{"id":708,"date":"2013-12-04T09:55:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T09:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=708"},"modified":"2014-07-18T02:29:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T02:29:42","slug":"muslims-islam-west-and-the-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/?p=708","title":{"rendered":"Muslims, Islam, West and the rest"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The following article was published in five instalments in the Daily Times of 14, 21 and 28 August and 4 and 11 September 2013.\u00a0 Here it is reproduced in full.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>I<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A false spectre is haunting the West, the spectre of Global Jihad.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The total number of westerners killed so far from this so-called \u201cJihad\u201d has not reached five thousand, a majority of them in one incident only, namely, 9\/11.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>On the other hand, the total number of Muslims directly killed in \u201cAnti-Jihad\u201d \u2013 western invasion of or intervention in Muslim countries in the name of \u201cwar on terror\u201d \u2013 now runs in the hundreds of thousands.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, the historical significance of events is never measured by the number of people killed. Some events impact more than others, such has always been the case.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Surely, 9\/11 will remain etched in the world\u2019s collective memory for a very long time.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So will, to a lesser extent, the Bali bombings (2002), Madrid train bombings (2004), London\u2019s 7\/7 (2005), Mumbai\u2019s 26\/11 (2008), the recent senseless bombing of the Boston Marathon and the brutal murder of Lee Rigby in London.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Western governments seem powerless to stop such attacks, despite unprecedented border controls, security checks, sweeping surveillance and curtailment of civil liberties of their own citizens.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>While Guantanamo, where 47 inmates are destined to stay locked up for life without facing a court, continues to be a stain on the country which considers itself a beacon of freedom and justice, we now learn that the US has been collecting phone and internet data of Americans, which would have been unthinkable before 9\/11.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the latest scare, the United States has officially closed its embassies in 19 North African and Middle Eastern countries.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Twelve years since the invasion of Afghanistan and 10 years since the invasion of Iraq, a decade after the capture of Al Qaeda\u2019s chief of operations Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, 7 years since the execution of Saddam Hussain, two years since the killing of Osama bin Laden, numerous \u201crenditions\u201d and water-boardings later, the American government and public at large and, to a lesser extent, other governments and people in the West, are living on edge, not knowing when and where the next attack will occur.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Many now see a \u201cJihadi\u201d concealed in every face with a beard, hiding behind every burqa, camouflaged in every person named Muhammad or Ali and lurking in every public place. Unless sanity returns, one may live to see mob violence against perfectly fine, harmless people just because they look or sound like a Muslim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surely, one cannot talk rationally to people who are prepared to butcher unsuspecting runners or passers-by and blow themselves up with intent to kill others for any reason whatsoever.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>One sends such people to jail or to the gallows. But, beyond that, one hopes that governments and leaders know better and they draw from knowledge and experience. In their pursuit of being seen to be doing something, Western governments ought not to forget what it is that they are doing. In the heat of the chase, they should not forget what it is that they are chasing.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It should be clear by now that this terrible \u201cWar on Terror\u201d \u2013 this \u201cAnti-Jihad\u201d, if I may \u2013 is embroiling the world in a vicious cycle of terror and counter-terror, of misperceptions, hatred and more terror. Anti-Jihad creates more Jihadis than it eliminates. It is not making the world more safe, but dangerously unsafe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Owing to skewed reporting, false propaganda, rampant stereotyping, malicious interpretation of events, quoting Quran out of historical context, citing Quranic passages which only a handful of Muslims take literally and even fewer act upon, and highlighting fatwas to which hardly any Muslims pay any heed at all, many people in the West now view Muslims as a dangerous global threat and revile Islam as a source of evil.<\/span><\/p>\n

It will help to get a historical perspective on this \u201cJihad\u201d and \u201cIslamic terrorism\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But first, a few words about non-Muslim terrorism.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Timothy McVeigh, a white American Gulf War veteran, blew up a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring over 680, to make the point that the US government is \u201cevil\u201d.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 fellow Norwegians to punish the ruling Labour Party for the influx of Muslims.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi\u2019s Sikh bodyguards shot her dead in 1984 to avenge the \u201cdesecration\u201d of their holy shrine in Amritsar.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And Hindu mobs burned alive, slashed and decapitated 3,000 Sikhs in revenge attacks in Delhi alone. Sikh militants blew up an airplane over the Atlantic in 1985, killing 329 passengers.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh was killed by a Sikh suicide bomber in 1995.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s LTTE carried out at least 378 suicide attacks between 1987 and 2008.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Among others, they killed approximately 8,000 fellow Tamils accusing them of being traitors and expelled both Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Muslims from areas under their control.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>They may not have employed religious terminology, but their goal was a state for the Hindu Tamil people of northern and eastern Sri Lanka. LTTE\u2019s victims included an Indian prime minister and a Sri Lankan president, who were killed by female Tamil suicide bombers in 1991 and 1993, respectively.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And, while we are at it, why leave out Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who, between them, and within the last hundred years only, killed perhaps many scores of millions of people in the name of racial purity or a \u201csocialist paradise\u201d?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Their victims\u2019 only crime was to belong to the wrong race or religion or to the upper socio-economic classes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Or the Serb massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, where 7,000 Muslims were executed in cold blood in one day for their religious affiliation.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Or the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, when at least half a million Tutsis were massacred over one hundred days by Hutu mobs because of their ethnicity. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The list is long. The further we go back in time, the longer and more grisly it gets.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>No nation can escape culpability or claim the high moral ground.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

II<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Why some young Muslim men \u2013 many of them smart, educated, raised in or living in the West \u2013 are now ready to kill and be killed apparently in the name of their faith?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We will get nowhere unless we clearly recognize that their behavior and actions, however irrational or despicable, are directly linked to events and developments in this world, rather than the pursuit of \u201cheavenly virgins\u201d (<\/span><\/span>houris<\/span><\/em>), as some in the West like to believe.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nor are they engaged in an organised struggle or solo efforts to establish a world \u201cCaliphate\u201d, a supra-national Muslim state, as some crackpots of Hizbut Tahrir (HT) suggest now and then.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Such people should be taken no more seriously than the International Flat Earth Society.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Not a single activist of HT, however, has so far engaged in any act of terrorism or suicide bombing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And why belabor this point when most of the \u201cJihadis\u201d have themselves categorically declared, in one way or another, the direct link between their terrorist acts and one or more of the following: the Israeli occupation of Palestine and humiliation of Palestinians (which would be impossible without US military, economic, political and diplomatic support), the totally unjustified and illegal (and based on a lie, as we now know) US-British invasion of Iraq (with very tragic consequences for<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>the Iraqi people), the US-led NATO intervention in Afghanistan, and extension of military operations into Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In a lopsided conflict against overwhelming military power, terrorism (including suicide bombing) has always been the weapon of the weak.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Presently, it is the cycle of humiliation, subjugation and alienation that stokes the feeling of revenge in disparate young men from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Chechnya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Afghanistan and such, who have nothing in common but their Islamic religion.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And Muslims are not the first or only community to rally to a trans-national or supra-national \u201ccommon cause\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Recall the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), in which 40,000 leftists and communists from many foreign countries, including France, Germany, Austria, Italy, USSR, USA, UK, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Canada, joined forces with their Spanish comrades to defend the Spanish Republican government against the \u201cNationalists\u201d of General Franco, who were supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, Pathet Lao, Khmer Rouge and Viet Minh (representing three nations and four countries), not to mention Russia and China, collaborated against the US military. Long before them, the Christian Crusaders did the same.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Ideologically driven citizens collaborate against a perceived adversary, just as States form political and military alliances when they face a common enemy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The US-supported Afghan liberation war against Soviet occupation (1979-88) galvanized Islamists and victory gave them assurance in their ability to defeat a military superpower. They took pride in being victorious where the large and well-equipped armed forces of Muslim countries, led by secular-minded kings, presidents and generals, had suffered humiliating defeats against lesser powers.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Examples being the humiliating defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the six-day war against Israel in 1967 and of Pakistan in the 1971 war against India.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The end of the Afghan war also created a vast pool of disgruntled Muslim youth, experienced in combat and full of confidence in their prowess, who were now unwelcome, even persecuted, in their own countries. They now found for themselves a new cause, namely, the Islamisation of the largely Western-supported, secular-led Muslim countries, nearly all whom were gripped by economic, political and social crises and wracked by corruption. <\/span><\/p>\n

To suggest that these young Muslim men kill themselves and others because they can\u2019t wait to get their quota of \u201c72 heavenly virgins\u201d is simply ridiculous and insulting.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And what of the female suicide bombers?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In Chechnya they have been called \u201cblack widows\u201d because their mission is to avenge the killing of their husbands.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Every serious research, most notably by University of Chicago\u2019s Robert Papp, has refuted the connection between suicide bombings and heavenly goals and shown its link to politico-military objectives. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Psychology professor Scott Atran writes that most of these radical young men \u201care \u2018born again\u2019 in their late teens and early twenties and have little knowledge of religion beyond the fact that they consider themselves “true Muslims” who must fight enemies near and far to defend their friends and the faith that makes their friendship meaningful and enduring.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Riaz Hassan, of Flinders University in Australia, writes that suicide may provide, for some, \u201cself-empowerment in the face of powerlessness, redemption in the face of damnation and honor in the face of humiliation.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The way some people talk these days, it would seem that Muslims are not just intellectually deficient but not even fully evolved as human beings. Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and a presidential hopeful, has <\/span>described Muslims emerging from mosques after their Friday prayer “like uncorked animals”, throwing rocks and burning cars.<\/span><\/p>\n

The highly regarded biologist, Richard Dawkins, wonders why the world\u2019s billion-plus Muslims have won fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College in UK. Why shouldn\u2019t he ask the same of Indians, Chinese and Africans, who also number over one billion each?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And, as far as I know, not a single person from the combined Indigenous populations of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, not even one Polynesian, Melanesian or South-East Asian has ever won a Nobel Prize (not counting the peace prize). We don\u2019t ask why, because we know why.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, if one subscribes to the argument about Quranic verses or \u201cheavenly <\/span>houris<\/span><\/em>\u201d to be the cause of the current spate of terrorist acts and suicide bombings perpetrated by Muslims, one must also believe that Islam originated in the last decades of the 20<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> century. The truth is that Muslims have followed Islam, read the Quran and congregated in mosques for prayers every Friday for over fourteen hundred years without engaging in vandalism, terrorism or suicide bombings. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is only in the last two decades or so, under a set of historical, economic and political circumstances, some complex, others not so, that some Muslims, a mere handful out of a population of well over one billion, are resorting to acts of terrorism, although the Islamic faith has been alive and well for fourteen centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

III<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Given the current environment, it is hardly surprising that even a very erudite atheist like Sam Harris gets his facts wrong when castigating Islam.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>For example, he writes in praise of Sufism and then asserts: \u201c<\/span><\/span>Sufism is reviled as heresy throughout much of the Muslim world<\/span>\u201d<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In fact, Sufism thrives in all Muslim countries from Morocco to Indonesia, in spite of Salafism, Wahabism and terrorism. Everywhere, except Saudi Arabia, the vast majority of Muslims practice Islam in ways that are far closer to Sufism than to Salafism.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the same piece, letting his bias prejudice his views, Harris refers to the \u201cexperience of innocent Muslims who are treated like slaves and criminals by this religion\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>On the contrary, one particular strength and attraction of Islam is precisely the opposite, that, theologically at least, it regards all Muslims as one community or nation (<\/span><\/span>ummah<\/span><\/em>) and proclaims the equality and dignity of every individual within this community.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By contrast, Christianity declares every individual to be a sinner by birth.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hinduism treats the three lower castes as second, third and fourth class Hindus and consigns the \u201cuntouchables\u201d to a life marginally better than that of street dogs.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Widows fare even worse. Considered inauspicious, they are ostracized, forbidden to remarry, to inherit property or to take part in any festivity of any kind.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, an intelligent and well-read Anglo-Australian friend of mine was asked in an email by a Chinese researcher about his \u201c<\/span>thoughts on the historical and psychological factors that led to the hostage taking situation in Algeria.<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>His long reply began thus: \u201cIslam is a religion and a political system which has been steeped in violence since Prophet Muhammad failed to nominate a clear line of succession upon his death.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This led to the Shia-Sunni divide and the absence of an overarching unifying ideology to which all Muslims can subscribe. . . . We need to remember that the Muslims spend a lot more time killing one another than they do westerners (over one million died in the Iran-Iraq war).\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The ignorance revealed here is matched only by the arrogance of the writer. Firstly, the hostage-taking in the Amenas Gas Plant earlier this year had absolutely nothing to do with the Shia-Sunni schism, but with the French intervention in Mali. Secondly, if there is any major religion with \u201can overarching unifying ideology\u201d, it is Islam, with every Shia and every Sunni, indeed every Muslim, subscribing to the belief in \u201cone God (Allah), one Book (Quran) and one Prophet (Muhammad)\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Thirdly, it will take roughly 76 wars between Iran and Iraq to equal the number of Christians who were killed not so long ago by fellow Christians in the two world wars, in which 76 million people were killed. And, finally, the Iran-Iraq war was no more about sect or religion than were the two world wars, Franco-Algerian War (1954-62), India-China War (1962), Bangladesh War (1971), China-Vietnam war (1979),<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Falklands war (1982), or the two Iraq wars (1991, 2003), to name a few.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Even the Saudi-Iranian antagonism is generally regarded by most non-Muslims in theological terms, as another expression of the Sunni-Shia schism, rather than a rivalry between two civilizations, the Persian and the Arab.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This rivalry is exacerbated, since 1979, by a republican, \u201crevolutionary\u201d Iran posing a threat to the Saudi and other absolute monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The current Shia-Sunni murderous frenzy witnessed in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan may superficially seem to be sectarian, but are the product of economic, historical, social, political and territorial factors, aggravated by the Saudi-Iranian tussle for ascendancy, fuelled by their reserves of petro-dollars. In the case of Pakistan, there is the added factor of state sponsorship of some Jihadi militias as a tool of foreign policy, now out of control.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the over fifty Islamic states, none has ever been accused of deliberately allowing its territory to be used for Jihad against the West. In fact, the armed forces and intelligence services of almost all Muslim countries are so closely cooperating with the US in the Anti-Jihad that they have earned the ire of their own people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even Taliban-ruled Afghanistan (1996-2001) did not engage in any kind of terrorist activity against the West.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We now know that the Taliban were unaware of Osama bin Laden\u2019s anti-US terrorist plans and were, in fact, prepared to cooperate with the US on that issue after 9\/11, but President Bush fired from the hip, so to speak. Iran has been more a victim of American interference and machinations and of Israeli threats than a threat to them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One does not need a great knowledge of history to know that things happen and pass, phases come and go, mindsets change, abnormalities prove transient and peripheral, normality returns.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Think of the Catholic-Protestant schism, Franco-German animosity, US-Japanese hostilities, Soviet-Chinese enmity and the McCarthy Era of the early and mid-1950s, when some Americans saw \u201ca Red under every bed\u201d and West Europeans braced for an invasion by the Soviet Red Army!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The decade from 1961 to 1972 witnessed a hijacking epidemic.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>More than 150 flights were hijacked in American airspace in this period. According to a BBC report (11 July 2013), \u201cat the height of the trend, aeroplanes were hijacked at a rate of nearly one per week. The hijackers’ reasons were varied. Some wanted to escape to countries like Cuba and Algeria. Others used the planes and their passengers as leverage to extort ransom or to promote a political cause.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Brendan I Koerner, author of <\/span>The Skies Belong to Us<\/span><\/em>, is quoted saying:<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cEach air piracy incident inspired others. It was a time when people kind of embraced outlaws,” he said, “because there was so much distrust of the establishment.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, the 19<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> century and the second half of the twentieth century saw the upsurge of anarchism, the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Japanese Red Brigade and many more.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>All are now history. And although some are very recent history, they sound so distant that most people will struggle to recall.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

IV<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let us now look at some specific issues that agitate non-Muslims regarding Islam and Muslims:<\/span><\/p>\n

Violence in the Quran<\/span><\/em><\/strong>: It is an almost universal belief among non-Muslims that the Quran promotes violence, that it is the source of the current spate of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims. I recommend readers to make a google search for violence in the Old Testament and the New Testament or the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. They will be surprised at what they find.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conversely, it might also be instructive to look for references to peace, compassion, tolerance, charity, good works, human dignity, human life and the rights of women, children, orphans, destitute and widows in the Quran and compare them with the other scriptures. Again, Islamophobes may be surprised at what they read.<\/span><\/p>\n

As to the Quranic verses calling for Jihad, they must be read in the context of Arabia of the first half of the 7<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> century.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Only crackpots will read or understand them otherwise.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And 99 per cent of Muslims are not crackpots.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Spread of Islam<\/span><\/em><\/strong>: It is a widely held belief that Islam was spread through forced conversions. Muslim hordes marched with \u201csword in one hand and Quran in the other\u201d, offering their \u201cunfortunate victims\u201d a choice between war and conversion.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In an age when defeat in war could mean being put to the sword, giving the choice of conversion was probably a humane idea, revolutionary for its time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But if you really believe this \u201csword in one hand and Quran in the other\u201d propaganda, ask yourself which Muslim army ever invaded Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, composed of islands, all separated by vast oceans from the Arabian Peninsula.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It also bears mention that Islam is now arguably the fastest-growing religion in some Western countries, if not the whole world.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Surely, these non-Muslims are not converting to Islam to save their necks from present or future Muslim invaders!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It also merits reminding that, in the ancient world and well into the Middle Ages, all religions were spread either by invasion or through the conversion of the ruler, who left no choice for his hapless subjects except conversion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Polygamy<\/span><\/em><\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>While it is true that the Quran permits four wives, a fact every Tom, Dick and Harry of every religion seems to know, what they don\u2019t know or overlook is that in the same verse the Quran qualifies and limits a man\u2019s right to multiple wives with these words: \u201cAnd if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice.\u201d (4:3). And further down, it categorically rejects this conditional \u201cright\u201d by saying: \u201cYe will not be able to deal equally between (your) wives, however much ye wish (to do so)\u201d (4:129).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Most Muslim countries don\u2019t permit polygamy. In those that do, very few actually practice polygamy. Polygamy among south Asian Muslims is rare and among south-east Asian Muslims it is virtually non-existent. <\/span><\/p>\n

Many non-Muslim societies are polygamous, particularly in Africa. The president of South Africa and the King of Swaziland have many wives, as does the former king of Bhutan.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The Mormons in the US have been known to be polygamous. Not all polygamists are Muslims and very few Muslims are polygamous.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Status of women<\/span><\/em><\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Islam has not prevented four Muslim women from serving as prime minister or president in the three Muslim countries with the largest Muslim populations, namely, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Women have been ministers, ambassadors, vice chancellors, lawyers, magistrates, judges, etc. in perhaps all Muslim countries, barring Saudi Arabia and a few Gulf countries.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Their numbers may not be high, but, by the same token, women are under-represented in jobs and high positions in all countries.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In all underdeveloped countries, there is a significant gap between male and female literacy. In India, this gap is nearly 17 %, in Nepal 27% and in Ethiopia 20%. The first two are Hindu-majority Asian countries and the third a Christian-majority African country.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>On the other hand, in four Muslim countries, it is 5.9% (Indonesia), 8.6% (Bangladesh and Iran) and 28.3% (Pakistan), take or leave, in all cases, a few percentage points depending on which data you use. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote, and this happened as recently as in 1894.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Still, women could vote but not stand for election. In the US, no woman has yet been elected as president or vice president, only three have ever been appointed as secretary of state. UK has had but one female prime minister in its long history.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The veil<\/span><\/em><\/strong>: The full veil (<\/span>burqa<\/span><\/em> or <\/span><\/span>niqab<\/span><\/em>) causes some genuine concern among Western believers in women\u2019s rights.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But it has also become the battle-cry of Islamophobes.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It will be sobering to ask how many Muslim women wear the full face veil.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>As to the headscarf (<\/span><\/span>hijab<\/span><\/em>) or some kind of head covering for women, they are worn in many non-Muslim ethnic groups and communities across the world, from Russia and Eastern Europe to India to South America.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And many Muslim women wear the full face veil not because they are compelled to do so by their fathers or husbands but for different personal reasons. Adherence to traditional values or religious injunctions are most often the cause, although there is a great deal of controversy as to the true meaning of the Quranic verses on this issue.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The relevant verses are the subject of different interpretations, which is why the number of Muslim women who choose to wear the full veil is so few as to be negligible.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Estimated to total two thousand in France, for example, they comprise 0.04 percent of the five million Muslims in that country.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And the millions of Muslim women around the world who do not even wear the headscarf, let alone the face veil, do so without regarding themselves to be sinners, without any feeling of guilt and without compromising their faith.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

V<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Male Circumcision<\/span><\/em><\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Islamophobes are now ranting against male circumcision, attacking Islam by association, although it was practiced by Jews long before Muslims. Circumcision rate among Israeli Jews is close to 100 per cent and it is a far more ritualistic requirement for them than it is among Muslims. Circumcision has no mention in the Quran. It is practiced in many African communities, particularly the Xhosa and Ndebele tribes of South Africa.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Until recently, there was a growing trend in the West to have children circumcised soon after birth for its medical benefits.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is prevalent in USA, common in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Korea, rare in Europe and extremely rare in Latin America.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Not all circumcised men are Muslims nor are all Muslim men circumcised.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Female Genital Mutilation<\/span><\/em><\/strong> (FGM):<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It has nothing to do with Islam whatsoever.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is not practiced in the \u201cbirthplace\u201d of Islam, namely, Saudi Arabia, nor in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Iran or Syria.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is very common in Muslim Egypt and Christian Ethiopia but unknown among South Asian and Southeast Asian Muslims, who together constitute over half of the world\u2019s Muslims.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research, the highest religious authority in Egypt, has condemned FGM.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In Mauritania, 34 Islamic scholars signed a fatwa in January 2010 against it.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, FGM is not totally unknown to Europeans. Gynaecologists in 19th-century Europe and US would remove the clitoris to treat insanity and masturbation. Isaac Baker Brown (1812\u20131873), an English gynaecologist who was president of the Medical Society of London in 1865, believed that the “unnatural irritation” of the clitoris caused epilepsy, hysteria and mania. <\/span><\/p>\n

Vaccination<\/span><\/em><\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is not only some Muslims, mainly in Pakistan\u2019s tribal belt and in northern Nigeria, who are skeptical of the benefits of vaccination.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>According to a newspaper report of 15 July in the Nederlands Dagblad (ND), many parents in Holland\u2019s \u201cbible belt\u201d are refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated on religious grounds, saying it is \u201cagainst the will of God\u201d.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But almost all Muslims, perhaps 99 per cent, have no issue with vaccination.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that the CIA very irresponsibly, unethically and needlessly exploited a vaccination program in Pakistan to track Osama bin Laden, caused immense long-term damage to the program in Pakistan and elsewhere. It should be added that many people in the West also oppose vaccination on spurious medical grounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slavery and slaves<\/span><\/em><\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>At a time when slavery was common, the Quran (9:60) specified that Zakat (compulsory alms-giving), one of the five pillars of Islam, was to be used for freeing slaves and bonded labourers. The strong Quranic injunction against usury was directed towards preventing indebtedness leading to servitude and bonded labour. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Freeing slaves was considered a noble act in early Islam, personally encouraged by Prophet Muhammad himself. Many early converts to Islam were the poor and former slaves.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is worth recalling that slavery was practiced in most countries until only a century or two ago. In the US it was abolished in 1863, in many African countries only a few decades ago.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Apostasy<\/span><\/em><\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The Quran leaves the punishment of apostates to God.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>However, the leading Muslim jurists of more than a thousand years ago prescribed the death penalty to apostates.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Many Muslim scholars have justified it by equating apostasy with treason, which attracts the extreme punishment in all countries at all times. Whatever the theory, there is not a single Muslim country whose constitution or penal code prescribes any punishment whatsoever for apostates.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The number of Muslims who have been the victim of extra-judicial killing for apostasy is very few. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ritual animal slaughter<\/span><\/em><\/strong>: Muslims are not the only people who engage in ritual animal slaughter, nor is their method of slaughter the most inhumane.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Half a million buffaloes, goats, ducks, roosters and pigeons are ritually slaughtered in Nepal during the \u201cGadhimai\u201d festival held once every five years in Nepal.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Animistic and tribal societies literally batter animals to death.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In many societies, both tribal and modern, some animals and fish are often cut open, roasted or barbecued while fully alive, either for food or their body parts to be used in traditional medicine.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fact is stronger than fiction.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Truth prevails, even though rumour and misinformation travel a lot faster than truth.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Muslims are not the first religious or ethnic community to be at the receiving end of a scurrilous campaign of vilification.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Jews, gypsies and many other communities, particularly religious and ethnic minorities, have experienced it in the past, some continue to do so in the present.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose no one represents anyone but themselves.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Who represents Islam?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Muslims do.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Who represents Muslims?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>They themselves.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>What impression do they leave on those from other religions or cultures who they interact with?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It varies from country to country, region to region.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But, generally speaking, not bad at all.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, Muslims are known for their kindness, warmth, compassion and generosity, regarded as gentle, caring, friendly human beings.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Even those non-Muslims who routinely denounce Islam have nothing bad to say about the Muslims they know, whether devout or secular.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The vicious cycle of Jihadist terror and the Western Anti-Jihadist terror in the name of the \u201cwar on terror\u201d needs to be broken before long.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Both feed on each other, breed hatred and take lives.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There is much that is wrong with Muslims today and I have often written about these issues on these pages. But they love their religion and they are in their rights to do so. The more it is attacked the more defensive and fundamentalist they are likely to become. <\/span><\/p>\n

It will also help to remember that the West has evolved over centuries and changed significantly only in the last half century or so.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Left to themselves, Muslims will go through the same process of intellectual evolution as Christians have gone through.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The relentless progress of science and science education has changed the West, not atheist literature or attacks on Christianity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(<\/span>Concluded<\/span><\/em>)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By Razi Azmi<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The following article was published in five instalments in the Daily Times of 14, 21 and 28 August and 4 and 11 September 2013.\u00a0 Here it is reproduced in full.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":710,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raziazmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}