I think that this excerpt really shows the jewish roots of islam. Especially when he refers to God creating the earth in 6 days and resting on the seventh. He also talks about God creating night and say when he says, "he makes the night to give way to the day." He also describes God in many of the same ways that the Hebrew bible does. He is called the first and last, knowledge of all things, ruler of heaven and earth.
I also think that certain parts of this seem to share an understanding with hinduism. For example, it says, "Do not despise the world, for the world too is God" or "whoever knows himself knows God." This seems to point to the idea that we all are conected or one. Also when it says, "when we surrender ourselves fully, there is nothing but God: not even a "there"; not even an "is"; not even a "God". This seems to point to the fact that once you reach the point that we are all one the term God becomes irrelevant. The word God is just a restraint that are limited minds create. A box that we wall our ideas in. Once we are free of that then we are God.
I was curious about the first paragraph though when it says, "We created man." I thought that Muhammad was a monotheist since Jews are...this seems to indicated that he is a polytheist.
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I was also curious about the use of we. I was thinking it was supposed to be the royal we, since everything is touched by God "we" all have some of God inside of us. I don't know, just an idea.
Muhammad sounds like he would be an interesting person to meet. I didn't notice the Hindu like connection until you mentioned it.
Yes, I had a similar question regarding the usage of "We". I thought it was interesting that "We" was capitalized, indicating that God is included in the "We" in which the passage is referencing. I thought as well that Muhammed was monothiestic, but by the useage of "We" I thought differently, and was a little confused.
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