Arab world is giving Islam a bad name, as visit to Asia shows

[lkumar]

I FOUND THIS ARTICLE …. A PROFESSOR & writer for NEW York Times WROTE THIS!

Arab world is giving Islam a bad name, as visit to Asia shows

Whatever happens in Iraq, we may be inching closer to a "clash of
civilizations" between Islam and the West.

There's a fatigue in the West with an Arab world that sometimes seems to
put its creative juices mostly into building better bombs. Even
open-minded people in the West sometimes feel a sense of resignation
that maybe the bigots are right: Maybe Islam just is intrinsically
backward, misogynistic and violent.

After I wrote recently about reform elements in Islam, I received a long
note from a 24-year-old Chicagoan, Paul Williams, who ventured what many
people feel: "I went to school in Macalester College and the whole time
there I wrote paper after paper defending Islam," he told me. Now, he
says, after reading the Quran cover to cover and living in Turkey, he
has lapsed into political incorrectness. "The more I'm here the more I'm
beginning to think that there's just something wrong with Islam," he said.

That's a common view, shaped partly by the way we in the news business
focus on violence in the Islamic world. So let me step up and say that I
find the common American stereotypes of Islam profoundly warped.

Those stereotypes are derived largely from the less than 20 percent of
Muslims who are Arabs, with Persians and Pashtuns thrown in. But the
great majority of the world's Muslims live not in the Middle East but in
Asia, where religion has mostly been milder.

At the moment, I'm in Brunei, a Muslim country nestled in Southeast
Asia. At the University of Brunei, women outnumber men. Women drive,
fill senior offices in government and the private sector, serve as
ambassadors and are pilots for the national airline. "Young women have
equal opportunities now --- it's up to your capability," said Lisa
Ibrahim, president of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Brunei.

Brunei has gold-domed mosques in its skyline, and the sultan has two
wives. But Brunei is also home to churches and Hindu temples serving a
multiethnic society. Young people flirt together in the cafes, and
non-Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol.

Anwar Ibrahim, the former Malaysian deputy prime minister, says he
reminds Americans that the most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) is a
democracy whose elections run more smoothly than Florida's.

Yes, Islamists are a threat in Asia, and many imams are more scandalized
by female flesh than by honor killings or illiteracy. Indonesia has
tried the editor of the local edition of Playboy magazine, and a state
in Malaysia has threatened to fine women who wear miniskirts. But
Indonesia has had a woman as president, while Bangladesh has had two
female prime ministers and has more girls in high school than boys.

"We tend to be more tolerant," Yusof Halim, a prominent lawyer in
Brunei, said of Asian Muslims. He then confided, "My honest opinion is
that Arabs are male chauvinists."

Meanwhile, many Muslims are as disenchanted with us as we are with them.
They complain about hypocritical Americans who parrot slogans about
human rights but brutalize Muslims at Guantanamo and supply the weaponry
that kills Muslim children in Gaza and Lebanon.

The Quran and Bible alike have passages that make 21 st-century readers
flinch; most Christians ignore sections on slavery or admonitions to
kill a disobedient child. Likewise, some Muslims are reinterpreting
quranic passages on polygamy and amputations, saying they were
restricted to particular circumstances that no longer apply.

Frankly, I don't see that any religion's influence is intrinsically
peaceful or violent. Christianity inspired Mother Teresa and pogroms.
Hinduism nurtured Gandhi and the pioneers of suicide bombings.

These days, ferocious anti-Semitism thrives in some Muslim countries,
but in the Dreyfus affair a century ago, Muslims sided with a Jew
persecuted by anti-Semitic Christians. And the biggest sectarian
slaughter in Europe in modern times involved Christians massacring
Muslims at Srebrenica.

The plain fact is that some Muslim societies do have a real problem with
violence, with the subjugation of women, with tolerance. But the mosaic
of Islam is vast and contains many more hopeful glimpses of the future.

There is a historic dichotomy between desert Islam --- the austere
fundamentalism of countries such as Saudi Arabia --- and riverine or
coastal Islam, more outward-looking, flexible and tolerant. Desert
Muslims grab the headlines, but my bet is that in the struggle for the
soul of Islam, maritime Muslims have the edge. Nicholas D. Kristof
writes for The New York Times.

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS DEFEND YOUR OPINION!

"I have read the holy Bhagavad-Gita, Bible, and the Quran "

[lkumar]

Originally Posted by TheDude

do you realize nobody takes your attempts to stir controversy seriously?

well, A+ for effort.

who is talking to u buddy?

(take it easy!) -- PUNDAY NAI ! KAVANAM VESAI


Take care buddy!