Islamic scholars slam injustice

[PsychoDad]

Islamic scholars slam injustice

Monday 23 February 2004, 9:00 Makka Time, 6:00 GMT

An international conference of Islamic scholars has opened in Indonesia with bitter attacks from President Megawati Sukarnoputri on the US-led war in Iraq
...
"It may be due to coincidence or intention, but an exceptional injustice is apparent in the attitude and actions of big countries toward countries whose majority of populations are Muslims," said the president of the world's largest Muslim-populated nation.
...
"We apparently need to search for similarities among the religious traditions of humankind that are so rich, which we must believe originate from the same god, and turn them into the basis to building a better world," she said.


The three-day conference is attended by some 300 delegates from 49 countries, including Western students of Islam.

More here:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4E1BC411-333B-4DE0-8057-AC7825430B28.htm

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Thank you

There is so much information about Islam rampant in this country. If people would open their minds and hearts they would understood what Islam means!

[megatherium]

2. There is a lot of information about Islam in this country.

Americans are well aware of the treatment of women in Islamic countries, the harsh and repressive laws against Christianity and other religions in Islamic countries, and so forth.

But what Americans are not as aware of are the large number of Muslims who believe in peace and tolerance, and who understand the common grounds of all the great faiths. Americans may not be aware of all the Muslims who have come to the US because they want to live in an open, tolerant society where the laws protect minorities. Certainly, I wasn't aware of this until I went to graduate school and began my career in academia, where I met and became friends with a number of Muslims.

Very soon after 9/11, I met an old friend from where I used to teach. This friend happens to be Jewish. I was deeply impressed when he told me of his own efforts to reach out to the Muslim community in that college town, to help assure them that they were welcome and that he and their neighbors were concerned about their well-being.

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. What many Americans are not aware of

is that the things that make such good TV about oppressing women and repressive laws against Christianity etc are either pre-Islamic customs and/or political crap.

One does not have to go far to discover customs and practices in Christian countries that are somewhat at odds with the message of Jesus.

Religion - all religions - have long been a useful tool of people whose motivations have more to do with the earthly concerns of controlling people and resources than with anything remotely spiritual.

[mobuto]

5. Pre-Islamic customs?

So what? Just because the Saudis were oppressing women in the 4th century its now ok for them to do it in the 21st?

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. US policy on oppression of women is quite flexible

Women have been for millennia, and are today, oppressed just about anywhere you can think of. Until the Taliban turned down the very generous offer presented to them on the occasion of their visit to Texas a few years ago, the western outrage and anguish over the impact on women of Pashtun customs that predate Islam by no one is sure quite how many thousands of years was remarkably contained. It must have required a near superhuman effort.

The idea of women as standalone human beings as opposed to property is a relatively new idea, and while many cultures have made some degree of movement in that direction, including the US itself, however in the west a woman's greatest value is still her sexual attractiveness, and in the east it is still as a producer of sons.

The sound of breaking glass is sometimes quite deafening, and walking barefoot is not recommended.

[varun]

7. exactly!

looks at Saudi Arabia - the best buddy US has in middle east.

Have you ever heard any criticism of the Saudi govt. because of its human rights record?

[mobuto]

8. Yes I have, but that's beside the point.

The State Department continually criticizes Saudi Arabia's abysmal human rights record even if it does little substantive to try to correct it. See, for example: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18288.htm


But even if the US did ignore rights violations that doesn't excuse them in any way. Women are oppresed in Saudi Arabia in the name of Shari'a law. That may be done without our active opposition, and it may predate Islam, but it is still a great evil.

[maxsolomon]

10. parade magazine!

listed prince faud as the #5 worst dictator in the world on sunday.

PARADE! you'd think they know to avoid the house of saud. they usually toe the line.

[mobuto]

9. Who cares what the US position is?

Women in the United States may be objectified and they may be the subject of discrimination, but they have the same rights as men. Women in Saudi Arabia are not treated as human beings. There is a stark and marked contrast and to deny or obfuscate that is wrong.

[PsychoDad]

11. Seems ok to our government....

I've heard no comdemnation of Saudi practices toward women or minorities comming from our government...

The point is this discrimination is in spite of Islam, not due to it. The Quran and Hadith teach against monarchies and kings, and teaches that All Men and Women are equals.

Change does need to happen, but change is not what our government wants to see. This change has to come from within, from within the Muslim world Itself. It cannot be done from outside with a stick...you only create more radicals. Moderate scholars need to show according to Hadith and Quran what the Prophet's words and vision was... To get back to the vision of Islam that was practiced in medina and in the first century of Islam... To show that the current opression is bidah, or innovation, not the result of true Islam.

[mobuto]

12. Then you haven't been paying attention

Every year the government criticizes the Saudi regime in its annual human rights reports. It obviously needs to do a lot more and would if it weren't for oil- but its ridiculous to blame the United States when the buck stops with the Saudi dictatorship.

The point is this discrimination is in spite of Islam, not due to it.

That may be. I'm not going to presume to lecture you on what Islam means. But you have to acknowledge that a great many Muslims disagree with you on that, and believe that discrimination is required under Shari'a law. The challenge lies in changing public opinion.

It cannot be done from outside with a stick...you only create more radicals.

I agree completely. The US has to deal, however, with the Islamic world and we need to find policies that are conducive to positive, progressive change without taking a proactive role.

[PsychoDad]

13. Criticism in a report is a nice start....

but I'm sure you would agree actions are stronger than words.

"believe that discrimination is required under Shari'a law"
There is more than one school of Sharia, and like our own legal code it can be ignored or misused for an agenda.

I would like to think, and I pray, that most of my brothers and sisters see the need for moderation, equality and tolerance as taught by Muhammid (saw). Many who I interact with day to day do.

[mobuto]

14. Of course I agree

I think US support for the Saudi government has been a terrible mistake. We need to put pressure on the Saudis to introduce meaningful democratic reforms - but at the same time there is the very legimate fear that a majority of Saudis would support a Wahabbi-fundamentalist theocracy even more severe than the one currently in place.

There is more than one school of Sharia, and like our own legal code it can be ignored or misused for an agenda.

I will not challenge you on that. But you must agree that the form of Shari'a interpreted by a great many, if not an outright majority of Saudis is an intollerant as any system of government can possibly be.

I would like to think, and I pray, that most of my brothers and sisters see the need for moderation, equality and tolerance as taught by Muhammid (saw). Many who I interact with day to day do.

I hope you're right.

[JoFerret]

4. And she was an ally of a certain country not so long ago

"The act of violence undertaken unilaterally against the Republic of Iraq by certain countries, which are now finding it difficult to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction there, which is the sole justification to launch the biggest military attack at the beginning of the 21st century, is an evident picture of this injustice," she said.