By H. Saghir
I believe that religion comes first among priorities. In that matter, religion as faith is important in our daily life as is to work and help others. Prayer for example tranquilizes the mind and relief the soul from daily burdens. When someone prays for instance, he directs his brain and soul towards God, his creator. In case of Islam and after the washing, he recites to him and kneels to him. In that manner, his daily obedience to his boss is erased during the prayer, to become the obedience to God. Apart from that, religion is a set of ethics and rules. Religion when moderate, acquires to someone rules and ethics in his behavior with others. Diets are healthier and that who observes religion has respect to others faith.
In Islam for instance, if someone cannot pray five times a day, he has to keep at least with the third at the Asr. What I think is that religion is like a candle lamp that if you light it, you will see your way. If you light it too much with excess of faith, you can loose track of your path and be lost in the wilderness. If you don?t light your faith at all you can stay in darkness unless you have wisdom to counterbalance this.
In the ancient Hebrews time, people used to boil their babies in the mother milk. The Torah of Moses had forbidden this on the Jews, and this is one reason that Jews don?t eat creams or cakes nor drink milk after meat!
The same with Islam. Prior to the coming of Mohammad ?God prayed and blessed him?, the Arabs used to offer babies to the statue ?Hubal?. Others used to burry a female baby. Still others, used to pray to statues, and Islam abolished every thing pageant, exactly like Judaism.
When it comes to people of different faiths living with each others, then tolerance should be the rule. Once here in Montreal, my previous neighbor was a religious Algerian. One day I was discussing with him on religion and he told me that since Islam is the last faith, its rulings supersede every other religions. I told him that this is the way in Algeria since it is homogenous in Sunnis and cannot be the case in Lebanon with many sects. For example, the Christians have a philosophy in the Christ as the Holly Trinity in being three: Father, Son, and Holly Ghost. In Islam and Judaism it is one God. However, once I was reading in the book of Catechism of the Catholic Church of the Vatican presented by the late ?Pope John Paul II?, and they explained this as it is one God that rotates over three entities. I think it is like a flower with one stem and three petals. In the day, it opens to have three petals, and at night it closes to have one flower! The thing to say that although in Qu?uran we speak of the Verse or Sura of Miriam however, we cannot oblige the Christians to quit the New Testament and the Old to follow this. They have many others commenting books to study and new researches to develop in Christianity. It is very important that Islam and its followers don?t interfere in the Christian Methods of faith otherwise, they will close the spiritual horizons of the Christian people and this is catastrophic!
About religion and the daily life, the Prime Minister adheres to his faith and is in good relations with Dar Al Fatwa. The same with the President of the Republic who adheres to his faith and is in good relations with Bkerke. Also, if some one Moslem wants to acquire a good position in the government, then it is better if he follows his faith, like to go to the Mosque on Fridays, to attend the Salat of Eid, Etc?
A while ago, I was listening to LBCI news about the Gaza events and they mentioned that a Saudi has fallen as a martyr in Gaza.
I praise him since in Islam, Jihad is the sixth obligation. In the case of Lebanon, the situation is different. If Israel wants to attack this country and if the government is able politically and peacefully to defend this happening, then Jihadies should sit aside and content themselves with praying, fasting, etc?
In conclusion, secular systems are better than fundamentalist religious one?s especially in the case of Lebanon that contains many sects.
Regards to all,
Hassan Saghir, PE; M.Eng (Env)
Montreal, 2009
