The same pattern holds in India also

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Apr 19, 2016 at 16:11

Dear Dr Pipes, the pattern that you describe about segregation between Islamic and non-Islamic population exists in Indian cities as well. In India, you will not be able to ever distinguish between Jains, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Parsees, and, even, Christians. But Islamic neighborhoods are emerging in our cities and most non-muslims do not want to purchase land or property in these neighborhoods. Except for Sikhs who wear Turbans and almost always have long hair and beards, most people --except Muslims-- wear similar clothes. And, what you choose to wear is never a method of making political or moral statement for anyone but Muslims. Over the last twenty or so years Hijabs, skull caps, and long shirts are becoming more and more common among Muslim populations.

As you said, many of these societal patterns are driven from the precepts of the religion. Why would anyone like to live close to a group that feels that their method of worship is the only sin-less way to worshiping? Won't you be afraid of living next to a group that mandates that your child must change his/her religion and loyalties should he/she falls in love with the member of that group.

I think Muslims have gotten it all wrong. Prophet Muhammad may or may not have been the best among prophets, he certainly was a leader and a pragmatic person (the kind of messages that he heard from God over his decades changed according to the needs of the decades, after all). Had Muhammad been alive today, he would not have described Christian and Jews in so unflattering terms as he described them then. Nor would he have descried Bible as any more corrupted word of God than Quran itself. What Muhammad described in the context of that time --Muhammad's context was limited to a land not more than 200,000 sq kilometers and involved a few hundred villages of people. Calling Jews and Christians names at that scale in a limited context of time may have been understandable. Living with those guidelines today is like taking a state-department's travel advisory of today and extending it to all times and all places.

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