Even maggots have a right to life

Today, millions are suffering because of the wars being fought with guns which the west supplied the combatants. And now the west is being swamped with refugees from the war zones. And millions more are suffering as refugees and dying trying to escape from the many war zones.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

My Tok Guru, the late Abdul Rahman Pattani, a well-respected leader of the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO), once related a very interesting anecdote.

One Sufi teacher was preaching to his congregation cross-legged on the floor when a maggot fell out from a sore on his leg. He then picked up the maggot from the floor and put it back into the sore. His students looked puzzled and the Sufi teacher said, “Even maggots have a right to life.”

Then there is the story about Prophet Muhammad traveling with his companions and they spotted a prostitute cupping her hands to give a thirsty dog a drink of water. “That woman is going to heaven,” the Prophet was reported to have said.

The companions, of course, were puzzled. That woman is a prostitute while a dog is unclean (najis) and Muslims are not to allow dogs to lick them. The Prophet then explained that the woman had shown compassion to an animal and this is what matters.

Maggots and unclean dogs have a right to life, says Islam. So, what more humans? That is what our panduan hidup or moral compass should be. Muslims, however, focus on praying, fasting, going to Mekah, attending religious lectures, dressing “properly”, etc.

This is being done by religious people who believe in God

I think Muslims need to take stock about what God really wants from them and why they were put on the face of this earth. Of all God’s creations, humans are the most immoral of the lot.

Muslims and Christians love to moralise and judge others. Yes, Muslims and Christians are the flip side of the same coin. Both are most irritating people who think they are better than others. And this is why the world has been in such a mess for the last 1,000 years.

Unfortunately, Islam and Christianity are supposed to save the world but the proponents of these two religions are destroying the world. What irony! And is this a case of the fruits of a poisonous tree are poisonous? I hope not!

So why do Muslims and Christians love to kill others? You may say only Muslims kill others, Christians do not? Are you sure? Was WWI a Muslim war? Was WWII a Muslim war? What about the Korean War, Vietnam War, and all those many wars since WWII until today?

One million Muslims died in the Iran-Iraq War with weapons supplied by the West

Okay, the Iran-Iraq War was not a Christian war. It was a Muslim war. The Christians just supplied all the weapons to enable Muslims to fight each other and to kill one million Muslim brothers and sisters in nine years. The west just help Muslims kill each other.

Is a person who supplies the gun to someone, knowing that person wants to use that gun to kill, innocent of the murder? You know they want to use those guns to kill and yet you give them those guns to help them kill. And then you say you are better than the person who kills using the guns you give them.

Today, millions are suffering because of the wars being fought with guns which the west supplied the combatants. And now the west is being swamped with refugees from the war zones. And millions more are suffering as refugees and dying trying to escape from the many war zones.

Maybe the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is a message from God. But then what precisely is that message? Probably the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is bankrupting the world so that every country no longer has any money left to fight wars. In that case may Covid-19 stay with us a while longer so that the world comes to its senses.