Studying Islam

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[quote]Two view points:

IRFAN HUSSAIN - LOOKING WITHIN

>>http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm

Secular values in the West have made religion very much a personal matter. In Islam, as several readers have reminded me in response to my article last week, there is no dividing line between personal faith and public life. This is something difficult for Europeans to grasp.

Indeed, for years, Europeans have allowed waves of Muslim immigrants and their children to act according to their beliefs, giving them permission to build mosques and to teach Islamic studies at school. In Britain, firms have to provide Muslim employees with a prayer area, and to ensure that meetings are not scheduled to clash with prayer timings.

Needless to say, such freedom of religion is not given to Christians in most Muslim countries. In Saudi Arabia, not a single church exists, and no copy of the Bible is publicly available. In Pakistan, churches are often attacked, and most of its Christians are almost second-class citizens, whatever the rhetoric. In Turkey, a Catholic priest was shot dead during the anti-cartoon protests.

Understandably, attitudes in the West towards Islam and Muslims are hardening. The recent legislation in Britain aimed at those who ‘glorify’ terrorism is a case in point: clearly aimed at Muslim clerics who have been praising suicide bombings in their Friday sermons, the new law is designed to stop mullahs from delivering hate-filled, anti-Western propaganda.

The fact is that Muslim immigrants have been far slower than other communities to assimilate into societies they have chosen to live in. Their open abhorrence for western values like gender equality, liberal attitudes towards homosexuality, and the freedom of expression makes many people here wonder why Muslims have elected to live among them. Muslims are certainly not as tolerant of diversity within their own societies.

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M.J. AKBAR - LOOKING OUTSIDE

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/17/ed.htm#4

By M.J. Akbar

The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age based in New Delhi.

Danish penal code.....Section 140 adds, “Those who publicly mock or insult the doctrines or worship of any religious community that is legal in this country, will be punished by a fine or incarceration for up to four months.”

There are laws in Europe by which anyone denying the Holocaust can end up in jail, and a poor British historian is in an Austrian jail at the moment for doing so.

The Danish prime minister, who is desperate for a peaceful dialogue now, held no press conferences then. Eleven ambassadors of Muslim countries wanted to talk to him. They got a polite letter which they construed as a snub.

It has now emerged, thanks to a story in the Guardian, that the same Danish newspaper rejected a series of cartoons against Jesus some three years ago because they were deemed to be offensive. It was the correct decision. Journalists like the editor of the German publication Die Welt, who has gone on record to say that the publication of the cartoons is “at the core of our culture” would not find enough freedom in his press to publish a cartoon (produced in a British newspaper, the Independent, in January 2003) showing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dining off Palestinian babies.

The International Herald Tribune of February 9 reported that Fleming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten (the Danish newspaper that started the controversy) told CNN that his paper was ready to publish cartoons of the Holocaust that were being encouraged by an irresponsible Iranian newspaper, as if two wrongs added up to a right. His newspaper, however, quickly denied any such intentions.

I was in Britain last weekend when this storm was raging. I don’t think that British newspapers have any less desire for a free press than their Continental counterparts. And yet, none of them published the cartoons, although there was doubtless pressure to do so.[/quote]

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