Europe and Islam: Degrees of separation | The Economist

2014/11/19 Leave a comment

Interesting overview of some of the debates in Europe over the role, or not, of the state, in training of Imams:

In addition to all these ideological issues, there is a hard reality to consider. Being an imam in Europe is a rather thankless task. Of the 1,800 imams in France, about 1,000 offer their services for virtually no pay. Only 330 receive a decent, full-time salary—in most cases from religious authorities in their home countries, such as Algeria, Morocco or Turkey. Only 25-30% of the imams working in France have French citizenship. The idea of “home-grown” French imams, well-trained and correspondingly well paid, is an attractive one in principle—but poor Muslim communities seem unwilling or unable to finance such arrangements. And for the secular French state, putting imams on its payroll would be inconceivable.

Europe and Islam: Degrees of separation | The Economist.

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Book on apostasy in Islam earns writer the moniker Somalia’s Salman Rushdie – Religion News Service

2014/11/19 Leave a comment

Brave and courageous.

But it is a test within Islam between those more open believers and the literalists/fundamentalists:

Ismail said the book furthers the growing voice of Muslim scholars, intellectuals and prominent clerics worldwide who are increasingly rejecting the abuse of Islam by extremist groups such as the Islamic State, Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Somalia’s Al-Shabab.

“What we need are secular states where there is democracy, justice and equality for all,” he said. “Not theocratic ones where leaders rule by the name of God.”

Ismail’s concern is that Somali Islamic militants, clerics and other extremist groups in Muslim-majority countries are applying apostasy as a political tool, branding those with contrary opinions as apostates who need to be killed. He has watched Al-Shabab justify the deaths of those who oppose their hard-line interpretation of the Quran by branding them apostates. Somali civil servants, national army officers, local or international nongovernmental organization officials, are considered devil’s spies who deserve death, he added.

“I wanted to explain to my people the true meaning of apostasy in Islam,” he said.

A graduate of the Umm Al-Qura University in Saudi Arabia, Ismail, 50,  has written four other books on globalization and economics.

But he appears to have struck a raw nerve with the latest book, which he had hoped would stimulate a debate on religious freedom in Islam. The book also touches on other issues, such as gender equality and stoning adulterers to death in Islam.

“Apostasy is crime in Islam,” said Sheikh Abdallar Kheir, a religious scholar at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. “It is mentioned in the Quran and the traditions of the prophet. It is like treason.“

But there conditions and situations in which the rule is applied,” Kheir added. “It must be in an Islamic state, there must be dialogue and reasoning before it is applied, and it is applied if the person in the new faith causes disturbance to Muslims or the Islamic faith.”

Sorry, Sheikh Kheir, your conditions don’t cut it from a human rights and dignity perspective.

Book on apostasy in Islam earns writer the moniker Somalias Salman Rushdie – Religion News Service.

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Douglas Todd: The dangers of scapegoating religion: Karen Armstrong

2014/11/18 Leave a comment

Good interview with Karen Armstrong on her latest book, Fields of Blood:

Armstrong would not be content with the platitude that such and such a faith is strictly “a religion of peace.” She defends the need for countries to have responsible militaries and reveals how religious people have often been far from innocent, allowing their faith to be co-opted for destruction.

For instance, she notes that while Jesus was a near-pacifist, Mohammed was a powerful leader. When Mohammed was locked in open war with Jewish tribes, Armstrong judges his decision to slaughter 700 Jewish men and put their wives and children into slavery as “an atrocity that marked the lowest point in the Prophet’s career.”

Otherwise, she believes, Mohammed was a consensus builder and deal maker who respected Jews and Christians as “the people of the Book Bible,” adding, “Mohammed must be one of the few leaders in history to build an empire largely by negotiation.”

In discussing religion, in other words, we have to avoid stereotyping, but we also have to be realistic.

That requires acknowledging that religion around the planet, as many immigrants to North America will attest, is not all sweetness. It can be used to persecute minorities — and it frequently comes with scriptural literalism, patriarchy, intolerance of homosexuality and opposition to individual freedom.

Yet, with all the accusations flying around blaming religion for virtually all conflict and oppression, it’s more than valid to recall how religion has also long been an inspiration for peace and reconciliation.

“It is simply not true that ‘religion’ is always aggressive. Sometimes it has actually put the brakes on violence,” says Armstrong in Fields of Blood.

Douglas Todd: The dangers of scapegoating religion.

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Saudi Arabia Bulldozes Over Its Heritage

2014/11/15 Leave a comment

A reminder that our nominal allies in the struggle against ISIS have their own ISIS and Taliban-like tendency to obliterate history and anything that does not conform to their historical and cultural interpretation of Islam:

Over the last few years, mosques and key sites dating from the time of Muhammad have been knocked down or destroyed, as have Ottoman-era mansions, ancient wells and stone bridges. Over 98% of the Kingdom’s historical and religious sites have been destroyed since 1985, estimates the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation in London. “It’s as if they wanted to wipe out history,” says Ali Al-Ahmed, of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Though the Saudi rulers have a long history of destroying historical sites, activists say the pace and range of destruction has recently increased. A few months ago, the house of Hamza, the Prophet Muhammad’s uncle, was flattened to make way for a Meccan hotel, according to Irfan Al Alawi, executive director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation. There have even been rumored threats to Muhammad’s tomb in Medina and his birthplace in Mecca.

Saudi Arabia Bulldozes Over Its Heritage | TIME.

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Austria’s Muslims fear changes to historic Islam law

2014/11/05 Leave a comment

On foreign funding of mosques in Austria:

The draft law has also been criticised by constitutional experts, who say that some of its provisions fail to treat Muslims equally.

Professor Stefan Hammer from the University of Vienna says, while it is legitimate for the government to try and prevent misuse of donations from abroad, a blanket ban on foreign funding for the Islamic Community is constitutionally very problematic.

“Financing of religious communities is part of their internal affairs. This does not mean the state may not address any aspect of that, but it has to be proportional,” he says.

Other religious groups and churches receive external funding, notably the Russian Orthodox Church from Moscow, so differentiating between religions would clearly be excessive, he believes.

“It would be a clear breach of the principle of equal treatment.”Carla Amina Baghajati from the Islamic Community says the draft is infused with “a spirit of mistrust”, which she fears could play into the hands of the radicals.

“The radicals make use of the identity question, telling people: Look at the European societies, you wont ever be on the same level, you will always be an outsider. They wont accept you, so come and join us.

“This is very dangerous. We have to help young people to find their identity and the law is one of the important pieces in this identity building. It has helped in the past and we want it to help in the future.”

Seems like the solution could be a ban on any foreign funding for any religion to address the equal treatment issue.

BBC News – Austrias Muslims fear changes to historic Islam law.

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Islam and hadiths: Sifting and combing

2014/10/30 Leave a comment

Point well made in The Economist on religious and scriptural interpretation, and whether or not they lead to moderation:

Mr [Jonathan] Brown [author of Misquoting Muhammad] takes particular issue with The Economist for predicting that the information age will undermine the authority of old-time scholars and revolutionise the way in which ideas about Islam’s core teachings are formed. Given his fascination with long intellectual traditions, the author insists that nothing good can come of people going straight to texts which can foster extremist ideas unless they are leavened by scholarly wisdom.

In our defence, it is an already observable fact that electronics are making it much easier for ordinary Muslims, or self-taught “experts”, to bypass the older authorities and come to their own judgements on what their holy texts say and how they should be read. And as The Economist writing on the subject has made clear, this change can have bad consequences as well as good. Amateur theologians, bent on bypassing the professionals, can come to enlightened conclusions or appalling ones, such as the gimcrack theology used to justify acts of mega-terror by al-Qaeda or Islamic State.

However it’s also worth pointing out that neither conscientious scholarship nor participation in a centuries-old chain of editing and learning are foolproof guarantees of moderation. True, scholarly activities like hadith-sifting can sometimes help to mellow a religion. But remember, too, that the leaders of the Iranian revolution, who raised the standard of militant political Islam in the modern world, included many conscientious scholars.

Islam and hadiths: Sifting and combing | The Economist.

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“Everything Poisons Religion” « The Dish

2014/10/29 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion on Karen Armstrong’s book, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, and the links between religion and imperial power and the degree that religion can be separate from economics, social issues and politics:

The conversion of Constantine also meant the conscription of Christianity. It was not long before Augustine of Hippo was developing the convenient theory of the ‘just war’. Similarly the ahadith, the later reports of the Prophet’s sayings, confer a spiritual dimension on warfare which it doesn’t have in the Koran. Militant Sikhs today prefer to quote the martial teachings of the Tenth Guru rather than those of their founder Guru Nanak, who taught that only ‘he who regards all men as equals is religious’.

“Everything Poisons Religion” « The Dish.

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Noah shows the path against zealotry: Marmur | Toronto Star

2014/10/28 Leave a comment

Good piece by Dov Murmur on liberal religion within each tradition:

Looking at the havoc caused by those who purport to be God’s trailblazers, in our time no less than in ages past, we may have good reason to reconsider our admiration for Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son in ostensible obedience to God. The story seems to hint at the potentially destructive nature of religious zeal and reminds us that we should judge biblical characters by their actions, not by their apparently heroic intentions.

This may shock pious Muslims, Christians and Jews, but it will strengthen the resolve of progressive dissenters who seek to distance themselves from religious fanaticism, even when it appears to be devout.

Scripture indicates that God is on the side of the dissenters. It is God who prevents Abraham from carrying out the execution. God doesn’t seem to tolerate Abrahamic zeal, even when the good intentions are acknowledged. Child sacrifice is always senseless murder and a scandalous affront to God.

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi are powerful witnesses to it. Their Nobel Peace Prize is an acknowledgement that good people in the world are on the side of God when they stand up against zealots, especially on behalf of children.

…To opt for Noah is to follow in the footsteps of the prophet Micah who teaches that God requires of us “only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Humility — walking with God — manifests true and wholesome faith; fanaticism — purporting to make way for God — often becomes its lethal opposite.

This is the credo of liberal religion within each tradition. It’s also the basis for mature interfaith relations. What binds adherents of different faiths isn’t their zeal but their humility before God. Holy Writ endorses their stance.

Religious fanaticism, on the other hand, is invariably divisive. Zealots always fight others, not only non-believers but often also people within their own religious tradition who don’t share their zeal. Which is yet another reason to opt for Noah.

Noah shows the path against zealotry: Marmur | Toronto Star.

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Afghanistan Blasphemy Charge

2014/10/27 Leave a comment

A reminder that of the limits of all the efforts in Afghanistan, and how deeply a traditional country it remains in Afghan newspaper’s ‘blasphemy’ causes protests after rebuking Isis and Islam.

In Kabul, a crowd of approximately 500 people, including clerics and several members of parliament, gathered in front of the Eid Gah Mosque, the city’s second largest house of worship.

“The government must stop the people who insulted the prophet, the Qur’an and Islam, and prevent them from leaving the country,” said Fazl Hadi Wazin, an Islamic scholar at Salam University who spoke from the outdoor podium.

In an opinion piece published last week in the English-language daily the Afghanistan Express, a journalist named AJ Ahwar admonished Muslims for remaining silent in the face of Isis and the Taliban.

He also criticised Islam for not accepting other religions and minorities such as homosexuals and Hazaras, a Shia minority in Afghanistan.

The article ended by concluding that human beings are more important than God, which seemed to particularly incense protesters.

“The newspaper said God can’t control people and that God is unwise,” said Mangal Bader, 38, one of the protesters. He joined others in calling for the newspaper staff to suffer the same fate as five men who were recently convicted of rape and hanged, after great public furore.

“They need to be executed so humans know that you cannot insult the religion of Allah,” said Ahmad, 22, another protester.

In pauses between speakers, protesters chanted “death to America”. According to one demonstrator, the US instils ideas of freedom of expression in the minds of Afghan journalists, then grants them asylum once they anger their compatriots.

“The international community pretend to be heroes of freedom of expression,” said Wazin after his speech. “They have to come out and say they are not behind this. If they don’t, these protests will grow.”

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The Trouble With Religion – Reza Aslan

2014/10/23 2 Comments

Reza Aslan on scripture and interpretation is shaped by values:

This is the thing — it’s not that you can interpret away problematic parts of a scripture. It’s that the scriptures are inundated with conflicting sentiments about almost every subject. In other words, the same Torah that tells Jews to love their neighbor also tells them to kill every single man, woman, and child who doesn’t worship Yahweh. The same Jesus who told his disciples to give away their cloaks to the needy also told them to sell their cloaks and buy swords. The same Quran that tells believers if you kill a single individual, it’s as though you’ve killed all of humanity, also tells them to slay every idolater wherever you find them.

So, how do you, as an individual, confront that text? It’s so basic, a child can understand: The way that you would give credence or emphasis to one verse as opposed to the other has everything to do with who you are. That’s why they have to sort of constantly go back to this notion of an almost comical lack of sophistication in the conversations that we are having about religion. And to me, there’s a shocking inability to understand what, as I say, a child would understand, which is that religions are neither peaceful nor violent, neither pluralistic nor misogynistic — people are peaceful, violent, pluralistic, or misogynistic, and you bring to your religion what you yourself already believe.

The Trouble With Religion « The Dish.

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