Islam & Dialogue

Submitted by FJ Siddiqui (Australia), Aug 10, 2006 at 01:21

Within the referred article and inside other comments related to the original article there is sufficient information to get a clear picture that what Islam actually says and what Muslims are doing.

The issue is whether we want to know reality keeping aside our emotions or we want to critsice on the basis of partial or at times incorrect info.

To make world peaceful we must try to understand eachother. Below is the portion of the article attached by Mr. Hari that shows that not all are alike rather more low profile people present truer face of Islam

"AAJ TV (October 26, 2005) Islamic scholar Javed Al Ghamidi in his teaching of the Quran stated that many passages of the Quran had been wrongly understood and hence their application to life was harmful and misleading. In Sura Baqara Allah told believers that He would surely test them with physical and material suffering. He said this could not apply to Muslims in all times. Allah did not test all believers. The truth was that the verse was meant for the followers of the Prophet (peace be upon him). There was no doubt that Allah had put them through the trial of pain, but the verse was no longer applicable today.

The present was guided by other rules laid out in the Quran. He said in Sura Tauba Allah orders Muslims to kill all mushrikeen at sight. He said it was not meant for Muslims of all times to get ready to kill all non-believers at sight, as had been presumed. The verse was meant for a specific moment in history. He said similarly there was a common belief that any Muslim changing his religion would become an apostate who had to be killed. This too was derived from a time-bound command and was not applicable to all times.

Javed Ahmed Ghamidi is an enlightened man in the midst of some very aggressive and intolerant scholars of Islam. His discourse is gradually weaning the audiences away from the hardline Islam other clerics are busy propagating. He is extremely articulate and will not accept later accretions to the understanding of the Quran. How can we live in this world if we think we have to hate Christians and Jews? No other nation thinks like that. That is an advantage in world affairs that we lack."

Hope that helps.

Regards

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".