“It is important to emphasize here that the attitude, so prevalent in the modern world, that a person’s body and life are his or her own to do with as he or she pleases is totally alien to Islam. Our bodies and lives are not our own; they are God’s.”

These bold words come from a book so new it bears the copyright 2003. The volume carries the simple title “Islam.” Its author is a Muslim scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a native of Iran who studied at Tehran University, MIT,  and Harvard. This distinguished religious thinker is now University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University.

The Muslim view of the body flies in the face of many modern American ideas. “My body belongs to me,” we say, “and I can do with it what I wish. It is my business alone if I choose, for instance, to undergo expensive and painful plastic surgery to make my face look pretty.”

Many modern Americans suffer from an unfavorable body image. We are dissatisfied with how we look in the mirror and brood about physical defects, real or imagined. Focusing on what we see as shortcomings often undermines our self-esteem. The Muslim teaching about the body as belonging to God suggests a reason for adopting a much more positive view of our physical selves.

Professor Nasr must be painfully aware that what he says applies to the suicides carried out by terrorists and other militants, so many of them Muslim. In another passage, in fact, he explicitly mentions suicide “which is forbidden by Islamic Law and considered a great sin.”

Thus he would absolutely reject the claim made by a few militant fellow Muslims trying to justify the suicidal attacks of the terrorists on September 11, 2001. What these men did cannot be judged as being in accord with their Islamic faith but instead goes directly against its teachings.

Similarly, this scholar would brand as violations of the Muslim religion the attacks in which some Palestinians blow themselves and others up as part of the current intifada or violent uprising against Israel. However heavy their grievances, these people cannot claim the backing of their faith for killing themselves in this way, and certainly not for killing innocent civilians by any means.

One often hears mention of the Arabic word “jihad” used to justify such suicidal attacks. Almost always the word gets translated as “holy war” but Dr. Nasr calls this a mistranslation. The word really means “exertion in the path of God” and has a profound inner meaning that most non-Muslims know nothing about.

Outwardly, Dr. Nasr explains, jihad allows people to defend their homeland or religion from attack by legitimate means. But inwardly, on a deeper level, “it means to battle the negative tendencies within the soul, tendencies that prevent us from living a life of sanctity and reaching the perfection God has meant for us.”

Understood in this sense, jihad has a central role in the life of Muslims. Dr. Nasr refers to a saying of Mohammed in which the Prophet calls this latter use of the word “the greater jihad” because it amounts to “vigilance against all that distracts us from God.”

Islam’s teaching about the body belonging to God and human beings not being free to abuse it is reminiscent of the New Testament’s teaching on the same subject. In the First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price.”

This way of thinking about our bodies presupposes seeing ourselves as God’s handiwork. This amounts to a radical point of view that considers everything human as flowing from the creator. It means considering our physical selves as sacred. It smacks of what Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said: “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

Thus, great spiritual traditions challenge us, not only to resist abuse of our bodies, but also to be deeply respectful of our physical selves. Yes, our bodies  frequently are the source of pain and other afflictions.  But, despite this reality, Islam, along with Judaism, Christianity and the world’s other spiritual legacies, prompts us to look upon our material selves as sacred and holy.

Richard Griffin