Tag: Wahhabism

How I got zapped by 3 truth-tellers in one week – one atheist, one social network site and one Saudi intellectual!

Pat Condell, the social network site MLIA (My Life is Average) and the

Saudi intellectual Abdallah bin Bakhit –

the 3 truth-tellers that zapped me in 1 week

As someone interested for half a century in truth and reality  it is unusual to discover three disparate gateways to these great human concerns in one month.

The first I have previously mentioned – Pat Condell.  That was the truth, reality and art that I found in the work of an atheist.  Beware it is strong – and you have to listen hard beyond the ‘abuse’ and anger to certain spiritual truths that are/should be preeminent in many religions – the Golden Rule, Justice, not imposing your world-view on others, hating the act (where appropriate) and not the actor etc

Pat Condell’s talks are here as MP3s and he also has a channel on YouTube.   That was surprising because that half century has led me to a broadly mystical view of reality and human reality – as say in Ken Wilber and Eckhart Tolle.

How is it that I appreciate Pat Condell so much – as someone who gathers light and inspiration from (parts of) all religions – including Islam?  Briefly, because it would be quite a long appreciation, he is energetically opposing the corruption I see in virtually all religions and, given his belief system, he is a quality of truth-teller almost entirely absent from those who inhabit religious communities.  Not only that he also (seems to) possess, in good measure, the values, qualities and attributes that so many people of religion claim to have – but don’t.  ‘Seems  to’ because even truth-telling atheists have to walk the talk – but I suppose persistence in the face of dozens of death-threats means he most definitely is walking the talk.

The second addition to truth-telling in and around the human condition came from the MLIA – My Life is Average site.  Now it would be easy to dismiss this because it is whimsical, trivial and of no great importance but I think it has struck, uniquely, a chord that belonged only to self-deprecating comedians – and its brevity, as with Twitter, is essential.  Here are four examples at random;

Today, while voting on submissions, I stumbled across a story beginning with a “today” that was not capitalized. Offended, I clicked “no”. MLIA.

Today, Billy Mays yelled at me through the TV and told me to buy Oxyclean. I yelled back at him that I wasn’t going to. MLIA.

Today, I told my friends I needed to show them a hillarious Youtube video. I played it for them and when nobody started laughing I said, “Oh this is the wrong one.” Then I pretended like I couldn’t find the right one. MLIA

Today, I made a triple-chocolate sundae and I felt fat. So I topped it off with sugar-free hot fudge and I felt like I was making healthy choices. MLIA

How can I possibly mention in the same breath great human beings and this site of small happenings in the lives and consciences of  the people on MLIA – many of them are youngsters?

Again I must be brief.  Our moral lives are in the decisions we make.  Most are minor ones, most are known only to ourselves.  Many are to defend our self-image, or the self we would aspire to – if only we were a bit more courageous.  But what of the bishops and popes and mullahs who are full of cant and deceit and pomposity, and worse still, lacking in compassion and fellow-feeling and a sense of justice?

Now in this time when many are rightly concerned about the rise and spread of extremist Islam I next want to re-tell a story about Muhammad.

One day a parent came to Muhammad to ask Him to verbally chastise their child who was prone to eat too many dates.  To the surprise of the parent, given the task was small and the child was there, Muhhammad told the parent to return the next day. On the next day the child was told not too eat too many dates.  When asked why a return that day was necessary Muhammad said that it was because on the previous day he had eaten (rather too many) dates!

The story may not be ‘true’ – but the truth of the story is true – and it would be true if it were in the tradition of Hausa people or Inuit or Jewish people.

Now I remain someone whose belief system is broadly-speaking that of a mystical humanist or humanist mystic or universalist.  However I was never zapped by three such disparate ‘tellers of truth’ in quite the same way as in this most recent week – Pat Condell, the contributors to MLIA and the third of these disparate additions to truth-telling in my life the Saudi intellectual Abdallah bin Bakhit.

From Abdallah bin Bakhit I learned the true value of secularism for religious communities – as well as what it takes to be courageous in a state of maximum suppression.  If you haven’t watched his video yet it’s here;

PS If you want to see the kind of courage it takes to be a balanced intellectual like Abdallah bin Bakhit in Saudi Arabia check this out – Kill the Owners of Satellite TV Channels, As the Law Prescribes

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Something’s Gotta Give: Islam in the West

This is an intro to the work of Dr Rachael Kohn and to a particular Australian ABC transcript – SEE end of this i.e. MY COMMENT to go to source;-0-What’s required to foster better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the West? Two Muslims – Irshad Manji & Mehmet Ozalp – give their points of view.

Transcript

Irshad Manji is the author of The Trouble With Islam. She calls for change in Islam to conform with the values of Western democratic societies. Mehmet Ozalp is the President of Affinity Intercultural Foundation, which recently held a conference in Sydney on “Islam and Its Relations with the Other.”MUSIC

I’ll just give you a minute or two to pretty much observe the domes, observe the calligraphy, the Qur’anic verses, the patterns on the wall and so forth, just for you to have a bit of a look, and then I’ll start hopefully explaining some of them.

Rachael Kohn: An Open Day at Gallipoli Mosque in Auburn, New South Wales.Hello, and welcome to ‘Something’s Gotta Give: What does it take for Muslims and other Australians to foster a better relationship?’ This is The Spirit of Things on ABC Radio National, with me, Rachael Kohn.

With the dress requirements there is dress requirements both for males and females. OK, and I’m just going to go through the minimal requirements for both a male and a female. The minimal dress requirement for a male is from the navel to below the knee area; that is the minimal requirement for a Muslim male. The minimal requirement for a Muslim female is exposure of hands, face and feet. Now some say don’t include feet on that list, but you do have certain areas where opinions will differ. Now for a Muslim woman, she is required when she comes to a certain age, usually the age of puberty, to pretty much dress the way that I’m dressing, to start fulfilling the dress obligations, or the dress requirements that is expected of her. OK. Now one of the sole reasons why we do it, OK, which is probably one of the most commonsense reasons, is because it’s a commandment from God.

Rachael Kohn: In the larger community, you could say there’s a stand-off between Muslims and non-Muslims. Fear, disdain and ignorance have kept both sides at arm’s length. For Mehmet Ozalp, a second generation Australian Muslim, education is the answer. We’ll hear more from him later in the program.MUEZZINRachael Kohn: My first guest goes much further, in calling for a reform of Islam itself. Irshad Manji, a Canadian Muslim visiting Australia for the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, believes that it is not only Islam, but democracy, free thought and human rights, which are at stake. When I spoke to her earlier in the year about her book, The Trouble With Islam, Irshad revealed that her life had been threatened on many occasions for speaking out as she has. I’m pleased to say there was no need for bodyguards when she came to the ABC.Irshad Manji, welcome to The Spirit of Things.Irshad Manji: Thanks for having me.Rachael Kohn: It’s great to have you back on the show again. Six months ago, your book had recently come out, The Trouble with Islam; since then I think you’ve been interviewed all over the world, I doubt if you’ve been home for very long in Toronto. How many copies has the book sold?Irshad Manji: Well there are different countries in which it’s been released. I don’t have exact sales figures for any one of those countries; things change, but I’m really happy to say that the book made it to The New York Times bestseller list in the US; it has been on the best seller list for months in Canada, which is my home country, and by this time in September, it’ll be out in 20 countries, and I’m really happy to say, if I may just throw this in as well, that the book is being translated into both Arabic and Urdu, Urdu being the major language spoken in Pakistan. Now that doesn’t mean however that it’ll be published in the Arab world. No publisher has been found to touch this book with a 10-foot pole in the Arab world. So you know, it’s young Muslims from the Arab world who have said to me, ‘Forget the publishing powers-that-be, don’t let the vision be hidebound to them. You get the book translated into Arabic, you post that PDF on your website, make it free of charge to download, and Irshad, when you do that’, they’ve told me, ‘you will get an even bigger audience than you ever anticipated, because if we can read the book in relative privacy, then that means we can read it in relative safety and start discussing these ideas in a way that we couldn’t if we had the book in our hands and were harassed for doing so.’ Very interesting point.

via abc.net.au
MY COMMENT:
Ultimately the only force that will contain extremist Islam is true Islam – and the same principle is true of all other forms of extremism.
.
I wanted to share this resource – many transcripts and audio of programmes presented by Rachael Kohn for Australian ABC. This one is under the category of ‘Fundamentalism’.Go tohttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2004/1188988.htm#transcriptto read the full program and to find many others.

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Why isn’t the good and glorious side of Islam featured more? – this is my reply to Taufiq who asked the question.

Taufiq Rahim has an article in the Huffington Post.

He says, “As President Obama looks to foster a new dialogue with the Muslim world, I want to give voice to an Islam that is too often ignored in the media in both East and West.”

This is my reply as someone who shares Taufiq’s hopes.

Dear Taufiq

Thanks for your fine article.

I too, as a religious humanist, am inspired by the gifts of Islam. Who can fail to be moved by Rumi, Ibn-Al Arabi, the exquisite nature of the Alhambra, not to mention all of the science that is the foundation of Western ‘civilization’.

Every day I am the beneficiary of His Holiness Muhammad’s, Revelation, peace be upon Him, and the intellectual and spiritual truths discovered by those numberless great women and men who turned to Him.

But you skate over some very inconvenient truths.

I want to encourage you – and those who sincerely think like you – to try to get the ‘moderate majority’ in Islam to stand up and eliminate the hate-filled extremists who perpetrate such atrocities as 9/11.

Even one suspects that now hundreds or thousands are working towards the next 9/11 or much, much, worse. They are poisoned in their minds and paid for by Moslems in your part of the world – Wahabism or whatever. Only for as long as the security agencies are cleverer will the planned-for atrocities not occur. It is generally agreed that it is a matter not of if but when.  (I know there is correspondingly much to be done to change the behaviour of Israel and the US.)

The extremists say they are your fellow believers. There’s the problem for non-Moslems. Is there a moderate majority? If there is why don’t they take control? Do all ordinary Moslems think the same as the extremists – and are simply less active? I know the difference between my friend who is a Quaker or my ex-neighbours who were Catholics and the crazies in the fundamentalist Christian pile. But I don’t know if there is truly a moderate majority in Islam.

I know the faith of sweet, ordinary people – of all faiths – is to be respected. I hear and believe what you say about those in;

the mountains of Tajikistan, the streets of Kabul, the alleyways of Damascus, the villages of South Lebanon, the madrasas of Uzbekistan, the towns of the West Bank, and even in corners of Riyadh.

But given what is happening in the name of Islam are they not victims just as much as the 3,000 who died in 9/11? Is such action not an insult to their faith? Are not more Moslems killed by fellow believers day after day after day? The only currency held in common seems to be hatred, all-consuming hatred. Lighten up.  En-light-en up. It would be a relief if the extremists just loved other Moslems – the same of course is true of all fundamentalists.

I share with you the desire that the fruits of Islam be recognized world-wide and the pure faith of ordinary Moslems be honoured and respected as an example to us all. I shrink from the vile hatred so many other ‘believers in the Book’ heap upon Islam.

You say;
My Islam is foremost about reason. It is about harnessing one’s capacity to understand the complexities of this world and beyond. The mind and the pursuit of knowledge are central to comprehending, to the extent that is possible, what is the divine. One also cannot make conscious decisions about right or wrong without exercising his own judgment. Blindly following the edicts of scholars, is not choosing a path except one that is not your own. When I refrain from consuming alcohol, it is not because I am backward, or uncultured. I refuse drugs because they hinder our judgment and our ability to reason, the trait that God endowed us with that distinguishes humankind from all other beings.

Bravo – no religion has given more to the modern world than the massively enhanced re-presentation of the Ancient World’s knowledge. I know that whilst Europe was literally and metaphorically in the Dark Ages parts of the Islamic world had street lighting and the first university – al hamdulillah!

You say your Islam is about the equality of women, tolerance, compassion, humility. I know all you say about these is true of the real Islam – but will the real Islam please stand up!

Equality of women, tolerance, compassion, humility? – tell that to the 74 year-old widow Khamisa Sawadi, convicted and sentenced recently to 40 lashes for meeting with her late husband’s nephew i.e. he brought her shopping! Is this the Saudi version of ‘meals on wheels’ for the elderly?

In actuality, globally, Dear Taufiq your version of Islam is a fantasy. Your version would be called, by those who dominate Islam, a Western-corrupted perversion. Wahabism rules – you don’t! That’s the world’s plight. You are a) just a minority b) part of a group unwilling or unable to become the dominant majority.Transformation lies in the activation of Islam as a 21stC religion.

It’s not about numbers its about which version of Islam dominates globally – and yours doesn’t because as yet the moderate majority, if they exist, are not willing to say, “Enough, no more!”

No one else is going to restore Islam to its rightful place other than moderate Moslems. Not even the sweet charm of Obama, let alone the insane machinations of Bush’s crowd.

The world, including most of the Islamic world, was held in sympathy for a short time because of 9/11.  Had America then raised 3,000 scholars of Islam instead of 3,000 cruise missiles, the world could soon have been at peace.

The possibility is still there – but only if moderate, modernized Islam moves to the dominant position.

What are you, and those moderate millions you refer to, going to do to ensure the good guys win?  We Kafirs will not be the ones to bring about the change from 8thC Islam to 21stC Islam.

As I write it seems as if Iran – and the rest of the world – is doomed to more craziness.

At least the US has made an effort in electing Obama.

Roger

To read Taufiq’s fine article go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taufiq-rahim/what-is-my-islam_b_214432.html

mgc

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