Where Can a Muslim Find Guidance on Everyday Issues Such as Family Marriage and Business
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| Tin you tell me what the fundamentals of Islam are? The fundamentals of Islam -- if you hateful by that, the "five pillars of Islam," they are the shahada, which is an affirmation that there is no deity except Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet, his messenger. That constitutes the first pillar, or central. The 2d is prayer, salat, and and so the fasting, according to some, which is sawm, or the fast of Ramadan; and the payment of what I call a social tax, which is called zakat. Others call it charity; I call it a social taxation. It is 2.five percent of what one has had, what one has owned of certain kinds of wealth for a menstruum of one year. The fifth is the pilgrimage, the hajj. The pilgrimage to the Kaaba -- not to Mecca per se -- but to the Kaaba, which is in Mecca. Those are the v pillars or the v fundamentals. And there are principles, too -- another set of beliefs? That's truthful, and they are: belief in Allah; belief in the prophets [of] scriptures; belief in the last day, that at that place'due south a judgment, there's a hereafter and an afterlife; conventionalities in angels, et cetera. Some scholars say there are four, some say five, some say half-dozen. Those are pretty much agreed upon. ... I would say the beliefs are not really that much emphasized in Muslim societies, specially Arabic Muslim societies; not that much. The main thing is the main gear up of principles are those that we but talked virtually -- the five principles. ... Those are the things that you actually had to do, and not and then much a way of being? Actually, y'all've made a very important statement. If nosotros look at the five principles of Islam, or the five pillars or the five fundamentals, conventionalities practically ends with the first pillar of Islam. In other words, that affirmation that Allah is the but deity and that Muhammad is his messenger. After that, everything is action, is practice. The other four, i.e., praying, fasting, paying the zakat -- what I telephone call a social tax -- and the hajj, involve activity. Muslims are very action-oriented. So what does it have to be Muslim? Is it believing that first principle? According to widely accepted authoritative hadiths, or sayings of the prophets, Islam is built on v pillars. Information technology'south those v pillars we just mentioned. In one case ane accepts those five principles, one is considered a Muslim. In fact, upon pronouncing the shahada, which is only the beginning of those principles, a person is considered a Muslim. And so it's easy to become a Muslim. It'southward easier than joining the Republican or Autonomous Party. It'southward very piece of cake to go a Muslim. Technically, it [only] takes seconds to go a Muslim. But do y'all have to practice all those other things the remainder of your life? To stay a Muslim, I would say, yes, all of those are of import. How important those things are, is really, in my view, an academic, a scholarly argument. Why do I say that? Considering in a social context, a person may be taken for a Muslim who does not pray; who does non pay any zakat; who does not do many or all of the other four principles of Islam. In other words, there is such a thing as socio-cultural Muslim, a public Muslim. Then there is another kind of Muslim, I would say, who is technically a Muslim, who is legally a Muslim, I'd like to say. And [who] therefore follows the constabulary. ... | ||||
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| What are the fundamentals of Islam? What does it teach to be a Muslim? The key thought which defines a human being as a Muslim is the annunciation of faith that at that place is a creator, whom we call God -- or Allah, in Arabic -- and that the creator is 1 and unmarried. And we declare this faith past the annunciation of faith, [shahada] where we ... bear witness that at that place is no God simply God, and that we are answerable to God for our deportment. And that's the lesser line? That is the universal Quranic definition of a person who is a Muslim. Because God says in the Quran that in that location is merely one true faith, God'south religion. It's the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad. They all came to limited the truth near ultimate reality. That the ultimate reality, with a uppercase "R" is God; that God created this universe; and God created humanity for a very specific purpose and mandate, which is to recognize what he or she truly is. A being created, as we say in the Judeo-Christian world, in the image of God. The Quran uses a different language, it says, created out of a divine in-breathing, because the Quran says when God created the course of Adam from dirt, God says, "When I shall have breathed into him from my spirit." Then he appear to the angels, "Fall in prostration to Adam." And then the defining aspect of a homo is that the human existence has inside its envelope a piece of the divine breath. This is the Quranic definition of what you might call the quote, unquote, "divine epitome in the human envelope." And the human mandate is to recognize this essential definition of self, and to admit the very special relationship that exists between that self and the creator. It doesn't sound so dissimilar from Christianity or Judaism. The Quran does not speak nigh Christianity or Judaism. You lot will not detect that word one time mentioned in the Quran. ... [but] God says in the Quran that in that location is not a single community on earth to whom we did non send a messenger. So the same message, the same truth, was revealed to all of humanity through a series of prophets; whose complete number, we don't know. The Quran mentions 25 of them past proper name. Just the message is one: that God is one; that the creator is single; that the creator has no partner; that the creator is described by the perfection of a number of attributes, which Muslims call the divine names. And so God is one; God is almighty; God is all-seeing; God is all-knowing; God is all-hearing. God is compassionate, merciful, forgiving, loving. God is just. And and so forth. Nosotros are forbidden to ascribe to God attributes of weakness or imperfection. So we cannot say God is one, merely God is poor; God is ane, merely God is blind, for example, or doesn't have the attribute of seeing. It is equally important for Muslims to affirm, not only the oneness of God, but the perfection of his attributes. And the bulletin, in its substance, embodies what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments. When Jesus was once asked, "Rabbi, or Rebbe, what are the greatest commandments?" He said, to dearest the lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and all of your mind. And the second, which is coequal with it: that you beloved your neighbour equally you love yourself. Dear for your blood brother or your sister, what y'all dear for yourself. Non to impairment them in a fashion that y'all do not wish to be harmed. Which over again embodies these two principles: A, that you take to acknowledge the creator correctly. And B, that you are going to be held accountable for your upstanding decisions and choices. And the detail form of revelation was a function of society. So every prophet or messenger, every prophet or messenger spoke in his own language to his own community. Some words were spoken Hebrew, or in ancient Egyptian. Every revelation was given in the language of the community to whom it was sent. The rituals may have been a little bit different, but the essence of the rituals were at that place: prayer, charity, and, and fasting. If the bulletin is the same, then how come the people don't agree with each other? Well, God'south perennial complaining -- not only in the Quran, but in other scriptures as well -- is that people generally practice non follow God's dictates and the guidance and the mandate that God has offered to humanity to follow. We tend to exist recalcitrant. We tend to exist disobedient to divine guidance. And if you look at human conflict, it has even existed inside people of the same religious tradition. I don't demand to remind you that even amongst those who call themselves Muslims in that location has been a lot of mortality. Nosotros're finding that it's very difficult to ascertain who Muslims are. Every time we effigy, oh, that'south what information technology is, or that'due south who they are, there's an exception to the dominion. There's a very traditional housewife-looking lady in Malaysia who'southward also a doctor who ministers to unwed mothers. We take girls in Turkey who are saying, "Nosotros desire to cover our hair." And we have a secular authorities that'due south discriminating against them -- women who want to encompass, women who don't. Men who want to keep women in the house; men who concord that women have absolute opportunity to practice what they need to exercise in society. How does this all fit? The definition of the organized religion of Islam that I gave y'all before is the Quranic universal definition of the human being vis a vis the creator. There is a narrower definition of Islam which is used, which is, those who follow the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Now, according to that definition, their Islam is defined by what was unremarkably called the five pillars of organized religion. This is what theologians telephone call the orthopraxy, or the orthopraxis. It means the practices which define y'all as a Muslim. There are also five articles of creed, of conventionalities, which theologians phone call the orthodoxy. ...The orthodoxy of the Islamic faith is divers as a belief in the oneness of God and the right attitude, the right understandings of God, as I mentioned before. A belief in the angels, beings created of light, who convey the divine commandments. The belief that God communicated to humanity via scriptures. And these scriptures are considered to be both oral and written form. ... And the belief that God likewise communicated his guidance and messages and teachings to humanity via human being intermediaries, human messengers, we call them. prophets, or messengers. And the last item of the Islamic orthodoxy is the belief in the last mean solar day. The concluding is a compound concept which means that this creation will, in fact, come to an end. And then those of the states who believe in the big bang theory, in that location will be a big implosion, in other words, at the end of time, and then to speak -- followed by a day of resurrection, where all the souls shall be resurrected; followed by a day of judgment, where all souls volition be judged; followed past the obtaining of divine approving or divine disapproval. A pass grade or a failing class. Those who get a passing course will be in paradise. Those who go a failing grade will be in what we call hell. And the underlying theme of the terminal twenty-four hour period is that we are all accountable for our ethical actions. ... That's the orthodoxy. The orthopraxy of Islam is a declaration of organized religion: the statement that there is no God merely God; that Muhammad is the messenger of God; the v-time daily prayer; the giving of alms, typically 2.v pct of one'southward income or assets; the fasting of the calendar month of Ramadan; and the going to pilgrimage, or hajj, once in one'southward lifetime, if i can afford it, financially and physically. Everyone who does these things is inside the box of Islam. In that location are other things, secondary things. Rules of wearing apparel and rules of beliefs and rules of what may be considered right or wrong. And these come from cultural norms and from, from secondary sources of jurisprudence. But anybody who believes in these things and practices these things is a Muslim. ... Could you simply explain to the states the key things that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have in common -- what they share? They share geography. They share Jerusalem, which is of import to all. Nosotros share a common antecedent, Abraham, who was really the founder and the patriarch of all of u.s.a.. And I think if nosotros can revert back to the Abrahamic foundation, that is [where] we will discover our common basis. Our languages are very like -- Arabic and Hebrew and Aramaic ... . The ideas are very similar; and the primal impulse of belief in God, that God is the creator, that we are obliged to human activity in a fashion that is ethical and just and correct. These are certainly among the important aspects of kinship between these iii faith traditions. And I would even go further and say -- apart peradventure from some differences in the notion of God -- but as far every bit the thought of the common good, the idea of social justice - [that] is shared with all faith traditions. [Who decides the rules of Islamic jurisprudence?] The thing almost the Islamic situation is we don't accept a church. We don't have an ordained priesthood, which makes information technology a little complicated. But we practise have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. Information technology's very much similar any field of knowledge. Take any field of cognition, similar physics or biology or chemistry. Anybody can become a chemist or a biologist or a physicist. Simply there are rules [developed], and a kind of a growing consensus of stance on how one should recall correctly to arrive at what would exist deemed a right, a correct decision. Analogously, there is, in Islam, a tradition of theological estimation, of [juridical] understanding and knowledge. And equally long as you abide by these, the consensus of understanding on how you arrive at a decision, sure differences of opinion are considered as valid. ... Tin can you lot define "hadith" for an American audience? The discussion "hadith" means any report of something the prophet either said or did. That'south hadith with small "h.". Hadith with capital "H" is the collection of all these reports. Which have been carefully substantiated or authenticated? At that place are all kinds of grades of hadith, from the most authentic to those that have been forged, and various degrees in between. Islamic hadith scholarship actually is a very fascinating study, considering through the hadith collection, you lot go a piece of Islamic history. The politics of what happened at different periods of fourth dimension are all manifest in the hadith. And the Sunna, similarly. The word "Sunna" is used to mean the normative practice of the prophet. In fact, the jurists have divers the general Sunna of the prophet to mean everything the prophet did or said. The hadith is the report of the Sunna. And of the practice of the prophet, at that place's a certain class of deportment that are normative for Muslims to follow, Sunna which has ... legal value, has a precedent value. And there is Sunna which has no Sharia value. For case, the prophet prayed a sure fashion. This has Sharia value, nosotros're supposed to pray that way. The prophet went to hajj on a camel. Doesn't hateful that nosotros have to ride a camel from Medina to Mecca for our hajj to exist valid. Nosotros tin take a car. We can accept a aeroplane, because that Sunna has no Sharia value. Can you explicate that, Sharia? The word "Sharia" is the term given to define the collectivity of laws that Muslims govern themselves past. And there is a presumption that these laws recognize all of the specific laws mentioned in the Quran and in the practise of the prophet, and practise not conflict with that. So any police force, annihilation studied in the Quran or the hadith, is definitely [Sharia]. The thought is that information technology is divinely legislated, that the creator likewise has legislated certain things for us. But then in the customs of Muslims, it was recognized very early on on that the Quran and the hadith exercise not speak to all issues. And there are many problems which are not necessarily addressed in the Quran and the hadith, that the Quran is silent on. ... There is a recognition in the [scientific discipline] of Islamic jurisprudence that in that location are bug which accept to exist obtained by analogy, past consensus, and other [subsidiary] sources of jurisprudence. But as long every bit they don't disharmonize with the Quran and hadith of the prophet, it'due south considered to be, quote, unquote, "Sharia." The flexibility congenital in there, you know, the using of your own common sense, is that what allows different places to utilize Sharia differently? Well, I wouldn't phrase it quite that way. The right phrasing would be that, when people think about Islamic police force, there's a presumption that all of Islamic law is Quranic, or emanates from the Quran and the hadith. The truth of the matter is, what really defines Islamic law [is] the sum total of Islamic constabulary equally has been practiced by Muslims throughout the final fourteen, 15 centuries ... . The Quran and the hadith are a limiting factor and a shaping cistron. But any trunk of laws that includes and embodies the specific commandments and prohibitions mentioned in the Quran and the hadith, that does not violate any of these things, has been considered as Sharia, as Islamic. And this allows a lot of variation of stance, in things which the Quran and the hadith are relatively silent on as long as the principles are maintained, of justice, et cetera. My agreement of [the Sharia] rules about punishment for matrimonial infidelity [is that] you lot take to have 4 eyewitnesses, or several eyewitnesses to the [human action] in order to demand the death penalty. It'due south near inconceivable to me that y'all could ever produce that kind of bystander or evidence. But we hear that these kinds of punishments are meted out fairly regularly. Is the law being followed the fashion information technology's fix [out]? You cannot judge a whole body of police force past one instance of criminal police force. When people think most Sharia police force, they often think virtually the penalties for certain crimes. They don't think about the sum full of Islamic law and its jurisprudence, which means the underlying construction and philosophy and agreement of how you lot arrive at what nosotros call the Islamically correct decision. You do not define Sharia police force by just a couple of penalties. ... Islamic police has a few penalties for certain crimes. Merely the rules of prove, as you lot mentioned in the case of adultery, require either the free confession past the private and/or the being of four witnesses who are of sound mind and who fit the description of qualified witnesses, which is very rare to obtain. Much of what we see when we hear of events that use Sharia law, what we see in Nigeria, for instance, or fifty-fifty in Pakistan, is a desire by much of the people to see the general principles of justice followed. ... Information technology is a want by the people to see their arrangement of laws exist more than equitable. It is a call for correction of the overall organisation of social justice, of economic justice, which the Quran calls for; and the case of the prophet calls for. Y'all see, Muslims have an ideal. Function of their platonic is to follow what they call the instance of the prophet, the Sunna of the prophet. So at an individual level, and a human beingness who wants to perfect himself or herself looks to the tradition of the prophet, his individual practise, and tries to emulate the prophet as much equally possible. There is too a collective subliminal ambition that Muslims have, that at a collective level, they besides embody the ethics of the community that the prophet developed in Medina. So when Muslims today speak of the endeavour to plant an Islamic state, what they are really saying is that they would like to have a community that lives in accord with the ideals, the relationships, the social contract, which the prophet had developed in Medina with his companions and how they had this amongst each other. ... | ||||
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| ...Islam is a very flexible system, and it has been very flexible for centuries. What I hateful by that is that differences of opinion have been accepted within Islam and given legitimacy by some of the highest government in Islam. Thus in sure areas of the Sharia, one country may differ from another country. One customs may differ from another community, fifty-fifty in the same country. We interpret the Sharia in the South, permit's say, in Alabama, in this particular expanse of marriage and divorce or whatever, in this way. You people in New York, in New Jersey, and elsewhere, you translate it differently. Nosotros are all correct. And we have agreed on that. But that is not foreign. Why should it be? Divorce law in various states of the United States differ. The acceptance of homosexuality, legal acceptance of, permission, et cetera, differ from ane country to the other. So we can have a national, we can have a federal state, but in that location are differences within those states. I'thousand proverb, similarly, Islamic police force is not one thing. It's non monolithic, equally American law is not monolithic, every bit Western police is not monolithic. And then we should be very conscientious nigh proverb, "Well, this is a violation of the Sharia." Do those differences come from the cultures? Yes. Absolutely. The Sharia is definitely affected past local cultures, regional cultures. We cannot really talk about national cultures. Only nosotros tin talk about regional cultures, and we can talk about local cultures. There are different schools of thought within the Sharia. ... We as well are in the setting of America, where a lot of people are frightened. What they may know near Islam is that Muslims flew into the World Trade Centre. I retrieve for Muslims, that's rather perturbing. I can understand why. Role of it is because of American ignorance of Islam, on the one hand. On the other manus, from a Muslim perspective, we accept to understand why such people would have acted in that fashion. And if I might apply a term that I don't really like, I think the Muslim world must understand what produces such persons. Muslims have to help Westerners understand that such person may non be acting in a widely accepted Islamic manner. But at the aforementioned fourth dimension, Muslims demand to endeavour to understand such persons confronting a large corpus of Islamic writings, thought, et cetera. Because such persons are maxim that what they did, what they practice, is justified in Islam. Is it [justified]? How practice they justify information technology? They draw on a body of literature which is primarily interpretive, in my view. It's primarily interpretive. In other words, how does one interpret a text? If the text says, "Cut off the hands of the male and female thief," one might interpret that item text as applicable in a situation of ane stealing a pen too as 1 stealing a one thousand thousand dollars. What I'm maxim here is if we take the text literally -- without knowing the Summa, without knowing the hadith, what was the prophet's exercise, what did the ulema, the scholars say after that -- if nosotros don't have a good view of the variety of interpretations of the text, then we cannot stand and say that those people are necessarily wrong within the context of Islam. For example: "Fight those who fight against you lot." Some of those people who Americans telephone call terrorists consider that they are fighting confronting those who fight against them; [that] the fight started long ago, and the fight continues. So they don't have to have a new justification. In their view, they don't need a new justification. To which fight are you referring when you say, "Information technology started long ago?" The Crusades, for example. There are a lot of Muslims who consider the Crusades as a continual procedure, and and so the whole idea of that disastrous thing called colonization or colonialism. Muslims have been batted around. Muslims continue to exist batted around. Now, if nosotros consider, on the one mitt, the concept of umma -- that is that all Muslims belong to a community, a nation, called the umma -- and this nation is extraterritorial in modernistic terminology, i.e., a Muslim could exist in Greenland and withal belong to the umma, considering he or she is a Muslim. From a point of view of Sharia, if a function of that umma is attacked, and then all of the umma is responsible for the defense of that expanse. This means that if the Palestinians are attacked, if the Iranians are attacked, if the Iraqis are attacked, indeed, if Muslims in this land are attacked, so Muslims elsewhere should come to the aid of those Muslims. So as long as Muslims continue to be attacked -- and they accept been attacked throughout, for centuries, et cetera -- and so the fight continues. The struggle continues. That could exist a justification for those who say, "Wherever I attacked yous, and whatever Western interests I attack, are covered. I'm doing this with the blessings of the Sharia." This is ane way of interpreting. No, it's not widely accepted amongst the generality of Muslims. I don't recollect and so. Merely it is a way of viewing the text or interpreting the text. Which ways that this could go on advertising infinitum? Absolutely. It does mean that. ... I'thou saying hither that we have a trouble of interpretation. I don't want to stress this too far. But we do accept a problem of interpretation. A text tin exist interpreted differently by different people. Those interpretations become legitimate to those who translate the text in that mode. Then we take several interpretations. Who's to say who's right? | ||||
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| Can you lot describe for me in more particular the progressive, reformist vision of a universal form of Islam [that yous espouse]? If 1 tries to understand that vision in terms of very specific concerns, the more universal approach to Islam would see as immutable, equally perennial -- not laws pertaining to criminal penalization, nothing of that sort. What they would see every bit immutable would be the laws of life and death and growth and disuse; laws of that sort which are universally acceptable. In other words, they will not be wedded to a certain interpretation of Islamic police force. ... [such as] "You prove your Islamic credentials by chopping off the hands or stoning the adulterer and adulterers" and all the rest of it, ecause that is non what defines Islam. At the same time, the more than universal approach would regard women every bit equal. They would regard the woman as calipha or viceregent and allow her to perform her role, both inside the sphere of the home and the public sphere, without restricting her in whatsoever mode. The more universal approach to Islam would regard minorities, for instance, as groups that take the same rights as the majority community. They wouldn't brand a stardom between the two. They wouldn't, for instance, say that certain offices are barred to the minorities or that they tin't participate in certain spheres of lodge. They wouldn't adopt that sort of approach. The more universal arroyo to Islam would emphasize values -- universal perennial values which others can also identify with. And through that, they would found a bail with the other. And the other would cease to exist "the other" inside that more universal perspective on Islam. The only identity that will count is one'south human identity. That would be the real Islam. Considering the whole purpose of Islamic seems to me is to enhance one's humanity, to discover 1's humanity. To go to that bespeak, there has to exist a process of interpretation of sacred texts? That's correct. Can you explicate how that procedure has evolved, and how Muslims practise that today? In some respects, the clerics, the ulema in Islam, are stuck in a estrus. What is of import is to look at the methodology behind interpretation, and use that methodology in a very creative fashion. This is what is required. In other words, y'all get back to fundamental principles. See how they apply to the present. Look at the present in a very critical manner, and see how i has to perhaps bring well-nigh changes in one's environment, so that some of these values and principles would flourish. Merely that sort of creativity is not there among a lot of the clerics. What they have done is to accept laws from the past and say, "Expect, let's apply them today without thinking most the contemporary situation." This, I think, is a production of a certain tendency in Muslim history. Afterward the ninth century, one gets the impression that this detail approach to law, to rules, to regulations became stronger and stronger. And because of some of the convulsions that Islamic civilization went through earlier colonialism -- I'k referring to the invasions from the Mongols, for instance, that destroyed some of the major centers of Islamic learning -- that trend became fifty-fifty more than powerful within Islam. They became very, very bourgeois, considering they felt that they had to conserve whatsoever petty they had, because huge centers of learning were destroyed. Baghdad was destroyed in 1258. Other places like Bokhara, Samarkand, all those places were destroyed as a event of these invasions. I think this is one of the reasons why the conservative approach to Islamic jurisprudence has go so stiff. And this is the arroyo adopted by the vast majority of clerics today all over the Muslim world. So who is leading this [more progressive] form of interpretation? I see it emerging from three sources. Number one, I see women playing a very important part in the reinterpretation of Islam. Because if you expect at some of the positions taken by women theologians, you'll run into that they are very concerned about, non just the function of women, but the larger challenges facing the Muslim earth. And they desire this process of reinterpretation to take place now. Information technology is pregnant that at that place are women theologians who are doing this, considering what information technology ways is that you have a whole gender community which would support this procedure of change. For changes to accept identify, y'all need that sort of strength behind it. If you look, for case, at the way in which ideas on social welfare and social justice emerged in the late eighteenth century, nineteenth century in Europe, you had a working form that was backside these changes, which intellectuals nowadays are articulating. So I recall something similar that has to happen within the Muslim globe. You need a whole group, a gender customs, as information technology were, behind this move for change. Number two, I run into it emerging within Muslim communities in the W. Why in the West? Because in the West, you're challenged intellectually. You take to define your position. You have to try to understand some of your ain precepts and principles. And that sort of intellectual challenge is very, very important. Information technology'due south something that is not happening in the Muslim majority societies where you accept this very sort of complacent attitude, where thought has stultified. Y'all find that inventiveness is no longer there. Information technology's all ossified. But in the Due west, it'due south different. They're challenged; they'll have to respond to it. So that'south the second source. And the third source would be elements within the middle course and amongst the professionals. You would find them all over the Muslim world. They have to rethink their positions, besides. They just can't accept the theology that is handed down to them by the clerics. So these are the three very important sources which, to my mind, will bring about this new alter. Simply at the same time, there will be individuals from a clerical groundwork who will too play a office in this. If yous wait at what's happening in Islamic republic of iran and even if you look at some of the other Sunni-majority Muslim countries, y'all find that in that location are theologians who are very, very open up-minded. And when they lend their weight and say-so behind these changes, information technology gives a tremendous heave to the movement for reform. Is it possible at this point to predict how that tension, the struggle betwixt [the progressive and conservative] approaches to Islam will develop in the most futurity? In a sense, globalization and the changes that are being wrought in the larger environment would favor the progressives. ... Every bit a result of globalization, societies everywhere are becoming heterogeneous. In other words, "the other" is no longer some theoretical construct out there. The other is a living reality. You have to relate to the other. That's jump to change your thought processes. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, you take the role of women, and that's again role of the whole process of globalization. Women in Saudi, for example, know what is happening to their Muslim sisters in, say, Malaysia or Indonesia. As a result of that, they'll take to think about their ain situation. They are exposed to television receiver. Internet is role of their lives. These are changes that one just can't terminate. So I see globalization as a process which will aid the movement for change inside the Muslim world. Of course, it can also lead to very reactive stances. But in the long run, every bit has happened in other societies at other points in fourth dimension, the reactive approach would lose out to the more progressive, open up, inclusive approach. ... Some Muslims seem to turn to violence and to terrorism. Explain to me how the thinking that has led some people in that management, how they've managed to justify it with a religion that seems to be predominantly about peace and justice. This is something which is the product of a diversity of factors. Sometimes it's just sheer agony and frustration emerging from a state of affairs which is totally out of their control. If, for instance, Palestinians resort to violence, it's largely because of the situation that they're in. And I would distinguish that sort of violence 1 has seen in other parts of the world, while non justifying violence equally a mode of political action, which is my own ideological position. I don't remember violence is justified under whatsoever circumstances. Whether it's violence of the victim or the violence of the oppressor, I don't think there is whatsoever justification at all for violence. But the sort of violence which has come up to be associated with certain groups in the Muslim world which I personally abhor would be like the violence of the Abu Sayyef in the southern part of the Philippines. They loot, they kidnap, they blackmail people, they target innocent civilians and all the balance of it. I see this as a tendency that exists in all cultures and civilizations. In that location are groups like that in Japan, in Italian republic, in Germany. It'southward not confined to the Muslim world in whatever fashion. The reason why they do this and try to justify this in the proper noun of Islam is because they need an ideological footing. And what better ideological justification than something which is linked to religion? Considering that carries with it a very powerful emotional thrust. And they need that emotional thrust to justify what they're doing. Information technology'due south also a mode, I suppose, of squaring with their ain conscience. They do all these killings considering they see it as something which is justified in the name of religion. It brings merit to them from a religious point of view. ... How exercise yous recall Afghanistan and the Taliban fit into this tension between progressive and literalistic interpretations of Islam? I don't know whether the long drawn-[out] war in Afghanistan has had a certain affect upon the psychology of the community equally a collectivity. After the Soviet invasion and the defeat of the occupying forces, one would have thought that they would have rebuilt their guild. But that did not happen, because the various factions began to fight with one another. As someone once said, the Afghans are such good fighters that they merely can't stop fighting. And this is what has been happening. And at present you have a state of affairs where the Taliban has emerged from the refugee camps of Pakistan, actually, and consolidated their position. And I suppose for a war-weary people, the Talibans, with their very strict interpretation of Islamic police and the capacity to enforce the authority, they accept managed to win quite a few adherents within the country. But I don't see that sort of arroyo to Islam gaining the support of Muslims in other parts of the earth. Yous'll detect that whenever the Taliban has done something which is outrageous, other Muslims accept spoken out against them. On the question of women, women existence denied the right to piece of work outside their domicile, a lot of Muslims came out against it. When they destroyed those statues, not only Muslim movements, only Muslim governments came out openly against the Taliban. So the Taliban, in a sense, would be an abnormality, equally far as the Muslim world goes. And I hope that's the manner the W will wait at the Taliban -- as an aberration. Such aberrations take existed in other cultures and traditions at other points in history. So it's basically an aberration. I mean, I would similar to regard the Inquisition equally an aberration equally far equally Christian history is concerned. And I think the Taliban would exist an aberration equally far every bit contemporary Muslim culture is concerned. ... How would you sum up your vision of Islam as a spirituality, a mode of life, civilisation and possibly a renewed civilization? The essence of Islam's mission, as I meet it every bit an individual Muslim, is to elevate our humanity, to make united states of america more witting of justice, to make us more conscious of the unity and the brotherhood and sisterhood of the human family unit. This, I remember, is the mission of Islam: to restore to humanity that principle that is repeated over and once more in the Quran, to believe in God and to do good. And this is all there is to it. All the other schisms and divisions that we encounter, to my mind are the products of the human'due south ain failing, his or her ain fallacies. But the strength of Islam lies in this -- in making united states of america more human. home · portraits of ordinary muslims · introduction · major themes · interviews · faqs web site copyright 1995-2014 WGBH educational foundation | ||||
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Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims/themes/beliefs.html
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