Excerpts:
Meanwhile, one must manage to avoid traps that only help the terrorists continue their evildoing, because precisely these traps mislead the Western statesmen, military headquarters, academia, mass media, and public opinion in their evaluation of the present situation. The trap is that of accusing Islam itself as a religion of terror. Extensive historical research would easily and plainly prove the opposite, namely that the peak of the Islamic Civilization (and all the thousands of historically known Muslim polymaths, philosophers, erudite scholars, scientists, poets, artists, historians, authors, etc.) was totally devoid of any inclination toward violence, let alone terrorism.
Where does this trap hinge on?
The answer is simple; there is a subtle and yet enormous difference between two words that play here a determinant role: ‘Religion’ and ‘Theology’. All the religions – when systematized as dogma, doctrine and cult – are, usually, essentially transformed into theological systems that can be at times identified as very distant from the original religion.
Christianity offers many examples in this regard; the word ‘Trinity’ does not exist in the New Testament. Early Christians practiced Christianity without conceptualizing what later became the Trinity dogma of Christianity. It is only after St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia, wrote his lengthy theological treatise On the Holy Spirit (374 CE), which was accepted as doctrinal pillar of Christianity, that 4th century Christians were able at last to contextualize the third person of their religion.
Similar situations occurred in Islam, a religion that is based on one holy book, the Quran, and prophetic explanations and narratives usually called ‘traditions’ (Hadith in Arabic) that determine not only the aspects of spiritual life and human morality but also the details of socioeconomic life. In this regard, theological systematization and recorded application of the Islamic Jurisprudence ended up to an interminable typolatry (“the worship of the types of the religion”) very similar to what Jesus accused the Pharisees of (“Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”; Matthew 23:24). This attitude was proven unable to hinder the free development of Philosophy, Letters, Arts, Sciences, and Spirituality in the first six – seven centuries of the Islamic Era, but when the Islamic Civilization collapsed, typolatry prevailed overwhelmingly bringing forth putrefaction.
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