Thursday, May 17, 2012

'Lets be honest. There is a clear link to Islam.'


'Lets be honest. There is a clear link to Islam.'

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Ghulam Muhammed <ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:37 AM
Subject: RE: Hasan Suroor's article: reshaping Islam
To: letters@thehindu.co.in, letters@thetimes.co.uk


May 18, 2012


LETTER TO THE EDITOR:


The Editor, The Hindu, Chennai / The Times of London

This refers to Hasan Saroor's article: Reshaping Islam and particularly to his starting point of UK Times columnist Aaronovitch article: "Lets be honest. There is a clear link to Islam", in which he brings in Islam as contributing factor in the recent case of British Muslims abusing white girls.

Let's be honest. Any critique of Islam by a Jew, be he/she a communist, liberal, Zionist,Israeli, non-Israeli --- is universally suspect. They all have an axe to grind against Islam. They can never be objective. And it is not confined to Jewish/Palestinian dispute. It has very long history since the inception of Islam.


UK Muslims, especially from subcontinent suffer from rampant racial discrimination and are treated as outcasts. The racial inferiority complex thus engendered translates into aggression against White women who are more accessible and vulnerable.


White girls are culturally more permissive and do not suffer the risk of honour killings. They are psychologically and sexually attracted to non-whites. Compared to rowdy young Britishers, Muslim boys are more accommodating and patronizing. Let Aaronovitch first acknowledge the depth of misogyny by British youth, before condemning UK Muslims.


4. Islam comes into the picture only as forbidding sex outside marriage. Islam neither promotes nor permits violence against anybody, be that man or women. The cultural aberrations cannot be laid at the door of Islam.


Names like Sardar and Saroor are now typecast by mainstream Muslims as Uncle Toms.


Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

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On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Sukla Sen <sukla.sen@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Reshaping Islam for the modern age  

By HASAN SUROOR

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Hasan_Suroor/article3429562.ece


*Concerned British Muslims, mostly of South Asian origin, want to open
their religion to critical enquiry and debate*

“Let's be honest. There's a clear link with Islam.”


This was heading of a *Times *opinion piece on the controversial case of a
group of Muslim men jailed last week for sexually abusing young and vulnerable white girls. The writer, David Aaronovitch — a social liberal and ex-communist to boot — suggested that Islam was inherently misogynist:
 

a culture that treated its women as “red meat.” But here's the irony: it was a Muslim Chief Crown Prosecutor who paved the way for their conviction by insisting on reopening the case after it had been closed. This, of course, in no way diminishes the shame that the Muslim community ought to feel over the criminality of these men, but where Mr. Aaronovitch appeared to go off at a tangent was in linking a vile criminal act with a specific community and culture. 

After all, nobody (and rightly so) has blamed Christianity for the conduct of hundreds of priests found involved in child abuse scandals around the world.

So, what is it that allows such glib assumptions about Islam?


*Echoing a perception*


To be fair, *The Times *writer was simply echoing a widely-held perception
of Islam: inherently violent and intolerant. The idea of Islam as a set of strict taboos and pieties in which everything is a “given” and there is no room for ifs and buts — let alone serious critical thinking — has become deeply embedded in the public mind.

It is easy to blame it on anti-Muslim prejudice and accuse critics of

Islamophobia. But the truth is that a great deal of public misreading of Islam is down to Muslims themselves. From the neighbourhood *maulvi * dispensing forbidding *fatwas *on everything in sight, to hard-line scholars with their self-serving interpretation of Islamic scriptures, they all have contributed to the notion of a good Muslim that is akin to Tennyson's caricature of British soldiers who led the catastrophic Charge of the Light Brigade: theirs is “not to make reply,…not to reason why… but to do and die” in the name of supposedly divine injunctions.

But now a group of concerned British Muslims, mostly from South Asia, has
set out to put this idea of Islam on its head by stimulating debate around the very issues that “good” Muslims are forbidden to explore. Importantly, the men and women behind this initiative are no airy-fairy left-wing liberals — a label routinely hurled at Muslims seen to be “out of line” — but practising believers with deeply held Islamic beliefs. These are very much the voices from “within” and many sufficiently well-versed in theology to be able to back their argument with chapter and verse from Islamic texts.

*The Critical Muslim*, a new international quarterly from the London-based
  Muslim Institute, is as much an attempt to intellectually reclaim Islam from fundamentalists and reshape it for a modern age as it is a response to those who believe that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim or moderate Muslim viewpoint. It promises to provide a “Muslim perspective on
the great debates of contemporary times” through “open and critical engagement in the best tradition of Muslim intellectual inquiry.” Ziauddin Sardar, Professor of Law and Society, Middlesex University, and a co-Editor of *Critical Muslim*, believes that there is an urgent need for Muslims, particularly in India and Pakistan, to think critically.

“Lack of critical thought, over centuries, has allowed extremism and
obscurantism to become intrinsic in our societies. Without criticism, and an openness to embrace the wider world, Islam and Muslims are reduced to ciphers — incapable of generating new and original ideas, solving the pressing problems of our societies, and making their mark on the world,” he says.

The theme of the latest issue is *The Idea of Islam *which, the

contributors argue, needs to be revisited with a bold re-reading of the more contentious interpretations of Islamic scriptures currently presented as something divine that cannot be questioned. Islam, they lament, has been reduced to a series of “no-go” areas which, let alone Muslims, even non-Muslims are prohibited from exploring.

*Held captive*


“The idea of Islam is incarcerated, not in one, but many prisons,” argues
Mr. Sardar. And the biggest of these “prisons,” according to him, is Shariah or Islamic Law which has been used to justify “almost any injustice on God's bountiful earth,” including xenophobia, misogyny and homophobia.

Samia Rahman, a writer and daughter of Pakistani immigrants, writes about
misogyny in Islam — how an all-male cast of clerics and scholars have selectively plucked out bits from Islamic texts to justify the inferior status accorded to women in patriarchal Muslim societies. The idea that Islam does not give women the same rights as men has become so institutionalised, she points out, that even young and educated women born and brought up in the liberal West have come to believe it — much like victims of the so-called Stockholm Syndrome where the hostage starts to identify with the captor.

“Most of this misogyny is justified on the basis of the Qur'an and the
traditions of the Prophet Muhammad…The question is how to pull Islam out of the quagmire of misogynist practice and interpretation and revive its pro-woman ethos,” she writes.

Other issues that the journal debates include the notion of jihad in Islam,
questions about Muslim orthodoxy, the idea of Muslim cosmopolitanism that many believe doesn't exist, and the “state of enmity” between Muslims and Jews despite being the “closest of cousins.” And if you thought jazz was an all-American thing, read Andy Simons who insists that jazz is just as Muslim as it is American.

The upshot of the *Critical Muslim *debate is that what Islam needs is a
renaissance to recast it for a modern age.

“It is time to leave the prisons of shariah…break free from the

traditionalist thought and bury the notion of the ‘Islamic state' ….,” says Mr. Sardar.

Whether or not it happens, at least a debate has started and it would be
interesting to see where it goes from here. The next issue is on Pakistan. Will moderate Pakistanis join the debate.

‘It reflects the faith people have in an Army officer’ - Pradeep Kaushal interviews newly appointed Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University - The Indian Express

Army Speak

In an interview with The Indian Express, Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen (retd) Zameer Uddin Shah who has been appointed the new vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, said:

"I would say that Muslims in India will get a fair chance if they are educated. We can always give the excuse of discrimination and such things, but I tell people, look, if you are educated, nobody will discriminate against you."

It would appear the newly appointed VC, coming from the protected world of Army, does not live in the real world. In India discrimination against Muslims is more rampant, more insidious than the most reviled corruption. The latest example is the glass ceiling that UPSC has been exposed of, when the ratio of Muslim selection has remained at around the static 3% ratio.

However, not much is expected by the Muslim community from the people from government services, as they are programmed to serve the government, rather than the people. Whatever good he can impart in inculcating a new sense of purpose into the despairing and demoralized Muslim students should be treated as his personal contribution and not that of the government or Army.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai


------------------

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/it-reflects-the-faith-people-have-in-an-army-officer/950181/0

The Indian Express



‘It reflects the faith people have in an Army officer’


Pradeep Kaushal : Thu May 17 2012, 03:43

Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen (retd) Zameer Uddin Shah has been appointed vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, which had been left headless after a court battle and which had been rocked by campus violence. In this interview, he describes how he hopes to restore the institute to its original stature.


What are your plans for AMU?

I am going to restore AMU to its pristine glory. I will ensure there is proper education, that students gain confidence in themselves, and are equipped to meet the requirements of modern-day jobs. But discipline must be ensured if there has to be an atmosphere conducive to learning; we cannot have strikes and lawlessness on the campus.

We have brilliant academics but I find that over a period of time, the quality of research has taken a little dip... I will motivate them to spend more time on research, study and self-improvement. However, I will tighten selection procedures so that we ensure we draw the best material from all over the country.

What signal does your appointment give?

It signals that everybody connected with AMU is looking for a change. They are looking at AMU regaining its original place, where it was among the top-notch universities of the country. I think what they are looking for and the parents are looking for is a peaceful environment on the campus so that students get all the time in the world for academic pursuits and not pursuits of an undesirable nature... I have the President’s mandate. I have the mandate of the AMU court. They elected me by an overwhelming majority. So I am quite certain I have their confidence.


How would a former Army officer deal with an academic job?

I have been an Army officer. I have dealt with insurgencies, with the 1971 operations. I joined the Army after high school. The Army educated me. I did an M Sc from Madras University and an M Phil from Indore University. As Deputy Chief of Army Staff, I handled the Army budget of several thousand crores. I administered 30,000 to 40,000 troops in the whole of the Northeast. I have managed five educational institutions of the Army. So, you cannot say I am not an academic. You cannot say I am an administrator, I am not an administrator. I am a happy blend of both.


Why is it that former bureaucrats, police officers and Army officers are considered for AMU vice-chancellor but none for Delhi University VC?

For some years, unfortunately, AMU has had a string of disciplinary problems. I think the focus is on restoring peace so that academic activity can continue unhindered. The situations in the two universities are different. Delhi University has never faced indiscipline of the magnitude that the AMU is confronted with. That may explain why they opted for an Army officer. I would say it just reflects the faith people have in an Army officer.


What solution do you have for criminal activity on the campus?

The aim is to clear criminals out of the campus. I am told — I don’t know how far it is true — that there are some criminals residing on the campus. And the way to do it is probably to clear the campus totally at the end of the term. I am going to, with the help of civilian administration, make sure undesirable elements who are not students of AMU do not reside there.


How do you propose to deal with corruption in an institution where there have been allegations even against vice-chancellors?

I have learnt one way to deal with corruption and that is to set an example. What I learnt in the Army will be my motto: “Follow me.” And if lay stress on integrity, I mean it is not negotiable. I am going to lead by personal example. Regarding allegations, I will be able to say something only after seeing inquiry reports.


What does the ‘M’ in AMU mean to you?

I take pride in the fact that I am a practising Muslim. But, being a practising Muslim does not mean that you don’t have a secular outlook. I am going to stress that India is our country. We have got to manage ourselves in the country. I would say that Muslims in India will get a fair chance if they are educated. We can always give the excuse of discrimination and such things, but I tell people, look, if you are educated, nobody will discriminate against you. After all, your employer is waiting for you to return the investment he has made in you. So, the key to progress of Indian Muslims — and let me tell you that AMU was established for this purpose — is education. That is how it is going to be. It is going to be a totally secular organisation. Well, they have to live in a secular world.


How do you respond to the Special Investigation Team’s finding that the Gujarat government asked an IPS officer in 2002 to investigate you for an alleged relationship?

You can check with the people of Gujarat how many thousands of lives were saved by the Army. Yes, there have been reflections that I was associated with a woman from Bhavnagar and that the administration contemplated an inquiry without informing me. My answer is, if your are uncomfortable with the actions of the Army, the best way to hamstring it is to level allegations against the character of the leader of the Army on the spot. These allegations are totally false. Yes, there was an incident of a woman from Bhavnagar getting involved with a colonel. When we learnt of it, the officer was removed from command overnight. I have nothing to do with it. This is mere character assassination.

Uncovering Early Islam By Daniel Pipes | Pipes' pipe dream - Revolution in a tea-cup - By Ghulam Muhammed

PIPES' PIPE DREAM - REVOLUTION IN A TEA-CUP

Prof. Daniel Pipes is a sober, sane and commonsensical thinker and writer. Though his life long pursuation is to spread the derivatives of Zionism, by attacking Islam, his fundamental grounding in rational thinking and logical presentation has never left him. It is for this reason that when he strays in his zeal to force his cause on non-responsive world, he comes out as without clothes.

In following article, Pipes has been so overwhelmed by the new phase of an old propaganda stirred up by the Islamophobes paid pipers, to go to the roots of Islamic history and beliefs and try to deny each and every fact that Muslims hold as the fundamentals of Islam, that he takes leave of his common sense and tries to herald a 'revolution' that is more like a storm in a tea-cup. Muslim faith is not so flimsy that it can be swayed by such trite efforts to put together new meanings and interpretations to assimilate Islam into their own belief systems. In the so-called free world, they are welcome to try their convoluted propaganda. However, let Pipes know that Islam is spreading in the West, on the strength of its inner structural cohesion and its inbuilt mechanism to remain steadfast in its fundamentals and still remain relevant through out changing times. 

Jews and Christians have never been comfortable with their new rival, Islam, which in fact had arrived to take out the inconsistencies, distortions and mysteries that had developed over time in the fundamental monotheistic beliefs of the Abrahamic religion. And this body of beliefs is not dependent on the caliber and capabilities of the defenders of the faith. The more it is subjected to scrutiny and/or ridicule the more it attracts adherents and seekers of truth. 

In a way, Pipe's choice of the two authors whose writings are supposed to usher in a revolution, are a boon to Islam. Islam always thrives with challenges.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: D. Pipes Mailing List <dplist@danielpipes.org>
Date: Thu, May 17, 2012 at 2:54 AM
Subject: #1155 Pipes on "Uncovering Early Islam" in NRO
To: ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com



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May 16, 2012
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Uncovering Early Islam

by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
May 16, 2012
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The year 1880 saw the publication of a book that ranks as the single most important study of Islam ever. Written in German by a young Jewish Hungarian scholar, Ignaz Goldziher, and bearing the nondescript title Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien), it argued that the hadith, the vast body of sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, lacked historical validity. Rather than provide reliable details about Muhammad's life, Goldziher established, the hadith emerged from debates two or three centuries later about the nature of Islam.
(That is like today's Americans debating the Constitution's much-disputed Second Amendment, concerning the right to bear arms, by claiming newly discovered oral transmissions going back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Obviously, their quotations would inform us not what was said 225 years ago but about current views.)
Portrait of Ignaz Goldziher.
Since Goldziher's day, scholars have been actively pursuing his approach, deepening and developing it into an full-scale account of early Islamic history, one which disputes nearly every detail of Muhammad's life as conventionally understood - born in 570 A.D., first revelation in 610, flight to Medina in 622, death in 632. But this revisionist history has remained a virtual secret among specialists. For example, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, authors of the synoptic Hagarism (Cambridge University Press, 1977), deliberately wrote obliquely, thereby hiding their message.
Cover of Hagarism.
Now, however, two scholars have separately ended this secrecy: Tom Holland with In the Shadow of the Sword (Doubleday) and Robert Spencer with Did Muhammad Exist? (ISI). As their titles suggest, Spencer is the bolder author and so my focus here.
In a well-written, sober, and clear account, he begins by demonstrating the inconsistencies and mysteries in the conventional account concerning Muhammad's life, the Koran, and early Islam. For example, whereas the Koran insists that Muhammad did not perform miracles, the hadith ascribe him thaumaturgic powers - multiplying food, healing the injured, drawing water from the ground and sky, and even sending lightening from his pickax. Which is it? Hadith claim Mecca was a great trading city but, strangely, the historical record reveals it as no such thing.
The Christian quality of early Islam is no less strange, specifically "traces of a Christian text underlying the Qur'an." Properly understood, these traces elucidate otherwise incomprehensible passages. Conventionally read, verse 19:24 has Mary nonsensically hearing, as she gives birth to Jesus, "Do not be sad, your Lord has placed a rivulet beneath you." Revisionists transform this into the sensible (and piously Christian), "Do not be sad, your Lord has made your delivery legitimate." Puzzling verses about the "Night of Power" commemorating Muhammad's first revelation make sense when understood as describing Christmas. Chapter 96 of the Koran, astonishingly, invites readers to a Eucharist.
Cover of Did Muhammad Exist.
Building on this Christian base, revisionists postulate a radically new account of early Islam. Noting that coins and inscriptions from the seventh century mention neither Muhammad, the Koran, nor Islam, they conclude that the new religion did not appear until about 70 years after Muhammad's supposed death. Spencer finds that "the first decades of the Arab conquest show the conquerors holding not to Islam as we know it but to a vague creed [Hagarism, focused on Abraham and Ishmael] with ties to some form of Christianity and Judaism." In very brief: "the Muhammad of Islamic tradition did not exist, or if he did, he was substantially different from how that tradition portrays him" – namely an Anti-Trinitarian Christian rebel leader in Arabia.
Only about 700 A.D., when the rulers of a now-vast Arabian empire felt the need for a unifying political theology, did they cobble together the Islamic religion. The key figure in this enterprise appears to have been the brutal governor of Iraq, Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. No wonder, writes Spencer, that Islam is "such a profoundly political religion" with uniquely prominent martial and imperial qualities. No wonder it conflicts with modern mores.
The revisionist account is no idle academic exercise but, as when Judaism and Christianity encountered the Higher Criticism 150 years ago, a deep, unsettling challenge to faith. It will likely leave Islam a less literal and doctrinaire religion with particularly beneficial implications in the case of Islam, still mired in doctrines of supremacism and misogyny. Applause, then for plans to translate Did Muhammad Exist? into major Muslim languages and to make it available gratis on the Internet. May the revolution begin.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2012 All rights reserved by Daniel Pipes.