Shamelessly copied from writings of people I respect Dr Shiv, RajeshA, Brihaspatiji etc. did not know how paste the link! Very much in line to my thoughts
Over 165 million Indian citizens are Mohammedans and consider Islam their religion. So the question we always face in India is how to discuss Islam without hurting their feelings, exacerbating communal tensions in India, or for that matter isolating them from the Indian mainstream and Indian nationalism.
Over 165 million Indian citizens are Mohammedans and consider Islam their religion. So the question we always face in India is how to discuss Islam without hurting their feelings, exacerbating communal tensions in India, or for that matter isolating them from the Indian mainstream and Indian nationalism.
On the other hand, it
would be irresponsible in not acknowledging how the Indian Civilization has
been ravaged by groups who have availed of Islamic structures, its paroles and
the mass of its adherents! In fact India still faces the threat from these
groups.
Every Muslim in India
is influenced by Islam, Humanism, their pre-Islamic cultural holdovers, the
Modern World and religious apathy. Often Muslims would try to explain the rest
- Humanism, Cultural Tendencies and Modernity in terms of Islam, trying to find
sanction and confirmation in theology. That would always remain up for debate.
Some may consider Humanism to be part of Islam others would consider both -
Islam and Humanism, to be the two opposite ends of a spectrum, with every
Muslim somewhere in between. Some may see the Muslim masses as simply people
enslaved by the Ideology.
It is important to
acknowledge that in such a discussion we should always be cognizant of the fact
that Muslims belong to India and enjoy their inalienable fundamental rights in
India. Also one needs to acknowledge that the discussion is not to humiliate
them or hurt their feelings, but rather the aim of the discussion is to
understand the nature of threat the Indian Civilization faces from Islamic
groups and their ideology.
it
is important that we remain dispassionate about it, that it be discussed
without the use of vulgarity towards the symbols of Islam. There should be no
name calling! However the truth be spoken as it is! Satyamev Jayate!
Muhammad is not really the issue, he was a man of his
times, no more or less sanguinary than his contemporaries. The issue is those
who fourteen centuries later take him as undebatable. One of the Hindu
"ideal" persons is Shri Rama, and even so, Hindus debate whether he
was right in shooting Baali and exiling Sita from Ayodhya. That does not make
Hindus respect him or worship him less. (And a Rodinson can turn Rama into
another unappetizing character, it is not difficult to do.) Muslims have to
realize that being critical of Muhammad is not incompatible with considering
him the epitome of integrity and the most beloved of Allah. The lack of that
critical attitude among Muslims is no more because of Muhammad than the
bloodiness of the church set up by St. Paul and made official by Constantine is
the fault of Jesus!
The thought that
occurs to me is one of "baseline". The baseline is how far you can go
in expressing an opinion?
Expressing a contrary
opinion in Islam invites punishment. Clearly a mullah who says "Suckle
from your colleagues breast so you can work with her" or "Women
drivers lead to prostitution" will not be considered sane or rational by
most Muslims. So why don't we have hordes of Muslims ROTFL and mocking? One
explanation is that they have blind faith and that they really are humorless
morons. More likely their lips are sealed because otherwise their fate will be
sealed.
People always protect the most vulnerable thing they have.
Footballers facing a goal kick cover their testicles. Mothers hold on to their
babies. You hang on to your wallet in a crowd. Mohammad and Islam are protected
by a death sentence because if you pick holes in either Islam is dead. Or that
is the impression that has been created.
But I don't see Islam dying despite unprecedented
modern day criticism of Mohammad and Islam. Only some practitioners of Islam
are set to lose everything. And they protest the loudest. But Muslims need to
figure that out. Muslims are not criticised for following isiam, but they will
be attacked if they use Islam to attack others. If Islam's main crutch is the
elimination of/opposition to all Kafirs then Islam is set to lose. Those people
who call for endless war and violence against non Muslims will have to simply
be vanished.
if one wants to
actually engage with and help the Moslem peoples, one should use freethinkers and saints as an entry point. Just as it has been used as a
pressure valve by the Ulema when they had control over the coercive machinery
of the state as well as the cultural space, similarly we can turn the valve the
other way by taking control of that cultural space.
if one wants to see
talented Moslems being helped, one must corral the Ulema and their thugs and put
the Islamofascist machinery into the ICU. This must happen at least in some
critical nodes and non-Arab Moslem societies, such as India, Iran.
