Faith and Religion are missing in today’s world

Original Post: 17 Nov 2005

Sitting in Agadir, Morocco on a windy, hazy and lazy afternoon, I am enjoying reading Amin Maalouf’s book “ The Crusade Through Arab Eyes” a very well written and enjoyable book that takes one back in time to the “Christian Holy Wars” of time past.
In the chapter titled” The Cannibals of Ma’arra” I could not help but complete the chapter and go to my computer and write this short essay. For those who are familiar with Arab litterateur and poetry, most if not all recalls the blind poet Abu’l Ala’al-Ma’ari. I recall of his most famous verses where he blames his father for bringing him to this world and ask the question what did he do to his father to deserve such thing? I was so stuck with the following verses:
The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:
Those with brains and no religion,
And those with religion, but no brains.

I read this verse few days after terrorist and suicide bombers attached 3 hotels in Amman, committing mayhem and murder and ask the question do these people have any brains or any religion? My conclusion is those terrorists have neither brains nor religion.
Amin Maalouf’s book is such a timely reading because it takes us back to the days of the Crusades and I knew from my days in middle school about the crimes and murder committed by these Christian Holy Worriers but I never knew the extent of murder and systematic killing these Christian Holy Worriers engaged in. More than 10,000 inhabitant of the town of Ma’ara where put to the swords. These Holy Worriers put more than 70,000 Jews, Christians and Muslims to death in the holy city of Jerusalem.
In the days of the Crusades, it was the “Christians” who were committing such crimes and these days it is the “Muslims” who are committing similar crimes. While the numbers of those killed by these “Muslim Jihadists” did not reach the number of death and murder committed by the “Christian Crusaders” the result and the motives are the same. Evil, murder and killing that took place some 1000-year ago, is the same that is taking place now, where killing of innocent people is committed by those who profess faith. Islamic Jihadists of today are no better than Christian Holy Worriers of the past.
We only need to go back to the above verses and see that the finding of Al’Ma’ari and his definition of world inhabitants have evolved to the worst. In today’s world the people have no brains and no religion. It seems that religion and brain are incompatible today as it was incompatible in times past. We only need to look at today’s world leadership and see that “they” do not have the brain nor the religion, because of there are brains, the world will not be in such a big mess it is in now, and if there was religion the world will not be the big mess it is in now!
We only need to look at some of those “brains” and “religion” out there to see that they nave neither. Those who planned and executed the war in Iraq did not have the brain or the religion. Those those who are carrying out the mayhem in Iraq of suicide bombing have no religion and certainly have no brains. Those big time names of Christianity and Islam, the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Pat Robertson have neither brain nor religion. The Christian Crusaders of time past are criminal and as evil as the Muslim Jihadists of today. Let us hope that world leaders of the future will be blessed with both religion and faith. Those those who continue to insist on occupation in the name of God have neither brains nor religion. There comes a time, when we need to live free from fear of these Jihadists and live free from dictatorships and live free from military occupation.