Relationship between Religion and Politics in Islam — Page 23
The Relationship Between Religion & Politics 23 of major religions of the world, tells a completely different story. Turn to China, for instance. Tao came with a teach- ing. Not a jot of that teaching was changed by Confucius. It was exactly the same teaching which was reinforced and re-interpreted by the latter. But I agree. The Holy Quran also, positively dictates that, sometimes, the laws are changed. However, the ques- tion is are they changed in fundamentals or superficially? And how are they changed? Whether they require further change or not, this is also a very important question and a genuine question for me to answer. Now, I quote three examples from history, of change of law of nature, ending up in the final verdict of Islam. In Judaism, because of a long history of oppression by Pharaohs of the Israelites, the latter had lost that human quality of courage and defiance even when they were in the right. To take their rightful revenge was something beyond their power and strength because they had been trampled upon for far too long. This is similar to what happens sometimes to the Kashmiris in India: those who were cruelly treated started saying after a while, ‘All right, we forgive our powerful enemy, but not the weak enemy. ’ So, when such distortions appear, then the law has only to be a temporary law to rectify the error done. And that is exactly what happened in regard to the Mosaic law of revenge: Tooth for a tooth, eye for eye. And it was emphasised so much, as if there was no room for pardon. That law was practised for a long period. Then came Jesus Christ as. By that time, the Jews had forgotten the very