Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 16, 1991 TAG: 9102160431
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Persian Gulf War has whetted curiosity about a faith whose deepest secrets are locked into the difficult Arabic language, Beardslee recently told an audience of about 225.
Beardslee, who has been on the college's religion faculty for 32 years, said he isn't a real authority on Islam. He has, however, studied world religions extensively, traveled in 36 countries and concerned himself with the civil and religious rights of minorities to a degree that has given him the prophet title.
Beardslee's expertise is in demand for individual lectures and religious education series in a variety of Roanoke Valley houses of worship.
His recent lecture, part of the annual Hollins Winter Seminars series, was titled "Mohammed: The Last and Greatest of the Prophets."
Beardslee said the failure of leaders like George Bush to consult authorities in the religion doesn't help American political relations with Iraq and other predominantly Islamic nations.
And when Bush mispronounces Saddam Hussein's name, it can even be construed in Arabic as a sexual slur, Beardslee said. He added Bush is "insane" to pay so little attention to religious and cultural niceties.
Much of the cruel behavior attributed to the followers of Mohammed, since he lived 14 centuries ago in Arabia, is behavior that has been duplicated by Christians, Beardslee noted.
During the Middle Ages, in the Crusades, a series of military campaigns European Christians mounted against Islam, the soldiers for Christ often slaughtered everyone they found. In that period of history, Christians, Jews and Muslims alike regarded killing in the name of religion as an honorable pursuit, Beardslee noted.
Beardslee said that though the Islamic leader of that period, Saladin, could be judged as just and enlightened, subsequent generations of Muslims have gotten an incredibly bad image.
When the Italian poet Dante wrote "The Inferno" about the time of the Crusades, he reserved his most gruesome description for the fate of Mohammed and his nephew.
Of the many legends surrounding Mohammed, some are absurd and others are rooted in a time and place so different from modern America as to be impossible to fathom.
The Koran, as holy a book to Muslims as the Bible is to Christians, offers one set of clues about the founder of Islam. Other clues are found in several ambiguous biographies and in the personal teachings of the prophet on moral and civil matters.
Illiterate himself, Mohammed could not read the sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity. He taught that the correct version of the creation story was passed to him by the angel Gabriel, Beardslee said.
Muslims believe that the prophet descended directly from Adam through Ishmael, whom Jews and Christians see as the less favored son of Abraham.
"The Koran has never been officially translated from Arabic," Beardslee noted. Nor has an accurate translation of the Bible ever been available to those who speak only Arabic.
Americans began to learn something of the religion during the United States' troubles with Iran in the '70s and '80s. The ruling faction in Iran is the religion's militant Shiite faction, traced from the prophet's nephew, Ali.
While the Shiites are a majority in Iraq also, the rulers of the country, including Sadam Hussein, are of the Sunni faction, traceable directly to Mohammed. But some Muslims have declared Saddam a heretic.
In a question-and-answer period, Beardslee said Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, has peace as its ideal. The blood of martyrs is not more honored than change brought about by "the tongue and the pen," he said.
Yet in the history of Islam, "truces [with outsiders] never seem to last more than 10 years," Beardslee said.
Since World War II, the Islamic faith has become so popular among Americans, especially blacks, that as many as 7 million adherents may in North America.
Beardslee noted that the strict morality that converts to Islam follow has upgraded the lives of many released from prison. Devout Muslims do not use drugs or engage in sexual promiscuity.
An Islamic columnist, Amatullah Sharif Okakpu, has reported that at least 100,000 Muslims live in Washington and worship there in the city's more than 70 mosques.
Modern American Muslims have been influenced, by the numerous Africans who follow the faith, Okakpu wrote.
The international attention given the banning of "The Satanic Verses," by British writer Salman Rushdie, shows the power Islam is now also exerting in Britain, Beardslee pointed out.
Beardslee, in a final comment, said "we cannot know the Arab mind, but we can improve our attitudes which have been terribly biased."
by CNB