© 2016 Moustapha NDiaye
© 2016 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
The recent massacres committed in North America, Europe and also in the Middle East have sparked a wave of incomprehension and indignation throughout the world. This Islamist violence linked to Jihadism is claimed and justified in the name of a rigorous Islam by those who commit these mass massacres.
We wanted to know how these events are experienced by those who live their faith in Islam within the framework of the teachings of the Urantia Book and in a more direct way we asked the question “where is Islam going in the 21st century” to Moustapha Kemal N’Diaye from the Dakar group (Senegal).
A retrospective look at the news of recent years, without an in-depth analysis, could undoubtedly lead to an affirmative response, certainly, but biased if we do not broaden the panorama.
The first difficulty consists in implicitly considering Islam as a structured religion on a global scale, with a clergy, an organization, centralized points of view, etc., which would allow a valid global judgment to be made. This is not the case. There are as many ways of living Islam as there are Muslim populations, despite recent trends of a desire for hegemony on a global scale. (In reality there are as many religions as there are religious individuals)
On the other hand, to understand what is happening with Islamist violence linked to Jihadism, we must go back to early Islam in Arabia. Unresolved problems from the early Islamic past have been projected, with the typical inertia of Arab societies governed by tribes, into the current events of the contemporary world, mixing with social, cultural elements, economic interests, etc. The violent forms of this irruption, both at the level of certain discourses and the acts that accompany them, have given the illusion of a conflict between civilizations or a clash with the West, according to the propaganda of the initiators of this erroneous vision, in an attempt to falsely justify their actions by moral, ethical or spiritual foundations.
The essence of Jihadism in its Salafist, fundamentalist, Shiite forms of various persuasions, or others, is first linked to an internal Arab problem, between Sunnism and Shiism, a problem multiplied by a globalized context and increased economic means and other factors. However, current events in the world reveal more and more, and better and better, the true nature of the problem.
The entire history of the Islamic empire, from the succession by the companions of the Prophet, to the dissolution of the Ottoman Turkish empire by Mustafa Kemal Attaturc, through the Umayyad, Abbasid, Turcoman caliphates, the Mongol interlude, the episodes of the crusaders and the interlude of the role of Egypt, among others, is constantly punctuated and characterized by the expression of violent frustrations, from the primitive divide between Sunnis and Shiites, dating back to the time of the prophet, and linked to his son-in-law Ali. These antagonisms were amplified by significant cultural differences between nomadic traditionalist Arab populations and Arab or non-Arab populations (Persians, Turkmen,), depositories of more dynamic traditions inherited from the Roman empire or more sedentary and better structured cultures. These antagonisms ended up crystallizing, or even fossilizing. In this context, Islam has served both sides, often as a pretext to compensate for frustrations, or to try to justify reprehensible acts. In short, this conception of Islam is, as is often the case, become part of the problem instead of being a possible solution to the problems (which should be the natural vocation of any religion), as was also unfortunately the case for the Church a few centuries before, for different reasons.
In the current phase of social reconstruction of our planet (I invite a careful rereading of the relevant chapter in the Urantia Book), it clearly appears that current events in the world bring things back to their proper dimension, that is to say in this case, to a problem of pure and simple claim to political power between Sunnism and Shiism, against a backdrop of modern social contradictions and under a falsely religious pretext.
However, we do not always see such a bleak picture for the future, even if we deplore the unacceptable price paid in the face of barbaric and almost daily attacks. Our generation is the privileged witness of a process of resolution in the present, of unresolved problems of the past, according to prospects of progress guaranteed for the future. Considering the analysis of the activity of the departments of religions (past), of the era (present) and of the progress (future) of the planetary government, this situation, which applies generally to all other aspects of the need for social reconstruction on earth, is rather a reason for hope. “Spiritual pressure from above” has begun its work for a better world in all areas.
Let us simply note, to return to the subject of Islam, that Salafism is being questioned at its very source (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies), that the Muslim Brotherhood movement is increasingly weakened as an ideology of progress by the populations themselves in Egypt and Tunisia, that Turkey is at a crossroads. All of this is happening in real time and almost before our eyes in the space of a few short years.
Among the beginnings of what the future could be, let us also note that the Al Azar institution in Egypt has put forward the idea of rewriting the Koran for the modern world, in order to purify it of its parts that could incite violence, even if this is still only a project. Such audacity for those who know Islam is already a small revolution. Let us note that the visit and prayers of Pope Francis at the great mosque of Bangui were rather well received by the Muslim world, we note that a common prayer took place in a mosque in Paris with a Catholic priest, a Muslim imam and a Jewish rabbi following the attacks of November 13, and this went down well with public opinion. All these acts would have been described as sacrilege, and led to excesses, not long ago.
The strength of Islam has been its clear-cut and well-defined presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity; its weakness, the association of military force with its promulgation, together with its degradation of woman. But it has steadfastly held to its presentation of the One Universal Deity of all, “who knows the invisible and the visible. He is the merciful and the compassionate.” “Truly God is plenteous in goodness to all men.” “And when I am sick, it is he who heals me.” “For whenever as many as three speak together, God is present as a fourth,” for is he not “the first and the last, also the seen and the hidden”?
The strength of Islam has been its clear-cut and well-defined presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity; its weakness, the association of military force with its promulgation, together with its degradation of woman. But it has steadfastly held to its presentation of the One Universal Deity of all, “who knows the invisible and the visible. He is the merciful and the compassionate.” “Truly God is plenteous in goodness to all men.” “And when I am sick, it is he who heals me.” “For whenever as many as three speak together, God is present as a fourth,” for is he not “the first and the last, also the seen and the hidden”? (UB 95:7.6)
Finally, let us note the rejection of violence and especially of the jihadist ideology which is losing all sympathy in almost the entire Muslim world, which was not the case just a few years ago. We are certain that the Islam of tomorrow will be different from what it is today, as the world of tomorrow will be different from that of today.
As for how to reconcile Islam with the teachings of The Urantia Book, a question that is often asked by some readers, we must first remember that Islam in Senegal is brotherly and far from what it is in Arabia. We have realized that over time, mentalities are more ready to receive the truths of The Urantia Book when they are given with love and pedagogy, that is to say, in truth. Let us also note that this was the approach and method of Jesus with regard to the Jewish religious traditions of his time, life is a matter of evolution rather than revolution, otherwise, we would never be able to know God.
That said, it should also be noted that there are interesting elements of religious universality and authentic faith in Islam, some of which are cited in The Book of Uvantia among the extracts drawn from the heritage of human thinkers seeking God. In this, and by way of conclusion, let us cite one of the definitions of what it means to be a Muslim, a definition that comes back in the same forms with different turns of phrase, and taken from the Quran Surah 2, The Cow Al Baqarah Verse 136. We often remind our Muslim interlocutors of this, to offer them more openness to the truths formulated differently and by others, and they have no difficulty in accepting it. Say: "We believe in Allah and in what has been revealed to us, and in what has been revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Jacob and the tribes, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and in what was given to the prophets, coming from their Lord. We make no distinction between them. And to HIM we are subject.”
“Muslim” means submission to God and designates and qualifies the Muslim. It is in this sense, of a better understanding of what it is to be a Muslim, that Salimata, one of the members of the Dakar Group, said, more than ten years ago, in response to a question from a member of the Foundation, that the teachings of the Urantia Book, made her a better Muslim, by making her more submissive and better submissive to God, by clarifying what this submission was from a historical and social point of view and what it should be from a fundamental and personal point of view.
Moustapha K. Ndiaye. Dakar June 15, 2016
¶ Moustapha K. NDiaye — Biography
Born in 1957 and after primary studies in Dakar, and secondary studies at the Prytanée Militaire de Saint Louis (270 km north of Dakar in 1968), I continued my higher education at the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon, where I obtained the Electrical Engineering Diploma (Telecommunications Option) in 1981.
My higher education in France coincided with an increased and very marked interest in everything concerning the meaning of life, through various readings on works dealing with occultism, esotericism, various religions and spiritualities, and meetings with various personalities. I had ended up no longer knowing what I was really looking for, through the diversity, and the confusions that I sensed. It was by following the work of the Dakar Study Group directed by my father, (and based on the revelations of the Urantia Book), during the university holidays, and especially after my definitive return to Senegal in 1981, that the trigger occurred. I really understood the importance of this past arid research, and the logical continuation, as well as the interest that awaits us.
Since then, through my numerous opportunities to travel abroad in a professional context, and the opportunities they offered, I have been able to meet more readers from different countries and continents, and establish with my brothers in spirit from Senegal, a framework for teaching and spiritual education in an environment with a strong Islamic dominance, but very tolerant by culture.
Married and the father of two boys and a girl, all of whom were raised both in the religious tradition of their country and in the openness to the global village that Urantia has become, I try to find this meaning once sought in vain in books, in a living relationship with the Father through all the opportunities of family, social or international life that he will have brought about as Adjuster in my mind or as Supreme God in my destiny.