was William Shakespeare a Muslim I will give you my final thoughts about this question at
the end of the video now in this video I just want to share with you some words from William
Shakespeare the great English playwright and poet who died just over 400 years ago I think
he had in many ways an Islamic understanding of God and this comes out in his plays particularly
in this play called The Merchant of Venice here's my copy William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice
published by Penguin Classics now there's a part in this play where one of the characters talks
about Mercy the quality of Mercy as an attribute of God now of course in Islam Mercy is an
attribute of God we have Al-Rahman and Al-Rrahim which begin every Surah every chapter of the Quran
apart from one and that's usually translated as the most compassionate most merciful so it has
ideas of cherishing and mercy and compassion and we find this in Shakespeare too and I just want to
um read uh it to you it's about a dozen lines um now I won't go too much into the story of The
Merchant of Venice on the uh back cover um we read a very brief summary it says Antonio a Venetian
Merchant that means a businessman basically from Venice a Venetian Merchant wishes to help his
friend get money to impress a rich heiress but he is forced to borrow the Sun from a cynical abused
Jewish money lender [ __ ] he's the central bad character of the play and Antonio signs
a chilling contract to honor the debt uh with a pound of his own flesh and that means literally
a pound of his own flesh now um what I'm going to do is just read you about a dozen lines as I
say I won't go too much into the story you can Google it if you want to see a more detailed
synopsis of the play and it's an amazing play I do recommend it there's some marvelous Productions
um you can see online so I'm going to read it to you then I'm going to quote a couple of Hadith
and these are sayings of the Prophet Muhammad upon whom be peace which I think say exactly the
same thing so I'm going to quote from act four scene uh one uh and I think it goes like this
the quality of Mercy is not strained it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place
beneath it is twice blessed it blesseth him that gives and him that takes tis mightiest in the
mightiest it becomes the throneed Monarch better than his crown his scepter shows the force of
temporal power the attribute to ore and Majesty wherein doth sit The Dread and fear of Kings
but Mercy is above this septid sway it is enthroned in the hearts of Kings it is an
attribute to God himself and Earthly power doth then show like his Gods when mercy Seasons Justice
therefore jew though therefore do though Justice be thy plea consider this
that in the course of Justice none of us should see salvation
we do pray for mercy and that same prayer doth teaches all to render the Deeds of Mercy
I have spoken thus much to mitigate the justice of thy plea which if thou follow
this strict Cult of Venice must need to give sentence against the merchant there
so that's that play it's extraordinary piece of writing now in a Hadith we read uh that Abu
Herrera reported that the messenger of God upon whom BP said when Allah completed the creation
he wrote in his book with him upon the throne verily my Mercy prevails over my wrath my Mercy
prevails over my wrath exactly the same idea there source of course is bukhari a Muslim meaning it's
uh completely authentic and there's another um Hadith narrated by Abba Herrera and he reported
again that uh Muhammad upon whom be peace said The Good Deeds of any person will not make him
enter Paradise I None can enter Paradise through his Good Deeds they The Prophet's companion said
not even you o messenger of God he said not even myself unless Allah bestows his favor and mercy
on me again there's some sahih al-bukhari so just to push um this point home salvation is ultimately
based on the mercy of God because works are extremely important but ultimately Mercy admits
us to paradise and not the sacrifice of a human being who has to be tortured to death on a cross
uh before somehow God isn't able to forgive us it's not the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad upon
the human be peace and mercy and forgiveness are of the essence of Jesus's teaching too
um as they are of the Hadith and in our greatest English playwright William Shakespeare who
clearly understood this attribute of God to be uh Mercy as he says um In this passage I've read
from The Merchant of Venice that in the course of Justice none of us should see salvation we
do pray for mercy and that same Mercy doth teach us to render teach us all to render the Deeds of
mercy so in other words in the course of Justice if we were just to be judged by pure Justice alone
none of us would see salvation none of us would pass we've all fallen short we've all sinned of
course and therefore we will be condemned by the strict justice state stands of Justice we are all
condemned so we do pray for mercy and that same prayer teaches us also to render the Deeds of
Mercy in other words to be merciful to others just as we have been shown Mercy we are to show Mercy
um to other people as well so this of course is very Islamic and also uh which is to say
the same thing of course it's very much the teaching of Jesus too because Jesus
in the Muslim understanding was a Muslim Prophet meaning he was one who submitted his will to God
that's what Muslim means in Arabic that's what it means in the Quran it's not some kind of special
thing to do with the Middle East disposition to surrender our Wills to God and so uh Abraham and
Jesus Moses Muhammad were all Muslims in this Quranic sense peace be upon them all
so to conclude was William Shakespeare a Muslim I doubt he knew much if anything of the Quran
and Sunnah in the repressive Christian England of his day so he lived partly under the reign
of Elizabeth the first who had many Catholics put to death or persecuted and under James as well
who produced uh the famous King James Bible he wouldn't have access to um Muslims and the Quran
in England at that time a very repressive Society but a good case can be made I think that his fitra
this is a chronic term uh meaning his god-given natural disposition uh his fitra directed him
to a true conception of God such that he held to an Islamic conception of God nonetheless
and to that extent, he was Muslim yes I would argue controversially. until next time.