What is the most important symbol of Scotland? It is
without doubt the saltire. Other flags and symbols such as the Royal Standard, (the
yellow flag with the red lion) or the unicorn or the thistle are important, but
the blue and white cross of St Andrew is more important than any other. It is
for this reason that Scottish nationalism uses the saltire more than any other
symbol to express its desire for Scottish independence. But what if the new
leader of the SNP thought that the saltire was forbidden? That would be rather awkward,
wouldn’t it?
Some people may think that my continued exploration of
Humza Yousaf’s connection with Islam is Islamophobic. It isn’t. I am treating
his beliefs as being as worthy of study as Christianity. There is much that a non-Muslim
can find admirable in Islam. It is very interesting as a subject, and I urge
everyone to study it in a fair way and with an open mind. But there are certain
areas of Islam which are problematic for a society like Scotland. We have to be
honest and open about these. Otherwise, how are we to live in an attitude of
tolerance to each other.
The biggest problem for the leader of the SNP is that
the symbol of the cross is forbidden in Islam. How do we know this? We know it
because the Prophet Muḥammad said it.
Islamic doctrine comes to us primarily via the Quran,
but also by the sayings and actions of Muḥammad recorded in the Hadith and
Sunnah. These were passed down from the time when Muḥammad was living by people
who knew him in a verifiable and reliable way to the time when they were finally
written down.
The fundamental reason why the cross is forbidden as a
symbol in Islam is that Islam rejects the idea that Jesus died on the cross and
was resurrected. The reason why it rejects this is that Islam is strictly
monotheistic and rejects the idea that Jesus was divine on the grounds that
this would be a form of polytheism.
The cross in Christianity is not about the death of Jesus.
No one would wear a cross today if Jesus had merely been executed. It is worn
and used as a symbol because Christians believe in the resurrection and
divinity of Jesus. It is about this that Muslims disagree.
The following Hadith shows Muḥammad’s attitude to the
cross.
Al-Ḥusayn ibn Yazīd
al-Kūfī reported from ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Ḥarb, on the authority of Ghuṭayf ibn
Aʿyan, on the authority of Muṣʿab ibn Saʿd, who reported from ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim,
who said: “I came to the prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, wearing a
cross of gold around my neck. He said to me: ‘ʿAdī, remove this idol from you
[i.e., from your neck]’.
The cross is idolatrous
because it represents the polytheism that Muḥammad thought was at the heart of the
Christian faith. It symbolises the idea that God became man, died and was resurrected,
which is shirk (the deification or worship of anyone or anything besides God).
The following Hadith also shows how Muḥammad treated
the cross in his own home. It comes from his wife Āʾisha.
Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl reported
from Abbān, on the authority of Yaḥyā, on the authority of ʿImrān ibn Ḥaṭṭān,
that ʿĀʾisha, may God be pleased with her, related to him, that the prophet,
peace and blessing be upon him, never left anything in his house which had
[images of] the Cross upon it, but that he broke it.
Muḥammad didn’t merely consider any physical depiction
of the cross to be forbidden, i.e., shirk he even thought that any gesture was forbidden.
Hannād ibn al-Sirrī
reported on the authority of Wakīʿ, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Ziyād, on the
authority of Ziyād ibn Ṣubayḥ al-Ḥanafī, who said: “I was praying by the side
of Ibn ʿUmar, and put my hand on my waist. When he finished praying, he said
[to me]: ‘This [gesture] is a cross in prayer; the messenger of God, peace and
blessing be upon him, used to forbid [doing] it’.”
Now why do devout Muslims at the moment refrain from
eating and drinking during the day. They do so in honour of Muḥammad’s first
revelation and because Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam.
But everything of importance in Islam is derived
either from what was revealed to Muḥammad or to what he is reported to have said
or did.
But this means logically that the leader of the SNP
must think that the Scottish flag is shirk, or idolatrous. The only way he
could not think this is to reject those Hadith where Muḥammad says that the
cross is idolatrous. But this would require him to prove that the Hadith was
unreliable and Muḥammad did not say what he was reported as saying.
But it gets worse for Mr Yousaf. If he does not
believe that Jesus died on the cross, why would he believe that Saint Andrew
died on a cross? Why indeed would he think that Andrew was a Saint at all? Why
would he think that the relics of St Andrew arrived in St Andrews? Even if they
did, he would think that such bones were just the bones of an ordinary person
who happened to follow a prophet called Jesus who was just a person like the
rest of us, albeit an important and revered prophet.
Mr Yousaf must also think that the unicorn is idolatrous
because it stands for the incarnation, i.e., God becoming man, which Islam
thinks is not merely false but polytheistic. Mr Yousaf must therefore think
also that the Kirk and Presbyterianism which defines Scottish culture is also idolatrous
and that the Declaration of Arbroath (which was a letter to the Pope) was from
one idolator to another. This doesn’t leave Mr Yousaf with much else that
symbolises Scotland except perhaps the thistle.
So, although I’m sure Mr Yousaf will continue to fly
the Scottish flag on Bute House, I wonder if he knows that he ought to think it
idolatrous. When he finds out will he tell his supporters? Perhaps he would prefer
one with a blue background and a crescent moon. But even to suggest such a thing
would no doubt be considered Islamophobic.
