Islam means total submission to Allah; it is unconditional surrender to God. The emphasis on absolute surrender, to me, is Islam’s contribution to religion. The introduction of polygamy in Islam, in this case, more than one wife in the one-man-one-woman, hitherto strict monogamous injunction of marriage in monotheistic religions opens up a new area of discourse. This would seriously affect human sexuality, and alter the relationship between genders. In the utterly humiliating caste-ridden days of the Mughal empire in India wherein non-Muslims were charged an extra jizya tax (per capita tax levied on non-Islamic citizens in an Islamic state), Islam was an attraction. Interestingly secular India is currently reported to have more Muslims than Muslim Pakistan. In the very harsh days of colonialism in Africa, racism in the USA, and casteism in India many persons became Muslims to save their own identity and human dignity. For instance, in the very brutal colonial Belgian-Congo of old (currently the Democratic Republic of Congo), the henchmen of King Leopold II of Belgium would hack the limbs of native, black laborers if they did not produce the pre-determined quota of rubber from the rubber trees. Even as late as 1960’s when struggles for ordinary human and civil rights for racial equality, that we take for granted now, were led by Martin Luther King in the US, African-Americans (then known as blacks) were not allowed to drink from the same water fountains as the whites, or use the same toilets as the whites, or rent a room for the night in a hotel, quite a few black Christians repudiated the extremely intolerant, racist, un-Christian Christians and joined the Nation of Islam to save their own humanity. Human dignity, economic incentives, special privileges, preferential treatments, concessions, and alleviation of suffering were all very potent factors in changing religions or conversion to Islam or Christianity at all times.

           Many Muslim countries are in turmoil as they are struggling to come to terms with the modern world, and usher in democracy and human rights. It is lamentable that a non-Muslim scripture will not be tolerated in Saudi Arabia or a non-Muslim will not be allowed to be buried there. It is also very deplorable that the UN or world community has not facilitated a nation state for Palestinians whose gaping wound has been festering with excruciating pain in front of humanity ever since 1948 with no healing answer in sight. Israel in its self-complacent smugness should not continue to subject Palestinians to humiliating inhuman conditions that they themselves suffered under Nazi Germany. While they are not literally and viciously killing Palestinians as Hitler did with them in the Holocaust, they are killing the Palestinian spirit and putting them through ever-increasing anguish and pain through their uncompromising, might-is-right oppressive measures.

           United States needs to step up to the plate and do what is right and not enable Israel in its arrogant, intransigent, and ultimately self-defeating attitude and short-sighted policy. What Holocaust, a great blot on humanity, vividly taught all of us is when we diminish humanity in one human being we diminish humanity in all. Pakistan, a Muslim nation, is at the cross-roads. It is not sure whether it wants to choose democracy or theocracy. In a recent survey the majority of the people of Pakistan expressed their desire for theocracy. People in Pakistan (and India) are also fed up with the old time colonial bureaucracy that takes years to settle disputes or impart justice. It is very important that Pakistan succeeds and becomes a nation that respects human rights for all. Pakistan as a failed state spawning terrorist groups will be a calamity for humanity. Jihad (struggle), a troubling concept, can be understood as the global conquest by Islam. Some Islamic groups consider jihad as the sixth pillar of Islam; the five pillars delineating the basic tenets of Islam being shahadah (creed), salat (daily prayers), sawm (fasting during the Islamic month of Ramdan), zakat (almsgiving), hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Some Muslim authorities link “greater” jihad with spiritual self-perfection and “lesser” jihad with warfare. Even though most Muslims interpret jihad as a form of defensive warfare, there is great confusion related to this word. It is very important that various Muslim authorities very clearly and loudly clarify what jihad means or should mean for all. Unfortunately Islam has been hijacked by a very tiny minority of fundamentalist, fanatic, and intolerant groups of Muslims wreaking havoc on humanity by unleashing wanton destruction and terror. One wonders if the main stream Muslims are enabling them by not speaking out against them forcefully. Fortunately the winds of democracy and human rights are blowing over the Middle East and the Arab world. The United States and other nations cannot cozy up with Arab dictators for oil while keeping mum about their human rights record. A world without social justice is safe for nobody. Reprogramming humanity in fairness and justice for all is very important before all other principles and values.

          We need to keep in mind that at the moment we are conceived in our mother’s womb, we are determined, we are localized, and we begin to assume temporary identities. The undifferentiated becomes the differentiated. The hard programming is already taking place. I am born into this gender, caste, race, class, clan, family, religion, state, and nation. Then I belong to this profession, organization, party, and so on. I am subjected to so many arbitrary determinations. I get so many temporary identities. Losing our global status, we gain so many identities and acquire so many loyalties, again as part of our programming, that we are divided and separated, and also we separate ourselves from others. Thus we are splintered, fragmented, and scattered, and lose our true identity of being global citizens; we lose our purpose and our real but temporary goal of being inhabitants of this earth and members of this one humanity working for creating the Kingdom of God on earth for which we are put here in the first place to begin with. But we always need to be aware that we come from the cosmos and we return to the cosmos and our temporary pilgrimage – our life on earth – does not need to distract us from who we really are: children of the cosmos. When we lose the consciousness of our global status, we lose the big picture, get mired in parochialism and immersed and engrossed in the narrow, limited, and immediate goals of acquiring wealth, power, prestige, status. Everything and everyone becomes commodities including us. We are for and on sale. People can put a price on us. They can bid us for the jobs to be done, sports to be played, lines to be toed, and the parts to be performed. We lose our sovereign status as subjects and become objects. We have mortgaged our souls. The programming is complete. We lock ourselves in a steel case of illusion (maya) and throw away the key.

           To break out of this programming or maya, India’s Sanathana Dharma has a powerful message that is truly an answer for humanity’s groping in the darkness. To break out of the different layers and levels of differentiations, determinations, and programming that are nothing else but the phenomena – appearances (maya) – and to move into the noumenon (the true reality) – the intelligible ground of phenomenon - the sages and seers looked inward into their own self. Their answer was the jeevatma (the individual self) as the spark of the divine consciousness, the paramatma (the Supreme Self). Sankaracharya’s ekamevam advithiyam (one without a second) sums it all. The different layers of illusory self need to be peeled off before the true self can be reached. In other words, a thorough deprogramming needs to take place.