A NEW JESUS FOR ISLAM?: Here’s a line for a short story. This is pure fiction, but here goes. Somewhere in the Middle East, there arises a charismatic apocalyptic preacher brought up by a Sunni Moslem father and a Shia mother (or vice versa), who wanders about the poor villages of Pakistan and Egypt and the West Bank. Let’s suppose that this prophet gathers a following by performing “great works of faith” and preaching that Allah would soon arrive in person to give the poor of the world their due. What if this prophet was a man or woman of great wisdom, who told the poor what they wanted to hear, but told most everyone else what they didn’t? Next, imagine that this prophet claimed to somehow be of blood lineage to Mohammed (and people actually believed it). What if this prophet told the jihadists to put their swords and guns away, stop trying to be little Mohammeds (really little Napoleons), and trust that Allah could put all things right without their help? What if he or she insisted that the US and Israel would get their due, but only in Allah’s good time?

Well, you know that this New Prophet wouldn’t be long for the world. But he or she might get a few good years in before someone got him. Who would finally do the dirty work? It could be most anyone involved in the Middle East. Could be the Saudi government, or the Syrians, or the Israelis, or the CIA, or Al Qaeda . . . . . or some unholy alliance of several such players.

Let’s take the story even further. Suppose that the New Prophet was attacked by an assassin, was seen being taken away lifeless in a van, and was thoroughly mourned by his group of loving followers. Let’s also say that this Prophet somehow cheated death, but was held by some militant group that may or may not have need for his existence. And somehow, during the confusing days and weeks following the New Prophet’s death scene, a handful of followers actually did manage to see the Prophet, perhaps even got a wave from him from a distance. It was all quite hazy. But the witnesses swore to the faithful that the New Son of Muhammad was still alive, praise Allah.

Then more and more ironies follow. His captors finally decide him to be of no more use, and a quick shot to the head ends the matter. No one ever finds out what really happened. But a small band of faithful Muslims decide to risk their own lives by betraying their imams and mullahs and asserting that the New Prophet lives and will come back soon to announce the arrival of Allah’s Kingdom. Until then, they pledged to lead righteous lives of peaceful martyrdom. For each one executed in town squares by the Sunni and Shia establishment, ten new followers were found. After a few decades, this fervent movement somehow made its way to the cities and universities, which co-opted it as a relief from the intellectual and cultural oppression of fundamentalist Islam. There would still be many decades of blood and suffering, and no help or support from Israel or the west; but somehow this strange Muslim parallel to what Christianity did to Judaism and the Roman Empire would not be stopped.

Yea, it’s just a day dream. But history does repeat itself sometimes. Would this be a better form of Islam? In some ways yes, in some ways no. Right now, Islam, despite being a relatively young religion, is very much an “old” religion, an eye-for-an-eye religion close to the deserts and teeming ghettos of the world, a religion about secular survival in arid conditions — just as Judaism was in Jesus’ time. Although the trend for most religions over time is toward increased secularization, sometimes they experience a spontaneous “re-spiritualization”, a sudden return to other-worldly (metaphysical) values. It might be good for Islam to go through such a process right about now. But it would be just as good for Christianity and Judaism to look unto the heavens themselves. We could all use a bit more divine inspiration these days.