Mani and Modi are in Mani’s house chatting when Radi arrives. His faces is a mess, showing several cuts and bruises. His clothes are torn. Nonetheless, he appears relatively cheerful.
Mani (Mainstream): Radi, you look beat up. What happened to you?
Radi: (Radical): I am very dry, Mani. May I trouble you for some water?
Modi (Moderate): I will get the gourd. Meanwhile, sit down and rest.
Radi: (After drinking from the gourd) That is a little better. I managed to have a bit of a scrap with some of my buddies.
Modi: It was about the Qur’an, wasn’t it? I suspected that you would have problems with those morons whenever you started disagreeing with their versions.
Radi: Oh, Yes. One of them got on the subject of Allah wanting us to attack Europe and America and making them all Muslim.
Modi: Let me see, you brought up Sura 11. (He smiles) Let me look it up.
Radi: If you are going to touch your Qur’an, are you purified?
Mani: Radi! That is rude. You know Modi would not touch the Holy Book in a state of impurity. We both are still OK since morning prayers. We will not need ablutions again until the noon prayer.
Modi: That is OK, Radi. You did not know. I am glad that you asked, though.
Radi: I did not mean anything.
Modi: You are killing me with your new politeness, Radi. You have me disconcerted. Ah, I have it here. You quoted them verse 117:
"For, never would thy Sustainer destroy a community
for wrong [beliefs alone] so long as its people behave righteously [toward one
another]." I bet that one hurt.
Mani: Oh, Radi. You really took that verse on? There are lots of arguments about that. Many imams would prefer forgetting that one.
Radi: I have found that out. The imam that was with my so-called friends said that Allah would smile upon friends who would smite people like me who lie about and obstruct what He has commanded. Even after the dumbbells did their worst, he was still shouting and poking holes in the sky.
Modi: And then you hit him with Muhammad Asad’s note about that.
Radi: Well, I had to think about it a little, but yes. And the imam stared at me with his mouth open. I added Razi’s two cents’ worth:
"God’s chastisement does not afflict any people merely
on account of their holding beliefs amounting to shirk and kufr, but afflicts
them only if they persistently commit evil in their mutual dealings, and
deliberately hurt [other human beings] and act tyrannically [towards them].
Hence, those who are learned in Islamic Law hold that men’s obligations toward
God rest on the principle of [His] forgiveness and liberality, whereas the
rights of man are of a stringent nature and must always be strictly
observed."1
Mani: Dare I ask what happened?
Radi: (Laughs) The imam screamed I was a blasphemer and must be killed outright. He was about to burst a blood vessel, I think. I would have been a goner, but the restaurant owner looked up in his own Qur’an what I had said and showed it to a couple of the knuckleheads. It was too bad that Razi’s remarks were not in his Book, but verse 117 was enough to shut the imam up. His face must be really hurting by now.
Mani: Oh, because of the humiliation?
Radi: No, I punched him in the mouth--twice. (Modi and Mani laugh) And then I asked the restaurant owner to back up one sura and read aloud ayat 10:59:
"Verily they who attribute their own lying inventions
to God will never attain to a happy state."
Modi: Radi is beginning to scare me, Mani. What have we unleashed on the world?
Mani: You must admit he is a different kind of monster. I think I liked him better when he was on their side though.
Modi: That was probably because he was so easy to rile and he just kept saying the same things all the time. It seems the less one knows, the more forcefully and stridently he knows it.
Mani: You know, Modi, I was never too sure about Radi’s being right until I went through sura 11 with you so long ago. I tried to convince my family, but they are convinced that their own imam is infallible. They equate intelligence and politeness with infallibility.
Modi: I see. Such a gentle person would never hurt anyone. I heard that before. The Banu Qurayzah2thought that their friend (tribal leader) Sa‘d would intercede for them. He did not, and they were subsequently murdered.
Radi: Verse 117 is telling everyone that what you said the other day is correct, Modi. Dreaming of the day when "Allahu Akbar" is heard from every corner of the world does not mean that we have to run amok through every country, killing everyone in the name of Allah. Remember, jihad means to STRIVE to be a better Muslim.
Mani: Modi, is Radi really saying that? Am I dreaming?
Radi: Of course, you are dreaming, you dumb cluck. If you think I am falling for this sickly saccharin nonsense, you are as bad as the stupid imam who could not find an answer for a simple verse.
Modi: Well, Radi, you certainly had us fooled. But now if you are so smart, you answer the verse.
Radi: I am not an imam. I have not been taught all the answers. But I know how I feel, and when every fiber in my body tells me something is not right, I KNOW it is not right.
Mani: You rely on your bowels and not on your brain?
Radi: See! I turn the tables on you, and you insult me already.
Mani: But you opened the door for it. Radi, if you went one step further in the Sura 11, in fact to just the next ayat 11:118, you would have read:
"And had the Sustainer so willed, H e surely could have
made mankind one single community: but He [willed it otherwise, and so] they
continue to hold divergent views--[all of them,] save those upon whom the
Sustainer has bestowed His grace."
Modi: And Muhammad Asad noted that Gold willed it this way, that it represents a God-willed, basic factor of human existence.3Since indeed it is God’s plan that people differ in various ways, the mass killing and subjugation of humankind would tend to upset His plan and bring upon the heads of those hypocrites charges of hypocrisy and mass murder.
Mani: That should be worth a lifetime in the everlasting fires of hell.
Modi: I do not envy anyone who considers seriously subjugating the world “for Allah.”
Mani: Allah knows the world is His already, and He can will anything He wants. Only one who has the hubris to think he is better than God would try to outhink Him and kill His people before they have an opportunity to get to know Him.
Modi: Well, we have managed to work longer than we wanted. Bilal is about to call, and we should do minimal ablutions before prayer. Radi will not have to wash his feet; he keeps them clean by putting them in his mouth so often.
Radi: You stupid comedian! (Again they run out of the house with Radi close on their heels)
_______________________________
1 Note 149, Message of the Qur'an, Muhammad Asad, Sura 11, page 374
2 A tribe of Jewish silversmiths put their faith in a friend of the tribe to help them persuade Muhammad to treat them humanely. The "friend" suggested Muhammad kill all the men and sell the women and children into slavery. About 800 men and boys were beheaded.
3 Note 150, ibid, page 374
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