Archive for Religion

Like the Meccan Pagans, Indians are Conspiring with Jewish Tribes, with US Sitting like Roman Empire

November 28, 2009 at 7:18 am · Filed under Islam, Pakistan ·Tagged , ,

Many jihadis in support of the jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir are opposed to destabilising Pakistan.

When asked who was responsible for the suicide bombings they point finger towards India, the United States, and Israel which, according to them, had colluded resources to create a super-agency to dishevel this entire region.

This whole India-US-Israel theory has a lot of popular currency these days in Pakistan, a country whose national sports should be lounge room politics and conspiracy theorising instead of cricket and hockey. The myriad of television talk-shows on every news channel are heavily relying on this theory of a triangulated axis of evil out to destroy Islam and Pakistan.

I don’t mean to dampen Pakistan’s highly built up superiority complex laced with self pity at the whole world’s always being out to get us, but has anyone ever thought of questioning why we always situate Pakistan at the centre of our world view?

It is true that Pakistan is in the news a lot these days, and that the location of our borders in terms of resources and trade routes present significant geopolitical interests. But isn’t it a bit much to consider the current conflict in terms of issues that lie beyond the immediately obvious uses of Pakistan’s soil, and therefore hurl the current conflict in to the realm of myth and conspiracy?

Islamic mythology has obviously played a huge role in the formation of our national identity. Given this strange mix of religious indoctrination and nationalist propaganda, it isn’t a shock that our national identity is hopelessly intertwined with religion. The great ups and downs of our history are also then viewed though the mirror image of early Islamic Arabian history, starting with the Partition of 1947 where the oppressed Muslims in the land of infidels partake in a hijrah-like migration to greener pastures. This is also responsible for similar coinages as mohajir’s for people who migrated from the other side of the border, and of course the Muttahida Quami Movement as well.

After two wars with our neighbour that have been cloaked in the same historical-identity mirror as jihads which the Prophet Muhammad participated in – the 1965 war, where a small number of Muslims beat a larger threatening army of infidels akin to the scenario in Jang-e-Badar, and the 1971 war being similar to Jang-e-Uhad, where the Muslims suffered heavy losses owing to their greed and indiscipline. Kargil would then be seen as the Battle of the Trench, had it not ended with such a national disaster.

The idea of martyrdom has been historically very close to these times of crisis when national unity is a must. The list of the dozen or so shaheeds who gave their life for the country is also present in every textbook. Unfortunately, the idea of the martyr as a member of Pakistan’s armed forces has become one that is hotly contested in recent times, as the right to declare a martyr isn’t the sole prerogative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The ISPR’s version of a shaheed in Waziristan is diametrically opposed to that of the TTP’s version of shaheed.

The same mujahids who valiantly fought in Kashmir and Afghanistan for Islam and Pakistan, seem to have turned on the Islamic Republic as the very fabric of propaganda which binds Islam with Pakistan is ruptured beyond repair. With the popularly elected government being portrayed as infidel rule propped up by the Americans, and the culture of the modern, westernised elites is labeled as shamelessness and excessive debauchery, it seems we’re caught in the middle of a storm where the hero can no longer be told apart from the enemy.

For decades, the enemy image coined in our heads has been that of the Islam-hating, darker-skinned Hindu at the eastern edge of our border.

This interesting transposition was evident in an armed forces award ceremony in which shaheeds from the current conflict were inducted into the ranks of those martyred in Pakistan’s conventional wars.

The reenacted footage telegraphing each incident showed a mysterious tribal as the concealed enemy. The army also seems to be relying on foreigners being involved in the tribal areas as a way to distance the conflict from civil strife. The circulation of reports of large containers of alcohol belonging to Uzbek militants also seems to be a way of distancing Islam from the enemy.

As a matter of convenience for our security establishment, the principal enemy obviously remains India. But those polygamous infidels couldn’t possibly be the solely responsible for such an ingenious plan that redirects our tactics against them and literally brings the country to its knees?

Once again the answer is conveniently available from early Islamic Arabia, where the Meccan pagans were conspiring with scheming Jewish tribes. A simple transposition of the historical onto our mythological identity yields the result of India and Israel collaborating for the destruction of Pakistan, with the US sitting on the fringes like the Holy Roman Empire.

I think it’s time we quit hiding behind the convenient curtain of myth, and take the bitter pill of reality. We need to step away from viewing this as a clash of civilisations, in terms of Islam versus the West. The West is not a religion, and Islam isn’t a geographical location.

Lahore-based Asif Akhtar is interested in critical social discourse as well as the expressive facets of reactive art and is one of the schizophrenic narrators of a graphic novel. He blogs at http://e-scape-artist.blogspot.com/ and tweets at http://twitter.com/e_scape_artist.

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Can Islam be Reconciled with Science?

November 26, 2009 at 6:45 pm · Filed under Islam ·Tagged ,

by Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Material resources are immaterial to the current sorry state of
science in Islam.

To do science, it is first necessary to accept the key premises underlying science ? causality and the absence of divine intervention in physical processes, and a belief in the existence of physical law.

Without the scientific method you cannot have science because science is all about objective and rational thinking. Science demands a mindset that incessantly questions and challenges assumptions, not one that relies upon received wisdom. If this condition is not fulfilled, all the money and machines in the world make no difference.

Can Islam accept the premises of science?

There are some versions of the religion that can, and others that simply cannot.

But before proceeding further, let me distinguish between ancient science ? which Muslims did brilliantly and modern science. They are not quite the
same but are so often confused together that it is important to make
the point.

The ancient science of the Greeks, Chinese, Muslims, and Hindus was a rather limited affair that did not put any theological system under undue stress. Scholars observed, drew a few conclusions, and wrote a treatise that only a few could read. It was inconceivable at that time to imagine that the workings of the entire physical world could be understood from just a handful of basic principles. There was almost no link to technology and therefore no impact upon how people actually lived.

Not so for modern science. This product of the European Enlightenment
is now the essence of a universal human civilisation. Although it was
fuelled by the discoveries of ancient science, including Muslim
science, the Enlightenment had an impact that was totally different
from the stellar works of individual ancient scholars.

Modern science defines our world by constantly creating new technologies. It also claims to explain everything from the scale of the atom to the universe, and from times that range from the present to the very birth of the universe. It evokes resistance among traditionalists because it offers an explanation of how humans emerged from the depths of biological evolution to their present form. All this makes it hugely different from ancient science, which is what the Greeks and Muslims as well as Chinese and Hindus had done so splendidly in their respective times. So if a civilisation did great
ancient science, this does not automatically mean that it is equally
qualified for doing modern science.

To return to the issue of the compatibility of science with Islam: at
one level the for-and-against arguments resemble those for Christianity.

Islam has had its share of pro-science reformers, such as the 19th century figure from India, Syed Ahmad Khan and the Iranian Jamaluddin Afghani, who argued that miracles specified in the Qur’an must be understood in broad allegorical terms rather than literally.

Following the rationalisttradition of 9th century Islam, Muslim
rationalists insisted on an interpretation that was in conformity with
the observed truths of science. This meant doing away with cherished
beliefs, also held by Christians, of the great flood and Adam’s descent from heaven, etc. It was a risky proposition at that time but it was far safer than it is today when the mood has shifted away from empirical inqui ry.

On the other hand, fundamentalist versions of all religions, including Islam, are philosophically averse to the notion of material forces running the world. They insist that the divine hand constantly intervenes, and so individual wellbeing requires constant supplications to the powers “up above”. This belief system ascribes earthquakes, as well as drought and floods, to divine wrath. On this basis, it would be fair to say that Saudi Islam, or the various
Wahhabi-Salafi-Deobandi versions, reject material causality and hence
the very basis of modern science.

Shia Islam, on the other hand, while politically assertive and insurrectionist, is less inclined towards pre-modern beliefs.

Ayatollah Khomeini was quite content to keep science and Islam
in separate domains.

 He once remarked that there is no such thing as Islamic mathematics. Nor did he take a position against Darwinism. In fact, Iran is one of the rare Muslim countries where the theory of evolution is taught. Today it is a front-runner in stem-cell research ? something which President  Bush and his neo-conservative administration had sought to ban from the United States.

But there is another side of the coin: Khomeini also developed the
doctrine known as “guardianship of the clergy” (vilayat-e-faqih Guardianship_of_the_Islamic_jurists”title=”vilayat-e-faqih]) which gives mullahs much wider powers than they had generally exercised in the past. Instead of being simple religious leaders, in post-revolutionary Iran they became political leaders as well. This echoed the broader Islamic fusion of the spiritual and the temporal, something that science is acutely
uncomfortable with.

To conclude: scientific progress in Muslim countries requires greater
personal and intellectual freedom. Without this there can be no thinking, ideas, innovations, discoveries, or progress. The real challenge is not better equipment or faster internet connectivity.

Instead, to move ahead in science, Muslims need freedom from dogmatic
beliefs and a culture that questions rather than obeys.

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Hinduism

November 8, 2009 at 2:19 pm · Filed under Religion ·Tagged ,

Can one tell a history of the Hindus through their stories? That is the challenge that American scholar and Sanskritist Wendy Doniger sets herself in this book, a culmination of many years of teaching and engagement with Hindu thought and writing. One thing those years have made clear to Doniger is the difficulty of defining Hinduism. The term itself lacks any roots within India—only after the seventeenth century can we find the first usage of the title ‘Hindupati’ or Lord of the Hindus—and there is no agreed doctrine, founder, or church-like institution with which it is identified. There is no Hindu canon. Nor do the Hindus themselves form a race, or inhabit a narrowly specified territory.

What does connect them and set them apart, Doniger argues, is the fact that their imaginations, and many of their social practices, are structured by a vast web of stories—texts that spin across and through the languages and cultures of the subcontinent. Doniger calls it ‘intertextuality’, the self-conscious reference to stories that came before, all the way back to the Rig Veda. And from there on, the Brahmanas, Upanishads, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Shastras, Puranas, Tantric texts, the philosophical schools whose networks extended from the Tamil South up to Kashmir, the poetry and song of the Bhakti movements. There is no comparable output in any of the other great instances of the moral and religious imagination still available to us today.

Such texts can’t, however, be read as open windows on the societies that produced them. We don’t even know when some of the most fertile Hindu texts were composed. The Mahabharata and Ramayana, for instance, can only be dated to some time between 300 BC and AD 300 and 200 BC and AD 200 respectively. Still, Doniger is interested in the tensions between history (what exactly happened) and what societies tell themselves about what is happening. Her passion is the human imagination.

Doniger calls her book an ‘alternative history’ because she believes the other histories overemphasise the Brahminic wellsprings of Hindu stories. She argues, effectively, that the ‘high’ texts have quite often fed off low tales. She shows in particular how the voices of women, Dalits and tribals have energised many Brahminic scripts. So too, she makes us hear the voices of Buddhist and Jain thought, and later of Islam and Christianity, in dialogue with the Hindu texts. Just as those lower in society sought to Sanskritise and Kshatriyise, so the Sanskrit texts were permeable to what she terms ‘deshification’—the absorption of local, ‘small’ traditions.

She draws out the layered cruelties and conflicting natures of Hindu texts with verve, among them the story of Ekalavya, the expert tribal archer in the Mahabharata. He displays his skill by unleashing arrows into the mouth of a dog. Arjuna, outraged that someone of lower caste can do this and threatened by his prowess, tells Ekalavya’s guru, Drona, to put a stop to it. Drona requires Ekalavya to cut off his thumb, which he does. The story reveals and revels in the injustice of caste. But Doniger also cites other versions—for instance, a Jain text in which Arjuna is shown as cruel and vindictive. These constitute what Doniger calls the ‘intertextual’ argument and conversation of the Hindus—with the Mahabharata as a central clearing house for this vast network of disputation. One of her arresting comparisons likens the Mahabharata to ‘an ancient Wikipedia, to which anyone who knew Sanskrit…could add a bit here, a bit there’.

But the central insight driving her argument concerns the Hindu way of telling stories, a capacity to make not just art, but ethics, out of ambiguity. It’s a characteristic embodied in the Sanskrit figure of speech known as ‘slesha’. Slesha—literally ‘embrace’—holds together at once two different stories or images, allowing the listener or reader to switch between them. This is essentially a metaphoric capacity: to see something as something else. It also offers a way out of any impasse. As E.M. Forster put it, ‘Every Indian hole has at least two exits’.

In such a universe, meaning is never settled—and so, neither, is authority. Claimants to authority, from the gods themselves to the human scribes who record their doings to modern-day gurus who hold forth on the texts, climb up ladders but also slide down snake chutes. This fosters an internal pluralism: within the individual, the possibility of internal conflict between the demands of society’s moral code and a more universal ethics is never resolved or far from the surface. The recognition of ambiguous meaning also enables, though in more complex and sometimes attenuated ways, an attitude of pluralism towards other moral cosmologies and religions.

The eighteenth century Scottish philosopher, David Hume, put this capacity for pluralism down to polytheism, a religious view that saw nature as distinguished not by order and beauty, but “by the various and contrary events of human life”. “So sociable is polytheism,” wrote Hume, “that the utmost fierceness and aversion which it meets with in an opposite religion is scarcely able to disgust it and keep it at a distance”. Now, this sociability is hardly one that would guarantee survival in a biological species; and polytheism has been a characteristic mainly of ancient religions, which rarely got beyond the lower branches of the Darwinian tree of human belief systems. Why, then, has Hinduism been able to survive, with some vigour, across such a span of human history? Some, of course, over the past century and more have feared that it possibly cannot—and have hoped to make Hinduism more mono in its theism.

It’s precisely the capacity of the Hindu imagination to keep telling and re-telling stories, rather than to box them up into a single authorised narrative or code, which has kept it in business—and enabled it to flourish within a society at once of great internal complexity and which has also regularly encountered tough external pressures.

Doniger takes an obvious joy in the stories she analyses, and one of many pleasures in the book is her consideration to animals in the Hindu world—as objects of sacrifice, consumption, devotion and protection, sometimes all at once. The idea of non-violence, ahimsa, is first developed in relation to the treatment of animals—a matter of public concern to rulers, who encouraged forms of casuistry to justify animal sacrifice. The cow, of course, figures. But Doniger more interestingly tracks the importance of dogs. The Mahabharata, she notes, begins and ends with stories about justice for dogs. She also brings the horse back to the centre of the Hindu imagination. From the great Ashvamedha sacrifice, described in shudder-inducing detail in the Vedas, to the raging hooves of Kalki, it is the horse—an animal not native to the subcontinent—that has fascinated Hindus.

But for all the delights in Doniger’s scholarship, there is a deeper question she might have done well to confront. How did the Hindu capacity for moral pluralism actually stand in relation to Indian society? Doniger notes and celebrates the presence in many texts of challenges to hierarchy and caste. She shows that caste was not invariably an intellectual or philosophical prison. It was possible to think oneself out of it, to criticise its injustice, mock its absurdities. But she doesn’t probe a central paradox: Why did such critical thoughts and stories gain such little purchase on the social order? The astonishing plurality of Hindu thought—its vast ocean of polydox beliefs—is only matched by its equally staggering orthopraxy, the unchanging rigidity of social patterns and practices. The old Hindus seem to have perfected ‘repressive tolerance’ well before Herbert Marcuse discovered it in California.

Similarly, Doniger sets out but does not fully unravel some of the central dilemmas embodied in texts like the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata poses the problem of the world’s moral irrationality. If the concept of Karma appears to suggest a rational moral economy—that my present action will have a future pay-off—this idea is constantly subverted in the Mahabharata, where one more throw of the dice again and again determines the moral horizon. “The Mahabharata sees a vice behind every virtue, a snake behind every horse, and a doomsday behind every victory,” Doniger writes, and so every moral choice and act is somehow the wrong choice. In fact, the notion of Karma so diffuses the location of merit and de-merit, makes them such mobile and transferable qualities that it is impossible to track causality. Sinners too, can go to heaven, despite their intentions—if they happen simply to be in contact with some salvaging ritualistic practice. What sort of moral universe can be sustained if there is such a weak relation between intention and consequence?

More disappointing in this important book is Doniger’s treatment of recent history. Kipling and Foster are her orienting stars in discussing the colonial period, and she conveys little sense of the intellectual ferment in India at the time—the many experiments with religion, politics, caste, and the different meanings that Hindu ‘reform’ came to hold. This leads directly to the book’s greatest weakness—the absence of any serious explanation of Hindutva. Doniger has a potent—indeed, quite felt—sense of its presence and projectile capacity, and has had occasion to reflect on it. But while she has roustabout fun at the expense of the adepts of Hindutva, she doesn’t stop to ask what it is about the potentialities within Hinduism, and what it is about the Hindus at this point in their history, that have conspired to breathe life into such versions of Hinduism. Her capacity for ‘double vision’, for empathy and criticism, here fails.

Doniger is an unstoppable teller of tales and a brilliant interpreter of them also. Yet, occasionally, one feels that, rather than delve deeper into the contradictions of history, she too, like her subjects stretching back many thousands of years, prefers just to tell one more story.

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G Vishvas Blames Islam for the Sorry State of Affairs in Pakistan

October 25, 2009 at 2:13 pm · Filed under Islam, Pakistan ·Tagged ,

Mubarak Ali says in Dawn (25 Oct 2009) that “as far as Pakistan is concerned, we can say that it has no history of ideas because its society has neither the capacity to face the challenge nor the creativity to invent anything in science and technology to improve its skill to compete with others nations. In art, literature, painting, and architecture, it has produced nothing original and substantial. It has neither original philosophers, scientists, poets, writers, artists, and historians nor politicians and statesmen who could lead the nation in the right direction. Pakistani society depends on the ideas, thoughts, and inventions of others. It is not creating any knowledge but just consuming it. Therefore, it is not contributing to the civilisation of the world. It is one of those nations which are not making history but passively watching those who are making it. That is why its social and cultural life is shallow and stagnant.”

Comment: This sorry perfromance of Pakistan is the result of islam and its indoctrinations.  G.Vishvas (nvhab@yahoo.co.in)

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The Status of Saudi Women is Improving but Slowly

October 13, 2009 at 7:37 am · Filed under Clash of Civilizations, Islam ·Tagged ,

In Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.

There are some establishments, however, now in Saudi Arabia where men and women are working side by side. The sight unnerves enough men who come looking for a job in such places. Some men go into a state of shock to see a woman in a position of authority and to have to ask her for a job.

Saudi men may have to start getting used to such situations. Global investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud is taking a lead in this respect.

ClipSaudi women, however, still can’t drive and legally can’t even leave the house to shop, let alone get a job, without a male family member’s permission.

Yet under the guidance of a few members of the Saudi royal family — in particular the current King, Abdullah — the kingdom is slowly changing.

Mixed-gender workplaces are becoming more common, especially in banks and good hospitals, where female doctors are not unusual. “People used to say, ‘Why is she working? Why does she need the money?’ Now they say, ‘It takes a woman to solve a problem,’” says an administrator at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh.

The government is expanding educational opportunities for women by building women’s universities (as opposed to segregated campuses at male-dominated universities); last month it even launched the kingdom’s first coeducational university.

The state is trying to encourage women’s entry into the workforce, and is sponsoring initiatives to protect women and children from domestic abuse.

And it is pushing Saudis to discuss the notion of empowerment, formerly such a taboo subject that even the word was off-limits in newspapers. “The message is that women are coming,” says Dr. Maha Almuneef, one of six women named earlier this year to the Shura council, a 156-person advisory body appointed by the King. “It’s a good first step. The King and the political system are saying that the time has come. There are small steps now. There are giant steps coming.

But most Saudis have been taught the traditional ways. You can’t just change the social order all at once.” For the country’s feminist and human-rights activists, and the many others who would like more freedom, the pace of change remains painfully slow.

Why, they wonder, doesn’t the King snap his fingers and remove some of the more obviously absurd obstacles to equality? For all the publicity about the new female members of the Shura Council, for instance, they still don’t have the voting rights of their male colleagues. “This is tokenism, it’s insulting,” says Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi, a columnist and assistant professor of women’s history at King Saud University. “We are asking for full participation. All the doors that are closed for women should be open.”

Given government restrictions on the right to assemble and discuss political issues even in private homes, al-Fassi says it’s impossible to know just how many Saudi women want change. “It’s an exaggeration to call it a women’s movement. But we are proud to say that something is going on in Saudi Arabia. We are not really free, but it is possible for women to express themselves as never before.”

Change, and Its Limits

Saudi Arabia’s western allies have been pushing it to reform its social and political arrangements since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a conservative version of Islam, high unemployment, limited democratic rights and archaic attitudes to women fed a mood of unchecked radicalism among some young men.

In February 2009, Abdullah announced a sweeping reshuffle of posts in government to remove some of the more old-style figures, including a top judge who once ruled it would be legal to kill the owners of a television station that broadcast “immorality.”

Abdullah installed an Education Minister charged with ensuring that schools emphasize Islam’s tradition of tolerance, and a woman, Norah al-Faiz, to be Deputy Minister in charge of girls’ education, the first time a woman has held a Cabinet-level post.

Though al-Faiz is well known and admired, her appointment also reveals the limits to the changes under way in Saudi Arabia. Al-Faiz meets with her male colleagues only by videophone, asks her minister for permission to appear on television, declines to be photographed and vented her frustration to the press when what appeared to be an old passport-style photograph of her (without a niqab) appeared on the Internet.

Al-Faiz says that she brings no special mandate beyond improving education for girls. “I don’t like quick action,” she says. “I’ll have to decide where the needs are and to rank them. I believe in teamwork.” Al-Faiz’s caution is understandable.

She’s being watched by the whole country. “The pressure is huge, not to make a mistake,” says Dr. Hanan al-Ahmady, a friend of al-Faiz, and her successor as head of the women’s department at the Institute of Public Administration, a government school for civil servants. “You have to prove you are not giving away your religious principles. You have to prove that participating in public affairs and taking leadership positions doesn’t jeopardize Islamic values and Saudi identity.”

barage3

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Abstaining From Alcohol Makes You Unhappy

October 13, 2009 at 7:01 am · Filed under Health Tips for You, Islam ·Tagged , ,

Alcohol has a peculiar relationship to happiness.

We drink to celebrate, but because alcohol works as a depressant, it ends up deadening feelings.

image0502_2Not surprisingly, there’s an observable correlation between alcoholism and depression, and even though it’s not always clear which leads to which, everyone knows you can’t drink like a Sterling Cooper employee for too long before becoming a perpetual sad sack.

But if alcohol can lead to depression, does that mean abstaining from alcohol will make you happier?

In fact, those who never drink are at significantly higher risk for not only depression but also anxiety disorders, compared with those who consume alcohol regularly.

The study, which was published recently in the journal Addiction, looked at more than 38,000 people in Norway. Researchers, led by Jens Christoffer Skogen of the University of Bergen in Norway, asked the participants how much they had drunk in the previous two weeks; the research team also asked them various questions to measure their levels of anxiety and depression.

People in the top fifth percentile of drinkers had the highest odds for anxiety. But it was abstainers who were at the highest risk for depression — higher even than the heaviest of drinkers. Why?

One reason is that the abstainers in the study sample were more likely to have illnesses such as osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia, and people with chronic illnesses are more prone to melancholy.

Also, “some people assume it’s healthier not to drink,” says Skogen — which may be particularly true of those who have chronic illnesses.

Finally, some abstainers were formerly heavy drinkers — alcoholics who had to give up the bottle. It makes sense that they would have more psychological distress than others, but only 14% of the abstainers in the Norway study fit this category.

The most powerful explanation seems to be that abstainers have fewer close friends than drinkers, even though they tend to participate more often in organized social activities. Abstainers seem to have a harder time making strong friendship bonds, perhaps because they don’t have alcohol to lubricate their social interactions. After all, it’s easier to reveal your worst fears and greatest hopes to a potential friend after a Negroni or two.

So does this mean we should all have a cocktail? Maybe, but Skogen says he doesn’t believe his study should encourage abstainers to become drinkers. Rather, he says doctors might want to investigate why abstaining patients don’t drink and explain that in societies where alcohol use is common, not drinking may lead them to feel left out. Sometimes, you should just say yes.

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Muslims Now Number 1.57 Billion and Growing

October 9, 2009 at 12:01 pm · Filed under Islam ·Tagged ,

New Study Estimates Global Muslim Population at 1.57 Billion

Nearly a Quarter of World Population is Muslim

Clip_2A new, comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.

Released by the Pew Research Center ’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Mapping the Global Muslim Population offers the most up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the size and distribution of the worldwide Muslim population, including sectarian identity.

Key findings include:

• While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa .

• The Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. More than half of the 20 countries and territories in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.

• More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India , for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria , while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.

• Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran , Pakistan , India and Iraq . Previously published estimates of the size of the global Muslim population have ranged widely, from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.

The new study is based on the best available data for 232 countries and territories. Pew Forum researchers, in consultation with nearly 50 demographers and social scientists at universities and research centers around the world, analyzed about 1,500 sources, including census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, to arrive at these figures – the largest project of its kind to date. (http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=450).

The Pew Research Center ’s Forum on Religion & Public Life delivers timely, impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. The Pew Forum is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy organization and does not take positions on policy debates. Based in Washington , D.C. , the Pew Forum is a project of the Pew Research Center , which is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

If you have general questions, please contact Sahar Chaudhry, Research Analyst, Religion & World Affairs, at schaudhry@pewforum.org

or Loralei Coyle, Communications Manager, at lcoyle@pewforum.org.

 

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Rationalism in the Quran

October 3, 2009 at 7:31 pm · Filed under Islam ·Tagged ,

By SYED GHULAM SARWAR

TO VENTURE upon an interpretation of The Quran is an extremely difficult task. Shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the complexion of Islam started to change. This was partly because of the emergence of new political and non-political interests, and the disappearance of its original torchbearers. There appeared also a new class of Muslims who were more concerned with isolated sayings of the Prophet than with the spirit of Islam as a movement. A new cultural mix which came in the wake of military conquests and non-Arab nations joining the ranks of Islam further blurred the picture of Islam in its pristine form.

This change of complexion accords with the normal conduct of history. Other radical movements too have undergone similar transformations. Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, as started by their founders, were revolutionary, spiritual, social, even political movements with dominantly simple, practical programs of action and concepts, but with the passage of time they became metaphysical, formulized and ritualistic. This change in shape makes it difficult to peep into the original form, especially when the change has lasted for centuries.

While other divine books either have disappeared altogether or have been drastically distorted, The Quran remains intact in its original language, Arabic. However, in several cases, its original purpose, spirit, significance and approach to human problems have been lost to the sight of most of its adherents. Miracles have replaced rationally explainable events and a number of metaphorical expressions used in The Quran have been given a literal or mythical sense over the centuries. The present-day writers have repeated the same versions, further thickening the cobwebs of myth woven round the face of Islam. Even the ablest and the most intellectual of modern commentators overlook the political (in particular) and secular aspects of this divine book. ‘Divine’ and ‘secular?’ Contradiction in terms? No. Spiritual in origin and divinely inspired, The Quran presents a secular program of action based on lofty morality rooted in faith in God.

The myths evolved some centuries after the death of the Prophet mainly for two reasons.  One, a literal interpretation without regard to the idiomatic or metaphorical sense of a term or statement or to the idea that The Quran has evolved its own terminology to describe a certain event or situation.  Two, with the emergence of a plethora of ‘ahadith’ (sayings of Muhammad) after the Prophet, which referred to the relevant verses, the trend to emphasize the miraculous grew.  Some of the commentaries have been based on biblical accounts without proper scrutiny, while the Quranic references to them have not been understood in their purported import. 

That trend continues, making the mythical and the miraculous part of the faith of Islam.  One of the expressions that has fallen victim to this trend is the term, ‘tayr,’ (literally, ‘birds’).

The term, ‘tayr,’ has been used in a specific sense in The Quran on four occasions: in connection with the invasion of Makkah referred to in chapter 105, entitled ‘Al-Fiel;’ in connection with Jesus; and in connection with David and his son, Solomon.

Abraha, the Christian ruler of Yemen, led the invasion of Makkah in the year of the birth of the Prophet (A. D. 570).  It was revived in the memory of our people towards the end of the Musharraf era in Pakistan when some of our leaders described the agitating lawyers as ‘ababeel’ (mistaking ‘ababeel’ for a kind of birds, while it literally means groups, swarms, etc.) which destroyed Abraha’s army.  The myth has become so firmly rooted in the minds of our people that some of our top recent commentators persist in emphasizing the miraculous in the event.

To arrive at a feasible explanation, we must look at the essential teachings of The Quran.  Besides the belief in the oneness and uniqueness of God and the day of final reward and punishment for our actions, there is overwhelming emphasis on obedience to the rightly-guided leader, perseverance in following the right course of action (‘sabr’), faith and unrelenting determination (‘eemaan’), high aims and skill, knowledge or wisdom (‘ilm,’ ‘hikmah’).  The Quran does not refer to any miracles, except the miracle of God’s Creation and the plan working in it, the raising of a messenger from among the people themselves, the inclining of people’s hearts towards him and leading him to success and victory despite overwhelming odds.  Otherwise, they are only metaphorical, allegorical or symbolic expressions.  Even if, at all, The Quran seemingly makes an occasional reference to the miraculous, that is not its main purpose, nor is it important in itself.  The main purpose is to convey the true message and guidance, and its significance lies in the drawing of attention to the ultimate success of the righteous mission against all odds and in the warning about disastrous consequences in the event of rejection of the guidance.  The common interpretation of the chapter ‘Al-Fiel,’ conveys the sense of a miracle, minus human effort, that destroyed the invading army.

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Christian Hotel Owners Face Criminal Charges for Offending Muslim Guest

September 22, 2009 at 7:49 am · Filed under Islam ·Tagged ,

Christian owners of a hotel in Liverpool face criminal charges and could lose their business after “defending their faith” to a Muslim guest.
Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang got into a “heated” argument with an unnamed woman wearing a hijab — a traditional Muslim head covering — during breakfast at the Bounty House Hotel, according to the story by the Daily Mail. She challenged the owners on Christianity, and allegedly, the couple said Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a warlord and that wearing her hijab was a form of bondage.
The woman complained to police, and the couple is being charged with using “threatening, abusive, or insulting words” that were “religiously aggravated.” As a result of the court case, the Vogelenzang’s have lost 80 percent of their bookings and have had to put their hotel up for sale, the story said.

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Dilemma of Balancing Exercise with Islamic Modesty Codes

September 7, 2009 at 12:10 pm · Filed under Clash of Civilizations, Islam ·Tagged , ,

The first time I went jogging in Tehran, I nearly hyperventilated after four blocks, despite wearing the gauziest of head scarves and a decidedly immodest Nike capris. The fabric covering my ears and neck stoked my body temperature unbearably, and the pleasurable strain of running gave way to acute discomfort. “How am I going to stay fit here?” I wailed to my Iranian girlfriends, experts in the dilemma of balancing exercise with Islamic modesty codes. They offered me a rich store of advice, from head scarves with ear slits to calibrating outdoor exercise with the seasons to where to find women’s only gyms.

Clip_7For the pious Muslim woman, one of the greatest challenges of modern life is how to get a health-conscious work-out. In Iran, of course, the state mandates Islamic dress, so secular and faithful women alike must contend with religious codes that interfere with exercise. But the problem persists for individual Muslim women throughout the Islamic world and the West. It grabbed headlines recently week when a Paris swimming pool refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a “burqini,” a swim garment resembling a diving suit. In France the incident falls into a wider political debate over how to reconcile the country’s Muslim immigrants to French secular values. And while the number of Muslim women in France — indeed throughout the world — who insist on such a severe covering as the burqa is small, the challenge of staying slim and Islamically proper is not.

So what is the faithful but health-conscious Muslim woman to do? There are many schools of thought addressing this practical problem, and often the answer boils down to comfort versus one’s attachment to a particular sport.

I am a runner by nature, keenly attached to the mind-slowing demands of setting pace and the sensation of my feet first thudding and then gliding over pavement. But my discomfort threshold is ridiculously low, and while living in Iran I gave up running in favor of hiking (in mountainous seclusion, no one frets if you tie a bandana over your hair instead of a proper veil). During snowy Tehran winters, I pushed myself to go skiing, since modesty ceases to be an issue when you’re bundled in a ski-suit and hat. I did more yoga than I was accustomed to, since the Iranian middle-class is obsessed with yoga and classes are more ubiquitous than mosques in many neighborhoods.

Many Muslim women are more devoted to their favorite form of exercise. If they are runners they must run, if they are swimmers they must swim. For these women, there are only two answers: a clever outfit that breathes, or sequestration in a same-sex exercise facility. The athletic veil, know as the “hijood,” is made from high-tech fabric that’s meant to wick sweat off the skin, and debuted when the Bahraini sprinter Rogaya Al Ghasara wore it while competing at the 2008 Olympics.

While it takes a certain steely piety to wear the hijood — its slick ninja-esque style might be too assertively Muslim for some — the relative ease of sweating or swimming in something other than heavy cotton is pretty unbeatable.

In certain situations, even the burqini might prove indispensable. A decade ago, when I regularly frequented Wild Wadi, Dubai’s vast waterpark, mothers in sopping wet clothes gamely accompanied their children down spiralling slides and endless rivers. They must have been miserable to no end, but put up with it rather than refuse their kids the thrill of water rides.

For pious moms on beach holidays with families — when women-only beaches or hours at waterparks are useless, since older boy children and dads must be left behind — the burqini is useful, not the joke it seems sometimes in the West.

For some Muslim women, though, gender- segregated exercise is the preferred and discrete option. When you’ve grown up in a culture where men and women relate prudishly, not even a Coolmax barrier of high-tech lycra is going to put you at ease panting alongside men in a co-ed exercise class. Women’s-only gyms, or gyms with women’s-only hours or rooms, dot the whole of the Islamic world. Even in the United States, the idea that women are more relaxed exercising without men’s eyes on them has led to a preponderance of secular, women-only chains like Curves and Linda Evans Fitness. This non-religious attitude toward gender-segregated exercise neatly sets immigration politics aside, and has created a way for Americans from Muslims countries to retain their piety without seeming to embrace separation. I have fond memories of following my mother around her local Linda Evans center in California, watching Pakistani matrons and white soccer moms chat and stride energetically on long rows of treadmills.

For the fitness-minded faithful, the terrain varies dramatically from one country and region to another. But with some determination, it remains entirely possible for Muslim women — from the gently shy to the severely pious — to stay in shape while respecting their faith’s modesty etiquette.

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