The view of mankind in Islam

What does it really mean to be a human? Why are we living? And what happens when we die? In Islam they believe that humans are created by God. From soil.

The human being is a bit like a stand-in for God on Earth: a deputy. This means that humans have been given a lot of responsibility. They need to take care of the Earth and of each other in a good way. Muslims call their God Allah. That’s not a name; it means The God in Arabic.

God is, according to Islam, greater than everything. Greater than anything that is understandable or imaginable. The only thing that is possible to know about God is that he has created the world. And since God is good, everything that he has created is good as well. This means that humans are also good.

But hold on. If we are good, why do we behave so badly towards each other and our environment? According to the Quran, the answer to that is that humans have been given free will and may choose to do that which is right or that which is wrong. But if you do something wrong and regret it, and ask God for forgiveness, you will be forgiven. This is one of the most important messages in the Quran.

But just to make absolutely sure the Quran also tells how to act to fulfill - or submit to - the will of God. The Arabic word Islam may be translated as submission or peace - as in the sense of living in peace with the will of God. It’s written in the Quran that after death, on judgement day, all humans will be questioned about their lives by two angels. Those who have submitted to - or lived in peace with the will of God get to go to Paradise. Everyone else goes to hell.

This is true for all humans, because everyone has the same value to God. Regardless of whether you are poor or rich, man or woman. Muslims believe that the Quran is the word of God that the Prophet Muhammed was given to tell the humans how everything worked. But in the society that Muhammad grew up in, not everyone had the same value. Which clan or which tribe you were born into determined what rights you had.

So when Muhammad said that everyone had equal worth this was something completely new. The men in the most important clans became frightened, they had got used to their power, and didn’t want to lose it. In this way Muhammad’s message turned the social order on its head, and led to the persecutions of Muhammad and the first Muslims from the Quraysh clan in Mecca. When Muhammad eventually gains power himself, he is able to introduce several things that improve the situation for women. Men and women still aren’t fully equal.

But women get, for instance, the rights to inherit, to get an education, and to divorce. Though in spite of Muhammad’s changes, many of the ideas from the old clan society live on. So when the successors of Muhammad spread Islam to the areas beyond the Arabian Peninsula, they don’t only bring the Quran’s ideas but also those of the clan society. And now they also meet ideas from other cultures, like the Byzantine and Persian. On top of this there are also a lot of ancient texts being translated, like those of the philosopher Aristotle.

Many of these ideas have in common the thought that women are inferior to men. And it’s here, where these ideas meet the words of the Quran and the culture of the clans, that the narrations of Muhammad’s customs - the Hadiths - are written. During the middle ages Muslim theologists and philosophers discuss in depth how one is to live to best follow the Quran and the Hadiths. Out of this discussion comes a system of Islamic law. This you will hear about another time.