By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam
24 August 2017
Common
sense is defined as our ability to perceive, understand, and judge things that
are shared by ("common to") nearly all people in our community, and
can reasonably be expected of nearly all people within the community, without
need for debate.(The definition is taken partially from Wikipedia)
In
practical terms, we can speak about what is common to a homogeneous group which
may be a nation, ethnic group, a religious community etc. To talk of what is
common to all the people of the world would only betray our ignorance, and the
all too common weakness to generalize based on the particular, which is what is
common to us. Stealing and killing is a criminal act by common sense in most
cultures, but not for the thugs and other criminal tribes for whom it is a
sacred service to their deity. Neither was this common sense to others until
religion gave them the criterion of right and wrong.
Perception,
understanding and judgment depend on values, notions, principles and concepts
commonly held by the community which vary from community to community. What we
consider as common, is usually a reflection of our world view and the
ideologies that we have internalized.
If you can
influence peoples’ values, notions, principles and concepts, you can change
their behaviour. It is through manipulating these and through it their “common
sense”, that powerful interest groups change the way that people react and
behave. For example, it has become “common sense” to consider every conspiracy
theory as no more than the imagination of cranks. We therefore swallow the
official version and reject everything else. The government and other powerful
interest groups can go on doing what they please, and sell us their “official
story” as the truth. The people will swallow the official lies, because their
common sense tells them that conspiracy theories are only theories and not
fact. In one stroke of genius, the government has placed itself above suspicion
of any wrong doing or a conspiracy! How is this achieved? They are helped by
the fact that many of the conspiracy theories are in fact only the imagination
of cranks and very few of them are true. There may be just one good conspiracy
story which is nearer the truth and 99 other cranky stories about the same
incident. The government will not touch the one good story but effectively
refute the 99 other stories and convince the people that all the conspiracy
theorists are cranks! In the impressive evidence against the cranks, the one
true story is easily lost.
War is made
acceptable by demonizing and dehumanizing the target “enemy. The Japanese
people were made out to be monsters and therefore it became acceptable to nuke
them although doing so had no military objective. It was simply to test the
destructive power of the nuclear bomb and to warn the USSR. It marked the end
of WWII and the beginning of the cold war.
We know how war against Afghanistan, Iraq and interventions in Syria and
Libya were made acceptable to the American people by their government.
In the
past, one may have may appealed to common sense when arguing against gay
marriage but today, this may not be possible in the western society because
their common sense about the LGBT community has changed.
We trust
our common sense, because it serves our purpose admirably on many day to day
issues. The fact that the people are lazy thinkers, who trust their common
sense blindly, is misused by the powerful manipulators and exploiters to their
advantage.
Take the
community of Muslims. Within this community, the examples of what are
considered as “common sense” religious concepts beyond argument but are
erroneous and some both erroneous and highly detrimental to themselves and the
society are:
Kafir = Non-Muslim, (Kafir does not mean disbeliever
or non-Muslim even in a single verse of the Quran. The Quran consistently uses
la Yuminun to mean a disbeliever)
A Muslim
is one who recites the Kalima. (This is Islamic theology and not what the Quran
says. According to the Quran, Islam is submission to Allah by whatever name we
may call Allah by and a Muslim is one who submits to Allah)
Shaheed =
martyr (It has only the meaning of witness in the Quran and never used for the
slain in the cause of Allah)
Immortal
soul exists (The Quran does not contain any word or an expression that could
mean an immortal soul)
Punishment in grave for the sinners (A dead
man does not come alive until resurrection on the Day of judgment and therefore
there can be no punishment in the grave and what people call an immortal soul
that lives on after death just does not exist)
Deen =
Quran plus Sunna which means following the Ahadith (The entire Deen including
the Sunna of the prophet relevant for following the Deen is in the Quran)
The
testimony of two women equals the testimony of one man. (Two women can witness
a document jointly and testify when required jointly. They are not required to
testify separately. So, it would remain a single testimony given jointly,
consulting each other. This is a concession and not a legal requirement)
The Quran
contains the concept of triple Talaq. (It does not)
The
Prophet was fighting battles against the “disbelievers” and “disbelief” rather
than against religious persecution. (This wrong notion comes from the
mistranslation of Kufr/Kafir and overlooking verses that dispel such a notion)
That even
the peaceful polytheists who had not fought against the Muslims nor persecuted
them did not have the choice of retaining their faith and become Jizya paying
subjects. (This is incorrect and a falsehood)
Erroneous common sense arguments
What may
be generally true is not always true. Take, for example, the following
arguments:
The fact
that common notions among the common Muslims and their scholars as above are
considered to be erroneous means that the Quran is not a Book that makes things
clear.
While the
Quran may be a Book that makes things clear, the Muslims could still deviate
from the Quran for narrow political interests, bigotry and parochialism that is
common among the religious right in every religion. The reason that Muslims
have many erroneous concepts is because of their theology which is based on the
Ahadith and not on the Quran. The Ahadith differ from the Quran on every
subject. The Ahadith were compiled two centuries after the death of the Prophet
and its sole purpose appears to have been to bend Islam to the needs of
powerful interest groups. A person who is first indoctrinated in the Ahadith
will view through glasses that distort the truth and will not find the truth. A
common Muslim learns about his religion through the theology of his sect. When
he reads the Quran and finds a gulf between his beliefs and the Quran, he gives
up reading thinking that the Quran is beyond his understanding. My articles on
each of these misconceptions are proof that the truth is easily ascertainable
and contrary to the common view.
The Book contains many contradictions which is why the
scholars treat many of the verses as abrogated.
The
contradictions are between what the Quran says and what the Ahadith say. Those
who take the Ahadith as correct will find many contradictions. The Quran is
internally consistent and without a single contradiction
There is a difference between the Meccan Quran and the
Medinian Quran. The Meccan Quran says “To you (peaceful rejecter of Islam) be
your religion and to me mine”. The Medinian period is about war against the
disbelievers until they give up disbelief and abrogation of this principle.
The
principle of “To you (peaceful rejecter
of Islam) be your religion and to me mine”was never violated. Those who
remained peaceful had the right to security of their life and to retain their
faith. The battle was never against the peaceful rejecter of the faith of
Islam. The judgment for the polytheists who were the persecutors and those who fought
against the Muslims and their crimes described in 9:12 is in verse 9:5 and for
the peaceful polytheists the judgment for them is in verse 9:29.
What we call our common sense, is highly susceptible to being
manipulated through lies, half-truths and distortions and through such
manipulations, powerful groups control us and our behaviour. We call contra
intuitive, what does not fit in with our common sense. What is contra intuitive
is so common, that we need to be always circumspect about common sense. Science
may become common sense over a period, but rarely was any new discovery as a
result of our common sense. It was therefore vehemently opposed during the dark
ages. The criterion of right and wrong which has become part of our common
sense was not so when we first received it from religion. Every valuable idea
has come from inspiration or inspired thinking and not from common sense.
Religions gave us the most valuable criterion of right and wrong but
have for the most part become bad through the man-made development of theology
through which the common sense of the followers has been manipulated in the
direction of increasing bigotry, parochialism and exclusivism. We need to do a
clean-up act by resetting our theology to the ideals of our scriptures and
discard all our erroneous notions and concepts that our theology has given us.
Naseer Ahmed
is an Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and is an independent IT consultant
after having served in both the Public and Private sector in responsible
positions for over three decades. He is a frequent contributor to www.NewAgeIslam.com
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