Emerging Muslim Freethinkers and the Battle of Civilizations
05 Mar, 2009
The Muslim world is obviously in a mess. Political instability, unbridled corruption, lack of economic development, widespread intolerance and violence, and lack of freedom, liberty and human rights are some of the traits that characterize Muslim societies most glaringly. All indications suggest that things will get only worse over coming decades.
Amongst many factors that differentiate Muslim societies from most other progressive and more peaceful societies are its missing freethinkers—namely critics and reformers—who are able to criticize the troublesome aspects of its societal core, its religious foundations. Other societies had its problems in the past. However, those societies allowed the emergence of progressive freethinking scholars, philosophers and reformers. They exercised variable measures of liberty to criticize, to point fingers at, the underlying reasons, including the religious ones, of the many ills of their societies. Jewish societies produced brilliant minds like Benedict de Spinoza, Carl Marx and Albert Einstein amongst many other; Christianity produced great thinkers like Rene Descartes, Emmanuel Kant, David Hume, John S Mill, Bertrand Russell and many more. Some of these thinkers, Spinoza for example, attracted ire from religious authorities, faced excommunication. Nonetheless, their ideas and views were not choked out; instead, they were disseminated with some measure of ease; security to their life was not threatened. The resilience, the power, of their progressive and reformative social, political and philosophical ideas eventually triumphed. As a result, those societies reformed, secularized, progressed and prospered.
But Muslims societies, the core of which is most intimately integrated with its religious ideals, have never really allowed the emergence of its own breed of freethinkers and progressive reformers, particularly over the past eight centuries.
[........]
As long as intolerance of dissenting ideas remain in force, Islamic world will unlikely emerge from its current malaise and lack of material progress. It is unlikely to change any time soon. There is, however, a glimmer of hope. Kicked out of their home countries, some Muslim dissidents—harbored by the liberal West—are showing their intellectual prowess. Muslim apostates like Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali have written bestselling books. Most of all, they, for the first time, are pointing fingers at the debilitating nature of the Islamic theology, which must undergo modernization as have other creeds.
Read it all here
3 comments:
Well, its our turn to be the big, fat dinosaur now. We're just like the Catholic Church back in the days of NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!
Again this is another extremely weak, unintelligent and biased article from the anti-Muslim Maldivians blog, a blog which seems much more interested in regurgitating any anti Islam article no matter who it is posted by. It is clear that your agenda is different than what you claim i.e. "We want our rights as human beings" and there seems to be rather a touch of the missionary about this blog. For the sake of clarity could you inform us what the outlook of the owners of this blog are? Are you atheists, agnostics, Christians, Jews, Hindus...........?
Let us briefly examine the article. I must say that I agree in general with the first paragraph of the article in that the Muslim world is in a mess but anyone who is even the slightest bit objective in their assesment would have to take into account the fact that much of this has been due to the colonialism and neo colonialism which we have suffered and which has now reached its pinicle in the current Crusade being waged against the Ummah. Of course there are many internal problems also and being objective we take these into account but the principle problem is the Crusaders and their proxies. Yourselves on the other hand tend to view everything from one side only and outright refuse to take on board the problems which are imposed upon the Ummah.
The opening also speaks about "lack of freedom, liberty and human rights" in the Muslim countries and again I would have to agree with this. But only someone who is totally ignorant of the reality or who is simply ignoring reality for the sake of propaganda (which I would guess is the case here) would not also state that the tyrants who prevent this freedom have been imposed by the west and are supported by the west morally, politically and militarily. These same tyrants are apostates (like yourselves) and reserve most of their wrath for Islam and the Muslims (again like yourselves), so how do you suppose that what is occuring in these countries has anything to do with Islam and is a result of Islam? In fact where it not for the support of the Crusaders then the Islamic movement would have overthrown these regimes a long time ago. So the honest conclusion would be that these regimes and the lack of freedom under them is in fact anti-Islamic rather than Islamic.
Now for the sake of clarity could you be clear on who exactly these more "progressive and more peaceful societies" are? What exacly is progressive in your opinion as failure to define that leaves the statement as nothing more than empty rhetoric and while this certainly does not surprise me it would still be welcome if you added some substance to what is written and maybe a real debate could begin.
As for being more peaceful then I must say that I am dumbstruck at such a ridiculous claim. Are peaceful societies in your opinion ones which wage war against anyone who disagrees with them? Who are racist and Islamiphobic to the core? Are they those societies in which women are seen as sex objects and are judged by how they look? Where prostitution and homosexuality are widespread? Where the murder rate is way above that in any muslim countries? Where women are raped much more frequently than in Muslim countries? Where robbery, burgalry, muggings, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, suicide and almost any other crime you can imagine is way more prevalent than in the Muslim countries? Or maybe that isn't what makes them peaceful to you. Maybe it is the carpet bombings, the use of depleated uranium, white phosphorous and other weapons of mass destruction which defines them as peaceful to you. Maybe its the sanctions they impose against innocent populations as happened in Iraq and resulted in the death of 1 million children. Maybe it is that historically THEY have been guilty of waging world wars, the holocaust, using nuclear weapons and overthrowing countless democratically elected governments in the third world (but hey whats the third world to those with such a pro western slavish mentality such as yourselves).
During the 20th century it is estimated that over 225 million people where killed in wars, conflicts, revolutions and government oppression. While the 10 million which where killed at hands of Muslims or by apostates in Muslim lands is terrible, to claim that the west is more peaceful while it was responsible for about 200 million of these deaths is either unimaginable stupidity or willful ignorance in the face of the facts.
And the rest of the second paragraph can be described as nothing more than lies aimed at those who are unaware of the reality and the history. These thinkers you speak of where not allowed free reign and rather were oppressed all the time and in many cases worse. We might be familiar with the names you listed but there are many more who didnt make the list as there work was cut short as a result of oppression and even execution.
The Islamic world also produced many many great minds throughout its existance until quiet recently. Indeed for a long time the Islamic world was at the forefront of all the sciences, study of languages and religions, the preservation of much historical works and every other field of intellectual and acedemic work. Look at the great architecture which still exists throughout the Muslim world. When Europe was experiencing the dark age Muslim Spain was the greatest and most advanced state in the world. Cordova alone had 700 public libraries at a time when books still had to be hand written. Public baths where available to all the people. Islamic Spain was described as the "Golden age of the Jews" as it was here that they produced some of their greatest works and where free to do so, as where they and the Christians free to govern themselves by their own laws in all the Islamic lands.
Again the next paragraph states another mistruth, that "the core of which is most intimately integrated with its religious ideals". This is in fact not the case but rather the apostate rulers of these countries use Islam and the "Scholars for dollars" to reinforce their own rule. An recent example of this was when Anni said in his speech on Maldivian national day that "Islam is a vital componant of Maldivian nationalism". Anyone who has the slightest understanding of Islam is aware that it is opposed to all forms of nationalism and so the fact is that Anni blatently lied about Islam to push his own anti Islamic nationalist agenda.
As for people like Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali they are simply opportunists whose arguments hold no weight whatsoever. The west is happy to use them however as it suit their Crusade which is not only military but ideological also. These apostates have not a shred of credibility and they would be unknown to everyone but that they suit the crusaders and are thus premoted.
Finally the artcle concludes with the statement that it is the "debilitating nature of the Islamic theology, which must undergo modernization as have other creeds." which is the cause of the problems of the Ummah. This is the thrust of the entire article yet NOT ONE piece of evidence to back up this erroneous conclusion has been presented.
The Quran tells us:
"Present your evidences if you are truthfull"
[Surah Al Baqarah:111 ]
Obviously being apostates you have choosen to ignore such sound advice. However if you do have a shread of evidence which links Islamic theology to such problems then it would be interesting to discuss.
Finally I again agree with the last paragraph in that it says that there is hope. There is much hope for the Ummah and much to look forward to in the coming times. We have been witnessing an Islamic awakening which has the west terrified and on the retreat. The Crusaders and their allies are being defeated from Algeria to Somalia to Iraq to Afghanistan. The youth are flocking to the ranks of the Mujahideen and righteous leaders have emerged. Islamic states have been created in Iraq and the Caucasus and will be soon in Somalia and Afghanistan/Pakistan. God willing the Khilafa will be re established soon and the March towards Jeruslehem and Washington will begin.
It's not Muslims who are in a mess. It's people like you who are in mess. People who is uneducated. People who don't know the neaning of thier life. People who don't know why we are here for.
The more you try to degrade Muslims and our beautiful relegion of Islam, the more people get interested to Islam. Islam is the fastest growing relegion in the world.
Allah Akbar (Allah is great)
Post a Comment