Magic Is Bad

"You shall not permit a sorceress to live" - Exodus 22:18

“A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death." - Leviticus 20:27

Those lines from the Bible make it quite clear that Magic is Bad, and were the basis for Europe's witch hunting craze during the 15th to 18th centuries. The Islamic ruling on magic is equally clear, and comes from the Hadith (the Qur'an's expanded universe):

"The prescribed punishment for the magician is that he be executed by the sword."

Islam, like Christianity, affirms the existence of magic and assigns it to evil forces. Christianity assigns it to demons and Satan (the Devil). Islam assigns it to evil jinn and Iblis (the Devil). In Islam, 'satan' is not the name or title of a single Devil; it can be applied to any human or jinn who is opposed to Islam and Allah. This is slightly similar to an early Hebrew tradition in which the word 'satan' (adversary) was applied to any angel or servant whom God sent to oppose or tempt someone (to be their adversary) - there are examples of this usage in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These 'satans' are loyal servants of God, doing his bidding, and were eventually merged together into the single Jewish Satan (The Adversary) from the Book of Job, who is still a loyal servant of God. The 'satan' jinn of Islam are against God, but since God controls everything, they're also doing exactly what he wants? Islam is particularly irritating because it doesn't seem to have anything resembling a coherent mythology, because Muhammad was an illiterate merchant who only knew bits of Jewish and Christian lore, which he slammed inconsistently together, sprinkling some Arabian folklore on top.

Umar, the second Caliph of Islam (634CE - 644CE), asked his soldiers to kill every fortuneteller and magician they found during their campaigns against the Persian and Byzantine empires. However, later Caliphs were more relaxed, so it was down to the hardcore Muslims to remind everyone how to deal with magicians. During the reign of Al-Walid I, a magician was present at the caliph's court. He wowed the audience by severing a man's head then re-attaching it to his body: the audience cheered and yelled, "OMFG! He can raise the dead!"

But one audience member wasn't impressed. He went to the next show with a sword strapped to his back. (No security searches back then.) As the the show began, the Good Muslim charged through the crowd, sword drawn, and chopped the magicians head off.

Turning to the shocked crowd, the Good Muslim yelled, "If he can really raise the dead, let him raise himself!"

The Good Muslim was arrested and imprisoned.

Bilal Philips

Having done a bit more research into the author of my current Islam book, I discover that he holds fairly extreme views. I bought it in an Islamic Bookshop in Nottingham, so expected it to be fairly mainstream. Yes, the author is a Sunni Muslim, who make up 80% of Muslims. But he is a Hanbali Sunni Muslim, who make up 15% of Muslims. And he is a Salafi Hanbali Sunni Muslim, who make up an even smaller proportion of Muslims. His views are fundamentalist and extreme, which have caused him to be banned from entering several countries (including the UK), although his views are mainstream in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Since Jihadi Islam (Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc) is the most extreme branch of Salafi Islam, we could consider this author's views a sort-of 'moderate ISIS': he obviously shares a lot of their beliefs, but isn't quite THAT crazy. He has apparently denounced ISIS and received death threats from them.

Keep all that in mind when thinking about my most recent Islam posts, and any more I write based on his book. I feel I should re-iterate something I said in the first post of this new series:

'Since the Qur'an is a very tedious and self-contradictory book, it doesn't give you a very clear idea of Islamic belief, which meant that generations of Muhammad's successors have had to perform arduous exegesis to figure out what God was supposedly going on about... this means that it's very easy to create-your-own Islam to suit your existing prejudices and ideas, hence there are a billion interpretations of what Islam means.'

To give you some idea of the various branches of Islam, here's a handy diagram: 

God's Awesome Oneness

Following on from my last post (about Allah summoning to Eden every human being who has ever existed or ever will exist, in order to clarify with them that he alone is their God), Muslims believe that the Islam is the natural way humans are supposed to live: any deviations from the natural Islamic way of life are caused by the environment. If children are left alone, they grow up being good Muslims believing in Allah (obviously, no studies are cited to back up this assertion). A child is not born a blank slate, but an Islamic slate (geddit?). The natural Islamic way of life is called the 'Fitrah'. As a child grows up, environmental pressures - friends, parents, government, jinn, etc - lead them astray, turning them into Christians, Jews, Communists, etc.

'There is no god but God.' Islam is very big on the oneness and almightyness of God. It's extremely easy to blaspheme in Islam, if we're taking my book's stance as fairly orthodox. Here are some beliefs that go against the Islamic belief in God's awesome oneness:

Free will. Allah has complete control over the universe. Nothing happens without his will. Everything is under his control. (Since belief in free will is affirmed two chapters later, because otherwise the afterlife Reward vs Punishment thing would be utterly stupid, perhaps a denial of free will is also blasphemous?)

Associating other gods with Allah. Polytheism and dualism are bad. Christianity is bad because it divides God into three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, united in substance. No: God is one. Deifying humans is also, obvs, a no-no: Muslims believe Jesus was a human prophet whose teaching was warped over time, resulting in Christianity.

Denying God's existence. Since my book is authored by a Sunni Muslim who disapproves of Sufi Islam, mystical theology - all is Allah, Allah is all - is also in this category: denying God's separateness from the rest of reality is as bad as denying him altogether.

Humanizing God. Allah cannot be depicted in human or animal form. Allah is so beyond such imagery that, by depicting 'him' this way, you are implying a limitation of him: this is the beginnings of idolatry. Sistine Chapel bad.

The belief that energy can neither be created or destroyed is blasphemous, because Allah created everything and can destroy everything whenever he jolly well likes.

Praying to something, or someone, other than God. Allah has complete control over creation: all prayers should be directed to him. Praying to something, or someone, else implies that you believe that thing or person has powers over creation to rival Allah's. Don't pray to Muhammad. Don't pray to saints. Don't pray to angels. Likewise, belief in omens and charms, lucky and unlucky, are offensive to God, because they imply that the material thing (rabbit's foot, 4-leaf clover, broken mirror, etc) has powers over creation to rival Allah's total control. Fortunetelling of any kind is bad, because only Allah knows and controls the future: reading your horoscope is offensive to God.

God is one. God is all-powerful. Free will doesn't exist but also does. Only God knows the future. God is utterly transcendent and beyond our comprehension. Everyone with me so far?