Where are the Questioning Minds?

re:a European protest of another kind
While Europe is in a tizzy over the cartoon issue, its corporate sector is protesting against a take over bid, the biggest of its kind in European history, this time by an Indian, Lakshmi Mittal.
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060213-1156507,00.html
Sridhar

re:a European protest of another kind
While Europe is in a tizzy over the cartoon issue, its corporate sector is protesting against a take over bid, the biggest of its kind in European history, this time by an Indian, Lakshmi Mittal.
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060213-1156507,00.html
Sridhar

Why the violent fuss over a cartoon?? If the obscenely rich Arab countries had invested in to ten more al -Jaziras and hundreds more of print media of quality standard and educated the public as to what Islam is, this situation would have never arisen.
There has never been a picture or a bust of Muhammad from the 6th century AD till today. So who knows what he looked like? The likeness in the cartoon—see at 97—reminds me of films of my old days such as the Thief of Baghdad when, even then it was the in thing fore Hollywood to depict the Mid-easterners as vicious and rogues. My spouce says he looks more like a Singh or a Rajpoot! So there you have it!
As far as the other cartoon about seventy two virgins is concerned, for Muslims who would want to believe that hadis(story) books concocted about two centuries after Muhammad, are part of the article of their faith, I suggest they should rejoice as it only enhances their faith.
@89 Ramanujan
How very selective just like the priests! With this sort of representation, if it was true I would be ashamed of being called a Muslim.
You must be aware of the verses in chapter four where the overtly sexual priests have given blank cheque to their flock, the permission to marry four wives, with their OWN version of concocted conditions, although that particular verse starts with ‘IF…’ and ends with ‘Then, only…’
I therefore give you a comparison of just one of this selective rendering with a scholarly one where the whole situational context of the verse is presented:
Yours 2: 193 Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah”. Indicating that there is force, compulsion and pre-emption in conversion to Deen.
2: 193 And fight the aggressors `until` persecution is eliminated and there remains no compulsion in religion, the freedom that God has ordained (2-256). Any one accepting the Deen of Allah must do so freely and for HIS sake alone. (emphases) And if the aggressors desist, then let there be no hostility except against those who displace peace with warfare( also please refer to 22-40)-from ‘The Qur’an as it explains itself` by Dr. Shabbir Ahmad.
Such scholarly and contextual interpretations are now, thankfully available on the web, so I don’t have to take more of Chowk’s space. Rashid

Re: # 87

Nash

``and Mir Ja`afar (who betrayed the great Tipu Sultan-Allah bless him) ``

mir jafar betrayed sirajudullah (plassey) not tipu. what history books did you read????

Re: # 89

I am aware of this selective compilation of verses to prove a certain point of view. As a matter of fact I can compile selective verses to prove that Qura`n is a book on sociology, philosophy, sex, war, or it is a manifesto for all mankind. I am also sure that when you took so much effort to find these verses then you must have seen rebutal to the allegations as well. There are two ways to approach this issue. One approach is with a mind already made up. In this case even if God Himself comes down to earth and talk to you then you wouldn`t budge. Qura`n has described such people through allegories and storys of ancient people. He gave prophets miracles to show people, but when a mind is already made up then nothing has worked in the past and it will not work in the future either.

So in short, we have a prosecutor and judge in you, who puts forth the ``charge sheet`` but would not let accuse present his case. Injustice is a double edged sword; it not only hurts the victim but also that who uses it. So all I beg from you is a 15 minutes of your lifetime; the 15 minutes with an open mind and open heart. In those 15 minutes you have to promise yourself that you will not prejudge; and you will hold your verdict until the evidence is presented to you.

Qura`n is a book about man. It deals with his psychology and his scociology. But it is not just a book of principles. Let me explain it with an example. Just recall, when you were a student in your secondary school (in case you were a science student) and you had to do lab experiments in physics and chemistry. There used to be a book that would guide you how to set up apparatus, mix chemicals and perform experiments. Most of all there was a science teacher or a lab assistant who would demonstrate to you how to conduct experiment. He would guide you through the safety procedures and he would lead you through certain procedures that would yield better results during the exams.

There is an anology to the lab, practicals and teacher or lab assistant in the likes of Qura`n and Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). The instruction manual that he was charged to bring to humanity was only going to be worth something, had it worked. He had to demostrate to a live audience, who would scrutinize each and every thing he would do and say, that the instruction manual was feasible to work in real life situations.

The nature and syntax of this Book is that as if someone is delivering a lecture, speech, instruction, and a sermon at the same time. In other words, the syntax of the sentences in Qura`n is that of a spoken word and not a written word. So when one delivers a lecture, there has to be an audience; the lecture must address the concerns of the audience and the situation at that time. If a lecture was delivered when a war was going on then it must address the issues related to war. In other words, a General cannot deliver a lecture on Mozart and Picaso, when his soldiers are sitting in trenches, about to fire the first shots. So in other words each and every lecture in the Book has a context and a history. If a book were to include all explanations and backgrounds of context in it then it would become unmanagebly huge and it would be of no use. So Allah has made arrangements, so that the people of the future would understand the context of the book as well. Allah, through His Prophet, instructed the people of his time to collate all the verbal instructions and explanation of the verses that he gave to them. A collection of such explanations and history or naration of the incident or predicament for which a verse was revealed is called ``Tafseer`` meaning explanation. So when someone claims that a verse has a certain meaning then he can and he must provide the explanation and background as well. In other words Muslims are not left with a book of vague principles and obscure lines that cannot be put in perspective.

In order to understand why and how the words of Qura`n move the world please click the following link. The 15 minutes, if you chose to spend with an open mind, might change your life forever.

http://www.iiu.edu.my/deed/quran/understand.html

If she is so sensitive she should tell Musharaf to kick out Osama and his toadies out of Pakistan ?

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Europe’s uncivilised ways
Nasim Zehra

The writer is an Islamabad-based security
analyst and adjunct professor at SAIS Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC

Leaving the politics of it aside, the issue is a fairly straightforward one. It is simply about values. The Danes who published the cartoons ridiculing the Prophet (pbuh) of my faith, degrading and attacking my religion, also claim they merely exercised their right to freedom of expression. Then there were others in Europe who rose to the defence of the Danish act insulting the Prophet. They did so by also republishing the blasphemous cartoons. As far as I can see they undermined a fundamental value of humanity; the value that calls for sensitivity towards another, the value that calls for not hurting another person.

There is no battle to be fought with those who indulged in the ugly act of deliberately insulting my Prophet. I am numbed with outrage over this uncivilised act they have committed. I would simply say to them, yours are not civilised ways. Whatever your claims to the contrary, they actually betray a people with a reactionary mindset.

There are those who become possessed by anger when confronted with difficult and challenging situations. Anger halts our ability to probe and to reflect. Instead, depending on our location in life, if we are advantageously placed we self-righteously give ourselves the licence to pronounce verdict and take action to right a wrong, as many European publications have done. This is their crass response to the growing post-9/11 anti-Islamic sentiment. And for people in the business of opinion-making to indulge in such reactive acts is extremely dangerous. It is highly irresponsible. These are people who must play the role of promoting greater understanding — pulling people away from extremist thought and action, not joining the vanguard of anger-prompted extremism.

Policy-makers and the opinion-making community in the West have opted to conduct the discourse on terrorism using a terminology that has unwittingly but dangerously indicted 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Terms like Muslim terrorists, Islamic terrorists and Islamic terrorism has led to the demonisation of Muslims and of Islam. Whatever the European papers may claim they are upholding by ridiculing the Holy Prophet, they would have not contemplated doing so in a pre-9/11 environment.

Social tensions may have existed in pre-9/11 Europe, but post-9/11 these tensions have vastly augmented. Muslims make for easy targets. So does their faith. This is how a section of Europeans have opted to express their resentment against the terrorist attacks, as is evident from the contents of the cartoon itself.

This is a season of acute polarisation. For example, if the online responses of the public are any guide, this act of insulting the prophet has unfortunately received widespread public support in many European countries. The thrust mostly is that there is no reason to compromise on our value of freedom of expression, that if Muslims cannot deal with this they must leave, that Muslims are hypocrites because they show no tolerance towards minorities but expect to be shown tolerance. In some cases, individuals have argued that such cartoons should often be printed to get the Muslims to ultimately be more accepting of freedom of expression! They say this is what we do to our own. Sadly so, we would say. Everyone to their own. But please do not drag our revered ones, those who we believe was the Messenger of God, into your messy notion of freedom of speech. You have evolved into a culture which licenses unlimited permissiveness. Despite our own mistakes, our many shortcomings, our morally and intellectually anaemic leadership, there are some touchstones of our civilisation. Those include respect of religion and faith in God Almighty.

Deliberately defiling the Prophet is a highly irresponsible act. It is bound to have a negative social and political fallout. It exacerbates the existing social tensions among locals and the Muslim population. Within the Muslims it is bound to create more alienation and resentment towards the westerners who have chosen to be completely indifferent towards the faith and feelings of Muslims across the world. It is the arrogance of these westerners they will resent. Like millions of westerners who have opted to not view terrorists as a fringe phenomenon within Muslims and instead refer to terrorism as Islamic terrorism, many Muslims too will wrongly implicate westerners across the board for this blasphemous act against the Prophet.

At the popular level we require a rollback of the school that promotes the dangerous talk of clash of civilisations. For now the cartoon incident will merely serve to reinforce the worst of what many Muslims may believe of an increasingly intolerant Europe.

The framing and the discussion of the issue of terrorism has created a permissive environment which is responsible for this caricaturing of the Prophet; of hurting the feelings and ridiculing the faith of a huge section of the entire human race. They paid no heed to the protests. Instead they resented and condemned the nature of the protests. True, the protests should have been calmer. Frenzied outrage was unnecessary as were threats to kill. But nothing justified the reprinting of those insulting cartoons across many European countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland.

The leadership in most of these countries has not been willing to contest the wisdom of publishing cartoons that are highly disrespectful to other peoples’ faith. In fact the degree if insensitivity of the Danish prime minister can be gauged from the fact that, after the September publication, he repeatedly ignored requests by Muslims in Denmark to meet with them. What he conveyed, essentially, was ‘I really don’t give a damn’. Muslim leaders subsequently repeatedly went to the Middle East and other Muslim countries and showed them what the Danish papers had done. Eventually the reaction acquired these proportions.

In Denmark, anti-Muslim sentiment has been growing at a rapid pace for the last ten years. The Fogh Rasmussen government has actively sought to dispel and block Muslim residents from Denmark. The cartoon is just the tip of the iceberg.

However, it is basic common sense that the notion of freedom of expression cannot be translated into unlimited freedom to abuse another’s faith. But the way many Europeans have selectively applied the principle of freedom of expression is also intriguing. When the ancient Buddhas in Afghanistan were criminally destroyed by the Taliban, the Europeans screamed murder the loudest. We all did too in the Muslim world.

What was that protest for? So the destruction of history is blasphemous but the attempted destruction of a people’s faith and deeply treasured symbols is not? This is the perversity of postmodernism which seeks the right to destroy and deconstruct selectively and give that right a sacred status. Also, if the freedom of expression is so sacred, how many European papers have dared support what the Iranian president said about questioning the reality of the holocaust?

Clearly the principle of freedom of expression has to be practised within some rationale and egalitarian framework. It cannot be an elitist concept which a special colour or creed will have more right to exercise. Why does this right not respect another’s right to choose what is sacred to them, since that what is sacred is not at the cost of undermining another’s interests? Islam abhors suicide bombings and terrorism. Increasingly, Muslim leaders are condemning this openly. Are the Europeans so generous in applying their concept of freedom of expression at the cost of causing great pain and injury to the Muslim world? Is it because their bohemianism has a method to it? The method is to attack and disrespect those who are generally viewed as the politically, scientifically and economically downtrodden of the human race, the weak and the lambasted, the violated and the angry — the reactive and seething?

These are not the ways of a civilised people. These are ways towards pushing for a grand and mad conflict of civilisations. Will the European media see wisdom is stepping back and reviewing their dangerous notion of freedom of expression? For now the limited apologies that have come were perhaps prompted by the widespread anger and protests emanating from the Muslim world. But wisdom and true civilised behaviour demands that we internalise the limits of our own freedoms where it begins to undermine the freedom of another.

Otherwise a free-for-all world would best be described by Yeats’ perennially poignant poem ‘The Seconding Coming’:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/ The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/ The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/ The best lack all convictions, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.

Clearly if it moves ahead unchecked, this unguided or self-righteous ‘passionate intensity’ will ultimately become the undoing of the human race. We need to reflect on our ways of being, especially those preaching wildly damaging forms of freedom of expression.

Email: nasimzehra@hotmail.com

Nasim Zehra said:
“When the ancient Buddhas in Afghanistan were criminally destroyed by the Taliban, the Europeans screamed murder the loudest. We all did too in the Muslim world”.

True to some extent, but no Afghan Embassy (if there was any) was torched by Muslims, nor did the Buddhist all over the world torched one.
Not that the Talibans were FREE and had no guiding CODE similar to the Danes who took LIBERTY with their own Laws and `civiised ways`. I am being a devils advocate.

Urstruly @ 101- THANKS--Rashid

#99 by rashid_s

@89 Ramanujan
[How very selective just like the priests!]

Just the other day I was reading about a serial killer. He was complaining to the judge that the prosecutor was being too selective - because he was talking ONLY about the murders he had committed. Why did the prosecutor not talk about the times when he paid his rent on time, too?


[With this sort of representation, if it was true I would be ashamed of being called a Muslim.]

It is true. And you should be.


[You must be aware of the verses in chapter four where the overtly sexual priests have given blank cheque to their flock, the permission to marry four wives, with their OWN version of concocted conditions, although that particular verse starts with ‘IF…’ and ends with ‘Then, only…’ ]

Oh so it`s the priests` fault, then? Unfortunately history does not back you up.


[I therefore give you a comparison of just one of this selective rendering with a scholarly one where the whole situational context of the verse is presented:
Yours 2: 193 Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah”. Indicating that there is force, compulsion and pre-emption in conversion to Deen.
2: 193 And fight the aggressors `until` persecution is eliminated and there remains no compulsion in religion, the freedom that God has ordained (2-256). Any one accepting the Deen of Allah must do so freely and for HIS sake alone. (emphases) And if the aggressors desist, then let there be no hostility except against those who displace peace with warfare( also please refer to 22-40)-from ‘The Qur’an as it explains itself` by Dr. Shabbir Ahmad.
Such scholarly and contextual interpretations are now, thankfully available on the web, so I don’t have to take more of Chowk’s space. Rashid ]

It is a good thing that now that Muslims are being criticized for the obviously ungodly stuff in their holy book, they are taking proactive steps to come out with interpretations as required. Never mind that for hundreds of years all the authorities in the Quran and Hadith have never said ANYTHING remotely like this New-Age interpretation.

I don`t mind if people lie, if it is for a good cause.

So I don`t mind these new ``interpretations``, as long as you tear up and destroy ALL earlier books, interpretations, and chapters from the history books that contain the ACTUAL facts.

Re: #101 by Urstruly

Any time anyone poses questions about your prophet or about Islam, they are being ``a prosecutor and judge`` who has his ``mind already made up``.

And therefore you don`t need to answer the question.

Instead of all this hot air and garbage, and pointing me in the direction of hyperlinks where I shall surely find the truth and light, WHY DON`T YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION AS POSED, for a change, eh?

If the rebuttal is so easily available out there, just cut and paste it for me as an answer.

But you won`t. Because you can`t.

rsridhar...

For one thing ... his book is pretty famous in the history circles in the US... secondly - his book came out after the transfer of power papers were fully released... and as a great legal mind, he produced his book based on a careful sifting of facts and sources.

I am not sure why it is upsetting to you that I wish to accept his view?

re:#102 by bbabu
That article u posted is utter garbage. You do not believe in it, do u?
Sridhar

re:#106 by Mantolives
Manto,
I have nothing against Seervai. Now that u have educated us about him, i have a newfound respect for him.
My only problem is: u seem to quote him selectively. When u are trying to prove a point (for eg partition was not just League`s fault but also Congress`), it would be good to give the other side of the story also.
I know most of us are biased. I surely am sometimes but i do not claim to be an expert in anything.
Sridhar

Rama...

How am I quoting him selectively?

His books makes this case ab initio and goes on to prove it. As for the other side- what do you say 40+ years of hogwash before Seervai finally came along to right the wrongs?

And you are not ``sometimes`` biased... you are always biased.

re: a hard hitting article by Tavleen Singh
http://iecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.php?content_id=87288
(The right to laugh at gods

Last week newspapers in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, in a gesture of solidarity with Denmark, reprinted the Danish cartoons that have enraged the Islamic world because one of them depicts the Prophet Mohammad, and any depiction of him is considered blasphemy in Islam. In Paris, the newspaper France Soir added a cartoon of its own of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods seated on a cloud under a headline saying ‘Yes we Have the Right to Caricature God’.

In Europe, from where I write this piece, the controversy made headlines but could have been played down in politically correct Bharatvarsha. So, for those of you who may not have followed the story here is a precis. In September a small Danish newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons in one of which the Prophet Mohammed was shown wearing a bomb-shaped turban. This caused a furore in the Islamic world and Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria have withdrawn their ambassadors to Denmark. Many Islamic countries demanded an apology from the Danish government, which has pointed out that in a free society a government cannot apologise on behalf of a newspaper or tell it what to print.

As someone often accused of targeting Muslims in this column, I have followed the Danish cartoon controversy with interest. I believe it strikes at the root of the difficulty us infidels face in dealing with Islam and Islamists. Irreverent infidels like me, and there are many of my kind in free societies, believe that religion and the gods must be kept within the realms of literature and even cartoons. I believe the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was an outrage and the murder of Theo Van Gogh an act of barbarism. The Dutch filmmaker was killed in 2004 because he made a film on violence against women in Islamic societies.

Is it not time we stood up against Islam’s repeated attempts to impose its will, values and ideas of blasphemy on the rest of us? Is it not time we demanded that Islam retreat to the private sphere it inhabited before the advent of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden? Is it not time that the Islamic world recognised that its ideas of blasphemy are different to ours? We infidels can laugh with and at religions and gods and we must stand up for the right to do so.

Increasingly, because of the rise of Islamic terrorism, we see Muslims perceive themselves as victims of an international conspiracy to malign them and their religion. At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, two weeks ago, I attended a session on Islam and the World and was surprised that nearly all the panelists expressed a deep sense of grievance. One gentleman of South Asian origin but living in New York said, ‘‘Just look at the way today’s terrorists are described in the international media—as Islamic terrorists. This has never happened before, the IRA were never called Christian terrorists.’’ Maybe not, but we do know of Tamil terrorists.

The other grievances expressed were, in my view, equally baseless. One complaint was that the Muslim world was unable to change its image because the Western media did not cooperate in this exercise. Excuse me? The Western media is under no obligation to cooperate but by and large has been so politically correct when it comes to Islam that the riots in the suburbs of Paris were never discussed as ethnic. Every commentator I read was at pains to point out the social and economic reasons why Muslim youths went on a rampage in which private cars and public property were targeted. After the London bombings every effort was made to assure the general public that this was the work of a handful of madmen and had nothing to do with Islam.

When Western reporters write about ethnic violence in India, Muslims are always portrayed as victims and efforts made to balance radical Islam with Hindu fundamentalism, an annoyingly unfair comparison.

Islam has its Prophet and its book and Muslims have every right to consider them sacred. The Islamic world has the right to ban other religions and their temples from existing on Islamic soil if it so wishes. That is their way. The problem only arises when Islam tries to impose its ideas on those of us who are not Muslim. The concerted attack on the Danish cartoons appropriately resulted in Europe closing ranks behind the Danish newspaper. We must stand up for the right to laugh at the gods, it is a right worth preserving and, besides, this is our way.

write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com)
Sridhar

urstruly: ``I am aware ``

not really. you are quite unaware of what islam is all about.

yesterday they burnt the danish embassy in lebanon!! this is a far bigger mockery of islam than anything a tw-bit islam-hating cartoonist could do.