Nailed to the Mosque Door
Charles Paul Freund | July 30, 2005, 9:42pm
The Iraqi writer Majed Al-Gharbawi is calling for sweeping reform in Islamic culture and religious discourse. Writing for the liberal Arabic-language Website, Elaph.com (translation via MEMRI), Al-Gharbawi argued in the wake of the London bombings that while the psychological, political, and economic reasons for terrorism are important, "they are secondary reasons."
"The driving reason is religious ideology," according to Al-Gharbawi. "In the name of religion, wars have broken out; blood has been let; murder has been legitimized; rights have been revoked; regimes have been taken over; those with different opinions have been accused of unbelief; and Muslims with different opinions have even been accused of heresy . . . Religion was and remains a cover for justifying acts of terror and for arbitrary policies . . . ."
A distorted religious discourse "has reshaped the logic of the [Islamist] movements, based on mockery of life and love of death, hatred for the other and self-glorification, neglect of this world and [preparation] for the hereafter . . . ." That discourse "has not educated the people of the Islamist movements to adopt leniency, mercy, and tolerance for the other -- but rather has educated [them] to hatred of the other and plans to murder and uproot the other . . . This culture is completely unconnected to the human values to which the Koran calls . . . . "
Al-Gharbawi is one of numerous Muslim writers demanding a religious response to Islam's global crisis. Many of these writers are calling for religious fatwas against terrorist deeds, but Al-Gharbawi thinks that's not enough. He wants a re-interpretation of Shari'a, a new understanding of the life of the Prophet, and even writes that "there is a need to discuss intensively the issue of abolishing chapters in the Koran."
A revised Koran may be unlikely, but changing perceptions of the Koran are a known historical phenomenon. The Mu'tazilites, for example, who controlled orthodoxy in early Baghdad, held that the Koran was a created book. There are numerous examples of changing Koranic understanding in Islamic history.
That process continues. As the NYT reported last December, many Muslims today are "dismayed by the ever more bloody image of Islam around the world. They are determined to find a way to wrestle the faith back from extremists. Basically the liberals seek to dilute what they criticize as the clerical monopoly on disseminating interpretations of the sacred texts." The long-term Muslim revolt against Islamism that Al-Gharbawi and others are demanding has been trying to start itself.
Rick Gaber | July 30, 2005, 11:50pm | #
Julian, I've added a link to this post to the bottom of
FAITH AND FORCE: THE DESTROYERS OF THE MODERN WORLD
Check out:
The
Minaret of Freedom
also:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Nawash20050301.shtml
and:
http://www.freemuslims.org/
and:
New
book says the Qur'an gives women the same rights as men
and:
[snip]
Yet much more is now required of the adherents of Islam: the reinvention
of their religion. No longer can the words of the Koran be considered inerrant,
infallible, those of Allah himself. The words must be read thoughtfully
and critically, and the wisdom they contain extracted with reflection,
not reflexively.
Christianity emerged from its Dark Ages when its sacred texts were considered
infallible and criticism condemned (often to death) as heresy, to subject
itself to historical examination and rational discussion. It is stronger
for it. For a religion's strength does not lie in fanatical belief, in
an unquestioned assumption that disagreement or criticism of it is an incomprehensible
perversion. A religion's strength lies in the goodness it does for people's
souls.
As Al-Rawandi puts it:
The claims of Islam do not depend on historical origins, but on an inner
knowledge of God, the accompaniment and reward of piety. What makes Islam
true is the spiritual life of Moslems, not religious history but religious
experience.
These are the teachings of a school of Islamic thought known as Sufism.
How Islam must reinvent itself to emerge out of the Islamic Dark Ages it
has inhabited for the last several hundred years, and join and flourish
in the civilized world, is to combine the teachings of Sufism with those
of Jadidism, the attempt by Central Asian Islamic scholars 100 years ago
to make a revitalized Islam compatible with the modern world.
While Jadidism was snuffed by the Soviets, its revival, combined with
the inner peace and truths provided by Sufism, could reinvent an Islam
prepared to participate and prosper in the 21st century.
The combined synergy of Sufism and Jadidism would be the salvation of
Islam. Today it stands in dire need of being saved. I hope that dedicated
Islamic scholars will appear on the scene to create such a salvatory synergy.
In the meantime, none of us any longer needs to be afraid or intimidated
by the Myth of Mecca.
-- Jack Wheeler,
HERETruth Seeker | July 31, 2005, 1:29am | #
Not a Matter of Religious Belief
by Abid Ullah Jan
(Saturday July 30 2005)
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17279
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"Righteous murderers may claim they're spreading democracy and defending human rights, but clearer heads and common sense can distinguish faith based motivation of fanatics, who have killed 128,000 people so far because God told their commander in chief to go to war from those who stand up to their tyranny and injustice irrespective of their religious belief."
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Only a blind would not see that the forces of tyranny have perfectly consolidated their position. In the near future, there is absolutely no hope for an end to invasions and occupations and the mushrooming concentration camps.
>
>It is now becoming illegal to call the wars the modern day tyrants wage as illegal, immoral and illegitimate. From the recent statements of Bush, Blair and their allies in the media, it is clear that they are not going to tolerate a single word that does not approve their totalitarian agenda. Everything else would be extremism, indirectly supporting ?terrorism.?
The core argument is the West is under attack from global Jihad and ?Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are hardly the motivating factors behind? it.[1] Masses are told that Muslims are motivated to undermine the West only due to their religious ideology. Those who want to be politically correct like Blair, claim that it is due to ?poisonous? misinterpretation of Islam. Those who are blunt, claim that this is what Islam really is. It is not misinterpretation.
Islam, nevertheless, remains in focus. Directly or indirectly, it is presented as the root problem. The most serious problem actually is posed by the ambiguity and hundreds of unanswered questions surrounding 9/11. Instead of attempting to answer all the legitimate questions that clog the internet, the 9/11 Commission went on to associate and consolidate Islam?s link with terrorism. Questions remained unanswered and Muslims are guilty for the heinous crime of 9/11, giving Islamophobes a magic excuse with which they kill any argument they face.
Masses are repeatedly told that there is nothing wrong with the occupation of Palestine, Iraq , Afghanistan or the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia because the ?terrorists? are least concerned with occupations, ?but see the United States involvement there as part of a global phenomenon of cultural domination.?[2] Thus ?their vision of a global Ummah? is the problem that needs to be eliminated.
In a situation where the aggressors present their aggression and violence as noble, there is hardly any hope that we will se any improvement in the time to come. Read statements from Bush and Blair, watch cable broadcasts, or read the New York Times and its associates and you will find that they are all fully convinced they have noble motives for invasions, occupation and wreaking their violence.
Supporters of continued war and occupations are very righteous folks. Which is why the real global resistance to their actions that we are posing, let?s be absolutely clear, should be one of our shared humanity against the madness of people like these; the rule of much vaunted international laws, norms and standards of human decency against the lies, hypocrisy and double standards they apply for themselves. It?s the cause of reason against unreason, of common sense against the firm convictions of those who have clearly told the world that God told them to invade Iraq. This fanaticism now tells the world that the oppressors are resisting to their tyranny only because of their faith.
The threat is becoming more vast as it comes from those inspired by Bush and Blair, because their ideology of defending ?our way of life? and ?our values? has proved so infectious among small groups of religious and chauvinistic people on the margins of the Western society. Hitler was basically a loners, although he, too, claimed he was fighting for a greater cause?in Bush, Blair and their allies case, it is the God?s inspired mission to save ?a way of life? despite no claim to the contrary that anyone is more concerned about their way of life than the state of their life which has turned to a living hell due to the never ending colonial/imperial adventures.
The rationalists have no bombs. They have argument to counter obscurantism of Bush, Blair and company in the war of ideas. Majority of the rationalists are non-Muslims. Internet is full of their analysis and research of the events from 9/11 to 7/7. Tired of their serious attempts at exposing the truth, the war lords are now increasingly proposing to make blacklists of ?extremists,? which will include all those whose words might ?indirectly? lead to resistance to the US and UK policies.
It means that anything that does not support and agrees with what Bush and Blair are doing is indirectly leading to extremism and terrorism.
This first casualty of this strategy would be the hundreds of web sites which are coming with evidence and analysis to show that 9/11 was an inside job and that Bush and Blair lied through their teeth to make invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan possible.
Interestingly, none of these thousands of web sites and blogs belong to Muslims. None of these is motivated by faith. Yet they are going to be the first victims of new fascist measures because according to Friedman they believe US government actions may encourage violent reprisals. Hence they are "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists."
Bill O?Reilly?s suggestion to ?just put them in chains? and ?incarcerate? all critics of Bush and Blair policies applies to most Americans, not ?religiously motivated? Muslims. The obscurantists, such as Christopher Dickey (Newsweek July 22, 2005), consider such truth diggers guilty because to them: ?any effort to understand the enemy or his motivations is treated as an apology for what he does. At times we seem to be infected by the very pathology we are fighting against.?
The biggest excuse for consolidating tyranny and mainstreaming fascism is that all the resistance to the US, UK and Israeli crimes against humanity is religiously motivated or inspired by ?poisonous interpretation? or faith. The truth is that these are just new excuses for prolonging and legitimizing terrorism.
The coming restrictions on the freedom of speech prove that these super-terrorists have totally lost the power of argument, debate, true religious faith and true legitimate politics. They are left with no excuse at all to defend their invasions and occupation besides supporting the monsters in power in Egypt, Islamabad, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
They cannot debate. They cannot prove that ?suicide bombing? in the West is the work of Muslims and in the occupied lands in only because of religious motivation. For that reason, they now badly need to silence all debate and criticism. According to Blair?s definition for putting writers in the black list John Pilger and Robert Fisk would top the list, because their questioning the legitimacy of occupation is indirectly leading to extremism.
Instead of supporting policies that would silence critics of the modern day fascists, the public would do well to face the basic painful facts and address them logically, reasonably, without demagoguery. It is not surrender to terrorism. It is the first crucial step toward defeating the real terrorists.
Righteous murderers may claim they're spreading democracy and defending human rights, but clearer heads and common sense can distinguish faith based motivation of fanatics, who have killed 128,000 people so far because God told their commander in chief to go to war from those who stand up to their tyranny and injustice irrespective of their religious belief.
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17279
John | July 31, 2005, 5:04pm | #
I amazed at how people as smart as Victor Davis Hanson and others throw to term, "reformation" around in the Islamic context, as if medieval Catholic Europe was anywhere near as anti-rational, or as barbaric as the Taliban or Bin Ladin. The reforamtion was as much as anything about the Church's inability to provide spirtually for its members. The roots of the reformation go not to Martin Lurther but to the 14th Century and papel schism (a completly needless division of the church over not any sort of religous conflict but a power play between the Italians and the French) and John Wycliff's response to it to say that the church is not necessary for human salvation. In a sense, Whycliff was the begning of the modern world. That said, to say that what Islam needs is a "reformation" like Christianity had is to say that the Reformation was about the reformers, champoins of human rights, science and the modern world versus the Catholics champions of the opposite. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reformation didn't occur because the church persocuted Galilao, it occured because it was doing things like selling indulgences and engaging in European power politics at the spiritual expense of its members. In short it was not about Chritianity coming to terms with the modern world, it was about a failed church and divisions which had been in Christianity since its inception. To say that it was about bringing Christianity into the modern world is not only not true but an unbelievable anti-Catholic slur.
To say that Islam needs a reformation is also a horrendous slur against he vast majority of Muslims. Most Muslims do fine in the world or certainly no worse than say Animists in Africa or Hindus in India and I don't hear anyone calling for a "reformation" in those religions. Islam is facing a different problem. The problem is not a decant and spirtually failing church or even a sickness that affects a majority of the community. The problem is that there is a mutant and dangerous strain of Islam, enimating primarily from Saudi Arabia that is infecting Islamic communities world wide. Muslims in places like Indonesia and India have never had any issues dealing with the modern world. It is only in areas in which there are Wahabiist teachings that Muslims have an issue getting along with modern society. Unfortuneatly, these teachings are growing across a wider and wider area. In the last ten years, the U.S., U.K., Spain, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia, India, Russia, Isreal, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, the Phillipines and others have all been the victims of Islamic terrorism. The unfortuneate fact is that wherever Muslims seem to go, radical teachings, hatred and terrorism seem to follow. No question, that it is only a minority of Muslims who subscribe to these teachings, but it is a widespread minority and one that seems to infect nearly every Islamic community in the world. Islam does not need a reformation in the sense that Christianity had, it need to eradicate a horrible ideolgy within its ranks. If it doesn't, the future of Islam and Muslims worldwide is in peril. If the price of having a Muslim minority within your country is suicide bombings and terror, countries will not tolerate the Muslim minorities anymore and Muslims will face a grim future. I fail to see how the Christian reformation has anything relevant to say about this issue.
