It's been almost a year since my last post. During that time, I've taken a step back and looked at the world, specifically the Islamic world, from an outsider's perspective. It has been quite a journey for me, to listen to people debate, debase and stand up for Islam--and not getting involved. I'll dedicate this post to why I decided to suddenly take a break, which I'm sure many of you are curious about.
I used to write posts quite frequently about anything that came to mind that concerned Muslims. We talked about the Arab Spring, Osama, memorial Day, September 11th, my disgust with the government, and a host of other topics in between. After my September 15th post, I felt like I needed to walk away for a bit.
I mainly did this because it was time I looked at things from a, shall we say, slightly different angle. Instead of getting involved and jumping on things as soon as something went down, it was quite peaceful to just watch it happen. I learned a lot and really got a chance to observe things both from a Muslim's point of view, and from a non-Muslim's point of view. Suddenly, I was no longer focused on "how can I prove this person wrong?"
Due to me observing things from the background, I reevaluated the state of Muslims. Is it really as bad as we think? Was I also sucked in by the media propaganda and had I fallen into the same trap that I myself condemned others for falling into? The answer was "yes."
In order to prove my point, let me ask you, Muslim readers. What is your current view of the state of Muslims. Do you think we're in bad shape? Or do you think there's hope? Chances are you will say "we're in bad shape."
Why is this? The answer is simple. You, along with everyone else, have bought into the media's portrayal of the world. Do you hear about the Iranians saving a U.S. cargo ship from pirates? No, of course not. In fact, many of you have probably never even heard of the story and are wondering, "well, that's not possible. They hate us!"
This is exactly how the world wants you to think. They want you and everyone else, ordinary American citizens going about their American lives, to think that Iran and the U.S. are doomed when it comes to peace and mutual respect, as Obama's politically motivated words so elegantly put it long ago.
I used to think this way as well--that is, until I stopped writing since last year. During my time off, it was this idea that I revisited; and the interesting thing is, it changed my outlook.
We've always known Arabs aren't terrorists. If you've been reading this blog since it started, you should be well aware of that fact. We know that Arabs are actually kind-hearted people, not bomb-throwing zombies and Opium-addicted suppliers like our government likes us to think. But there's more to it than just terrorism.
If you look back at history, you will see that Islam gave rise to one of the greatest cultures to ever exist. It's common knowledge that a Muslim invented Algebra when he studied under Imam Jaffer Al-Sadiq. It's also common knowledge that the Muslims brought books to the Europeans when the Crusaders plundered their land; this gave rise to the Age of Enlightenment. Further, it's common knowledge that while the Arabs were exploring arts and other cultures, Europe was still in its Dark Ages. These Arabs were Muslims, and their wealth of knowledge was inspired by Islam.
Islam existed hand-in-hand with scientific advances (so don't give me that "religion is for idiots, science is for thinkers" stuff.) You will see this especially in the Shia traditions.
My point is that these people who are known as backwards today were responsible for turning points in history, conveniently wiped out of the record by kings and others with their own agendas, and nothing can make this more evident than the recent succession of events that has taken place in the Middle East.
They call it the Arab Spring. I call it "it's about time."
So far, three leaders have fallen because of popular uprising and Syria's leader, Al-Assad, will probably be next. Along with these uprisings, people are going back to their fundamentals: the core of Islam--human rights.
There are several narrations from Prophet Muhammad (SAWH) in which he says "I've come to perfect your manners," and part of Islam's fundamental principles is the principle of fairness, and human rights. The Meccans did not like the Prophet because he upset their status quo by empowering the poor people, by showing them that they're not dumb like the Quraysh tribe wanted them to believe.
These revolutions have been just that--freedom from oppression; to get back the right to free will (which Islam is a firm believer in.)
Along with general human rights, women are slowly regaining their liberty as well. Wait, Munawar, did you say "regaining?" Yes, I did.
During my observation, there were two issues I saw as being at the forefront of peoples' problems with Islam. One was the idea that Islam oppresses women, and the other was that "Islamists" are anti-progressive and barbaric.
So why did I write "regaining?" Simple. Womens' rights, after the Prophet's death, went away. Islam introduced an inheritance code for women; no longer did they have to sit by while their male counterparts took all the wealth to supposedly protect the woman (we all know how that used to turn out.) Women also, during the time of the Prophet, gained the right to property ownership.
Still, there's one event in Islam's early days that stands out. Khadijah's marriage to the Prophet. She was his first wife, and she was a businesswoman. She was involved in the trade business. As if that's not enough, it was Khadija who proposed to the Prophet; not the other way around. Typically, people think of monotheistic religions demanding that the male propose, and proposal by the woman is forbidden. The marriage of Khadija and the Prophet is evidence against that misconception, and this sort of thing only continued once Islam gained a hold.
Suddenly, men had to get their wives' permission before they could marry more, and if the woman denied them the permission, it was forbidden for them to marry additional wives.
All this progress slowly went away once the Prophet died and Abu Bakr and his regime gained their iron fist over the Muslims to restore the original status quo.
A couple days ago, I heard of a Saudi Arabian woman driving to defy the government's ban on women driving. Is she doing this to defy Islam? On the contrary, she's doing it to restore Islam.
I was thrilled to read about this woman, Manal Al-Sharif, for the reason that she has no anger towards Islam. She's not doing this because she thinks Islam is a bad religion. Rather, she's doing it because it's her right under Islamic law. She has drawn a fine line between defying the government and defying Islam, unlike the Irshad Manji clones running around directing all their hatred towards Islam itself.
We have the Arab Spring and people demanding their rights that were guaranteed to them by Islam. The Muslims in the Middle East are headed towards better days, and maybe in one-hundred years when we look back at this time period and someone cockily types to all the people in the general area "so, no Muslim blew himself up today?" someone else will step in and reply, "Muslims aren't like that."
Ma'a sallamah,
Munawar
Showing posts with label Gadhafi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gadhafi. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Does Age Really Make Us Wiser?
As I watched the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, several things crossed my mind. At the forefront of all those things was one question: what happened to us?
Ten years ago, I remember, quite distinctly, the days following 9/11. They passed in quite a flurry of events, emotions, speeches, and general confusion. This was my first introduction to terrorism. I found it hard to come to terms with the idea that someone out there has been plotting to kill me, or someone I know, or the country I love, simply for political gain. It was also the first time I had heard the name Wahabi and Taliban. Before 9/11/2001, they were completely unknown to me. Then our country went to war, a war which I supported in the beginning because it seemed like the correct thing to do. You see, I, like everyone else, wanted to get rid of the bad Muslims I had just recently heard about. As I got older, though, I realized just how much the government lied.
The lying isn't what astonished me later on in life; it was how easily Americans fell for it. I was a kid, that was one thing. Others were adults, and they still bought into it. Some of them still buy into it, to the point now where the entire airport check-in process has been changed forever, and where certain words have been, due to public opinion, disallowed altogether. In spite of all this, I seriously doubt we are any safer than we were ten years ago.
Still, as I thought about all this today--how innocent I was ten years ago, one thing stood out among the rest; how Americans came together in so many interfaith sessions taking place across the country.
I remember going to at least three of them. We had Christians invoking the name of Prophet Jesus (PBUH,) Jews invoking the name of Prophets Moses and Abraham (PBUH,) and Muslims invoking the name of Prophet Muhammad (SAWH.) We heard about Siddhartha, meditation, the Universal Being, and at the end of all this, we ALL joined hands (literally) to sing "I'm Proud To Be An American." I saw that unity come back today as people (including Muslims) announced the names of people they had lost to the Trade Center attacks, and it showed me where we should have been, and where we actually are.
In the years that followed the 9/11 attacks, we saw a dramatic shift in attitude. Suddenly, no one wanted to listen to anyone else. Suddenly, you showed me a cross, I had to show you a Quran. Suddenly, you told me your god has four arms, I had to tell you my god has no physical representation.
This gradual shift, over about two to three years, ended up escalating and getting narrower and narrower, until sights were focused purely as they are today--on Muslims. Even today, when I think back ten years ago, it is absolutely amazing how public opinion can change so quickly.
Is this change unassisted? Change in public opinion always has a basis. Either Americans start losing touch with conservative religious doctrine (which resulted in public opinion to not be so conservative about sex, as Sayed Muhammad Rizvi talks about in his book "Marriage and Morals in Islam,") or Americans change their dietary habits (as is evident by the excessive amounts of Slim-Fast spin-offs available on the market today.)
Therefore, the change in public opinion towards Muslims has to have a cause as well, and I daresay, it was not just the 9/11 attacks which caused the shift.
Unlike the other shifts in history, this one was more deliberate, and was done by people with specific agendas. In fact, it was so strong, it drove someone to kill more than seventy people in Norway. Yes, you probably know who I'm talking about now.
The shift from religions coexisting with each other to the idea that America must be deIslamized was caused by people who used 9/11 to define Islam. Essentially, if they wrote World Religion 101 textbooks, you wouldn't be able to learn about Islam unless you learned about the 9/11 attacks. People like Robert Spencer who calls himself an anti jihadist. People like Geert Wilders who wants to deIslamize the world and deport all Muslims out of America and the West. People like Pam Geller who runs Atlas Shrugs. They are like Hitler incarnated in the modern world; instead of putting us in concentration camps, they attack us on social media outlets, write strongly worded letters to pressure the government, all the while sitting in their nice, air-conditioned offices.
What the three players conveniently ignored (there has been a lot of convenient ignoring going on lately) is one critical point which completely demolishes their ideas. However, Wilders can't acknowledge it because his Freedom Party is founded on the basis that it will rid Europe of Muslims--he has political stakes in the matter. Spencer can't acknowledge it because it would crush his site, jihadwatch.org, and render the few books he has published useless--he has money in it. Geller can't acknowledge it because she runs Atlas Shrugs, a site which doubtless generates quite a bit of revenue--she has money in it. All these three are in so deep that none of them could safely turn their backs without a major financial loss, and this is why, to this day, despite the evidence clearly being against them, they keep on professing their corrupt views of Islam and keep on stirring the public to the point where, now, it is becoming violent from peaceful.
The critical piece of evidence against them is one thing: Alcohol. When Saddam was captured, it's common knowledge that the military discovered wine in his hideout. Wait, doesn't Islam forbid Alcohol?
For Osama, it was pork and pornography. He also had several mistresses (despite Islam's limit being four.)
Most recently, for Gadhafi, it was Alcohol, and very lavish living quarters, despite him claiming several times he lived modestly. Further, the Alcohol was found by rebel fighters during the month of Ramadan, when there was a country-wide ban on it.
Despite all this, the three players still claim Muslims are to blame, that Muslims blew up the Trade Centers, and that Muslims should be killed.
Over the last three years or so, I have found this hatred against Muslims has gotten more and more unfounded. People are simply angry to be angry. You say Muslim, and a bomb goes off in their heads. Yet, when you ask them, "Why are you mad?" They can't answer. Does this sound familiar? In the 1940s, a lot of the Nazi party simply followed orders. They had no idea why they hated Jews, but they hated them to hate them. Today, the very word, "Muslim," has such a negative connotation to it, even Muslims only but whisper it to each other. Others still completely conceal their identities for fear of retaliation, as if they caused the terror attacks of 9/11.
I have news for you. We attend the same universities you do, eat the same food you do, walk the same streets you do, and you may even pass ME a couple times without knowing it. We don't chuck bodies into the sea when people die, we don't spend our entire lives locked in a laboratory thinking up the next clever plan on how to take down America. All we want is to be offered the same opportunities the rest of you have.
So let me ask you this. If there was Alcohol found in Saddam's and Osama's place of residence, and there was Alcohol found in Gadhafi's place of residence, and the consumption of Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, how can these people possibly be Muslim? What, because they pray five times a day, they're Muslim? I have news for you, a WHOLE CHAPTER in the Quran is dedicated to condemning people like that, who pray but, as the Quran puts it, are heedless. Further, there is a requirement for prayer. One is not allowed to pray if he or she is "intoxicated," meaning if a person is under the influence of Alcohol, it is forbidden for them to pray.
How can you possibly call these people Muslims--if, when Prophet Muhammad started preaching, he set a very important precedence of how Jews, Christians and Muslims should coexist as a single Abrahamic faith, and no one should ever step on the sacred symbols of another person--when these people have killed innocent civilians simply because they have a difference in faith? If these were real Islamic countries, any and all faiths would be welcomed. If you look into Islamic history, you'll see that when Prophet Muhammad established his government in Madina, he didn't force anyone to convert to Islam. In fact, the constitution of the government dictated that everyone should be judged by their own books. In other words, the Bible was the judge between two Christians having a disagreement, and the Torah was the judge between two Jews. Further, verse 2:62 from the Quran even praises Christians and Jews. As if that's not enough, a chapter later on states "You shall have your religion, and I shall have mine." I won't go into the details here, since the paper I wrote back in 2009 explains it in greater details and which I have linked elsewhere on this site (probably in the previous post.)
How can you continue to call these people Muslims when Syria insisted on crushing civilians DURING THE MONTH OF RAMADAN when people were fasting?
And this is what begs the question. How can they POSSIBLY be called Muslims? Is it because of self-identification? If so, your claims against Islam have no basis, since anyone can claim to be Muslim, Christian or Jew. It's just a name. But this is not how America was supposed to be. This nation was founded on rational thinking, freedom of religion and freedom from persecution because of opinion. Today, we have gone completely backwards. The very event we condemn, the Holocaust, we are helping to bring about in the form of an Islamocaust. The very persecution we ran from and wanted freedom from, we are committing simply because a country is not a democratic nation and has no car dealerships. The worst part is, this is not how we were ten years ago.
As I watched the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, several things crossed my mind. At the forefront of all those things was one question: what happened to us?
Ten years ago, I remember, quite distinctly, the days following 9/11. They passed in quite a flurry of events, emotions, speeches, and general confusion. This was my first introduction to terrorism. I found it hard to come to terms with the idea that someone out there has been plotting to kill me, or someone I know, or the country I love, simply for political gain. It was also the first time I had heard the name Wahabi and Taliban. Before 9/11/2001, they were completely unknown to me. Then our country went to war, a war which I supported in the beginning because it seemed like the correct thing to do. You see, I, like everyone else, wanted to get rid of the bad Muslims I had just recently heard about. As I got older, though, I realized just how much the government lied.
The lying isn't what astonished me later on in life; it was how easily Americans fell for it. I was a kid, that was one thing. Others were adults, and they still bought into it. Some of them still buy into it, to the point now where the entire airport check-in process has been changed forever, and where certain words have been, due to public opinion, disallowed altogether. In spite of all this, I seriously doubt we are any safer than we were ten years ago.
Still, as I thought about all this today--how innocent I was ten years ago, one thing stood out among the rest; how Americans came together in so many interfaith sessions taking place across the country.
I remember going to at least three of them. We had Christians invoking the name of Prophet Jesus (PBUH,) Jews invoking the name of Prophets Moses and Abraham (PBUH,) and Muslims invoking the name of Prophet Muhammad (SAWH.) We heard about Siddhartha, meditation, the Universal Being, and at the end of all this, we ALL joined hands (literally) to sing "I'm Proud To Be An American." I saw that unity come back today as people (including Muslims) announced the names of people they had lost to the Trade Center attacks, and it showed me where we should have been, and where we actually are.
In the years that followed the 9/11 attacks, we saw a dramatic shift in attitude. Suddenly, no one wanted to listen to anyone else. Suddenly, you showed me a cross, I had to show you a Quran. Suddenly, you told me your god has four arms, I had to tell you my god has no physical representation.
This gradual shift, over about two to three years, ended up escalating and getting narrower and narrower, until sights were focused purely as they are today--on Muslims. Even today, when I think back ten years ago, it is absolutely amazing how public opinion can change so quickly.
Is this change unassisted? Change in public opinion always has a basis. Either Americans start losing touch with conservative religious doctrine (which resulted in public opinion to not be so conservative about sex, as Sayed Muhammad Rizvi talks about in his book "Marriage and Morals in Islam,") or Americans change their dietary habits (as is evident by the excessive amounts of Slim-Fast spin-offs available on the market today.)
Therefore, the change in public opinion towards Muslims has to have a cause as well, and I daresay, it was not just the 9/11 attacks which caused the shift.
Unlike the other shifts in history, this one was more deliberate, and was done by people with specific agendas. In fact, it was so strong, it drove someone to kill more than seventy people in Norway. Yes, you probably know who I'm talking about now.
The shift from religions coexisting with each other to the idea that America must be deIslamized was caused by people who used 9/11 to define Islam. Essentially, if they wrote World Religion 101 textbooks, you wouldn't be able to learn about Islam unless you learned about the 9/11 attacks. People like Robert Spencer who calls himself an anti jihadist. People like Geert Wilders who wants to deIslamize the world and deport all Muslims out of America and the West. People like Pam Geller who runs Atlas Shrugs. They are like Hitler incarnated in the modern world; instead of putting us in concentration camps, they attack us on social media outlets, write strongly worded letters to pressure the government, all the while sitting in their nice, air-conditioned offices.
What the three players conveniently ignored (there has been a lot of convenient ignoring going on lately) is one critical point which completely demolishes their ideas. However, Wilders can't acknowledge it because his Freedom Party is founded on the basis that it will rid Europe of Muslims--he has political stakes in the matter. Spencer can't acknowledge it because it would crush his site, jihadwatch.org, and render the few books he has published useless--he has money in it. Geller can't acknowledge it because she runs Atlas Shrugs, a site which doubtless generates quite a bit of revenue--she has money in it. All these three are in so deep that none of them could safely turn their backs without a major financial loss, and this is why, to this day, despite the evidence clearly being against them, they keep on professing their corrupt views of Islam and keep on stirring the public to the point where, now, it is becoming violent from peaceful.
The critical piece of evidence against them is one thing: Alcohol. When Saddam was captured, it's common knowledge that the military discovered wine in his hideout. Wait, doesn't Islam forbid Alcohol?
For Osama, it was pork and pornography. He also had several mistresses (despite Islam's limit being four.)
Most recently, for Gadhafi, it was Alcohol, and very lavish living quarters, despite him claiming several times he lived modestly. Further, the Alcohol was found by rebel fighters during the month of Ramadan, when there was a country-wide ban on it.
Despite all this, the three players still claim Muslims are to blame, that Muslims blew up the Trade Centers, and that Muslims should be killed.
Over the last three years or so, I have found this hatred against Muslims has gotten more and more unfounded. People are simply angry to be angry. You say Muslim, and a bomb goes off in their heads. Yet, when you ask them, "Why are you mad?" They can't answer. Does this sound familiar? In the 1940s, a lot of the Nazi party simply followed orders. They had no idea why they hated Jews, but they hated them to hate them. Today, the very word, "Muslim," has such a negative connotation to it, even Muslims only but whisper it to each other. Others still completely conceal their identities for fear of retaliation, as if they caused the terror attacks of 9/11.
I have news for you. We attend the same universities you do, eat the same food you do, walk the same streets you do, and you may even pass ME a couple times without knowing it. We don't chuck bodies into the sea when people die, we don't spend our entire lives locked in a laboratory thinking up the next clever plan on how to take down America. All we want is to be offered the same opportunities the rest of you have.
So let me ask you this. If there was Alcohol found in Saddam's and Osama's place of residence, and there was Alcohol found in Gadhafi's place of residence, and the consumption of Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, how can these people possibly be Muslim? What, because they pray five times a day, they're Muslim? I have news for you, a WHOLE CHAPTER in the Quran is dedicated to condemning people like that, who pray but, as the Quran puts it, are heedless. Further, there is a requirement for prayer. One is not allowed to pray if he or she is "intoxicated," meaning if a person is under the influence of Alcohol, it is forbidden for them to pray.
How can you possibly call these people Muslims--if, when Prophet Muhammad started preaching, he set a very important precedence of how Jews, Christians and Muslims should coexist as a single Abrahamic faith, and no one should ever step on the sacred symbols of another person--when these people have killed innocent civilians simply because they have a difference in faith? If these were real Islamic countries, any and all faiths would be welcomed. If you look into Islamic history, you'll see that when Prophet Muhammad established his government in Madina, he didn't force anyone to convert to Islam. In fact, the constitution of the government dictated that everyone should be judged by their own books. In other words, the Bible was the judge between two Christians having a disagreement, and the Torah was the judge between two Jews. Further, verse 2:62 from the Quran even praises Christians and Jews. As if that's not enough, a chapter later on states "You shall have your religion, and I shall have mine." I won't go into the details here, since the paper I wrote back in 2009 explains it in greater details and which I have linked elsewhere on this site (probably in the previous post.)
How can you continue to call these people Muslims when Syria insisted on crushing civilians DURING THE MONTH OF RAMADAN when people were fasting?
And this is what begs the question. How can they POSSIBLY be called Muslims? Is it because of self-identification? If so, your claims against Islam have no basis, since anyone can claim to be Muslim, Christian or Jew. It's just a name. But this is not how America was supposed to be. This nation was founded on rational thinking, freedom of religion and freedom from persecution because of opinion. Today, we have gone completely backwards. The very event we condemn, the Holocaust, we are helping to bring about in the form of an Islamocaust. The very persecution we ran from and wanted freedom from, we are committing simply because a country is not a democratic nation and has no car dealerships. The worst part is, this is not how we were ten years ago.
As I watched the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, several things crossed my mind. At the forefront of all those things was one question: what happened to us?
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