|
The
third monotheistic religion after Judaism and
Christianity. Originates as revelations to the Prophet
Muhammad, recorded in the
Qur'an and supplemented with a collection of Islamic traditions and laws,
Hadiths. The religion spread
mostly through conversion and military conquests.
Islamic civilization had its Golden Age, but while
religious fundamentalists preach return to Sharia law in
its purest form in order to
restore Islam's past glory,
others, including the green quote here, suggest a
different basis for the Islamic apogee, namely opening
the doors of rational thinking, Ijtihad.
But, as we know, adhering to stifling religious dogma is
the way to preserve wealth and power for a few,
petro-Wahhabism
is eloquent example.
|
The Muslims believe that Islam is the
best religion, revealed to Muhammad in order to improve
upon Judaism and Christianity. On this basis,
inviting into--or, depending on the one's view,
imposing--Islam and Sharia law on all people in the world
is Muslim's holly duty, sometimes
by all means. This, in my view, goes beyond
the missionary reaches of the Christianity.
Among other religions, I find Islam to be
the most
self-serving and
intolerant one. Qur'an may say "no compulsion
in religion," but Muslims are not open-minded on
this. Leaving Islam or converting to other religion
is
punishable by death. All religions
belittle women, but in Islamic countries women
status is the worst.
Reading the books
listed here (if interested, please, follow the links
to go to extensive excerpts), I was looking to see Islam
as the tolerant and peaceful religion that all Muslims say
it is. Alas, I do not see this.
What bothers me most is that moderate
Muslims do not have strong voice, they seem silent.
And though explanations
are given for this (apparent) silence, including
misinformation or even ignorance on Westerners side, still
the question remains: Why Muslims find necessary to
come out and
protest by thousands against
Muhammad cartoons, but do not find necessary to
protest the hijacking of their religion by
extremists? By being so passive, moderate Muslims
risk the appearance of tacitly sanctioning terror.
|
"Science can prosper among
Muslims once again, but only with a willingness
to accept certain basic philosophical and
attitudinal changes--a Weltanschauung that
shrugs off the dead hand of tradition, rejects
fatalism and absolute belief in authority,
accepts the legitimacy of temporal laws, values
intellectual rigor and scientific honesty, and
respects cultural and personal freedoms."
"...between 750 and 1050,
Muslim authors made use of an astounding freedom
of thought in their approach to religious
belief. In their analyses...they bowed to
primacy of reason, honoring one of the basic
principles of the Enlightenment.'
"...the practice of religion
must be a matter of choice for the individual,
not enforced by the state. This leaves
secular humanism, based on common sense and the
principle of logic and reason, as our only
reasonable choice for governance and progress."
From
"Science and the Islamic world" by Pervez
Amirali Hoodbhoy
Physics today, August, 2007
|
|
I am
not alone in my questioning of Muslims' silence.
In connection with the Boston
marathon bombing, NYT
Thomas
Friedman says,
"...we must ask a question only Muslims can
answer: What is going on in your community that
a critical number of your youth believes that
every American military action in the Middle
East is intolerable and justifies a violent
response, and everything Muslim extremists do to
other Muslims is ignorable and calls for mostly
silence?"
 |
"...our
Prophet, who spent most of his time before the
age of forty meditating on power and how to
obtain it."
|
 |
|
Books
about Islam |
I like the
informative and authoritative books of
Bernard Lewis. But one may say that they
reflect the mainstream knowledge and understanding
of Islam in the Western cultures. Fairness
requires to hear well what the Middle East writers
tell us. The books below give this additional
account. |
...
Saudi Arabia, the most conservative regime in
the Arab world and the one most contemptuous of
human rights, emerged not only stronger but also
more than ever the determining power for our
future. Two-thirds of the
world’s oil reserves still sleep quietly
beneath the soil of Mecca. It is normal that
millions of unemployed Arabs dream of a more
favorable distribution of this wealth as a
solution to their problems.…Saudi
Arabia has inundated these millions of
unemployed with Islamic propaganda…
The role of oil in fundamentalism
should never be forgotten. The resistance to
progressive ideas, financed in large measure by
the Saudi oil money that was simultaneously
producing and extravagant, pricey Islamic culture,
gave birth to a rigid authoritarianism…A better
term for the fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia would
be petro-Wahhabism,
whose pillar is the veiled woman.
Islam and democracy: Fear of the modern
world
(p. 165), Fatima Mernissi
|
Islam:
Faith and History |
Mahmoud M. Ayoub, 2004 |
Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization |
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, 2003 |
The heart of Islam: Enduring Values for humanity |
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, 2002 |
Jihad:
The trail of political Islam |
Gilles Kepel, 2002 |
Answering only to God: Faith and freedom in
twenty-first-century Iran |
Geneive Abdo and Jonathan Lions, 2003 |
No God but God: Egypt and the triumph of Islam |
Geneive Abdo, 2000
|
No god but god: The origins, evolution, and future
of Islam |
Reza
Aslan, 2006 |
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A memoir in Books |
Azar Nafisi, 2004 |
In
the eye of the storm: Women in Post-revolutionary
Iran |
Ed.
Mahnaz Afkhami and
Erika Friedl, 1994 |
The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call For
Reform In Her Faith |
Irshad Manji, 2003 |
Beyond
the veil: Male-female dynamics in modern
Muslim society |
Fatima Mernissi, 1987 |
The
veil and the male elite: a feminist
interpretation of women's rights in Islam |
Fatima Mernissi, 1991 |
Islam and democracy: Fear of the modern
world |
Fatima Mernissi, 1992 |
Dreams of trespass: Tales of a harem girlhood |
Fatima Mernissi, 1994 |
Scheherazade goes West: different cultures,
different harems |
Fatima Mernissi, 2001 |
|
|