Muslims and The West After 11th September

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Although this is just another of your re-cycled mazmoon yet I agree with most of the conclusions. And for those conclusions with which I do not agree, I am thinking whether it is worth sharpening my Karpaan or not-since most of the time you are an absentee writer at an interactive forum and I hardly like discussing such important issues with laloo parsad or worst hamidm.

An excellent analysis. I am thoroughly impressed by Pervez Hoodbhoy`s immense clarity of vision and his patriotism:

`Despite widespread resistance from the orthodox, the logic of modernity found 19th century Muslim adherents. Modernizers such as Mohammed Abduh and Rashid Rida of Egypt, Sayyed Ahmad Khan of India, and Jamaluddin Afghani (who belonged everywhere), wished to adapt Islam to the times, interpret the Qur`an in ways consistent with modern science, and discard the Hadith (ways of the Prophet) in favour of the Qur`an. Others seized on the modern idea of the nation-state. It is crucial to note that not a single Muslim nationalist leader of the 20th century was a fundamentalist. Turkey`s Kemal Ataturk, Algeria`s Ahmed Ben Bella, Indonesia`s Sukarno, Pakistan`s Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Egypt`s Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Iran`s Mohammed Mosaddeq all sought to organize their societies on the basis of secular values.`

Sir,

With due respect to all the nonconformists scientists like you ,& Abdus Slam what have to show to the Pakistani people in the time the Lahore univ,or Karachi university science dept. broke its chain from orthodoxy of islam.

In the west Edison gave light ,Graham bell gave telegraph & telephone,Wright bros,the aeroplane,Alexander the penicillin,& non of them without writing a thesis first on that the christianity thaught earth was flat &it was blasphemous to go against the statements of Bible.

Have you wondered ,Christian despite believing that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a wealthy man to go to the heaven??still found it possible to go to the moon .Unlike ppl. like you who first want to condemn the religion before you will start working on it & we dont even have faith in your intellect enough to let you do that.

Religion & Science are two different spheres.If religion could be influenced by logic ,rationality & science ,NO RELIGION SHOULD HAVE EXISTED past rennaisence,not judeaism,notchristianity nor Islam ,hinduism .

AS i see Pakistan has bigger problemt than of science & education but of SCHISM.Yes 11-9 tragedy was painfull ,7000 innocent pp died but not for the first time 70,000 innocent people also died in kashmir ,& may be more in Palestine due to diffuse,nonfocused revenge bombing.

My morality says one palestenian life is equal to one kashmiri life equal to one jewish life =multibilloneer stock broker of Merri lynch in the WTC.Its hard for American to believe ,but coincidently iam an merican too though fearfully anonymous.

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Dr. Hoodbhoy,

You present your analysis with unflinching clarity and courage.

It is each person`s reponsibility to resist the dehaumanization of any individual or group. Being of South Asian descent and having been brought up in the United States, I often am saddened by the 1. complete denial/ignorance of many Americans to acknowledge the effects of American domestic and foreign policy internationally 2. A mass media apparatus that facilitates this denial/ignorance. In my own experience, this was borne out in my conversations with students and colleagues at a City University.

Equally as disturbing are the forces that seem to enact vacuums in Muslim countries that result in corrupt elites as leadership, and yes, as you have pointed out, it is a combination of Western string pulling and an (privilleged) Muslim interpretation grounded in denial/terror of the state based on free will and inclusion and the equity of both genders and all minorities.

Both spheres are complicit in the problem of terrorism; unfortunately an popular argument mode is to embrace one or the other. People who look to both spheres are unfortunately force fed the ``America: Love it Leave it`` bowl of pap, or the ``Muslims Are Blameless Victims`` mush. Thank for offering us something more solid and complex.

Respectfully,

An interesting point of view http://www.tehelka.com/channels/commentary/2001/dec/7/com120701new1.htm

It`a about time religion got taken a lot less seriously, because it is without any doubt responsible for more mayhem than any other cause.

Excellent as usual.

I wonder how the replies will go as in my opinion, more then 80% of chowkies still cannot acknowledge both...

1. A genocidal American foriegn policy.

2. The intolerance and ignorance in Islam.

I assume that the posts will be like they always are, The proponents of 1 will be too blind to see the truth in 2 (and vice versa).

Such goes the tale of the blind men and the elephant...

PS: your Eqbal Ahmed piece still brings back sad memories.

The true sign of outstanding intellect is the ability to frame seemingly complex and unrelated topics in layman terms. Prof. Sahib`s article is a prime example. The best ones also use humor and analogies to make their points clearer. Others on chowk who come close to meeting that high standard are SameerJB and Fuzair. At the other end of the spectrum are eternally confused, extremely verbose and yet lacking in any substance whatsoever are the urstrulys, ROmairs and hobbytys of this world. Their presence only serves to heighten the contrast.

later

-sac

Dear Professor Hoodbhoy,

Interesting analysis that raises more questions than it answers.

For example this:

``Americans will also have to accept that the United States is past the peak of its

imperial power; the 50`s and 60`s are gone for good. Its triumphalism and disdain

for international law is creating enemies everywhere, not just among Muslims.

Therefore they must become less arrogant, and more like other peoples of this

world. While the U.S. will remain a superpower for some time to come, it is

inevitably going to become less and less ``super``. There are compelling

economic and military reasons for this. For example, China`s economy is

growing at 7% percent per year while the U.S. economy is in recession. India,

too, is coming up very rapidly. In military terms, superiority in the air or in space

is no longer enough to ensure security. In how many countries can US citizens

safely walk the streets today?``

I think the answer to the last question is yes. There are few countries that americans wish to go to where they are unwelcome and in danger.

At any rate, that in itself doesn`t justify the assertion that america`s military might will weaken. When George Bush builds his missile defense shield, the american military will still be armed to the teeth and america can pretty much force any country into obeying it. The current recession is a part of an economic cycle. The situation was much worse after Reagan came to power. Japan was on the ascendence. Where is japan now? Where is the soviet union? Barring planes flying into tall buildings or ``dirty`` bombs smuggled into american soil, america is unassailable. It has turned itself into a fortress, its citizens are willing to put up ``minor`` infractions of civil liberties and it will take care of pesky foreigners in its soil. Fortress america has NO REASON TO COMPROMISE, NO NEED TO PLEASE ANYONE. Now tell me, why america should care?

You see, us foreigners should start seeing things as americans do. Maybe then we would get somewhere.

The reasons you gave for the decline of muslim nations is unconvincing. Some secular leaders you say were undermined by outside powers, others were weakened from within. Why did this happen only to muslim societies? Could it be because the ``secular`` leaders didn`t really have the sympathy of the people they were leading? Why would that be? I did say your article raised more questions than it answered..

BTW, altho you made a distinction between islam and muslims, you lapsed into using them interchangebly at times.

I disagree with the comment religion is the cause of the World`s problems, the bulk of the people who have died over the last 2-3 centuries have died for purely secular, idealogical reasons. Forced collective farming..the holocaust...the difference being we did not have live 24 hour broadcasts of the massacres..nor did we have a Media which promotes a predominantly secular and anti religion belief system. Running to tell us what bad people we are for believing, and having faith.

Pervez,

``Today Muslims number one billion, spread over 48 Muslim countries. None of these has yet evolved a stable democratic political system. In fact all Muslim countries are dominated by self-serving corrupt elites who cynically advance their personal interests and steal resources from their people. No Muslim country has a viable educational system or a university of international stature.`` //The reason can be found in ///

:`` Abdus Salam, together with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979 for the unification of the weak and electromagnetic forces. I got to know Salam reasonably well - we even wrote a book preface together. He was a remarkable man, terribly in love with his country and his religion. And yet he died deeply unhappy, scorned by his country and excommunicated from Islam by an act of the Pakistani parliament in 1974. Today the Ahmadi sect, to which Salam belonged, is considered heretical and harshly persecuted. (My next-door neighbor, an Ahmadi, was shot in the neck and heart and died in my car as I drove him to the hospital. His only fault was to have been born in the wrong sect.)``

///Pervez, you should have ended the article right there. It is the concept of kafir the central theme of islam is its bane. It is kafir that made a demon out of abdus salam, it is agaiun the kafir idea that sends the jihadists to kashmir, and it is the kafir idea that is central in TNT that created pakistan.

If what YLH is posting is true, chowk will not publish an article on abdus salam, pakistan will despise salam and create a hero out of gaznavi, musharaff will be applauded by the likes of umair, benazir will be rediculed.

sac #6: ``At the other end of the spectrum are eternally confused, extremely verbose and yet lacking in any substance whatsoever are the urstrulys, ROmairs and hobbytys of this world.``

Why are you obsessed with including my name in each of your posts? I thought I had made it clear that it was useless for me to interact with you, because you rarely present a point. Yet you continue with your name calling and insults, again and again and again. I am not quite sure how anyone can reason with a person who just insists on attempts at humiliation for no reason. What can one say to such a person?

How about following your own advice, ``The true sign of outstanding intellect is the ability to frame seemingly complex and unrelated topics in layman terms.``

I would once again like to respectfully ask you to not use my name in your posts. And if you are bent upon using it, then at least present an argument of some sort that can be debated like a mature human being. Please do not lower this site to a level of childish name-calling. It is a futile excercise, which only highlights one`s own prejudices or insecurities. I would encourage you to use logic as your motivation, and not hate, i.e. debate topics like a man (or woman), don`t hide behind the insecure umbrella of name-calling.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ISLAM,

This and several other articles about west verses islam start with the premise that western is better. What is wrong with wearing burqa, is there any proof that the alleged science has delivered any increase in human happiness, what is wrong with an allegedly stone age living as in afghanistan, what is wrong in taking the country back to the seventh century environs of the book by inviting the bombardment by the capitalists.

Take the example of pakistan. Fifty years ago, there was no blasphemy laws, today 3000 are in prison due to it, there is more of honour killings, sectarial killings are on the rise, womens education is on the decline, madrassas are on the increase, pak jihadists are spreading through the world. All of the above are bad. Now look at it from the book view point. More children are studying the book, more are taking on the All indications on the chowk is that in general, level hamidm out, tha pakistanis are happier than ever before. More pakistanis have gone to heaven in the last two years than all of the previous fifty years.

All of this islam bashing starts from the wrong premise. People should be allowed and encouraged to lead a life they choose and others should help them in that process.

In the happiness of islamist in the 40 countries that pervez talks about, the most important are the neighbours, the people across the jihadic frontiers. Iaslam exists in relation to these, and israel is the only country that has respected and understood the mind set of the muslim nations. Heaven is reserved for the shaheeds, and the israeli system of dial a shehdad has helped many muslims to reach heaven with out having to cross the frontiers.

As a muslim, the people have to live by the book, the science and the ducation that pervez is talking about is irrelevant.

Good point about religions not being `of peace or of war`. I would disagree, nonetheless, about all those religions putting same emphasis on their self-proclaimed superiority. The sad fact of history is that only the two proselytizing religions, with elaborate framework of `I am btter than thou` taken from their sacred texts (even if out of context, as apologists will say), Islam and Christianity, have the crusading zeal run amuck. Neither Hinduism nor Buddhism can compare or come close. After all it was not Chinese Shintoists or Nepalese Gurkhas who flew planes into the WTC.

Christianity`s descend into barbarism was arrested by the Reformation. Short of something similar, Islam is fast on its way to gaining a reputation of being a psycho religion. And perceptions matter more than realities sometimes.

RE Zakk 11

Having faith can indeed be a good thing because for many it provides a moral compass and a framework for compassion and living with others. On the other hand however, are religious zealots of all stripes who believe that their and only their interpretation is the sole truth and every thing else is wrong, evil and must be banished. Unfortunately, some of these zealots are heavily armed and are more than willing to sacrifice their lives in the misguided hope of reaching the land of 72 virgins. Which is what happened on Sept 11 and before that, throughout Afghanistan.