My previous article (Understanding Islam and Muslims) on this topic talked about why there shouldn’t be any effort to undermine or completely abandon the Qura’n. The West seems to be obsessed with so called ‘secular’ Muslims because they target the basics of authenticity of Quran. They want to bring their own version of Quran which is devoid of verses which they think are ‘offensive’. They don’t realise that such acts will further fire the animosity that Muslims in general have for the West. I am not even getting into Palestine or Afghanistan.
Another important thing to note here is that this crusade against the West is not for personal gains of Mullah Omar or Osama-bin-Laden. This crusade is solely against the policies of West which has crippled the Muslim countries. Its definitely not born out of frustration against the west’s anti-Quranic lifestyle. According to them, may be killing of so many innocent lives is justified on account of them being non-Muslims. Tell me how religious were the hijackers of 9/11 planes when it has been proven that they watched porn before boarding the flights. They must be enjoying the sexual pleasures for the last time in their lives or perhaps they wanted to taste the pleasure at least once before dying.
I hope my justifications have clarified that extremism is definitely not on account of being religious but it has political objectives. Religion has been used as a tool to manipulate these objectives.
Now the big question, what should be done?
Since this blog has a large mixed audience so why not discuss the solutions. Remember we are dealing with the solutions and not reasons.
The solutions for youth who are sucked into terrorism, ways to quench the violence in the Middle east and how to bridge the gap between Muslims and the west. This gap exists more on a country level rather than religion so lets focus on only Indian Muslims. One obvious solution would for an Indian Muslim would be to distant oneself from the Ummah and thus not being a part of the woes. But then this is something which is against Quran and also highly impracticable. We have to discuss a pragmatic approach to this problem.
And, here is some positive news of students in US learning about Islam and Arabic language. These are the kind of signs that we need to understand each other and build bridges.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/07/15/speaking_up/?page=full
I’ll also post the text because the article stops being available for free.
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Speaking up
Federally funded language program shatters stereotypes, advances efforts to teach more American students Arabic
By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | July 15, 2007
Arabic words for teacher, student, and homework decorate metal classroom doors. The 28 letters of the alphabet dot rows of orange lockers in the dimly lighted halls. The fourth floor of Charlestown High School, a five-story brick fortress that abuts two housing projects, has been transformed into a slice of the Middle East for five weeks.
Speaking halting Arabic, students use Iraqi dinars to buy granola bars and chewing gum in a makeshift dukan. They occasionally feast on kebabs , falafels, and grape leaves as Lebanese music fills their classroom. They watch sexy dancers in Egyptian music videos performing moves they are surprised to see on something other than MTV.
For more than five hours a day, six days a week, the 29 Boston public school students are learning Arabic and studying Middle Eastern history, geography, and culture as part of a national initiative to ramp up the number of Arabic speakers. The new, federally funded program, which is in only eight schools nationwide, is shattering many stereotypes of the Middle East that the students gleaned from coverage of the war in Iraq.
Saturated by images of Muslims and Arabs as terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the students say they have the unique opportunity to adopt more expansive views of a volatile, oil-rich region that will only grow in importance.
The teenagers, whose native tongues include English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese, are taking Arabic to become diplomats, journalists, and entrepreneurs. A couple hope to join the FBI or CIA. Several Muslim students said they want to understand what they are reading in the Koran; one would like to communicate with locals when he makes his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Other students, who are of Arab descent, want to better connect with family members when they visit Morocco and Lebanon.
On July 7, the students visited the Islamic Society of Boston, a mosque in Cambridge’s Central Square, where they sat in a circle on the carpet and learned about Islam from two mosque members. Peberlyn Moreta, 16, said she imagined that the women would be veiled head to toe, and was surprised to see only their heads covered.
“I was afraid,” said Moreta, a junior at Charlestown High. “I didn’t want to offend anyone by the way I was dressed or by my cross.”
Moreta, a Catholic who tucked her gold cross under her T-shirt, felt comfortable asking the mosque members why they fast and why women cover their hair.
She also asked them to demonstrate a prayer, and they obliged for several minutes, standing and bending and kneeling while reciting parts of a prayer in Arabic, then translating it into English.
“It took the fear out of the whole stereotype I had in my mind from the things I see on the news,” Moreta said. “It’s been a real awakening.”
In a music class, teacher Carolyn Brunelle showed students a video of Egyptian men in jeans strumming guitars and singing a love song and women dancing provocatively in the streets. Students said they had pictured Middle Eastern music videos as featuring more rural scenes, more religion, and more clothes.
“I never imagined Middle Eastern videos as having the same themes as the West,” said Jeffrey Yu, 15. “They actually show skin.”
Yu, a Boston Latin sophomore who speaks Chinese at home, said he is taking Arabic to get an edge in his pursuit of an international business career.
Already, he has used Arabic to communicate with taxi drivers and strangers from Somalia and Iraq who approach him on the bus as he does his homework.
Across the hall , another group of students watched the film “Divine Intervention,” a 2003 comic tragedy about love on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli border.
They giggled at the repeated scenes of a Palestinian woman holding hands with her lover. But the students quickly turned somber when their teacher, Lama Jarudi, delved into why some people martyr themselves in suicide bombings.
Jarudi, also an economics teacher, said she has received mixed feedback from family and friends about teaching Arabic.
“They fear that I’m helping Americans train more spies,” said Jarudi, who lived in Lebanon until age 9. “I feel quite the opposite. Anyone who learns the Arabic language inherently has to understand the culture a little bit.”
Jarudi and Steven Berbeco, director of Charlestown’s Arabic Summer Academy, began teaching Arabic to Charlestown students during the school year two years ago.
It remains the only public school teaching Arabic in the state, according to Boston schools. Other schools want to offer Arabic, but there is a national shortage of trained teachers. Massachusetts has three licensed Arabic teachers, including Berbeco and Jarudi, and the state does not know where the third one teaches.
Fewer than 30 public high schools in the country offer Arabic, which takes nearly four times longer for native English speakers to master compared with the more popular Spanish or French offered by nearly every American high school.
President Bush last year declared Arabic a critical language for national security because the intelligence community lacks enough fluent speakers.
The Boston students will graduate from the program Friday evening, when they are expected to perform skits in Arabic about Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt for parents and friends. Each student will receive $500 from the federal government for completing the course.
“This program shows there’s another side to the Middle East besides war and conflict,” said Cameron Arroyo, a 17-year-old senior at Boston Latin School. “Not every Middle Eastern country is under an Islamic dictatorship.”
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.
A lot of Muslims in the United States are trying their best to reach out with their point of view. A pioneer in this is the CAIR.
However, opinion polls so far has shown no improvement in popular perception about Islam and Muslims in the US. We can probably be happy that in spite of media projections, the situation has not worsened.
About 4 thousand (can be wrong, but of that order) Americans are converting to Islam every year. These converted new Muslims are few of the foremost defenders of Islam. God Willing, they will succeed in dispelling the false allegations against Islam, in time.
17/07/07
Salman
It is about 1200 years since Islam came into being and every human being, organisation and belief structure require periodical introspection and a reform process. In Hinduism many reformers have come and introduced changes that were necessary for the development of the Hindu society. We were never afraid of confronting a Periar or Ambedhkar and we have only grown, after removing the unwanted elements in the religion. Latest was Gandhiji who worked for the removal of untouchability; it may be prevelent in some pockets and there is a legal punishment if some one practises.
You badly need a Mustafa Kemal Attaturk.
Thiagan
Islam never produced a reformer ?
There have been reformers/renewers every century in Islamic tradition.They may not fit into your definition of ‘reform’ however .
Mustapha Kamal Ataturk a reformer ? Kemalism has been cultural sucide for the Turkish .
God Forbid that we have some like Mustapha Kamal Pasha as a ‘islamic’ reformer .
http://austrolabe.com/?s=ataturk
17/07/07
history-lover
Your history appears flawed. I meant reformers of consequence like Gandhiji etc. Simple, name tham and tell me how they have reformed Islam.
Turkey today is secular and modern because of Kemal; but the Islamists are slowly trying to change in favour of Shariaat etc. It is unfair that you make statements, without explanation or evidence.
What about the attributes and ideas of family planning, eschewing ideas of world domination etc.,
@Thiagan
Islam doest require any reformation ya Muslims do.
Islam is perfect as a religion but Muslims go astray due to the misinterpretations of its teachings and they certainly require reformations.
I think you only know about Hinduism and you dont know anything about Muslim reformers, I will not go too far, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was a big reformer who tried to bring some great changes in the ideologies of Muslims and upto greater extent he was successful in that as well. So please check your references before quoting anything.
17/07/07
Haider
If I am to write about Sir.Syed Ahmed Khan, it will be a big essay. What has he done and what changes he has effected?
Why Koraan the last word of Allah should be so confusing and vague that there is a misinterpretation? Bhagvad Gita is the advice given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the battle field. No Hindu goes about killing others in the name of Gita.
@Thiagan,
I don’t blame you for your prejudice against Islam. You are basically challenging the authority of Quran, something I have warned against in my post. See you can interpret anything as you like. Islam is being accused of promoting terrorism because Muslims around the world have adopted this as tool to avenge themselves. They use Quran to establish their authority. They know that no Muslim can challenge the Quran. The best way to stir passions is to quote Quran.
If you are so bent upon labeling Islam then you should also acknowledge the fact that those ‘violent’ were revealed when it was the need of the hour. You can’t offer to be killed when your enemy is ready to butcher, would your religion allow that? There are so many verses in Gita which are related to war. What do you have to say about that?
Thiagan
Islam is a global religion.
Are you asking for reformers in the Persian Gulf region ,Africa (including Sub Saharan Africa ),the Indian subcontinent ,or the Far East ?
In the subcontinent Sir Syed ,Allama Iqbal (whose book -Reconstruction of Islamic Thought is a must read) Maulana Ilyas ,Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi ,Fazlur Rehman ,Abu Amin Islahi and his movement whose most prominent scholar is Javed Ghamidi come to the mind .
Many of them were intellectuals while others like Maulana Ilyas were mass based.
I dont understand why you are so fixated on family planning ?
Global domination ? Today many muslim populations are not even under local control so what to talk about ‘Global domination’ ? Who is really globally dominant these days ?
Certainly not muslims.
It is orthodox muslim belief that Islam is a message for the whole of humanity so what’s wrong with this ?
@ Thiagan
If you are here to blame Islam by your words then I can also do the same by quoting thousands of flaws in the followers of Hinduism those who are full of hatred for other religion, Dont teach me tolerance, First you should learn how to respect other religions, its good to point others but first see what you are doing, by blaming Islam a’nt you defaming Hindusim and to your knowledge, the prophecy of Islam and Prophet is very well scribbed in Vedas as well now come forward and counter your vedas.;
I am not also against Hindusim but yes against those followers who are using this religion as a tool to hate and butcher Muslims and you are among one of them.
Zartab:
I agree that Hinduism has its flaws. You only have to open Manusmriti or Gautham Sutra or many of the puranas. The point is that if you today asked any educated Hindu about those hatred preaching verses, he would not hesitate to dump manusmriti or the gautham sutra or the puranas into a pile of garbage. I would not over generalize this. Some people still justify such verses as needs of “those” times, however majority does not treat them any more than trash. People are ready to openly criticize and disown hatred preaching verses.
abhilash:
Agree. This what that makes other religions different from Islam. Religious books were written by enlightened souls in their times when those were ‘need of the time’. They were smartly labled as ‘words of God’, so that people HAD to believe those.
Problems will continue to exist untill people understand the fact that we are thousands of years ahead of that ‘need of the time’ and follow more of their conscience and wisdom than age old books.
abhilash
you miss one very important point. I dont know what manusmriti does, but Qur’an does not preach violence on innocent citizen.
facts are sacred. so better verify what you say.
Contrary to what the author expected the usual debate , defence and prejudices
.
Salman, Can you give a pointer in your article 1 as well because when I read the first article I was searching for second one.
I think Salman, the solution needs to come from within Muslims. If Quran says that all others except Muslims will go to heaven then I guess anyone else saying anything is meaningless until you scientifically question that belief. You can probably start with what the prophet meant when he said being Muslim ( The knower of peace) or just anyone being born with a Muslim name will show his ID to the gatekeeper of heaven and get an entry. Many Maulanas in afghanistan give ticket with the name of the terrorist written to him so that he is not denied such an entry.
Also, I see this name Mustafa Kemal coming up again and again and really do not understand why is he opposed in India when many Non Arab Muslims do support his views. Is it being a complete Arab that makes one a true Muslim?
Mahesh: Mustafa Kemal is respected by only Turks. Even i being Indian muslim respect him for the fact that he saved Turks from getting slaughtered by Europeans.
For scienthific questioning of after-life, first u need to understand that whole of Quran is true in its revealed sense. All the scienthific phenomenon, predictions in it never went wrong. How come others mentioned in it will go wrong? :O
And just being muslim doesnt get u heaven. Praticing will!
For the matter of Afghanistan….its their country. Dat place has been invaded every century. If Islam motivates them to throw away invaders, wats wrong??
By the way, y does ur civilised world bombs women and children every week in Afghan. Why do u ignore such incidents?