From: sherwani@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Naveed Sherwani)
Subject: Re: SALMAN RUSHDIE
Summary: insult vs. rejection: What has Islam done ?
Organization: Western Michigan Univ. Comp. Sci. Dept.
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 18:41:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.072914.27434@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, bholu@nyx.cs.du.edu (  Bholu) writes:
> In article <1992Sep10.024417.5116@sol.cs.wmich.edu>(Naveed
> Sherwani) writes: 
> 
> 

Mian Bholu Shahib:

I agree with the spirit of your post. I took the previlige of
just taking out one sentence, which to me appears to be the
key.

> The only thing that needs to be eliminated is the lie not 
> the liar. 



> >they should learn to respect other religions. I have shown
> >again and again how islam's basic ideas insults other
> >religions. 
> 
> Rejection of other religions/ideologies by another does not 
> amount to insult, and this applies to all religions/ideologies.


Islam has not rejected their religions, but tried to subsume them
by trivilizing them.

Please read several of my early post exchnages with Syed Irfan Hyder
where we got into semantics/definitions/etc to argue that Islam's
cliam that "it has a true copy of one and only true BIBLE" is infact
blasphemous to christianity and Judaism.

I was always suggested that a better (less confrontional) way would
be to say that Islam is another religion, which is different than
christianity and judaism. However, that is not the claim that
muslims ar willing to accept. They have been bent upon proving
that christians and jews are following a corrupted copy of
the bible and they better follow the new and only true copy.
I hope you see THE problem with this attitude.

To give a historical perspective to this:

Mohd[pbuh] may have chosen to subsume Christianity and Judaism, ONLY
because these are only two religions that he knew about. If he known
about Hinduism, Yamamoto Indians, Hoppi and Sious, he might have taken
a different route. But ofcourse, for people who believe that he was 
messenger of God, and that Islam is sent by God, this opinion would
make little sense. However, some questions linger around ?

If Allah[swt] choose to subsume Christianity/judaism, then why he/she/it did
not subsume other religons EXPLICTLY ?  Mohd[pbuh] talks about those two
religions but never about the religions that are farther from him. As a messenger
of God he should have knowledge of all religions (existing or those
which are evergoing to exist). That I believe is an interesting question?

Are there any religions mentioned by name that Mohd[pbuh] could not have
heard of during his travels to palestine and syria. Actually all new
world religions were unknown at that time.

The net effect of subsuming has been that muslims do not even consider
other religions (other than christianity/judaism) as religions. Most
muslims do not think that hinduism is a SERIOUS religion. Ofcourse,
religions of Yamomoto, Hoppi and Siou are definitely considered hanky panky.
This lack of respect of other religions is what others (non-muslims)
find very ego-tistical (sp?) about muslims.

BTW, christians/jews also have similar attitudes making them equal offenders
in this game of intolerance.

regards,

-Naveed

PS: Muslims who believe this post is blasphemous,  should read 

            Islame: A derailad historye of Mullahs
                      	 bye
            Dan Quayle and Alfred E. Neuman 

:-), just kidding
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