Chasing dark shadows

Submitted by Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai (India), Mar 10, 2008 at 01:04

Monday, March 10, 2008

1. Being knowledgeable about Islam and being malicious about Islam are two different and distinct criteria. The whole lots of non-Muslim scribes appear to be mixing the two to come out with distorted picture of Islam and Muslims. Muslim writers in Media, at least, leaving out the fringe and the bought- outs, can make enormous contribution to the subject which is now engaging the attention of the US and western world in general. I have no hesitation in accepting that hundreds and thousands of non-Muslims have spent their lives studying Islam, Muslim world and Arabic too, just to get some insight into the esoteric world that so differs from the Western society. Not all of them are bigoted and scare-mongers. Some do have made a career out of their hatemongering. A balanced view of Islam and Muslims promoting a more positive approach to the study and practice of Islam should be a welcome suggestion and should not be off-handedly rejected on distorted illogical argumentation. Philip Bennet's suggestion is more accommodative. Dr. Pipes' rejection is typical of his tangential logic to put down any unsavory initiatives. Readers can make their own judgments.

2. Instances abound, where the wordsmiths are busy day and night in propagating the special meaning of any word, be that English or Arabic or any language, through constant usage and hammering their agenda to convey their own needs. Dr. Daniel cannot categorically deny that words from one language or country or region, travel to different language, country, group and region are not subject to such treatment of completely denuding the word of its original definitive meaning or usage. Brown has pointed out to that phenomena and he is on much solid ground than Dr. Pipes.

3. The usage of 'Islamist' is user driven new meaning that some Muslim baiters have been promoting, just as an exercise in hair-splitting. This is an attempt to move from the obnoxious collective profiling of Muslims, to a more subjective definition to give a respectable color to their negative exercise in camouflaging their bigotry with the trappings of high scholarship.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

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