Round 2
Well, I read the article, I was hoping to see an interresting point of view but well, I didn't find one ...
When I first started to post in those religion and politics section, I wanted to present certain ideas that may help people who don't live in the west how we muslims see the world.
Do muslims have idealogical issues, yes, but who doesn't ...
Did Dr. Wafa even come near those issues, or tried to address them in a way that will get her respect, nope, sorry, she didn't
Why do some westerns seem to like her words? the only answer I can think of, they don't have the time to really learn about islamic idealogical debates and they like to hear someone blaming islam.
First lets take few quotes from the article and compare them...
quote 1: Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries
quote 2: She said she no longer practiced Islam. "I am a secular human being," she said.
Now, Dr. Wafa is a psychiatrist, there was nothing in the article that suggest she studied islam thouroughly, and no being a devout mulim (assuming she truely was) doesn't make you an authority to interprete islam.
Islam been around for more than a 1000 years, many schools of though came and went away, the islamic religious leterature is huge, the history is huge, how much does she know about it, what does she think of the Mutazalite school for example, they were famed to only rely on logic to interprete islam
Then she says she is not muslim anymore, if she isn't why is she worried about wrong interpretation, assuming she took the time to learn different interpretations compare them and then suggest, what went wrong.
Islam turned the arabs into a force not to be ignored, islam kingdom at its prime ruled a region from spain to india.
Islam created value, for a long long time.
Then muslims started to power and ... here we are now. At the bottom of the power ladder.
What went wrong, is it certain ideas, maybe, this is a very interesting reasearch, and any scholar who comes up with theories about that will be pretty much respected in the muslim world, even if he opposed traditional interpretation of the script.
You see, there is not real problem in opposing the script, you can, and as long as you present your arguments decently, and showing good will.
Dr. Wafa is doing neither. When I read somethig like:
she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."
I think, ohhhh really, this is like someone saying I started looking of another Jesus, because he saw KKK biggot killing a black guy, this is exactly the same. How seriously would you take this guy.
Did a single muslim, accuse christianity of breeding KKK people of breeding racist. No.
We in the middle east have a better understanding today, more than ever of what really went wrong.
Yes we do have idealogical issues, and yes they dont get much attention, and its mainly because, Muslim clerics don't have as much freedom as they should, not the opposite.
We need more freedom for muslim clerics, this is the only way to bring those idealogical issues to surface, and hopefully solve them. We need to put those ideas to test, this is the only way, muslims will learn what works and what wont.
I quote:"Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."
What knowledge, and what wrong beliefs, be specific please, what are you arguing about, your not even muslim, are you trying to encourage muslims not to be muslim, what is she trying to do, and the editor of this article, whats your intention, dont you know, many ppl know nothing about islam, what will they think when they read this, this is twisting the fact, this is not honest, this is evil
And lets go back to the knowledge bit, what knowledge is she talkin about, seriously, is she talkin economic policies, or social policies, or politics or what, and what does she knows about islams point of view on this, and how is it wrong, this is rubbish
Anyway, as far as I care she doesn't seem like a knowledgeable person, and she adds nothing of value.
I wont recommend taking her seriously, she is playing on emotions that are only popular in the west. She doesn't offer logical debates.
What else, heh, the jewel of the article,
"Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
And how are israel and america defending their believes, invading countries, killing ppl, supporting tyrants in under developed countries, syria is one, or used to be one, Dr. Wafa your secular tyrant, got where he was using support from the west, he used this support to kill freedom in your country
And, no muslims dont, some muslims do, on the opposite hand, america as a whole is invading iraq, israel as a whole is oppressing the palestanians, so ... what u see some muslims doing, is actually the result of ignoranc and poverty, which is the result of secular tyrant leaders, not religious leaders.
A problem is, all those other problems muslims have, really shadows any idealogical debate, who cares what women should wear, when you can be imprisoned and tortured without a trial, and this is in part the true essence of the problem.
We have a belief and the west have a belief, we got issue with our own believes, but facing the issues we have with those other believes, our own issues are burried deep down the surfaces.
I know, maybe, wasn't very clear but, well .... I think, God willing, I will have the chance to elaborate latter ....
