Dear Family of the Heart:
Najeeb Kazmi and
Rafi Aamer have echoed the
heart-felt sentiments of Don
Joshua who questioned the violence
demonstrated by today's Muslims and the malaise and indifference of
the so-called progressive, educated and elite Muslimdom towards a
universal ethic of peace, justice and goodwill to all.
It is indeed a matter of shame that Muslims, by and large, refuse to
acknowledge the fact that the history of Islam is riddled with
episodes of violence from the very day Muhammad announced his
prophethood.
It is therefore quite embarrassing when educated Muslims succumb to,
or invent, conspiracy theories (e.g., Javed
I. Chaudry's suggestion that "all violence perpetrated by
Muslims is reactionary and the fundamental blame lies with the
Western world’s warlords").
The question before us is one of attachment and identity. The Muslim
psyche—whether in the East or the West—is attached to the Arab soul
for reasons of history and convenience, compulsion or influence, and
primarily because the Muslim soul is steeped in beliefs attached to
Muhammad as the sole saviour of the world.
More importantly, the Muslim mind is attached, heart and soul, to
an identity that claims a superior theology of salvation than all
the faiths of other creatures on earth.
When we examine deeply why someone should be so uncontrollably
offended as to kill others in anger and, as is common these
days, bomb houses of worship around the globe just because someone,
somewhere, drew or published some offensive cartoons, we should be
able to see, quite apart from Shakespeare's "Something is rotten in
the state of Denmark," that something is really rotten in this thing
we call religion.
When we study the history of religions, we find that the values and
doctrines of every religion are being melted in the crucible of
reason to see if there is any pure substance there to begin with.
And, whether Muslims like it or not, unless they willingly submit to
the crucible test, the words of Socrates, "The unexamined life is
not worth living," will be wasted on them.
Rashid Mughal
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