Nabil...I think I know what you're saying as another "Muslim" by birth

Submitted by Wana88 (United States), Aug 7, 2009 at 10:11

Nabil:

I've perused what you've written w/some interest here and, to an extent, can empathize/appreciate what you're trying to get across as I, too, am Muslim by birth NOT choice and I KNOW how you and I must walk on egg shells on the topic of our religion. You sound like a man who applies reason and logic and hasn't succumbed into that surreal world of conspiracies and demonization (of any given religion be it Judaism, LDS, Christianity, Islam, Zorastrianism,or sub-sects like Ahmedis, Ismailis etc). I also don't like what some of the other non-Muslim are doing here to you because it smacks of "intellectual genocide" (Think I just coined a phrase). They need to "cultivate" reasoned Muslims like you and not try to destroy, or worse infuriate/radicalize, someone as thoughtful as you seem to be.

It is so easy for non-Muslims to demonize, condemn, attack those of us who are slaves of Islam. What they forget is that it is imprudent, not to mention stupid, to take on and rattle the chain of the entire umma (not that it is in any way unified). Such strategies on sensitive matters of religion would only backfire and galvanize fencesitters into acts of violence and stupidity/jahiliya. There are smarter ways to skin a cat.... Non-Muslims do not know the weight on our shoulders from those within our religion who view any Muslim who dares ponder or applies independent reasoning (ijtehad) --as apparently you and many others try to do daily--as a threat. I glean from your writing that you are open and recognize the need for reform and 21st century thinking within the regressive intellectual confines of contemporary Islamic "scholars" (i.e. mullahs) who call Jews "pigs etc" and blabber on about the weakest links recognizing that the sleeping giant (& primary adversary,/competitors, Christianity & secularism) must be handled differently through what Walid Phares has rightly identified as "stealth jihad."

But, Nabil, as one Muslim to another (I must confess I'm a "Muslim" deist and have no time for "books" of any kind), we --the enlightened Muslims-- who refuse to abandon or be bullied into renouncing our birth right (and belief in ONE G-D) for a variety of reasons to which only we are privy, are caught between the devil and the sea. It is imperative that we fight the cancer within our ranks through varied means. For if we do not fight this growing ideological cancer, the non-Muslims will eventually be forced to confront or succumb to it and guess who will be caught in the middle? Worse, the "religious civil wars" that would ensue would make the Thirty Year War look like a walk in the park what with the lethality of weaponry and technology today. It is time Muslims such as you and me to confront this cancer and also do an honest assessment. I believe Islam can be reformed into a tolerant co-equal to Judaism and Christianity if we deemphasize the contemporary popularity within certain Muslim ideological circles of "abrogation" by stating --as I believe the Ahmedis do--how can the Quran ALL be G-D's word, yet the Medinan suras supercede the earlier, and more benign/tolerant, Mecccan ones? Surely G-D the all knowing makes no mistakes and would never correct himself in later suras? That would suggest fallibility and G-D and the supreme being/creator can never be fallible? It is time for non-Muslims to stop beating us up on what Muhd did or didn't do.

G-D knows how correct the historical record is from that period or the exact social mores/customs of the peninsula Arabs and, frankly, it is time to look forward not backward. But, most importantly, it is imperative that rational/educated/curious/THINKING Muslims look at the empirical evidence in the contemporary world and challenge what certain Muslims are trying to do in the West, not to mention back home. We have to be our own worst critics and clean up our own ideological home before others seek to do so....

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