Isn't it funny how so many posters here rush to derail posts they do not like in the attempt to avoid dealing with the issue.
The question asked at the end of my OP was simply how are we to deal with a faith that does not reciprocate the respect we show to it?
I am not the only person asking this I have pasted an article by a Muslim journalist who asks the same question merely to show it is not only me who worries about this.
How did modern Islam become so intolerant?
by Yasmin Alibhai Brown
In Allah’s name, what is wrong with us Muslims? And why do we find it so hard to ask that question of ourselves? What will it take to break the heavily curtained window of denial?…
…no injustice can excuse or explain the rise of brutal Islamicists. Palestine is their cynical, moral pretence. Racism? Black Afro-Caribbean men who suffer the worst discrimination in this country don’t set up terrorist cells. Muslim foreign policy rage is questionable too. Over many decades, Western meddling in, say, Zimbabwe or Kenya has led to some of the intractable, current problems in those nations. Again, Kenyans and Zimbabwean migrants to the UK aren’t cooking carnage in pots in their kitchens.
Religion is another fig leaf used by millions of Prophet Mohamed’s followers. Islam, they rightly contend, does not sanction the killing of civilians by hobbyists or leaders. However, by focusing on what the good texts say, Muslims avoid the reality of what Muslims do. I doubt even the most virtuous imam can point this out without being subjected to threats.
And while ever alert on Islamaphobia, organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain assiduously avoid looking at the willed ignorance and barbarism within Muslim communities around the world in states controlled by Muslims.
Take this last week, when Bangladesh erupted with anger and competing protests led to five deaths. Secularists demand punishment for the Bangladeshi men who committed atrocities in the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. Some of the perpetrators were militant Muslim militia and are defended by an alliance of powerful Islamicist parties.
In Egypt, human rights groups claim children are being detained and tortured. The government has spent £1.7m on tear gas. In Tunisia, after the assassination of the popular secular leader Chokri Belaid, Ennahda, the hardline Islamic party, takes charge. Fifty-three more died in an explosion in Syria where over 70,000 have been killed in two years.
Islamic rebels in Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere carry on their nefarious, destabilising activities. Eighty-nine Shias were killed in Pakistan, whose first leader, Muhammad Jinnah, was a Shia, as am I. They want to obliterate us there, in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bahrain, and Iraq too, where bombs go off routinely to kill these worshippers. Other minority Muslim groups are also targeted and often murdered.
Internal and external intolerance is now Islam’s brand. Those great past Muslim civilisations famous for diversity, humanity, science, extraordinary achievements have died. Education, the arts, photographs, television, sports, even work are denounced by crazed imams online and in mosques worldwide, including the UK. In Brittain’s book, some women took on these values, and in effect, imprisoned themselves.
Polymath Ziauddin Sardar has met “countless Muslim scholars, thinkers, writers and activists” who are impatient for change and reform. That can’t happen while there is an aversion to criticism and self-criticism.
Thoughtful and honest Muslims stay silent because they fear ostracisation or inciting more racism against Muslims – both real perils. But silence now is cowardly, and collusion with the corrupters of our faith. True believers have a duty to speak out against that corruption.
