How to face theThe West? A Muslim Dilemma

[uicdoc]

In my previous thread on religious affair page, we were discussing about the West and the way Muslim have been handling them. I think, that site was not appropriate for such kind of discussion, so I am putting this topic in this site. I apologize to PG, amin and Mudasser and aadmi for this break and hope that they will continue their discussions here. I also invite Achtung, S Malik, Haqqani, Fatah and my other colleagues who realize and acknowledge the importance of this topic to share their views and ideas on this topic.
My writings will be lengthy so I will break them into few threads. Sorry for the inconvenience


[This message has been edited by uicdoc (edited February 11, 1999).]

[uicdoc]

Just to keep the continuity from previous discussion, I will quote here some of the writings from previous thread.

PG quoted an article from Dawn, in which the author said,
“THERE is now a general consensus in the West, backed by a growing mass of literature, that those men in black turbans and baggy trousers, 'the Islamic fundamentalists', are up to no good. The West seems to have discovered but only recently that these men tend to grow beards, take a dim view of women, are prone to be violently intolerant, and strongly disapprove of the ways of the West…..The Islamic fundamentalism or resurgence is, thus, a phenomenon that does not have a single source of inspiration. Nor does it have a single or common objective”
.
PG further wrote
“Even the reminders to China of democracy have more to do with trade deficit than genuine concern. So the west is more interested in having its puppets installed in various places than democracy.”

aadmi
But the highlight of the previous thread was two writings from aadmi. Very powerful and had lots of thoughts. He wrote,
“…if any one who bleave that the Quran is literally true and should form the basis of religious thoughts or practice then you are no one else but a fandamentalist...!!
…west is trying to mix two opposite poles, Terrorism and Fundamentalism togather so that muslim should become secular...and they are unfortunately some what succesful as well. ….West is again in direct conflict with Muslims on above issues, and in my personal openion this is the most importent reasion for friction b/w west and Islam.”

Mudasser
Came late in this discussions but made good points,
“…If we look at the situations in the past which have made the Middle East look unstable, is there one in which the west may not have been in some way involved.
The Middle East was made …..These oil wars are killing millions of innocent Muslims. Why shouldn't young Muslims turn to 'extremism' 'fundamentalism' etc when we see our leaders behaving like puppets on the hands of their western masters…”

Amin wants to know the reasons for our apprehension about the West. He wrote
“every body is talking about the west.
west says this
west says that
west writes this
west showes that.
why do we care about the west so much.”

I answered to him, “ we are concerned about the West because most of the Muslims are not concerned….”.
In the following posting, I will explain it further, so bear with me.

[uicdoc]

Now a days, western media (US and European, both) are living on Muslim’s News. If we analyze their stories about Islam and Muslims of all over the world, we will find that their main object is to prove that,
1). Islam is a warriors religion which propagates Jihad, a war (according to their own definition), which obligates Muslims to kill every body who is not Muslim.
2) Some sections of Muslims are Fundamentalists.
3) Those countries where struggle for Islamic reforms and revival is going on, it means that they are means going back to the age of barbarian and omnivorous where men were eating men flashes.
4) Anybody who practice Islam, and shows it in his daily life by praying five times Salat and keeping beard, is a terrorists, whose mission is to kill the innocent people without any reason.
5) Islam is an orthodox religion, who does not believe in human rights (including women and children), neither on freedom of thoughts, expression, speech and ideas, and nor on equal justice or democracy.

Muslim’ Reactions

It’s very natural for Muslim to react against these allegations. However, depending upon the types and ways of these responses, we see three distinct category of Muslim
First group.
This group of people who consider the West as Darul- Kufr and any thing (I repeat it, any thing) which will come from there will be Kufr.and should not be appreciated. These people react to all these western alegations forcefully and some time even fanatically. But unfortunately most of them seem to oppose the West just ‘for the sack of opposition. Most of the time they do not come out with any concrete evidence to rebut these allegations or even if they do so they do it in such an arrogant way that it produces no results. Although in our society, the number of such people are not much but they are very strong and stubborn and they speak very loudly so they have been considered , mistakenly, as representative of all Muslims.

Second Group
Muslims among this tend (or at least claim) to ignore all these views and propaganda against us. “We do not care what other say about us, we should not even listen to them,” Is it indifference or tolerance? This is also very appealing and convincing approach. If I was not a Muslim or if I were an ignorant of basic Islamic concept, then I would have said that this is the best way to deal with this situation. However, there are two things which makes me think that may be this is not the case. First of all this whole idea of being indifferent to these issues and closing the eyes against the odds does not match with basic Islamic principles. One of which is to defend ourselves not only when there is threat to our geographical borders but also, in fact more importantly, when our enemies try to demoralize and destabilize us at our ideological borders. Secondly, when I see same group of people fighting with other Muslims over more trivial issues, then I wonder why they are showing so much tolerance to the West but unable to show the same spirit with their own fellow Muslims

Third Group
This group consists of those so called western poisoned scholars and writers who always adopt a very defensive and sometime even apologetic way to face the western criticisms. In order to make them happy, these people bring new ideas in Islam, which has no place in Islam and try to prove that Muslims are ‘not as bad as they (the West) think’. This is the most dangerous group among Muslims because they pose an internal threat to the ideology of Islam. One example of such, is a group of people who are trying to prove that there is a place of Democracy in Islam. So it means that they have already accepted that democracy is the best system. I do not understand that why do they even bother to be called Muslims. Why cant they just announced that because democracy is the best system, so we are just democratic, nothing else. This will make their life easier because then they do not have to worry about proving that Islam is not against democracy and in fact Islam is democracy or may be democracy is Islam etc. etc
One example of such group are found in USA (and may be in other part of western countries) who involve in INTER-FAITH dialogs i.e. to show the world that the Muslims are so open minded and tolerant that we do not have any problems or any fight with any religion especially with Jewish & Christian. In essence all religions are same so it does not matter weather you are Muslims or not. Such an appealing and interesting slogan, isn’t. So in order to get their “friendship”, if we have to sacrifice some or all of our basic identity so what ? After all they are AHLE-KITAB and Human being.
Another example of such western scared people you will find even in this web site. Just go the thread, should religion be changed with time, and you will find lots of people writing on this topic. How much we have been influenced with the west you can see very well in this thread where some people are talking about changes the rules and principles which “does not match” or does not fit within the frame work of humanity which have been devised by the west. For example one of our reader suggested that POLYGAMY
should be abolished, although in Quran there are very direct and clear orders and ayah about this. We are embarrassed to have such ayah in Quran and such examples from the life of our Prophet Mohammed. To day few Muslims are saying such things, if conditions remains the same then there will be a day when you will hear people saying, the name of Allah or the name of Islam or even the name of Prophet Mohammad should be changed or timing of prayer or fasting should be changed and they should be at night only after the work because that’s the “need of the time” . etc etc.

This is a Muslim dilemma which have been imposed to us by the West. This are the questions of the century which we are all facing now and our next generation will be facing very soon. We have to answer these questions now because this is matter of NOW OR NEVER.. So what answers do we have for the West and more so for ourselves ?

[Fatah]

uicdoc
I am sick of your long speeches. Why do you have to give us a lecture. Can't you be more berief. My God, it took me one hour to read and understand what are you talking about. I read it because I want to see what are you writing. It was superb and............

[amin]

I think uicdoc is wise enough to divide the thread into three pieces, otherwise I would have been able to read it.
uicdoc
I am not against these postings.I acknowledge the fact that we do have threat from the West. A threat to our identity and a threat to our integrity. But what should we do now. Should we start bombing the West,continue Jihad gainst them (be Usma ben Laden) should we ban their radio, TV and papers (be Khumani) or should we just ignore them and pray to Allah to save us from them.(a true Muslim)
Under the present situation may the last option is the best one

[Special2]

amin, I don't think ignoring and praying to Allah to help is being a true muslim. After all Allah (swt) has said that He helps those who help themselves.

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