How Submission Became the Hinge
The Humanism That Developed Out of the Reading of Genesis 15
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Introduction
This document examines how Islam’s institutional expression developed from the Abraham narrative into a system in which human submission became the ground of covenant standing. This examination is not a judgment on the world’s approximately two billion Muslims or on the genuine reverence for YHWH, Al-lah, the God, that characterizes Islamic devotion at its most sincere. Many within Islam have pressed toward the same ground the covenant text actually shows, the sovereign faithfulness of God as the foundation of all things. What this document examines is the institutional framework that built submission as the required human performance of covenant access.
The name of the religion itself declares the hinge. Islam means submission. The one who submits is muslim. The posture of the creature before the creator is real and present throughout the Abraham narrative and throughout the covenant text. What the institutional expression built was a system in which that posture became the required human performance. Perform the submission correctly within the authorized institutional framework or stand outside the covenant community.
What Genesis 15 Actually Shows
The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed by YHWH alone. Abraham prepared the covenant ceremony. YHWH caused the tardemah, the deep sleep — to fall on Abraham. The chashekah gedolah, the great darkness, fell on him. YHWH passed between the pieces as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. Bearing both sides. For the one who was unconscious inside the condition and could not reach outside it.
The covenant had no human hinge. It was sealed for the one who was not submitting because he was asleep. Not performing. Not submitting. Not observing. Unconscious in the darkness. The covenant completed by YHWH’s act alone.
Genesis 15:6, Abraham credited YHWH with righteousness. He recognized and declared YHWH faithful and righteous because YHWH was able to do what he had promised in an impossible situation. The righteousness in Genesis 15 is YHWH’s. The posture of recognition and trust that Abraham expressed was real. The institutional tradition built a system on that posture, transforming a recognition of YHWH’s faithfulness into a required human performance.
The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed by YHWH alone while Abraham slept. The posture of submission before the creator is real and genuine in the Abraham narrative. Islam took that posture and made it the institutional hinge of covenant standing. A recognition of divine sovereignty was transformed into a required human performance.
The Element Islam Built Its Hinge On
The element Islam chose as its hinge was genuine and present in the Abraham narrative. Abraham did submit. He went when YHWH called. He prepared the covenant animals. He went to Moriah when commanded. He raised the knife before YHWH stopped his hand. The posture of submission before the sovereign God is genuinely present in Abraham’s story.
What the text shows is that the submission was Abraham’s response to what YHWH had already initiated and would accomplish himself. YHWH called Abraham. YHWH made the promises. YHWH sealed the covenant while Abraham slept. YHWH provided the ram at Moriah before Abraham completed the act. At every critical moment YHWH initiated and accomplished. Abraham responded.
The institutional tradition of Islam built its framework on the response rather than on what YHWH initiated and accomplished. The name of the religion, submission, names the human posture as the defining characteristic of the covenant relationship. Submit correctly, perform the five pillars correctly, maintain correct submission within the authorized institutional expression. The one who passes between the pieces alone while the human party sleeps is secondary to the human performance of submitting to the one who passes.
The Quran’s Abraham and the Genesis 15 Foundation
The Quran engages with Abraham extensively, Ibrahim in Arabic, presenting him as the model muslim, the one who submitted to Allah before the name Muslim existed as a category. Surah 2:124, and when Abraham was tried by his Lord with commands and he fulfilled them. The commands and the fulfillment. Human performance as the defining characteristic.
The Quran does not engage with Genesis 15 directly, the covenant ceremony, the deep sleep, YHWH passing through alone, the covenant sealed in the darkness. The Quran presents Abraham primarily through his obedience to divine commands and his willingness to sacrifice his son, identified in Islamic tradition as Ishmael rather than Isaac, preserving the ethnic connection between Ibrahim and the Arab peoples through Hagar and Ishmael.
The hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, is explicitly framed as a commemoration and reenactment of Abraham’s journey and submission. Pilgrims do what Abraham did. They walk where Abraham walked. They sacrifice an animal as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son before the ram appeared. The human performance of reenacting Abraham’s submission is the fifth pillar of the faith. The ram in the thicket, YHWH providing before Abraham completed the act, is commemorated by pilgrims performing the act. The provision of YHWH becomes secondary to the human performance of the commemoration.
The hajj reenacts Abraham’s journey and submission. Pilgrims commemorate what Abraham did. At Moriah YHWH stopped Abraham’s hand before he completed the act and provided the ram himself. The institution built a system in which the human reenactment of the incomplete act is the religious performance. YHWH’s provision before Abraham finished is commemorated by pilgrims performing what Abraham did not complete.
The Five Pillars as the Institutional Framework
The five pillars of Islam are the required human performances through which submission to Allah is expressed and maintained. Each pillar is a specific act that the Muslim must perform correctly. Together they constitute the institutional framework of covenant access.
The Shahada Declaration of Faith
There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. The profession of faith that constitutes entry into the House of Islam. To make this declaration with sincerity is to become Muslim. The covenant access is through correct human declaration. The one who does not make this declaration stands outside the House of Islam regardless of what YHWH may have accomplished for all humanity. The covenant sealed while Abraham slept, for all who slept, for all flesh, is conditional on making the correct human declaration in the correct form.
Salah Five Daily Prayers
Prayer performed five times daily at prescribed times, facing Mecca, with prescribed physical movements of standing, bowing, and prostrating. The physical posture of prostration, the body fully submitted to the ground, expresses submission to Allah. The prayers are performed correctly or they are not prayers. The human body performing submission correctly five times daily as the required expression of covenant standing.
Zakat Obligatory Almsgiving
A fixed percentage of wealth, typically 2.5 percent, given annually to those in need. Zakat is legally obligatory, part of the institutional structure of the Muslim community. The word means purification, the giving purifies the remainder of the wealth. Human giving as the mechanism of purification. The covenant act that Genesis 15 shows YHWH performing alone, the sealing that purifies and completes, is expressed through the human performance of obligatory giving.
Sawm Fasting During Ramadan
Required abstention from food and drink during daylight hours throughout the month of Ramadan. Through the fast the Muslim renews awareness of and gratitude for what Allah has provided. The human discipline of withholding from the body as the required expression of covenant devotion. Perform the fast correctly within the prescribed conditions or stand outside the covenant observance.
Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca
Every Muslim whose health and finances permit must make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca. The pilgrimage includes specific rituals that reenact the journey of Abraham and his family, walking between the hills where Hagar ran seeking water, circling the Kaaba, the symbolic stoning of the devil at Mina, the sacrifice of an animal commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. The covenant of Genesis 15, sealed while Abraham slept, accomplished by YHWH alone before Abraham could complete anything, is accessed institutionally through the human performance of a pilgrimage reenacting what Abraham did.
Five required human performances. Each one a specific act that must be performed correctly within the authorized institutional framework. Each one a human hinge on a covenant that Genesis 15 shows YHWH sealing unconditionally while the human party was unconscious.
What Abraham’s Life Actually Shows
The Islam that built its institutional framework on Abraham’s submission built it on a portrait of Abraham that the Genesis narrative shows in its full complexity.
Abraham submitted when YHWH called. He also arranged the Hagar situation, a human attempt to accomplish what YHWH had promised to do himself. He told the same lie twice, she is my sister, once in Egypt and once with Abimelech. Both times YHWH intervened and removed Abraham from the consequence of his own deception. Sarah laughed at the promise. Abraham laughed at the promise in Genesis 17:17. Neither was a model of perfect submission.
At Moriah, the event that the hajj reenacts, Abraham raised the knife. YHWH stopped the hand. The angel called from heaven before Abraham completed the act. And YHWH provided the ram caught in the thicket. Abraham did not complete the sacrifice. YHWH intervened and provided before Abraham finished. YHWH Yireh, YHWH will provide. The provision came from YHWH before the human performance was completed.
The hajj reenacts the incomplete act. It commemorates what Abraham was about to do when YHWH stopped him. It does not commemorate what YHWH did, the provision that came before Abraham finished. The pilgrimage performs the human movement toward sacrifice. The institution built its fifth pillar on the incomplete human act that YHWH interrupted, rather than on the divine provision that made the completion unnecessary.
The hajj reenacts what Abraham was doing when YHWH stopped him. YHWH stopped the hand. YHWH provided the ram. The human act was incomplete. The institutional pillar built on that act performs the incompleteness as though it were the definitive act. YHWH’s provision, which arrived before Abraham finished, is not what the pilgrimage reenacts.
The Covenant That Could Not Be Made Conditional
The Quran contains multiple affirmations of divine sovereignty and divine mercy that sit in tension with the submission-as-covenant-ground framework. Surah 2:286, Allah does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear. Surah 39:53, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed Allah forgives all sins. These are declarations of divine mercy that the five pillar framework qualifies with human performance requirements.
The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed by YHWH alone for the one who was performing nothing. Isaiah 54:10, my covenant of peace shall not be removed, is permanent and unconditional in the Hebrew covenant text that Islam claims as part of its scriptural heritage. The tradition that built submission as the covenant hinge was working with texts that declared the covenant permanent and unconditional. The texts were present. The institution built what the texts did not require.
At every critical point in Abraham’s life YHWH was the actor and Abraham was the recipient of what YHWH did. The call came from YHWH. The promise came from YHWH. The covenant was sealed by YHWH while Abraham slept. The intervention at Moriah came from YHWH. The ram was YHWH’s provision. The submission Abraham expressed was real. But it was always the response to YHWH’s initiative, not the ground of YHWH’s covenant. The institution that named itself after the response, submission, made the response the ground. YHWH’s initiative became secondary to the human posture that responded to it.
The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed by YHWH alone while Abraham slept. Islam took Abraham’s submission, his response to YHWH’s initiative, and made it the ground of covenant standing. The name of the religion declares the hinge. Five required performances maintain it. The covenant that YHWH sealed for the unconscious Abraham was sealed before any submission was possible. It has not changed.
The name — Islam. Submission. The hinge declared in the name itself.
The shahada — declare correctly. The doorway into the House of Islam.
The salah — pray correctly five times daily. Submission performed in the body.
The zakat — give correctly. Human giving as purification mechanism.
The sawm — fast correctly. Human discipline as covenant devotion.
The hajj — perform the pilgrimage. Reenact the incomplete act YHWH interrupted.
Five human performances.
On a covenant YHWH sealed while Abraham slept.
Before any submission was possible.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams