Islamophobia must be fought by adopting new teachings’

From: daily Times.

* Scholar says Muslims must protest atrocities in name of Islam to fight Islamophobia

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINTON: The best way for Muslims to fight “Islamophobia” is to adopt a holistic approach that treats the core of the problem and not merely its manifestations.Taswfik Hamid, former member of an Indonesian Salafist organisation, writes in the Wall Street Journal, “It will not suffice to merely suppress the symptoms. It is imperative to adopt new Islamic teachings that do not allow killing apostates. Islamic authorities must provide mainstream Islamic books that forbid polygamy and beating women. Accepted Islamic doctrine should take a strong stand against slavery and the raping of female war prisoners, as happens in Darfur under the explicit canons of Shariah. Muslims should teach, everywhere and universally, that a woman’s testimony in court counts as much as a man’s, that women should not be punished if they marry whom they please or dress as they wish.”Hamid points out that “we Muslims should publicly show our strong disapproval for the growing number of attacks by Muslims against other faiths and against other Muslims. Let us not dwell on 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali and countless other scenes of carnage. It has been estimated that of the two million refugees fleeing Islamic terror in Iraq, 40 percent are Christian and many of them seek a haven in Lebanon, where the Christian population itself has declined by 60 percent. Even in Turkey, Islamists recently found it necessary to slit the throats of three Christians for publishing Bibles.”Hamid regrets that while Islamist attacks are not limited to Christians and Jews, there is no Muslim condemnation of the ongoing slaughter of Buddhists in Thailand by Islamic groups. “Why was there silence over the Mumbai train bombings which took the lives of over 200 Hindus in 2006? We must not forget that innocent Muslims, too, are suffering. Indeed, the most common murderers of Muslims are, and have always been, other Muslims. Where is the Muslim outcry over the Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq?” he asks. Islamophobia could end, he writes, when masses of Muslims demonstrate in the streets against videos displaying innocent people being beheaded with the same vigour employed against airlines, Israel and cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). It might cease when Muslims unambiguously and publicly insist that Shariah law should have no binding legal status in free, democratic societies. “It is well past time that Muslims cease using the charge of ‘Islamophobia’ as a tool to intimidate and blackmail those who speak up against suspicious passengers and against those who rightly criticise current Islamic practices and preachings.” Instead, Muslims must engage in honest and humble introspection and develop strategies to rescue their religion by combating the “tyranny of Salafi Islam and its dreadful consequences to end Islamophobia”.

Blogger Comment:

No new teachings needed, Islam is very reasonable religion. It is built on justice and reasoning. A lot of what happened from Muslims are due to things that have nothing have to do with Islam. The same can be told about Christians. Extreme Islam came as a result of the ruthless oppression of the Arab tyrants and in many time supported well by the west. Islam is not built on laws but on creating a righteous society. Laws actually came late in Islam after faith and morality spread. Shariah laws are not applied on non-Muslims. For Muslims shariah law is the last step in the government. There is no compulsion in religion and it is clear from the Quran that is no compulsion in religion. Killing Muslim apostate is created by minds of Muslims zealots. What happened in Darfur is shameful to all Muslims and have nothing to do with Islam. Beating women is against the values of Islam and the prophet warned a woman not to marry a Muslim man because he was harsh. Read more under the topic in my blog in the above entry. Terrorist attacks on the west is against our values. Reversing oppression and injustice should be a political task. We could overwhelm the west and the Arab tyrants if we as moderate Muslims unite in one voice and win the Muslim masses. The Muslim scholars have to choose between supporting the Arab tyrants, the Muslim extremists or the moderate Muslims. This is a call for them and they will be answering to God in the day of judgement.