From: as5h+@andrew.cmu.edu (Azleena Salleh)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: RE: Moderate islam
Date: 15 Nov 1992 23:06 PDT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
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Originator: Mughal@Romeo.Caltech.Edu (Asim Mughal -Moderator)
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hi there Jonas,

In reference to your posting:
>  I'm almost scared to say  
>what I think or what I know about islam, because someone will accuse me of  
>profanity, and try to incur Allah's wrath upon me or something. 

Sorry to hear you have such a distorted vision of Islam.  I can
understand fully your point of view, because I'm sure living in the West
makes it very hard to understand or learn the beliefs of less popular
traditions, cultures, or in this case, religions. In the same way, there
are many Western practices or customs that Easterners don't agree with,
and the East is not the place to learn and understand the West.

Approaching your question from a Muslim's point of view -- I find that
on the contrary of what you fear, most Muslims receive any inquiries or
questions on Islam with open arms, especially from curious non-Muslims
who are sincerely interested in understanding and learning more about
Islam.  On the other hand, if you approach Muslims with a grudge or an
aggressive front, trying to impose your interpretations of how Islam is
oppressive and restrictive ... I'm afraid any Muslim will turn on their
own defense mechanism and be less accommodating to attacks.  I'm not
implying that you would do something like this, but believe me, many
Muslims (including me) have had our fair share of Islam-bashing in the
presence of a non-Muslim majority, and it's not a situation you forget
soon!

  If you read or hear enough about Islam (I recommend the videotape
'Islam and Science' and other video material by Islamic organizations),
the image of Islam will be more of peace and harmony with your
surroundings and your spiritual self ... as opposed to the 'gunwaving,
turbanned, robed, bearded man, or  
veiled woman, yelling death threats at people' that you described.  I
did see that in a videotape by a non-Muslim organization on the Five
Pillars of Islam, and I found the implication they were making with
associating Islam with aggression very insulting.  

One would have to understand that many Muslim countries have been at war
in the past and still are at present, and the press will tend to
publicize any strange-looking, non-Western habits ... but instead of
interpreting it as barbaric as opposed to the controlled, disciplined
flanks of uniformed soldiers, why don't we look at it from the point of
view of the particular people?  They are mostly self-trained people who
feel strongly about fighting for the future of their families, who were
probably just average husbands and fathers before becoming the soldiers
on the cover of magazines.  Would one think of them differently if you
thought of them as 'freedom fighters' as opposed to 'anti-government
guerillas'?  The media controls too much of how we perceive the world,
unfortunately, and I hope you realize that too.

I'm deviating, but I feel very strongly about the image of Muslims in
the West.  And to some extent your image has been affected by the
Western media as well.  You would have to live with Muslims, in a Muslim
society (this is debatable - I know of many good Muslims who are
Westerners), to understand Muslims. Back to your question:

>I might be totally wrong, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone, but it  
>seems that the muslim community tries to pound its ideas around, instead  
>of allowing people to freely come to them and find their path.  

Sometimes I get that impression too, from so-called Muslim governments
who impose laws that restrict freedom of choice.  But it doesn't affect
my belief and faith in Islam.  Believe me, there is no government in the
world at present that practises the true Islamic political system.  A
muslim government makes decisions based on the majority vote, and if it
doesn't represent the opinion of the people, it isn't Islamic.  Syari'ah
law is a long story, and I won't pretend to know it all (I'm more
interested in Tauheed, the theology of Islam, anyway).  But anyone is
invited to correct me if I should be ignorant of this topic in any way.  

My main point is that Islam does not impose its beliefs on anyone, but
encourages people to PONDER.  God must have been very confident in Islam
when he told us to QUESTION every doctrine and use our mind to
understand his commands.  And Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did
not ever force anyone to follow his beliefs ... but his duty was to
spread the knowledge of Islam so that people may think and ponder it. 
And yet at the point of his death, he had thousands of supporters and
believers who would die for him ... while all he had done was to call
upon them to THINK.  

Maybe you've heard a lot of cases of oppressive Muslims.  But look
beyond the politics and the power play, and meet the people.  Hopefully,
insya-Allah, you'll be pleasantly surprised with personal experiences
with Muslims.  Some tend to be very defensive/offensive when it comes to
threats to Islam (Khomeini and Salman Rushdie's book for example), but
this applies to all religious people around the world who feel strongly
about their religion.  Look at the outrage of the Catholics when Sinead
O'Connor tore up the picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live ... did
you say 'one person who makes a good hearted  
mistake makes no difference to them'?  I think not!


*******************************************************
Azleena Salleh
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

"It is a world completely rotten with wealth, power, senility,
indifference, puritanism and mental hygiene, poverty and waste,
technological futility and aimless violence... and yet I cannot help
but feel it has about it something of the dawning of the universe."
- Jean Baudrillard

*******************************************************