A Socialist reads the Koran (2001)

Book Review from the December 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Apparently there’s been a run on the Koran. Everybody, including Tony Blair, seems to have been reading it. So what does it say? Like the Bible it’s a boring but revealing read.

Unlike Jesus, for whose existence there is no historical evidence, Mohamet actually existed, some 1400 years ago in what is now Saudi Arabia. His claim was that the words of the Koran were dictated to him by the angel Gabriel on behalf of the god Allah (the Zeus of the pre-Mohametan Arab pantheon). Of course they weren’t, since neither the angel Gabriel nor Allah exist; they are mythological figures. So Mohamet was either making it up or hallucinating.

Religions have two alternative ways of ensuring compliance with their precepts in the interest of the dominant class, what might be called the Eastern and the Western ways.

Eastern religions go in for the doctrine of reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. What sort of bodily life you have after this one depends on how you behave this time. If you are bad, in your next life you’ll be a worm, handicapped or a member of a lower caste. If you are good, you can expect a better life, for instance, to move up a caste or not be born blind or crippled.

At least this gives people more than one chance. In the Western version you just get the one. If you blow it and are bad, you go to Hell—for ever. If you are good, you go to Heaven for eternity. This of course is what the Christians teach. So do the Mohammedans.

Like Christianity, the Koran teaches that life down here is not all that important; it’s only temporary. Far more important is the life to come:

[3:185] Every person tastes death, then you receive your recompense on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever misses Hell, barely, and makes it to Paradise, has attained a great triumph. The life of this world is no more than an illusion.

[6:32] The life of this world is no more than illusion and vanity, while the abode of the Hereafter is far better for the righteous. Do you not understand?!

[9:38] O you who believe, when you are told, “Mobilize in the cause of God,” why do you become heavily attached to the ground? Have you chosen this worldly life in place of the Hereafter? The materials of this world, compared to the Hereafter, are nil.

[40:39] “O my people, this first life is a temporary illusion, while the Hereafter is the eternal abode.”

This is one of the reasons why Socialists oppose religion. It leads people to accept things down here as they are, since any suffering is seen as only going to be temporary and as nothing compared to eternity. Socialists insist that “the life of this world” is not an illusion; it is the only life we are going to get and so we should direct all our efforts to making it the best possible.

Mohamet also inherited from Christianity the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. To anyone thinking about this seriously, this is an absurd proposition. And so it seemed to many of those who heard Mohamet preaching. He records their (eminently reasonable) reactions:

[6:29] They say (subconsciously), “We live only this life; we will not be resurrected.”

[23:37] “We only live this life – we live and die – and we will never be resurrected.”

[23:38] “He is just a man who fabricated lies and attributed them to God. We will never believe him.”

[44:34] The present generations say,

[44:35] “We only die the first death; we will never be resurrected!”

This is how Socialists would have reacted, and do react when we hear the same nonsense about the resurrection of the dead today. The Koran tells us what will happen (or rather what devout Mohammedans would like to happen) to us for this:

[13:5] If you ever wonder, the real wonder is their saying: “After we turn into dust, do we get recreated anew?” These are the ones who have disbelieved in their Lord. These are the ones who have incurred shackles around their necks. These are the ones who have incurred Hell, wherein they abide forever.

[17:97] Whomever God guides is the truly guided one. And whomever He sends astray, you will never find for them any lords and masters beside Him. We will summon them on the Day of Resurrection forcibly; blind, dumb, and deaf. Their destination is Hell; whenever it cools down, we will increase their fire.

[17:98] Such is their just retribution, since they rejected our revelations. They said, “After we turn into bones and fragments, do we get resurrected into a new creation?”

Of course ordinary Mohammedans don’t really believe in everything in the Koran any more than Christians do everything in the bible, as they both show by their everyday, materialist practice which they share with the rest of us who are not religious of giving priority to “the life of this world”. It’s only the priests that do. In putting forward the views they do about what life “down here” should be like—for instance, in proposing that the so-called sharia law should be adopted—they have entered the political fray with a reformist political programme. We therefore oppose them in the same way that we oppose all other reformist political parties and groups.

The Mohammedan priests call their religion “islam” which means “submission” and their followers “muslims”, i.e. those who submit. As the names of religions go—catholic, orthodox, protestant—this is by far the worst, but at least it is honest in bringing out the essence of all religions: humans attributing their potential collective power to a figment of their imagination which they then bow down to and worship. Just as Mohammedans prostrate themselves before their god saying “Allah is Great”, so Christians kneel before theirs singing “Oh God, How Great Thou Art”. What in fact both are saying is “How Weak We Are”. Religion is the ultimate in human self-denigration and self-abasement. Which is why Socialists reject it entirely. Humans are not weak. We can change the world to make life here better, much better.

Adam Buick