observed that Islam, which was born with a set of teachings and values, essentially is a symbolic form of the message of faith and love.

To Abdul Sorous, enthusiasm, love and testimony grow up in the structure of that faith. Everyone may worship, love and testify in his or her solitude. To him, there is nothing better than collective worship, love and testimony, just as there is nothing worse than compelling worship, love and testimony. The true faith to him depends on individuality and freedom, while negating both is a negation of the meaning of faith. “There is no compulsion in faith and love.”  This means that tyrannical hands have no right to disseminate religious seeds. Neither king’s decrees nor fatwas can deliver or multiply faith and love.

We may accept this view, since it clearly has illustrated the essential value of religion. Can we stop the conflict of symbolic struggles and walk together toward the reality of faith and love?  The Prophets were chosen only to convey the “love message” of God in the form of revelations. They were lovers of God in order to attract good people. They performed miracles in order to ‘conquer’ the enemies of Allah, not to “scare” humans into being faithful.

Since faith and love as religious essence is the right of individuals, any attitude that negates freedom of faith and love negates the enlightenment and dynamism of religious comprehension and harms the base and meaning of religious society.

Forcing people to have a false faith; paralyzing thought by indoctrination, propaganda and intimidation; closing the gate of criticism, revision and modification forces everyone to submit to a single ideology and will not produce religious people. Instead it will make a monolithic society which is terrorized, paralyzed and hypocritical.  That is not the religious society God and His Prophets expected.

Lastly, I want to convey the message of Jalaluddin Ar-Rumi, a Sufi poet who has never tired of wandering for the sake of his great faith and love. He said to his followers, “Please welcome faith and love, the great destroyer of polytheism. Give water to the thirty, feed the hungry and bow in the name of faith, have love for God who created heaven and earth through His love. Remember that pride and hypocrisy in the name of God will never lead you to triumph and true peace. God bless you all. Amen.

Habibullah Bahwi Director of Islamic Research Institute at the Centre of Islamic Library of Raden Umro Sumber Anyar, Pamekasan, Madura.