Islam, the West: Interfaith and good-will

‘The essential question about Truth, for religious reason as well as the most critical philosophical kind, remains totally absent in the so-called corpus of texts (eg the Qur’an and other religions’ scriptures. author) of which the raison d’etre - the ultimate goal to which all rhetorical and linguistic utterances bear witness – consists in providing for its immediate addressees the unique, absolute and intangible criterion of Truth as a True Being, a True Reality and a True Sense of Right’.

(excerpt, with thanks, Prof. Arkoun, EQ, quoted Siddiqui, 2007)

PEACE-SALAAM-SHALOM.
The Three Faiths Forum is an Abrahamic forum for religious dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Founded in 1997, it aims to encourage friendship, goodwill and understanding amongst people of the three Abrahamic faiths. Not shying away from the manifest between the faith traditions and their many denominations, the Three Faiths Forum aims to prove through practical projects that diversity of beliefs does not rule out common action. One area of the Forum's practical interfaith work is the establishing of local groups where people of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths can meet and share their common interests and experiences. Besides a number of local groups, there are a lawyer and a medical working group. The '3ff' youth division, established in 2006 with the aid of a government grant, focuses on schools, youth groups and universities. Text-based educational work leads to action together: reading thematic passages from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur'an together is followed by social action, art projects or environmental activities. The Middle East Abrahamic Forum believes that successful Interfaith Dialogue depends upon participants adhering to certain fundamental ground-rules, as follows: the faiths have equal status deserving an equal degree of respect. ‘There will be No denigrating of any faith, its revelatory & other sacred texts, its major originating personalities, and its practitioners as a whole; No equating the inhumane and hateful actions of any single member or faction of a faith with the faith itself; No material that purports to disprove the basic tenets of any faith, or attempts to proselytise its members; No personal attacks or swear words; and Always post with respect towards one another. MEAF emphasises that by adhering to the above, we are able to discuss even the most controversial and delicate subjects in an open & honest, yet civil and respectful manner - that is more likely to bear wholesome fruit.
(excerpts, conflations, two websites, 2008)

There is a particular Muslim women’s group called ‘Daughters of Faith’ who vehemently fight against Valentine’s Day * because ‘it leads to obscenity’. They deny Valentine’s Day because ‘it furthers Western vulgarity’. They claim that the Day opposes their ‘faith’. These females even protest by invading shops that sell Valentine’s Day cards and gifts. From their purchases, they make a fire, burning everything they bought or (in Islamic countries) confiscated. When other parts of the world celebrate the romance of Valentine’s Day, each year these Muslim females stage their own (fiery) boycott. Muslim males of course join in with glee. When it comes love, it is no wonder that Muslims have no true understanding of love and romance, of tenderness and care. It reminds me of the Iraqi who voted in the election but told a reporter he had no idea what a democracy is. He had never experienced it; consequently, he could not get hold of it. He voted in a democratic way but really he had no feel for what he was doing. That’s what is frightening about New Iraq. We may end up with an entire nation not understanding democracy because of the entrenched dictatorial mindset of Islam. It is understandable that women turn increasingly neurotic, hence their abhorrence of Valentine’s Day. That celebration defines all that they never have, never experienced. They therefore respond with a distaste for that Day and all it represents.
(excerpts, conflation, contributor to USA website, February 2006)

(* Valentine's Day is often referred to as St. Valentine's Day. There were two Saints attributed to the naming of the holiday. Both men were imprisoned and killed for being Christians in the 3rd century A.D. One story goes that one of the Saints wrote a letter to his jailer's daughter for her kindness and signed it 'your Valentine'. A more likely story is that both Saints died on February 14, which in Roman times was the night before a festival called Lupercalia. This Roman festival had a lot to do with fertility and probably some of those customs got attached to the modern day celebrations of Valentine's Day. Today, it is a day to tell people you love them and exchange Valentine's cards).
(excerpts, conflations, two ‘Fact’ websites 2007)

PROPAGATING HATE DISOBEYS GOD
Q: Are Muslims supposed to propagate love or hate?
A: The Qur’an shows how hatred is used as a tool of the Devil, and not something we should rally for. Anyone who propagates hate in the name of God is disobeying God . The Qur’an also gives many verses about God’s love. Striving to attain God’s love should be our main priority. When our priorities are straight, everything else falls into place, God willing. The Qur’an tells us that God loves the believers, those who love and trust in God, and the repenters, the charitable, the righteous, the just, the equitable, the steadfast, the good doers, the benevolent, the pure, and those united in His cause.
(excerpt, Q&A from German woman to Islamic website, November 2007)

Muslim organisations in America are being questioned about participating in a ‘Kafir’ (a non-Muslim unbeliever, or an apostate from Islam) system of aggression. The Prophet pbuh clearly forbade this kafir-calling. Any confrontation today and even kids are calling each other kafir. Under the Taliban, Shias (claimed as kafirs) have been massacred. In Pakistan, in ten years recently, 1,865 Shias and 810 Sunnis were murdered at each other’s hands. When will the fanatic Shias and Sunnis learn that if the British and Irish could not win after hundreds of years of killing each other, they should leave their differences unresolved for Allah to tell them (bring them to) true right and wrong?
(excerpts, conflations, article, A M Mujahid, SoundVisions.com, summer 2007)

How many Muslims know that the Five Prayers they devotedly undertake every day are the outcome of the Prophet (pbuh) discussing back and forth with Allah, when he was escorted to the Seventh Heaven, at the suggestion of Moses (in the Sixth Heaven) who well understood that Allah’s original intent to prescribe 50 prayers a day was way beyond the capacity of the Muslim person to fulfil.
(excerpt, conflation, reader’s understanding, by email, following website article on Dangerous Knowledge, March 2007)

The population of Africa is one billion, and today the number of Muslims has diminished (since 1900) to 316 million, whereas Catholics were one million in 1902 and are now 330 million. It is estimated that every day some 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity, some six million a year. ‘Muslims in Africa must build schools before mosques, to stop the dangerous Christian missionary octopus’ said a leading Muslim scholar, head of an (Middle East) institution specializing in graduating imams and Islamic preacher. He added that the conversion rate to Christianity may be higher, some estimates say 100,000 Africans convert each day (30 million in a year), though not all from Islam’. ‘In Africa, 50 thousand dollars are enough to build a very reasonably sized school, in America it is five million dollars’. Muslim missionaries, home-grown and visitors, had to speak the appropriate language. The institution he administered attracted and prepared specialized missionaries, to train them and return them back to their countries through the Islamic Propagation Organization. It graduated different classes, some of whose students had masters and doctorate degrees. The Muslim missionary is not a foreigner to the community in which he worked. These graduates could attract new followers to Islam and converts from their countries because they spoke the language and understood the customs of the people to whom they proselytised.
(excerpt, conflation, transcript of broadcast on African Muslims, reported in American Thinker magazine, May 06)

A sinful act, viewed as a product of human weakness requiring mercy rather than punishment, triumphed in traditional Islam a long time ago. This is why today the stoning of adulterous women only exists in a minority of Muslim societies. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and ‘a few other places’ no more represent the entire Muslim world than Arizona, Indiana, Idaho, and Texas represent the entire U.S. Wahhabism, the main form of Islamic fundamentalism today, focuses on external reality, from its emphasis on outward forms of worship to its public execution of sinners. The concern with exterior appearance contrasts starkly with the (true) Islamic commitment to mercy. Severe punishments for adultery, which because of the rigorous evidentiary rules in such cases were almost never applied in past Islamic history, have been misapplied in recent times by fundamentalist regimes. It is above all in this regard that Wahhabism revives the extremist practice of the early Islamic Kharijites. That bin Ladenism is neo-Kharijism is old news in Islam: Wahhabism has been attacked by Muslim scholars for 250 years, since its beginnings, as neo-Kharijism (poor Wahhabi, a spiritual intellect that became rather severe! author).
(excerpt, conflation, long website article, Schwartz, refuting an apologistic article on Wahhabi, 2001)

(Regarding the Qur’an) the secular approach fails to appreciate that a scriptural text is more than a piece of writing; it contains deep meaning for the faithful. The devotional approach is unable to systemize a methodological framework which allows for a ‘scientific’ approach to scripture.
(excerpt, Prof. Arkoun, EQ, quoted Siddiqui, 2007)

Some Muslims say within Islam that Jesus was a mere ‘Human messenger’, never mind that he lived six hundred years before Islam. He and Muhammad are virtually the same. Both preached peace, but called for the sword when necessary. But, say Islam and Islamists, in the final analysis Muhammad is the last and best prophet. He has the better revelation. If only we (the West) could see this! However, this list of fifteen differences between Jesus and Muhammad (to be found in this original author’s sites) disagrees with this insidious message. The differences between the two are profound. It is better to be clear than confused. The frequently preached message of Islam washes away clarity about Christianity and whitewashes its own message. In fact, many well-meaning Western scholars also muddy the waters. Some aspects and policies of the two religious leaders cannot be reconciled, and it is high time we acknowledge this.
(excerpts, conflations, American Thinker article, J. Arlandson, May 2006)

‘God is part of our (Australian) culture. Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing push, it is documented. We will accept your (Muslim, other) beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change. We really do not care how you did things where you came from. By all means, keep your culture, but do not force it on others. We did not force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country that accepted you. This is our country, our land, our lifestyle. We will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, we highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom: the right to leave.
(excerpt, conflation, various government statements, in Australia, June 2007)

(A Christian organisation says) The purpose of this website is to highlight the contradictions in Islam’s Qur'an. We do not reject the Qur'an because of this (our) list of contradictions posed on this site. There are many reasons of much more substantial nature why we do not believe the Qur'an to be (directly) from the one true God. You will find those discussed on other pages of this site. This site is not intended as an attack on the Qur'an. Sadly, many Muslims have become unnecessarily aggravated because they (refuse to) understand the purpose of this collection. It is our experience that many Muslims try to evade a discussion these days of the real issues regarding the truth of Islam and Christianity by pushing ‘101 Bible Contradictions’ (or similar compilations) into our face. Muslim web sites abound in articles and collections attacking the integrity of the Bible by means of contradiction lists. (If you come to feel that our site is a really disrespectful and distasteful attack on the Qur'an - and that Muslims would never do things like that to the Bible - maybe you would like to have a look around some Muslim sites!) Many Muslims today have the attitude that ‘because the Bible is riddled with contradictions, errors, absurdities and problems, there is no need for me to make the effort to understand it’. With such an attitude no real dialog can develop between Muslim, Christians and the religious West. Our goal is to get beyond superficial word games to discussing the relevant core issues over which we differ. It is interesting to note that none of the Muslim websites or specific page authors are willing to ‘link’ (via internet) to these Christian responses to their attacks on the Bible. What is the fear? Why do Muslims demand that we link to their responses on the Qur'an contradictions but they are not willing to link to the Christian response to Bible contradictions? All we ask is that readers be fair and evaluate the Bible (and contradictions) with an equal standard as the Qur'an.
(excerpts, conflations, Answering Islam website: ‘the same construction as countering Islam, rebutting Islam, or exposing Islam’ 1999-2008)

(There are several voices heard in this conflation, January 2008). A UK Christian bishop gave voice to the concerns of many (indigenous) citizens ‘on the direction Islam seems to be taking in England’. The resulting condemnation from ‘spokesmen’ from different Islamic groups, including the Muslim Council of Britain, was sadly predictable. Appeasement does not work. No further concessions should be made to Islamic groups until (it is clear that) the rights of others are respected. It all explains why some Islamic groups favour isolation whereas other religious groups, who continue to prosper, are integrated at all levels into our society.
(excerpt, conflation, one viewpoint in letter, UK national newspaper, Jan 08).

Not a word from the Archbishop (of Canterbury) - he is not eager to defend Christianity by confronting the more fanatical aspects of Islam (another excerpt, viewpoint in letter). (Against the Christian bishop:) For many years the Church of England and the Muslim community have worked together to build mutual understanding and tolerance. He talks of ‘extremists making no-go areas for Christians yet cannot give specific examples’. His attitude is racist and prejudiced. He is determined to create unnecessary division and hatred towards Muslims. The UK is a majority Christian country but it is also a country of multi-faith and celebrates diversity. All religious communities should work together to build respect and an environment of tolerance.
(excerpt, conflation, Muslim letter criticising the bishop).

‘Real’ religion is a state, a state of receptivity and inner humility, not an outward imitation of forms and rituals. Sir Philip Sidney advised in 1598 ‘Draw in thy beams and humble all thy might, to that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be.’ We may know moments when we are free and receptive to something bigger than ourselves. This is indeed a ‘religious’ state. But there are no words in ordinary language, no ordinary words, by which we can (truly satisfactorily) describe our spiritual experiences. So too often we fall back on the ‘language’ of any one of the religions that happens to be available. One of the things about religious language is its tendency to personify what are really psychological functions. But there are words which when correctly defined (understood) do describe something universally and perpetually true, the true spiritual experience. In ‘religion’ in the past there was always God and the Devil. A marvellous recounting (via the Russian Ouspensky): there was a monk who, during the Lenten Fast, was caught red-handed by the abbot, who walked into his cell and saw him cooking an egg over a candle. The monk went very red and stammered ‘It wasn’t me, Master, it was the Devil’. There was an angry noise and out popped the Devil from behind the samovar and exclaimed, ‘You are a liar! I never even had the idea you could cook an egg over a candle until you taught me.’
(excerpt, conflated, from the book A Lasting Freedom, 1972)

SHALLOWNESS OF TODAY'S SOUNDBITE
Our world is one in which the powerful resonance of words - that speak deeply of the mystery of our human being, of life and death, of grace and goodness and of the God in whose image we are made - is (being) crushed out by the shallowness of (today’s) ‘sound-bite’. St Ephrem, who died AD373, was a poetic theologian who used images of scripture and human experience to point beyond the world to God. He reminded his hearers and readers that ‘it is not at the clothing of the words that one should gaze, but at the power hidden in the words’. (So is the modern Media sound-bite - whether given by politician, cleric, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Sikh, other - the clothing or the power? author). Great passages found in say Isaiah and used by Handel, liturgical poetry, religious ceremony, hymns of personal devotion and need, demonstrate time and again that ‘the image strikes, evolves in, the depths before it breaks the surface’. A 19th c. priest and poet said, ‘Whenever the revolutionary or mercenary passion prevails, forthwith a certain unreasoning contempt for poetry possesses men’. The ‘unreasoning contempt for poetry and religion in our own day’, by the cultured, the cynicism of the chattering classes, or a shallow materialistic consumerism, needs to be challenged. The sharp compassion of the poet’s art points and probes the depths of human possibility and recalls us to ‘God who is Love Himself’ coming into the lowest part of our needs. ‘Sunlight needs a window, before it enters a dark room, windows don’t (just) happen – the supreme poet seeks to provide them.
(excerpts, conflations, thanks to Geoffrey Rowell’s Faith, Credo column, UK national newspaper, November, 2007)

(Vincent Littrell, Belgium, has written: the Wahhabist sect of Sunni Islam certainly gets a bad rap in the West. One of the more widely read works on Wahhabism in the West, Hamid Algar’s 2002 brief work Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, is fiercely critical of the sect’s founder Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792). Dr. Natana DeLong-Bas’s 2004 work Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad paints a different picture of Wahhabist foundations and thought that I think might give the serious scholar or professional analyst pause). She says, ‘Sheikh Muhammad bin 'Abd Al-Wahhab was not the godfather of contemporary terrorist movements (in Islam). Rather, he was a voice of reform, reflecting mainstream 18th-century Islamic thought. His vision of Islamic society was based upon monotheism in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews were to enjoy peaceful co-existence and cooperative commercial treaty relations. Wahhabis today are depicted only in a negative way, as extremist terrorists and gunmen. In my reading of Ibn al-Wahhab's books and his interpretation of the principles of faith, I saw a lot of tolerance and civilized thinking, much more than is applied today. Q: Surely, al-Wahhab tied together religion and politics? He had no political motives. His efforts were limited exclusively to religious da'wa. and da’waa (invitation to join Islam, proselytising, dissolving mis-information or re-educating). Q: There are those who accuse the Muslim Brotherhood's writings and agenda in Egypt of being the principle source from which the extremist in Saudi Arabia have taken their views, and of being the cause for the start of modern religious extremism. Do you agree with this opinion? My understanding is that Hassan Al-Bana was not a jihadist or an extremist. The only thing he sought was how to be a true Muslim in everything one does and says. Al-Bana in no way called for any revolutions. And often the West ties together Sayyed Qutb's books and the ideology of jihad, and this is not true. Qutb employed philosophical investigation to distinguish between evil and good in the world.

A Muslim doctor, practising in the UK and also head of a Muslim medical association, is alleged to have sent a letter to a doctors’ magazine describing his gay and transsexual patients adversely. Phrases and words such as ‘irresponsibly spreading disease’, ‘preying on society’, ‘they neither need sympathy nor help, but the stick of law’, ‘the law needs to protect society from their ravages’. Disciplinary action was being considered. Hardly a case of ‘interfaith compassion?’
(excerpt, conflation, news report and comment, UK national newspaper, July 2007)

‘Say to the Western scholars: Do not interpret the Quran for Muslims. We Muslims are capable of interpreting the Quran for ourselves. No other people have shown the level of hostility to another faith as Westerners have shown to Muhammad, the Quran and Islam. It continues to this day. Islam doesn’t need reformation; the Western mind needs reformation about Muhammad, the Quran and Islam. It will be better for both of us. Tahir A Qureshi. (Following a Western authoritative scholar-writer’s series of website articles ‘interpreting the Qur’an’ – for Western enquirers – this above letter appeared in the Wall Street Journal from a Muslim in USA , 2007).
(A follow-up email and author’s response appeared on the website saying: This remains the orthodox view of the Qur’an: that it is a perfect, unchanging copy of the Mother of the Book that has existed forever with Allah. The author said: But how do Islamic scholars square this with passages in the Qur’an that refer to contemporary events?)

Teach our children to think, not just to believe, the Headline on the letter said, and the writer went on, ‘The idea of religious schools, whether Christian, Muslim or another faith, is wrong’. That is not what education is about. A child is not some possession to be labelled according to family background or where he or she was born. Children need to be informed, not conditioned. The fundamental educational need of children is to learn how to think, and later, decide how to distinguish matters of ‘belief’ from ‘matters of fact’. Advocates of separate religious schools see nothing wrong with giving children, too young and vulnerable to resist, a religious label and doses of angled religion – and an ‘approved’ religious mould. Children come to accept whatever the views of their elders, in their infinite ‘wisdom’ deem correct. It prevents free-thought. It reduces the gift of life to a child to something conditional and limited. That can lead to separatism and fanaticism. Religion is not an essential requirement for learning respect and valuing peace, harmony, courtesy and consideration. All these derive from understanding and application of common sense and unselfishness, and how to best serve the happiness and well-being of the maximum number of others in society.
(excerpt, conflation, letter to Editor, UK national newspaper, February, 2008)

‘All false religions react negatively when basic common sense questions are asked of them and Islam is no exception’ is one website comment. But the (truthful) essence of Islam is the internal struggle to be a better person. The ‘battle’ is one to win hearts and minds. Both Christianity and Islam, the true, loving religions not the false appearances, are engaged in that. Yet the sacred Vedanta of India says in its wisdom that the ‘world of man’ is in a great ‘down-turn’, even reaching the point where black is white, truth is untruth and so on. Let us hope that Love, as we are assured it will not, is never totally subdued.
(email to author, December 2007)

Assuming that no Westerner can write critically about Islam without a bias (as Said said), then we should go to main Islamic sources in Arabic. This is exactly what many educated Arab Muslims have done in recent years, and it has been very revealing. They are challenging the autocratic structure that has been imposed on all Muslim faithful for centuries, and also the ‘sacred interpretations’ of the text and the thousands of Hadiths which, many now say, ‘are often contradictory and fanciful’ and are far from objective reporting of history. But since these hadiths were ‘recorded’ by people like Bukhari, and other venerated scholars, they are ‘beyond criticism’ and ‘are to be accepted without question’.
(excerpt, reader email response, to article published in USA newspaper, March 2007)

A full GCSE course in Religious Studies in Islam has been available for all for several years in the UK. The sections encompass: Believing in Allah. Matters of Life and Death. Marriage and the family. Social Harmony. Options – Religion and the media, religion and wealth and poverty, religion as expressed in art, music or literature. The syllabus encompasses Islam. Beliefs and values. Community and tradition. Worship and celebration. Living the Muslim life. Options – the mosque. Sufism. Specimens of Exam Papers. (selective examples , author) Religion and the Media. What is meant by a multi-faith society? Outline the sources of the Shari’ah. Sufism has little influence on Islam in Britain - do you agree?
(excerpt, conflation, the GCSE aims, intent, programme, and the views of its developer, Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood 2008).

His Hindu family died terrible deaths during the violence and hate of Partition in Pakistan, but what is amazing, though, is that now he is very clear that it is not right to hate the Muslims, that the different religions had lived together peacefully before Partition and can do so again.
(excerpt, a Hindu story, website report, June 07)

(In a transcript of broadcast, about Muslims, Africa, other countries, 2003) One imam said that he deplored the un-Islamic way of life in Holland. ‘ We Muslims suffer a lot when it is reported that one Muslim can spend money unwisely when other Muslims are lost and cannot find a translation of the Koran. Even their children, able to learn, cannot memorize the Koran as they can't find a translated Koran or even any translated book’. Later in the multi-faith conference talks, an Arabic-speaking Christian counselled that Islam had to preach peace and love. No one denied, as none of the Muslim scholars do, that a Religion had the right to spread its faith (anywhere, except the Christian faith in hard line Islamic countries). A Western observer said, ‘These Islamic leaders seemed panicky. In particular they expressed frustration at Islam's disorganized efforts to maintain (its presence, leadership) in Africa’. He went on, ‘But one idea eludes them: Islam itself is the problem because it is a burdensome and harsh religion. This is apparent when one Muslim scholar talks about implementing Shari'ah as if it is self-evident that it benefits society’.
(excerpts, conflation, Al Jazeera interview, 2003, translated and reported in American Thinker, May 2006)

This is a summary of detail given (with photo) of a single UK Pakistani male searching for a ‘partner’ (wife surely? UK or Pakistani, not known?): Aslam O Alikum (peace be with you, hello friends). My family and friends says I am fun-loving, caring and an honest and open-minded person. I am a family-oriented person and love to be around friends and family. I have a mixture of traditional and modern values. I may not look or dress like a strict Muslim, though I have morals I stick to, and would like to increase my iman (faith), in order to become a better person and a better Muslim. I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason and only Allah (God) is behind the best decisions. I am looking for a kind and sincere, down to earth woman who has strong family values, someone to build a relationship with. (the site then goes on to offer that he is 24, living in Bedfordshire, England. He is Sunni sect. He has no beard. Undertakes salaah (5 times day prayer) always. Hijab-wearing partner?: ‘Prefer not to say’. He keeps to Halal (food permissible).
(heck of a lot of ‘Is’ in this. author) (‘advert’, Muslim partner sought, via Pakistani dating agency, UK 2007)

SEXUAL SINS BEGIN IN THE MIND
(From the author of this site you are reading: what follows is complex and very fragmented: The Qur’an said one thing, Christian response today says another. Is there a Middle Way?) Jesus said (in zeroing in on the root cause of adultery, in the famous Sermon on the Mount, about adultery and lust): ‘You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart’. (Matthew 5:27 to 28). Immediately, this raises the stakes so high that all corporeal punishment (much mentioned in the Qur’an. author) is removed; otherwise, all of Humanity would attempt to kill each other with legalized stoning. These two verses imply that sexual sin is no longer a civil crime or any kind of crime. As usual with Jesus, he goes to the heart of the sin: adultery and other sexual sins begin in the mind, so the solution to them must also begin in the mind. Another : Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’ (Luke 7:48—50). This true account shows that Jesus did not order prostitutes and other sexual sinners to be hunted down and flogged or burned alive, even though this one was living in Israel, the Holy Land, and even though the Torah says specifically that a prostitute must be burned with fire (Leviticus 21:9). Instead, Jesus looks at the heart and sees a diamond in the rough. He knows that with his (divine, access to divine. author) love and power, sexual sinners of all sorts can be changed. So the spiritual solution is forgiveness without condemnation. This is a long, long way from Jesus instituting the punishment of stoning sinners, or even their flogging, as Muhammad would like to re-institute in old and new Qur’anic law.
(excerpt, letter, UK national newspaper, September 2007)

What are the different factions in Islam and how do their beliefs differ? God never supported dividing into different factions, in fact He discourages this division of His religion. The main groups are, Sunni, Shia, Ismailis, Wahhabis, Ahmadayas, Sufis, Alawis, Druze, Kharjites, Zaydis and the Nation of Islam. They were born of political differences, or organised by leaders who decided that their ‘religious interpretations’ were the ‘most guided’. Their followers were thus compelled to break away from the broader and more general religious practice prescribed in the Qur’an. In turn, all these ‘issues’ have resulted in the emergence of Muslims who just observe ‘Submission to God Alone’.
(excerpt, God’s Mosque website Q&A, 2006)

(In a more expanded description) Adherents to traditional Islam subscribe to five main tenets called the Five Pillars. 1) First and foremost one must provide a Confession of faith (shahada): to believe and profess there is no God but God (strict monotheism) and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. 2. One must engage in daily prayer (salat): five daily prayers and a congregational prayer on Friday (jum'ah). 3. One should give an Alms tax (zakat): this is a portion of income or wealth that is to be donated each year to the poor; the amount, ranging from 2.5 –20 percent, is to be given according to his or her wealth and ability. 4. One should make Pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj): all those who are able and who can afford the trip are to travel to Mecca (the sacred centre of the Islamic faith) once in a lifetime; this pilgrimage also has social and cultural implications: ‘this pilgrimage is a symbol of Muslim unity and of the basic equality of all Muslims; all Muslims go on the pilgrimage wearing the same kind of clothing so that there is no distinction between rich and poor; all are equal in the eyes of God’. 5. The fifth pillar requires fasting during Ramadan (sawm): from sunrise to sundown Muslims ‘focus on all forms of self discipline; they abstain from eating, drinking, violence, sex, and anger, and any other bad habits; in addition, Muslims are to focus their efforts on self-purification - this is called jihad al-nafs or the struggle against oneself; this period also requires Muslims to increase the intensity of their relationship with God.
(excerpt, conflation, with thanks, The Muslim Ladder module, academic modules of Religious Study; book The Infinite Ladder, Dustin di-Perna, USA, 2008)

October, 2007. It is the only bilingual Education Centre (School) in a deeply divided city, Jerusalem. There are Arab pupils who do not like Jews, and Jewish pupils who do not like Arabs. Outside, viewpoints are equally divided. Its opening drew protests, but such attitudes are what the school aims to change. One teacher speaks Arabic, the other Hebrew: they combine forces to teach. Even the directors share responsibilities: one is Arab, the other Jewish. ‘We try to be non-political, but education is political’ said a spokesman for the educational trust involved. ‘We are preparing leaders who can lead to a change in society.’ An Arab-Israeli mother said, ‘Here there is co-existence, they will learn to live with each other, learn the culture of each other’. A former human rights worker, close to the school, said, ‘The beautiful thing about such a school is that you do not have to agree.’ In his own school, today, Jewish and Arab students disagree and oppose each other – ‘but its Jewish and Arab boys often against Jewish and Arab girls: the argument, not their race, is the thing’. ‘I want to change the world’ said one Jewish student standing before agreeing Arab students. One Arab-Israeli 11-year old girl had her 12-year old Jewish school-friend sleep overnight at her home. ‘Did she not try to hurt you, kill you?’ asked her cousin. Cross-cultural friendship among 400 pupils at the School is working to span both cultures.
(excerpt, conflation, Jerusalem Report, UK national newspaper, October 2007)

Faith is something people will die for, whereas dogma is something people killed for.
(excerpt, book, The Lucifer Code 1997 and 2006; Lucifer = the bearer of light)

Let us remember that the size and type of our brains is no credit to ourselves – we did not choose our brains, or our aptitudes, or talents or skills. These are all things that Allah chose for us, before we were born, when we were just little ‘computer chips’ in the womb. A person can not really call themselves properly educated in religious terms unless they know at least the basics of the major world faiths - what the various peoples believed and why they believed those things. By the time I retired, the school syllabus could include studies in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and perhaps even other faiths such as Shinto and Confucianism - along with more general religious subjects such as Religious Philosophy and Moral and Ethical Studies. Many Muslim pupils would have enjoyed doing this course, but were far more eager to do the Islamic bit than the Christian bit. Some Muslim parents were actively against their youngsters studying Christianity – something I regarded as a great pity, since dialogue between the two descendants of the Abrahamic faith is still usually pretty unenlightened. The subjects you need to know about are: A very basic outline of the Prophet’s life, the five pillars of Islam (shahadah, salah, sawm, zakah and hajj), the rituals and festivals, such things as the Islamic attitude to marriage and divorce, work and wealth, abortion, euthanasia and other life/death issues, and various moral issues. You (reader) may not realise that the UK is the only no-Muslim country in the world that has made the teaching of Islam, at least an introduction to it, compulsory for every single student. It is the only country in the world, so far as I know, where you can sit a GCSE in Islam, a national qualification.
(excerpts, conflation, article, website, by Sr. Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, UK, 2005-07)

There is a rapidly growing movement of Christian missionaries who since Sept 11, 2001 have focussed exclusively on the Muslim world. Christian evangelism is bitterly reproached in Muslim countries, full of lingering memories of ‘Colonial endeavours’. Then, Europe’s civilising mission went hand in hand with fervently anti-Islamic Christianising mission. Now, western evangelising institutions are teaching their missionaries to ‘go undercover’ in the Muslim world. Some take on Muslim identities, wear Muslim clothing including the veil, fast and pray as Muslims. Western aid in rebuilding infrastructures is seen as ‘another Crusade of Christians’ against Muslims. Resentment and suspicion among Muslims - of collusion, USA, Israel against Muslim interests, Palestinian rights - has understandably increased.
(excerpts, conflations, book on history, Future of Islam, 2005,06)

Theology is the most ambitious and fruitful of disciplines because it is all about the successful squaring of circles. Most obviously, it seeks to capture, in the limited net of human language, something of the mystery of an infinite God. Most taxingly, it seeks to demonstrate that an omnipotent God is also Absolutely just, and that an apparently infinite reward or chastisement can attend upon finite human behaviour. Islam does not limit itself to the upliftment of any given section of humanity, but rather announces a desire to transform the entire human family. Islam is universal. In the Hadith, we learn that ‘Every prophet was sent to his own people; but I am sent to all Mankind’. Yet one critic says that Islam is a travelling parochialism, an ‘Arab imperialism’. Nothing could be more unfair. It is our confidence that Islam’s universalism has not come to an end. There must be a mode of behaviour that modernity can adopt that can be meaningfully termed Islamic, without entailing its transformation into a monochrome Arab-ness. Regarding enlightenment, the past genius of Islam in adapting itself to cultures from Senegal to Sumatra cannot be extended into our (21st c) era, because the ‘rules of that game’ no longer apply. Success today demands membership of a global reality, which means signing up to the terms of its philosophy. The alternative is poverty, failure.
(excerpts, conflations, address by Abdul-Hakim Murad. Faith in the future: Islam after the Enlightenment, Memorial Lecture Islamabad, 23 December 2002)

(Told about the young woman who faced so much Muslim pressure, in the UK, after converting to Christianity, an American friend sent this email to the author, September 2007) ‘As regards this UK story, it is ironic that if she were a convert TO Islam then the (UK) government would be going out of its way, at public expense, to defend her in every way. Yet, when some imagined slight against Middle East sensitivities is perceived, we here in America and yourselves (in the UK) go out of our ways to display our ‘sensitivity’ and we simply ‘comply’ to every outlandish demand. Up is down. Left is right. Instead of praising her, and taking supportive action, we (the establishments USA and UK) appear to sympathise with Islam’.

Islam is more exposed than ever to Western influence. On the positive side, it enjoys better conditions than ever for the trans-national diffusion of its (true, peaceful?) message (2004-2008). It has benefited in an increased importance, emphasis, on spirituality, through a proliferation of Islam-themed websites, and the practice of Islam as a matter of personal faith. (This is countered by almost virulent anti-Islam rhetoric and genuine, honest appraisal and criticism of Islam by ‘other-than-Islam’ websites. this website’s author). All Muslims have a personal and subjective experience of Islam. But this fact is more often than not obscured by Islam’s role as a communal, cultural, social and political force in Muslim countries. Yet self-examination of one’s faith can take precedence over cultural heritage. This kind of re-negotiation, between the personal and the collective approach to religious practice, is a vital, central element of Western Islamic identity.
(excerpts, conflation, book, chapter The Absolutized Community, 2004)

Why do Muslim women have to cover up? the Muslim website was asked. The woman ‘columnist’ replied: Nowhere in the Qur’an does it require women to cover their hair, arms and legs (and face). The religious rules imposing headcover or hijab are from sources outside the Qur’an, mainly from the edicts of religious scholars or Hadiths. However it is not wrong to wear head covers on account of cultural tradition, and so rules should not be imposed stating that head covers can not be worn. The rules in the Qur’an for women’s dress code are: the best garment is the garment of righteousness for men and women; women shall cover their chests and reveal only what is necessary (implying modesty); women shall lengthen their garments, to be recognised as righteous; women and men shall subdue their eyes and maintain their chastity.
(excerpt, Muslim website response to question, November 2007)

Authentic expressions of Islamic pluralism will take hold as soon as the current oppressive version of mythic Islam loosens its grip. First and foremost, one version of Islam would take into consideration our knowledge of ‘states of consciousness’. This knowledge directly effects how adherents relate to other traditions. For example, many lower levels of orientation believe Jesus to be a prophet but that he made no claims that he was divine. This, among other important ideas, is one concept considered corrupted since prior revelation. Some claim ‘the Qur'an contends that some of the followers of Christ misunderstood or misrepresented his teachings by claiming that he was divine or that he was God's begotten son.’ In other words, mainstream followers of the Islamic faith fully endorse subtle realm state experiences (Deity Mysticism), such as those experience by Moses and their own founder Muhammad but have trouble accepting the experiences like Christ's or the Buddha's causal union (Formless Mysticism) in which Godhead and Self are recognized as one and the same. Some in Islam would see no need to deny Jesus, or any other prophet (or person) their divinity. With an understanding of Causal Union one realizes that the very same type of divine union experienced by Christ and the Buddha is available to all humans. Furthermore, with an understanding of the Witness, one recognizes that the Higher Self, described by mystics, has the ability to transcend the separate ‘self sense’ altogether. Such realizations are not limited to one particular individual and therefore need not be denied. Christ recognized a Self that was One and the same as God, uncovering a universal fact that has shown itself to countless other individuals having experienced a similar state experience.
(excerpts, conflations, thanks and apologies to The Muslim Ladder, part, book The Infinite Ladder by Dustin DiPerna, January 2008 plus this author phrases)

It is a difficult time for us Muslims. The ‘hush’ culture of Islam in the West, which allows important issues to be ignored can be understood. The presence of a vibrant Muslim media will provide the forum to develop a Muslim agenda and its leadership (for the 21st century) under a check and balance system. Most Muslims, the ‘moderates’, will not allow a ‘poking of the nose into our affairs’ for some time. It is a sensitive time for Muslims to hear criticism from one of their own. Muslim unity is stronger than the fear that constructive criticism can be withheld.
(excerpts, conflations, article, A M Mujahid, SoundVisions. com, summer 2007)

(Reviewing the Muslim situation in the UK, the PM said) ‘Most Christians are hugely surprised to be told that the Koran reveres Jesus as a prophet’. In this he demonstrated a complete lack of awareness of the fact that Islam’s reverence for Jesus as a prophet is a manifestation, not of Islamic openness to Christianity, but of just the opposite. It is a manifestation of a supremacist theology that strips Christianity of all legitimacy, and presents itself as the replacement and corrective of Christianity’s deification of Christ. In light of that, Blair would do better to speak not of ‘the rich Abrahamic heritage we share in common’, but of the necessity for Muslims in Britain to reject this supremacist doctrine; because of the political character of Islam it leads ineluctably to what Blair calls the ‘warped distortion of the faith of Islam’ – that is, the Islam that believes it has a right and duty to impose Shari’a in Britain. He added, ‘Of course the extremists that threaten violence are not true Muslims in the sense of being true to the proper teaching of Islam’. He did not, however, inform his audience where this ‘proper teaching of Islam’ could be found, or call upon any of the mainstream Sunni schools of jurisprudence to repudiate the doctrine, which they all hold, that the Islamic community has the responsibility to wage war against the non-Muslim world in order to impose the rule of Islamic law. But Blair could not be expected to speak about this, even if he knew about it: discussion in Britain of the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and fanaticism have thus far been dismissed as ‘racism’, despite the patent fact that Islamic jihad supremacism is a religious and political ideology, and not a race at all. Clearly by ‘extremists’ he meant jihadists, but by ‘racists’ it is likely that he meant the most vocal opponents of the creeping Islamisation of Britain.
(excerpts, conflation, article on the PM’s address, UK, December 2006)

A community with strong religious beliefs (Muslims) may well come into conflict with a nation of God-less secularists (Britain). Religion is a stepping stone to a (renewed) moral Society. A culture of temperance and discipline existed in the (Christian) British working class in the Victorian and early 20th century eras. Up until the great ‘cultural revolution’ of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Britain was a country which a religious Muslim would have had no trouble in identifying with. Homosexuality and abortion, for instance, were illegal until 1967. Yet (in your article) you seem to be saying that the consequences (today) of alienation will be more burned cars and ruined buildings, but you claim ‘Muslims are peaceful people’?
(email comment from reader, following article by Muslim writer, UK national newspaper, August 2006)

MUSLIMS, GOD, LOVE
One of the teachings of Islam that has been widely distorted is the nature of God's love towards humanity, in general, but in particular towards the individual. Islam is a commitment to live in a harmonious alignment with the Divine Law that is created by God alone for the benefit of humanity, and this brings about peace within one's own 'self' and through interactions with others, within the entire human community. God's attributes of love and mercy begin to unfold as one reflects on the Qur'an (which contains God's perfectly chosen words that have tremendous amount of richness and depth) and when through it, one goes through an actual transformation and has 'experiences' with the presence of the Divine Reality. It's then, and only then, one wants to prostrate to Him with a profound sense of gratefulness. Assumptions are made by people about Islamic teachings, the most basic of which is that Islam knows only the greatness of God but not fully His love, are (it is contended - author) incorrect. They are based either on ignorance or deliberate distortion of facts. The Qur'an uses several words for the term ‘love’ with different shades of meaning. If all these words - rafah, rahmah, wudda, and hub - are translated as ‘love’, then this word is of very frequent occurrence in the Qur'an, appearing on average about once in every 15 aya'h (communications; verses). Even the word hub, which is most commonly translated as love, occurs in application to God so frequently in the Qur'an that it is hardly justified to say that Islam knows only greatness of God and not His love.
(excerpts, conflation, website, from book, Islam scholar, 1984, modifications and clarifications by another Muslim author 2007)

The Islamic religion is ‘an information control cult, like Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and International Churches of Christ’. Information control cults usually have particular terms to describe ‘materials – including questions’ hostile to their religion. For Catholics it is ‘Protestant teaching’. The buzzword for Jehovah’s Witnesses is ‘Babylon teaching’ or ‘Apostate materials’ and for ICOC, the term is ‘spiritual pornography’. A gathering of statements, from their sites, are basically identical. All ‘false religions’ (what truly does that mean? author) ‘react negatively when common sense questions are asked of them. Islam is no exception. Statements: ‘He forbade people to ask questions ...so do not try to probe into such things’. Avoid independent thinking, and questioning the counsel that is provided by ‘God's visible organization’. ‘Have No Dealings With Apostates’. ‘People before you did ask such questions, and on that account lost their faith’. Yet, the Prophet pbuh was asked about things which he did not like, and when the questioner insisted, the Prophet got angry. (A Christian critic said) They are forbidden to question ‘the Faith’, and are expected to accept its truthfulness blindly without investigation.
(excerpts, conflations from 60 Questions website, January 2008; I have not included Questions to Christians – go look for yourselves. author)

Play the ‘politically correct game’ in authorship, regarding Islam, and ‘make big bucks’, as one book reviewer said in 2006? Or get your ‘version of truth’ published and be damned, as said another? Robert Spencer did that, the latter, in 2006, with a book on Islam’s Prophet (pbuh) and garnered hundreds of reviews. Here are two excerpts and two additional comments (this website’s author, February 2008) ‘It is nothing short of staggering that the myth of Islamic tolerance could have gained such currency in the teeth of Muhammad's open contempt and hatred for Jews and Christians, incitements of violence against them, and calls that they be converted or subjugated.’ (wrote Spencer). ‘While human nature is everywhere the same and Muslims can, of course, act as tolerantly as anyone else, the example of Muhammad, the highest model for human behaviour [according to Muslim belief - CSM], constantly pulls them in a different direction. The fact that Western analysts ignore all this demonstrates the ease with which people can be convinced of something they wish to believe, regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary’. (Responding with an Islam viewpoint, a year after publication, this email pointed out) ‘Take Spencer with a grain of salt. His citations of the Hadiths, Qur’an and other primary sources may be correct, but his conclusions are massively off. He utilises these primary sources to construct his arguments but fails entirely to place the sources in context, or interpret them in a manner consistent with the vast majority of (peaceful) Muslims. I find it heavily amusing that he believes so strongly in Islam intolerance while, up to modern times, Islam was arguably the most tolerant of the three religions of the book. Islam is the only one of the three which allows for Muslims, Christians and Jews to be judged equally (Al-Baqarah 112). When compared to Christianity’s views on Salvation, its History of conversion by the sword, Islam looks quite tolerant. You would be better off reading the Qur’an yourself and making your own decisions. He merely plays off America’s current ignorance of Islam to paint a picture consistent with our sterotypes’. (A supportive reviewer said) ‘Spencer is risking his life to tell you the truth. He is on hit-lists’. (Another added) ‘Spencer was reluctant to write this book, and the Jihadists recently honoured him by elevating him to the list of the five people they most want to murder’.
(excerpts, conflations, reviews on Amazon.com 2006, 2007)

Muslims are asked to ‘work together’ with the ‘People of the Book’ (primarily Christians and Jews) for solutions of the many problems in society today. Half the (1,000) Americans polled in 2006 said they had never met a Muslim and those who did know Muslims ‘felt a lot better about them’. Major buildings have been designed by a Muslim chief architect. In North America, some five million Muslims are living in more than 20 major cities. They are highly educated - compared with other Muslim communities around the world - and are contributing to the success of North American scientific and technological fields. They have established academic institutions, places of worship, community centres and schools and work to live in peace and harmony among other groups of people in society, and the crime rate among their communities is minimal.
(excerpts, conflations, public information published by an Islamic information and education service, Chicago)

Before printing (and in fact for long after it became popular in the West), a recital of the Koran’s 77,000 words took a good many hours. Printing and the Internet (reading) and a whole range of other technologies - gramophones, radios, take-recorders, videos and television – has made the Koran physically, aurally more accessible all around the world. In terms of basic literacy, the Islamic world today is better educated than in the past. Some Muslim countries have low literacy rates, but in many half the population possess some degree of literacy. The Koran remains part of the syllabus of primary education, believers are helped by such literacy and wider exposure of the text.
(excerpt, conflation, A Very Short Introduction to the Koran, 2000)

“In obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in His will I abide faithful to death.”
One ‘martyr’ said this. And proved it by being hanged. She famously faced religious ‘injustice’ with open protest, with words only, courageously displaying immense resolve and will. But in her death, she took no-one with her, she would have been horrified at wishing the death of any opponent or ‘enemy’. Why do modern-day ‘Islamist suicide bombers’, killing dozens, leave messages which sound nothing like this?
(quote by Mary Dyer, 1660, Quaker martyr, Boston USA)

LIVE IN HARMONY AND PEACE
"God is part of our (Australian) culture. Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing push, it is documented. We will accept your (Muslim, other) beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really do not care how you did things where you came from. By all means, keep your culture, but do not force it on others. We did not force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country that accepted you. This is our country, our land, our lifestyle. We will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'the right to leave’.
(précis, conflation, reported present tense, various government statements, in Australia, June/July 2007)

I had wanted Islam to be part of the political debate and now it was. All kinds of opinion-makers were now saying that it was irresponsible and indeed morally wrong to pretend that appeasing Islamic leaders would magically lead to social harmony. Society was churning with discussion over how best to integrate Muslims, and Muslims also seemed largely aware now that they need to choose between Western values and ‘the old ways’. Above all, Muslim women were now prominently on the agenda of the country.
(excerpt, Infidel, Hirsi Ali, 2007)

The freedom of expression that I found in Holland, the freedom to think, is unknown where I come from. It is a right and practice that I always dreamed of having, as I was growing up. Whatever its flaws, no nation understands the principles of free expression better than the Dutch. It runs so deep. Holland chose to protect me from death threats, even though many (people in public life) said they disagreed with my ideas. I am lucky and I am grateful, and privileged to be Dutch. Theo’s (van Gogh) murderer and others like him do not realise how deeply people in the West are committed to the idea of an open society.
(excerpt, Infidel, Hirsi Ali, 2007)

(His Hindu family died terrible deaths during the violence and hate of Partition) but what is amazing, though, is that now he is very clear that it is not right to hate the Muslims, that the different religions had lived together peacefully before Partition and can do so again.

The (religious) fanatics, they interpret our reserve as weakness, but they are only right about the left. Our reserve is a great aspect of civilised living. The ‘left’ as fellow-travellers today take it upon themselves, always just one section of the civilised, to pronounce ‘liberally’ on ‘fanatics’. The majority, mostly silent, most of the time, do not agree.

"When you see an evil act you have to stop it with your hand. If you can't, then at least speak out against it with your tongue. If you can't, then at least you have to hate it with all your heart. And this is the weakest of faith."
(Jasmal Udeen, June 2007 reporting Mohammed (pbuh)

Jihad al-Nafs and the honest persistent striving for truth . . . "Whether you are fast or slow, eventually you will find what you are seeking. Always devote yourself whole heartedly to your search. Even though you may limp or be bent double, do not abandon your search, but drag yourself towards it"
(Maulana Rumi, the Great)

The inner Self is Self-aware and Self-luminous, and its very nature (the inner nature of all of Mankind) is knowledge, consciousness and bliss. The (small) self is powered by the great beyond-eternal Self from which it arises, and the paradox (which causes laughter among the gods) is that the great Self is uninfluenced by the small self’s wordly ambitions and experiences – from pain to ectasy. The Self (each moment, each day, each lifetime) becomes veiled by the desires and activities of the self; but when there is a conscious, or unanticipated ‘standing aside’ then the great Self shines out.
(excerpt, book, Hindu advaita system,2006)

MAN RESPECTED, FINEST CREATION OF GOD
Sufism is a (great) movement within Islam which focuses on the direct experience of Man and God. Sufism is found within both branches of Islam, Sunni and Shi'ite. Maulaana Jalalludin Balkhi (Jalalludin Mohammad 'Rumi' meaning ‘from Rome’) was born in 1207. His work is mainly on the universal meaning of Islam and the soul.
The main fundamental principle of Jalalludin Balkhi's teaching was the unification of the mind and the heart. Man is the finest creation of God Almighty, even a part of Him. He Man is to be respected. According to Maulana, a person who reaches the truth and spiritual perfection, directs his attention to universalism and not individualism and selfishness. Sufi is a person who tries to reach universalism rather than individualism. He need not (cannot easily? author) abandon worldly matters, but must not consider them an ultimate end. Rumi believed that priority to human love is a must, and religions can be united by this love (the ‘individual’ soul working to realise, re-join with its source, God. author).
(conflation: author acknowledges credits to www.afghan-network.net).

WHIRLING DERVISHES
The ‘whirling dervishes’ sing and dance in circles, the movement initially symbolizes the giving of charity in the name of Allah. December 17 is ‘the wedding night’ when he (Jalalludin Balkhi Rumi) died, ‘married to eternal life’. First, dervish-followers wear black cloaks and long cone-like caps: they represent graves and tomb stones. Then their three circular movements remind watchers of the three revolutions we can experience in our lives: revolving, searching to attain knowledge of God; then seeing God, through attainment; then being in the presence of God. And during this dance, black cloaks are replaced by white gowns. Four circular rotations begin. The first symbolizes the vision of God. The second accepts the greatness of God. The third symbolizes achievement, blend of (through Sufi) intellectual knowledge and heart purity. And lastly, the realization of soul and Creator.
(précis, conflation, acknowledgement afghan.network.net site)

‘BOUNDLESS LOVE FOR OTHERS’ ?
We are impoverished by the bland impersonality of modern life. We act as if we are isolated entities. We are complex beings in whom altruistic instincts and selfish ones jostle constantly for supremacy. Clearly everyone or nearly everyone has the capacity to empathise with another’s troubles and to demonstrate that by acts of generosity and self-sacrifice. We tend to keep this empathy locked up behind a mask of polite indifference. We see the results of mankind acting callously, thoughtlessly or selfishly. Yet even cruelty has a human heart. And heart-warmingly good deeds often spring out of the most unpromising situations and the most unlikely people. Why can’t compassion happen all the time? Why does it take a tsunami or a famine to trigger the West’s concern for the third world; billions out there need help all the time.
In religious communities the raison d’etre (the claimed reason for the existence of something or someone, or the purpose of something or someone) is supposed to be boundless love for others; yet ‘believers’ are frequently fractious and ungenerous to each other. (or even worse – author). Mankind is at its finest when at its most selfless. Memories of my darkest moments also often raise memories of the magnificent gestures of help and comfort I have received from others, particularly from strangers. (Many maintain that) in a crisis one can always depend on the kindness of strangers.
(excerpts, conflations, columnist, UK national newspaper, August 2007)

Firstly, we acknowledge the one God. Then in this life, we work to return to God, to realise our divinity, to merge and be One. We strive to live under the finest of God’s Laws and Regulations. God is Love, let this be recognised and realised, this is the commandment to all Mankind, above all others.
(excerpt, book, Conversations with Shankaracharya, India, 1974)

To understand the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists, one good place to start might be to explore what they themselves say about why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what they want. That in turn will lead you to the Qur’an (or Koran), the Islamic Holy Book. The jihadists quote it frequently themselves as those who are following ‘pure Islam’ the genuine article as it is taught in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. The Council on American Islamic Relations (itself under fire in America) and other Muslim groups say that in order to understand the true, peaceful Islam, we should read the Qur’an. The Qur’an is, according to classic Islamic thought, a perfect copy of a book that has existed eternally with Allah, the one true God, in Heaven. Muslims believes that everything in the book is absolutely true and that its message is applicable in all times and places. This is a stronger claim than Christians make for the Bible. When Christians of whatever tradition say that the Bible is God’s Word, they don’t mean that God spoke it word-for-word and that it’s free of all human agency - instead, there is the idea of ‘inspiration’ that God breathed through human authors, working through their human knowledge to communicate what he wished to. In the Qur’an, Allah is the only speaker throughout (with several, many, notable exceptions). There is no human element. The book is the pure and unadulterated divine word.
(excerpts, conflations, several religious sites, 2007)

What is dialogue about? The need for inter-religious (interfaith) dialogue is not doubted, but many still do not understand its real usefulness and purpose. What exactly is it about? Does one want to convert the other? Can one get involved with a clear conscience? What is the real impact of these fine words, about respect and living together, when we look at how believers from each religion behave? Is there not a place for being doubtful, or suspicious, about the intentions or one or the other side, if we take the time to read the scriptural sources? These questions cannot simply be swept under the carpet. Unless they are succinctly answered, today, we run the risk of having an outwardly agreeable dialogue that does not eliminate mistrust and suspicion, leading nowhere. Answers must arise, (for West and East, Muslim and Christian).
(excerpt, conflation, website article, Tariq Ramadan, 2004)

The current dominant Western conception of Religions does not tag religions as Ideologies. Consequently, it seems there is not systematic pressure, similar to that experienced by Communists and Fascists, being applied to Islam. Islam also escaped the neutralisation that Christianity was put through in the course of the formation of nation states, bearing in mind that most of the nation states of the Islamic world were concocted and brought into existence by the West. The reasons for the West’s passivity towards Islam may have had to do with the conception of religion that was based on the model of Christianity. Where political violence is not controlled, and religions like other ideologies are able to carry out acts of violence, they can become formidable and energetic forces as with Islam. (My) theory is that Islam, like other ideologies, will not survive without using violence. So the challenge is for Muslims to prove their ‘religion’ is not dependent on violence.
(excerpts, conflation, book on Political theory: Knowledge processing, creativity and politics, 2006)

Muslims are not getting any less religious. Second and third generations Muslims in Britain and across Europe demonstrate this. It casts doubts on the thesis that modernisation and secularisation necessarily go hand in hand. Young British Muslims are more urbanised and more educated than there parents, yet they are no more secular. The prophecy that religious identities would evaporate with the advance of modernisation has proven to be a myth. The world is experiencing a reawakening of religious identities, in North and South America as in Africa and Asia. Europe’s Muslims are no exception. But the more pressure is exerted on the Muslim minority, the greater this religious resurgence, and the more politicised its expression. Muslim identity, as a repository of symbols, norms and values, is profoundly rooted in a Muslim’s personality, its shape and colour however determined by context. The majority of British Muslims’ aims were to preserve their religious lifestyles within the existing framework of British society.
(excerpts, conflation, article by Muslim writer, UK national newspaper, August 2006)

In Islamic history, the idea of free will was early on declared heretical. The twelfth-century Hanbali jurist Ibn Abi Ya’la described the Qadari sect, which affirmed free will: ‘They are those who claim that they possess in full the capacity to act (al-istita`a), free will (al-mashi’a), and effective power (al-qudra). They consider that they hold in their grasp the ability to do good and evil, avoid harm and obtain benefit, obey and disobey, and be guided or misguided. They claim that human beings retain full initiative, without any prior status within the will of Allah for their acts, nor even in His knowledge of them. Their doctrine is similar to that of Zoroastrians and Christians. It is the very root of heresy’.
(excerpt, website article, Western commentary, on Qur’an)

Religion, it must be understood, is not Faith. Religion is the story of Faith. It is an institutionalised system of symbols and metaphors - rituals and myths – providing a common language with which a community of Faith can share with each other their numinous encounter with the Divine Presence. Religion is concerned not with ‘genuine’ history but with sacred history ‘which does not course through Time like a river. Rather, sacred history is like a hallowed tree whose roots dig deep (beyond Time) and whose branches weave in and out (with little concern for boundaries). When sacred and ‘genuine’ history collide, religions are born. (The secular, sometime religious say, respectfully, that is when Islam was born in the 7th century with Muhammad, pbuh: religious history arose and blended as the Lord ‘took over’ his Prophet to eventualise as a ‘new, final’ religion. With respect. author) Faith, mysterious and ineffable, eschewing categorisations, becomes entangled in the gnarled branches of religion, resulting in the clash of monotheisms (that we have today. author)
(excerpt, conflation, thanks to No God But God, Reza Aslan, 2005, 06)

For the would-be Sufi, what kind of preparation is needed, on the path of the Divine voyage? Moral preparation. But more than we understand it (in everyday life in the West). Ours is narrow, selfish, because we judge another by our ‘law’ instead of his. Moral, to the Sufi, is consideration of the law of (harmless) friendship, in the relationships with one’s elders, superiors, or younger or ‘inferior’. Friendship is simple but most difficult to practise, under Sufism. A life of friendship is nothing better. If we know its principal we do not need the moral of the world. Instead of his own advantage and rules of conduct, the Sufi considers the other person, to ‘see that person’s soul’. To consider the other person as separate, different from himself, he sees wrongly.
(excerpt, The Sufi Message, H. I. Khan, Sufi Master, 1990 Delhi, in memory of Mayo Roe, UK)

The substance of Islam Sufism is the Truth and the definition of sufism is the selfless experiencing and actualisation (realisation) of the Truth. The practice of sufism is the intention to go towards the Truth, by means of love and devotion. This is called the tariqat, the Spiritual Path or Way towards God. The sufi is one who is a lover of Truth, who by means of love and devotion moves towards the Perfection which all can seek. One who dies for the love of the material world (or mere worldly understanding. author), dies a hypocrite. One who dies for the love of the hereafter, dies an ascetic. But one who dies for the love of the Truth, dies a sufi. Sufism is a school for the actualisation of divine ethics. It involves an enlightened inner being, not intellectual proof, revelation and witnessing, not logic. By divine ethics, we are referring to ethics that transcend mere social convention, a way of being which is the actualisation ( realisation) of (the attributes of) God. To explain the Truth is indeed a difficult task. Words, being limited, can never really express the Perfection of the Absolute, the Unbound. Thus, for those who are imperfect, words create doubt and misunderstanding. For the sufi, ‘philosophers’ are those who view the Perfection of the Absolute from a limited perspective: so all they see is part of the (attributes of) Absolute, not the Infinite in its entirety. It is indeed true that what philosophers see is correct: nevertheless, it is only a part of the whole. Man is dominated by his (lower, worldly) self's desires and fears. Those who are ensnared in these habitual impulses are out of harmony with the Divine Nature. As a result of this ‘illness’, feelings become disturbed and accordingly, thoughts and perceptions become unsound; faith as well as knowledge of the Truth strays from what is real. One must first (study, work to) rectify incorrect thought processes and transmute desires and fears. This is accomplished by coming into harmony with the Divine Nature. This way of harmony (the Spiritual Path) consists of spiritual ‘poverty’ (humility), devotion, and the continuous, selfless remembrance of God. In this way, one comes to perceive the Truth as it really is: ‘The way of a lover is not among the religions; the church and state of lovers is God.’ Perfect beings can say, ‘There is nothing under my cloak but Allah.’ They have lost their 'selves' and become the manifestation of the Divine Nature and Divine Mysteries; their selves have departed and only God remains.
(excerpts, conflations from book, website review, introductions to Sufism, 2007)

When we consider the mystics and thinkers who look at Life from a spiritual point of view, they all agree, be they Yogis, Bhuddists, Christians – or Sufis. It does not matter which, for whenever they arrive at a certain stage of (deep, specific) understanding (of the Real), they all agree, they all have the same experiences, they all have the same realisation, to which they come in spite of all differences. The differences in dogma of the various Religions are only differences of form. Those who look at the surface see variations, but those who look below the surface (beyond the ‘ever-changing’) see one and the same Truth, hidden beneath, within all religions. The method of expression is different, but in Essence, it is all One and the same.
(excerpt, Vision of God and Man, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi master, d 1927)

Sufism is a (great) movement within Islam which focuses on the direct experience of Man and God. Sufism is found within both branches of Islam, Sunni and Shi'ite. Maulaana Jalalludin Balkhi (Jalalludin Mohammad 'Rumi' meaning ‘from Rome’) was born in 1207. His work is mainly on the universal meaning of Islam and the soul. The main fundamental principle of Jalalludin Balkhi's teaching was the unification of the mind and the heart. Man is the finest creation of God Almighty, even a part of Him. He, Man is to be respected. According to Maulana, a person who reaches the truth and spiritual perfection, directs his attention to universalism and not individualism and selfishness. Sufi is a person who tries to reach universalism rather than individualism. He need not (cannot easily? author) abandon worldly matters, but must not consider them an ultimate end. Rumi believed that priority to human love is a must, and religions can be united by this love (the ‘individual’ soul working to realise, re-join with its source, God. author).
(excerpt, conflation, Afghani website, July 2007)

My family lived in Khartoum in the early Sixties. Many British families had domestic help. We had Suleiman, a young Muslim man. He had an impeccable aura of dignity. I wonder what he would make of the situation in the Sudan now? He had something that is lacking in the world today: grace. He had the mark of a truly religious person, of whatever religion, who is at peace with himself and, mostly at peace with the world. How I wish the world was more like him.
(extract, conflation, from letter in UK national newspaper, December 2007) (Suleiman Khan I was the tenth and longest-serving Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1520 for 46 years. He died aged 71. Known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent, in the Islamic world he was the Lawgiver. He was a fair ruler, an opponent of corruption, a distinguished poet, a great patron artists and philosophers, overseeing the golden age of the Ottoman Empire's cultural development. Wikipedia, other sources).

I do hope our super-markets and super-stores do not en masse allow Muslim employees to avoid selling alcohol, or stacking shelves with alcohol (UK national newspaper report, October 1, 2007). It could lead to a backlash. The superstore at which I work (part-time, I am 70), has hundreds of product ranges and some 62,000 different items, so the opportunity for this kind of ‘product refusal’ on religious or moral grounds - by Muslim, Christian, Jew, Sikh, even a philosophy under-graduate working part-time - is immense. Once again, Muslim militancy is, directly or indirectly, demanding its ‘rights’ in our (before the 1960-70 immigration rush began) indigenous society; the store group concerned is only anticipating what militancy can threaten. It will not stop there, unless Muslim common-sense and its diffuse ‘leadership’ works more to stop it. I have worked with Muslims, men and women, for the past year. The men are bright, the women are invariably different and beautiful, it shines from their faces and you come to see just modesty, not men-fearing, in the wearing of the headscarf, faulty though I believe the reasoning. Over meal-breaks, I’ve not had a moment’s difficulty nor heard militant words. That comes from a small number of angry, twisted militants out of the one million adult Muslims in this country (61 m population). Peaceful Muslims must speak out more against militancy or, as with silent ‘ageism’ in the UK, they will find their path to integration mysteriously vanishing.
(copy of letter to Editor, UK national newspaper, from friend of author, October 2007 – unfortunately, not used)

MYSTIC ISLAM, ETERNAL YOGA
Through a complete study of mystic Islam, ‘the Moorish science’, one finds that all of the great spiritual systems of the world are inter-connected : ‘Man names the parts of Allah he sees, and this to him is all of Allah; and every nation sees a part of Allah, and every nation has a name for Allah. Your Brahmans call him ParaBrahma, in Egypt he is Thoth, and Zeus is his name in Greece, Jehovah is his Hebrew name, but everywhere he is ‘the Causeless Cause’, the rootless root from which all things have grown.’ As with all great systems of spiritual mastery, mystic Islam and the true Islamic life of tawhid (doctrine of Oneness) can be integrated as they are all one system stemming from ‘One’ great source. In fact proof of this can be seen in the spiritual systems of Islam and Yoga. If studied closely and with an open mind, one will see that there is ‘no’ conflict between Islam and Yoga as they are mutually beneficial and synergistic in nature. It is also known that Yoga, pre-Hindu, is not a religion, but a set of scientific techniques and skills that co-incide and enhance the practices of Islam. The ancient mystic arts of Advaita Vedanta and the doctrine of Oneness, tawhid of Islam, are of perfect compatibility as they both express the highest levels of Islam and Yoga. As most Sufi scientists agree that everything in manifestation has its origin in the Supernal, then it is well understood that the ‘realm world’, limited as it is, is just an expression of the ultimate Reality, and will ultimately be re-absorbed in its supernal Origin. Advaita Vedanta and Islamic science also agree that ALLAH is the only absolutely Real, eternal Reality (Truth is Aught and Aught is ALLAH); as all else is contingent and therefore transitory/illusion. The unitarian views of reality in Advaita Vedanta vibrates in accordance with the tawhîd (doctrine of Oneness) of Islam, and the Oneness of Being in the Sufi doctrine of Ibn al-‘Arabî.
(excerpts, conflated, religious website, November, 2006)

One in five Russians may be Muslim in 14-15 years (by 2020). Imam Shamil Alyautdinov often says things you do not quite expect from an imam: ‘If people wear tight jeans or skirts and speak slang, it does not mean they have veered from the path of true Islam’. Seventy years of Communism ‘bulldozed’ most religious and ethnic traditions in Russia, so you are not completely surprised to hear him saying it is all right that most Muslims do not even attend the mosque: ‘It is not obligatory – life is very fast these days, people find it hard to find time’. Unlike Muslim minorities in Western Europe, most Russian Muslims represent native people of what is now Russia, who inhabited their land for over a millennium. The country's Muslim community is extremely diverse - from Volga Tatars and Bashkirs to the ethnic mishmash of the North Caucasus. Imam Alyautdinov remembers that the people spent centuries adapting to the official dominance of Orthodox Christianity in Tsarist times, then underwent the Communist experiment aimed at rooting out religion, and the melting of all ethnic groups into one great Soviet nation. The wheel has now turned. The imam of the Moscow Memorial Mosque graduated from a regular secondary school in the Russian capital's suburbia, but studied Islamic theology in Egypt, and now has to find new methods of reaching his flock, suitable for the new era. Muslims from all around the country send him e-mails with questions on various aspects of everyday life and worship. His answers have already formed several books. One of them is a best-seller and encompasses a variety of issues for Muslims today, including aspects of the faith, sex and relationships. It has been praised in the foreword by leading Muslim clerics, theologians, activists and even the Iranian cultural attaché.
(excerpts, conflation 1, UK broadcast, translation of Russian broadcast, October 2005)

The association of Islam with ‘aggression’ has not been hard to find in recent times. From the headlines a range of questions arise, how can terrorism be justified, suicide bombers, beheadings, stonings, ignoring of human and women’s rights, the general absence of democracy? On the whole (goes the criticism), Muslims tend to ignore, evade or side-step such issues or write apologia. They concentrate on representing ‘the ideals that Islam seeks to implement’. ‘True’ Islam has been described by one scholar as ‘The Middle Way’, the way of balance and tolerance and of liberalism, founded on the conception that Man’s original nature is essentially good. At a ‘fundamental level’, said another, Islamic tradition offers a path to peace, both in the hearts of the individual and the world at large. ‘The actions of terrorists do not represent real Islam’.
(excerpts, conflated, from a guide to Islam, 2004, 2007)

When bad things happen to ‘good people’, it is hard to suppress our indignation. And because religious believers are sometimes tempted to see faith as ‘keeping our side of a bargain with God’ we can be indignant. Why does God allow it? The same question is asked of moral evils such as murder and war and injustices - why does not God protect the innocent? When tragedy strikes, we want to help, theist and atheist and agnostic. There are waves of loving-kindness. But the agnostic may want to believe in God but simply cannot see how evil and God can exist? But agnostics, atheists and the indifferent cannot dislodge the faith in others. God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving. ‘Allah revealed that he is absolute order, justice, mercy, truth and love and many other concepts,’ says the Muslim. The inter-play between human freedom, the Laws of Nature and the love of God is the right mix. Personal pain and suffering may eclipse the vision of God but the faithful wait for the Light to return. Holding on to faith is the virtue of Hope. ‘God (and God’s Laws) have given and that given is taken away. Blessed is God’. Job (in the Old Testament, the Bible) refused to curse God. He does not understand what is happening, God is the all-powerful Creator, of the Universe. His plans cannot be understood by human beings; there is overwhelming wisdom (not easily available to us - but it IS there). Job accepts but in so doing, goes beyond ego.
(excerpt, conflation, article, UK national newspaper, July 2007)
(PS by this site’s author: Hindu/Sanskrit offer deeper explanations regarding ‘God’s Laws’, ‘Nature’s Laws’ and the ‘Human Merger with God’. Search for yourselves, with my good wishes)

An Islamic political leadership is now needed to achieve radical procedural change in the scholarly community. Such leadership must herd this community into harmony with the age of science and the progress (taking place) in humanity. Without this driving force, Muslims are heading for massive confrontation with (areas of) humanity, something as disastrous as collision between two celestial bodies.
(excerpt, conflation, book, Islamic author, 2003)

MUSLIM VIEW, LOVE AND MARRIAGE
Coming from a Western or European background, we often equate love with the stereotypical images that we see in all forms of media. Sex is not love, and the word ‘love’ has, unfortunately, lost much of its true meaning. The television and movie screens tell us that if you consume this product you will be desirable, your husband or wife will ‘love you.’ Drink brand X and fall in love, wear brand Y and have him/her fall in love with you. This is not love, and the romantic notions that occupy the mind of young people often have proven in most cases to be unrealistic and harmful to those involved. (Western) marriages fall by the wayside because husbands and wives find that they cannot live up to the expectations. We only have to look at the alarming divorce rate in the West to understand this point. The West makes fun of the Islamic way of marriage, in particular arranged marriage. Yet the irony is that statistically arranged marriages (allegedly, how to compare? – author) prove to be more successful and lasting than romantic types of courtship. Again, Islam, on the other hand, being the natural way for human beings to live, employs no trickery or gimmicks. Love in Islam brings men and woman together with strong bonds that tie couples together with the rope of Islam. On young people, however, a Muslim hadith says: ‘When a man and a woman are together alone, the shaytan (Satan) makes their third’. Marriage in Islam is a contract between two people, a man and a woman, by which they agree to enter into a halal relationship for the sake of Allah Most High. Another hadith explains: ‘A woman may be married for four things: her wealth, her lineage, her beauty and her commitment to religion’. Love in Islam is a halal marriage secure in the knowledge that the wealth and adornments of this world are but illusions and that it is in the Hereafter that our real lives will begin. A marriage based firmly and soundly on the Qur’an and the sunnah should suffer none of the pangs of insecurity and subterfuge. It should be a relationship whose sole purpose is to worship, praise, and thank Allah Most High. If love—the tender blissful feeling of being in love—is present in this relationship, then it is an extra blessing from Allah. It is a relationship that binds them to each other through all the tests and trials of this life, through hardship and ease. Marriage is the finest, purest and permissible relationship that should exist between a male and female; it should be the goal that they both have in mind. On what basis would you (might you?) like to choose your partner? Wouldn’t you look to her commitment to Islam – does she pray regularly, for example? Does she adhere to the Islamic hijab prescribed by shari'ah? The Prophet (pbuh) says: ‘Three qualities, if found in a person, will help him have perfect faith: Having Allah and His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, as the most beloved ones, loving a person only for the sake of Allah and hating getting back to Kufr (disbelief) the way one hates to be thrown into fire.’ Through our commitment to Islam we should be able to return to an era where love and marriage are synonymous; where a marriage is a partnership, a bonding of two people that, like ripples on water, moves ever steadily outwards to encompass the ideals of an Islamic community.
(excerpts, conflation, website article, Muslim woman author, Arab emirate, June 2007)

SUFISM PREDATES ISLAM
As Islam expanded it encountered other belief systems. The most notable of these is Sufism. Sufism predates Islam. Throughout the Middle East there always existed mystic schools of some form or other, from desert visionaries to more organised schools (Jesus, or should I say Joshua ben Yussef, his true name, came under the influence of the mystic John). It can be argued for instance, that Kabala entered Jewish lore as a result of their exile in Babylon. Essentially Sufism is the adaptation of Islam to several mystical traditions, Ismaili Gnosis, Neo-Platonism and so on. The point I want to make here is that Sufism unfortunately, does not arise from within Islam itself, but is the result of the influence of various mystical traditions. Sufism has allowed a multi-layered interpretation of what is essentially a clear set of injunctions. Some Sufi schools hold that there are seven levels to the Koran. The various types of mystical interpretative methods are too complex to go into here. The essential point is that Sufism has allowed what was a previously closed belief system to find ways to be read in an open manner. With the influence of Sufism, Islam was able to – an extent - develop beyond its certain, absolutist barrier. This development has not been without its conflicts. Sufism needed the patronage of political power to operate successfully. There have always been fundamentalists who see Sufism as impure. At times Sufism has been suppressed. When Sufism is allowed to flourish Islam has, as is to be expected, undergone normal evolution. But…. a dispassionate memetic analysis shows that Islam is burdened by that certain centre of gravity. The Koran is, in essence a pre-modern, pre-rational text. No matter what gloss moderate Muslims place on it, the text speaks for itself. This is the problem. No matter what a moderate council of clerics may say, there has always been a fundamentalist council who have been able to provide unambiguous quotes from the Koran and the Hadith. The fundamentalist stream in Islam has always been there, pulling Islam back to its so-certain centre of gravity. But why, after so many centuries has fundamentalism grown in strength such that it is capable of committing the atrocities it has? (The need is to explore, analyse, and understand. author)
(excerpts, conflation from website September 2001)