| No doubt some
of the violence found in the life of Mohammed was part of his time and culture. Mohammed
was often oppressed and attacked, nut the higher degree of compassion for all
people-regardless of their beliefs-cannot be attributed to him. According to the Sufis,
Mohammed emphasized that there was an inner holy war and an outer holy war, the former
being work on oneself and the latter being fighting for the religion, and that the inner
holy war was more important. Yet he never gave up
the need for outer holy war, which became a war of world conquest for his successors
according to the intention Mohammed himself set forth to spread his faith to the Greek and
Persian empires and conquer them if necessary. Mohammed's second character trait that is
not part of the yogic spiritual approach was his approach to sexuality. Mohammed at
twenty-five married a woman of forth and was married to her until her death twenty-five
years later. He was a good husband (though not a yogi who had transcended sexual desire). |
