Tag : Europe

In a recent arti­cle in The Spec­ta­tor mag­a­zine in the UK, the evan­gel­i­cal leader Patrick Sookhdeo takes a swipe at Mus­lims and their reli­gion. Does his case stand up to scruti­ny ? Patrick Sookhdeo’s arti­cle (July 30, 2005) in London’s The Spec­ta­tor, ​“The Myth of a Mod­er­ate Islam” reflects a dan­ger­ous trend in the war on ter­ror. Under the guise of inform­ing West­ern­ers about Islam, he is in fact spread­ing the very same dis­in­for­ma­tion that anti-Islam­ic polemics have been based upon for over 1,000 years. This plays direct­ly into the hands of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zar­qawi and oth­ers, for it encour­ages the ​“clash of civ­i­liza­tions” they so appalling­ly desire. It is indeed of the utmost impor­tance that we learn more about Islam and fight the scourge of extrem­ism with all the tools pos­si­ble. But Sookhdeo and those like him cor­rupt this process, seek­ing to advance their own agen­da by turn­ing the war on ter­ror into an ide­o­log­i­cal war against Islam.

In the 12th cen­tu­ry, Peter the Ven­er­a­ble, Abbot of Cluny, ini­ti­at­ed a dia­logue with the Islam­ic world. ​“I approach you not with arms, but…

There are those who say that lying and deceiv­ing is at the soul of all crime and that Chris­tian­i­ty epit­o­mizes these traits more than any oth­er faith. As proof of their asser­tion they often quote Paul of Tar­sus, arguably the true founder of Chris­tian­i­ty, who is record­ed to have said, ​“But if through my false­hood God’s truth­ful­ness abounds to his glo­ry, why am I still being con­demned as a sin­ner ? Any why not do evil that good may come ? – as some peo­ple slan­der­ous­ly charge us with say­ing. Their con­dem­na­tion is just.” (Romans 3:7 – 8)

In the post‑9/​11 era the West­ern media are at the fore­front of a high­ly orches­trat­ed assault against Islam and its peo­ple. So, I am not too sur­prised with the Times Online piece try­ing to raise storm over some 13th cen­tu­ry text that are taught at a Shi’ite reli­gious school in Lon­don. The sub­ject in ques­tion is najasa or impu­ri­ty : what makes some­thing impure accord­ing to Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, a 13th cen­tu­ry Shi’ite schol­ar. The text says, ​“The water left over in the con­tain­er after any type of ani­mal has drunk from it is con­sid­ered clean and pure apart from the left over of a dog, a pig, and a dis­be­liev­er.” So, the Times reporter Sean O’Connell draws the con­clu­sion that Mus­lim stu­dents are ​“being taught to despise unbe­liev­ers as filth”, which becomes the news head­ing, sure to draw much pub­lic­i­ty in UK before the elec­tion in May.

The saga of Abdul Rehman’s con­ver­sion to Chris­tian­i­ty may be over but the after­math is far from set­tled. Like a clock­work of hate, the episode has brought upon yet anoth­er wave of crit­i­cisms against Islam and its record for reli­gious tol­er­ance. But what few would realise is that the West has a his­to­ry of reli­gious intol­er­ance and per­se­cu­tions that would put Mus­lim Afghanistan to shame.

We all have read about the present state of affairs con­cern­ing the Muham­mad car­toons con­tro­ver­sy and the dement­ed news­pa­pers of the Euro­pean coun­tires who…

It is unfor­tu­nate that Islam is con­tin­u­ous­ly being pur­port­ed to be a reli­gion of vio­lence by the mis­sion­ar­ies when the real­i­ty is very much…

Pro­fes­sor Thomas W. Arnold was a poly­glot and a schol­ar of mas­sive eru­di­tion. His mag­num opusT.W. Arnold, The Spread of Islam in the World…

A brief his­to­ry of the life and poli­cies of one of the most vehe­ment ene­mies of Islam, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the founder of the sec­u­lar Turk­ish state. It is an unfor­tu­nate thing that a lot of his poli­cies are still being prac­tised in Turkey till this day. Women are still not allowed to wear the hijab in Gov­ern­ment build­ings and schools a[s it is seen to be a sign of fun­da­men­tal­ism. I have per­son­al­ly come across a group of Turks who shout­ed Bis­mil­lah ar-Rah­man ar-Rahim loud­ly before they all drink alco­hol which is very much the result of Kemal­ism. May God bless those who fol­low His path.