To Sohail: Muslim brotherhood same then as now

Submitted by Plato (United Arab Emirates), Apr 8, 2007 at 08:50

You say early Christians lived a communistic lifestyle, so what kind of lifestyle did the early Muslims live. Remember the Ansar-Muhajir brotherhood. What did this brotherhood involve? The ansar who was paired with a muhajir had to give an equal share in his property to the muhajir. The 'brotherhood' was such that the muhajir even inherited the property of the ansar. Did this brotherhood last despite it having Allah's blessing? No.

Very soon this inheritance of property arrangement was abrogated and the old ties of blood were restored! People whom the prophet himself taught, the so-called companions, themselves could not imbibe his teachings. What can you expect from his later followers? The companions, shahaba, demonstrated their love of wealth at the battle of Uhud when in their wild scramble for booty they left their flank unprotected and the Muslims were soundly thrashed. How could such people be expected to share their wealth with outsiders?

And conveniently the Muslims call it a brotherhood when they share reluctantly their wealth for a while, whereas what the Christians did is called communism.

Sohail you have also got your ideas about communism wrong. Marx's ideal was 'from each according to his ability to each according to his needs' and not sharing of wealth in the normal sense. It was an economic ideal not a religious one, a lovely one, but impractical.

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