bismiLlahir Rahmanir Rahim
I'll add a webpage for some articles (in Turkish) and links for music and sohbet on the subject of Tassawuf:
Semazen
Jihad and the Modern World
by Dr. Sherman Jackson,Journal of Islamic Law and Culture, Spring / Summer, 2002
div align="justify">
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Spiritual inclinations & Dr. Sherman Jackson and Dr. Khaled abou Fadhl
http://users.tpg.com.au/dezhen/jihad_and_the_modern_world.html[*1] I. INTRODUCTION
"Islam is a religion of peace." This is certainly the mantra that has inundated us from almost every quarter since the horrifying events of September 11, 2001. From President George W. Bush to local, national and even international Muslim spokespersons, the peaceful nature of Islam has been reiterated time and again. Of course, this has not gone unchallenged. Skeptics, polemicists, even opportunists of various stripes, have repeatedly warned against accepting too uncritically what they hint at being a "new-found, politically correct" depiction of a religion that includes, inter alia, a scripturally mandated institution of armed violence and a holy book that exhorts its adherents, at least on the face of it, to "slay 'them' wherever you find them." n1 Today, close to a year after the tragedy, emotions and rhetoric on both sides have subsided a bit. But there is still a perduring suspicion among many Americans -- including many Muslim Americans -- when it comes to the question of Islam, violence and the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims.
from Dr. abou Fadhl:
Islam & the theology of Power
"Supremacist puritanism in contemporary Islam is dismissive of all moral norms or ethical values."
By Khaled Abou El Fadl, UCLA School of Law.
Since the early 1980s, commentators have argued that Islam is suffering a crisis of identity, as the crumbling of Islamic civilization in the modern age has left Muslims with a profound sense of alienation and injury. Challenges confronting Muslim nations -- failures of development projects, entrenched authoritarian regimes and the inability to respond effectively to Israeli belligerence -- have induced deep-seated frustration and anger that, in turn, contributed to the rise of fundamentalist movements, or as most commentators have preferred to say, political Islam. But most commentators have been caught off guard by the ferocity of the acts of mass murder recently committed in New York and Washington. The basic cruelty and moral depravity of these attacks came as a shock not only to non-Muslims, but to Muslims as well. The extreme political violence we call terrorism is not a simple aberration unrelated to the political dynamics of a society. Generally, terrorism is the quintessential crime of those who feel powerless seeking to undermine the perceived power of a targeted group. Like many crimes of power, terrorism is also a hate crime, for it relies on a polarized rhetoric of belligerence toward a particular group that is demonized to the point of being denied any moral worth. To recruit and communicate effectively, this rhetoric of belligerence needs to tap into and exploit an already radicalized discourse with the expectation of resonating with the social and political frustrations of a people. If acts of terrorism find little resonance within a society, such acts and their ideological defenders are marginalized. But if these acts do find a degree of resonance, terrorism becomes incrementally more acute and severe, and its ideological justifications become progressively more radical.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
First, of course I would just like to comment that you have a wonderful blog going. For anyone who is reading the articles and words that you have posted, it's easy to tell that you have a profound love for Allah (swt), his final messenger (saws), and His way of life, Islam. Now, what may shock you is that I am not a Muslim, but rather, I am a very devout Christian - but I have the deepest sense of respect for a practicing Muslim as I do for a practicing Christian. With the arrests of the 17 suspected terrorists here in the GTA, and especially after Sept. 11th, I feel as though Muslims aren't being targetted because of their religion, but rather, because of their devotion to their shared culture and faith - You can try to change a person, but you cannot change the Islam inside of a person. Because Muslims are not willing to just conform to values and ideals that are not their own; in a sense, society almost demands that they replace their way of life with Western ideals, and because most Muslims are not willing to do so, I think many ignorant people are using that as a justification to spread hatred against them. Once we as a society learn that we cannot live in peace without tolerance and respect, then will all the hatred towards every minority group come to an end.
As a Christian, I feel that it's extremely important for dialogue with Muslims, because through dialogue we can realize the many similarities between our people, but also celebrate our differences at the same time.
Asalam-alaikum,
You might be in Third Resurrection which is a group blog which is somewhat inspired by some of Sherman Jackson's ideas (on Blacks and America and Islam) and builds on them in a more general way.
assalamu alaykum
I've seen your comments on other blogs; you should be blogging more often. Perhaps even at one of the larger Muslim blogs.
wasalam
I didn't think that me uploading a file so some buddies could read it would become so useful for everyone in the blogosphere (the Dr. J. one) =D
salams!
Wow, great to see the article I uploaded on my server is getting around after all this time - Dr. Sherman Jackson rocks! :)
ma'a salama
Post a Comment