In the Arab world, it is held as an unadulterated truth that the Qur’an is best read in its original classical Arabic. But is keeping it closed off to further translation supporting God’s will or suppressing it?

Many believe that what differentiates the Qur’an from other holy books is that it is undiluted by translation, that once a word is translated it loses its original breadth and depth. But is that really the case? Can we not also make the argument that a word, once translated into 100 languages, expresses an even greater breadth and depth?

The Qur’an defines itself. Less perfectly, perhaps, in Swedish than in Arabic, but surely far more valuably to the Swedes. One cannot hold goodness hostage to perfection.

Life is all about the grey area. When I was growing up I wasn’t sure where I belonged in the world of religion. The way religion was taught in the Arab world was always in absolutes. While I didn’t know much when I was young, I knew that I could not live in a black and white, either-or world. This was made most clear through a sermon delivered by a young imam who was studying for his doctorate at the Harvard Divinity School.

Speaking to a group of Muslim students, Imam Talal Eid said, “If you ask me whether charging interest is haram (forbidden) in Islam, I would say ‘yes’ and I would quote chapter and verse from the Qur’an for you.”

After a long pause, he went on to say, “But if I didn’t pay for my car with an installment loan, I wouldn’t be able to come here to talk to you about Islam.”

With that simple, expressive example between the absolute and the relative, the imam carved out a place of tolerance and compromise for me. He made it safe for me to be the judge of my own actions, to set my own course, to walk to the beat of my own drum. He made it safe to make my own rules using the lessons I learned with the heart and mind that God gave me. No one could force me to walk away from my duty as a Muslim by insisting there was only one way to live my life and practice my faith.

Tolerance begins in the classroom. Tolerance begins when we are allowed to read any text from any source, in any translation, and offer our opinions. Tolerance is born when there are as many opinions as there are people and when the power of reason is what separates a good grade from a bad one. In an Arab education, the power of memory and repetition are too often rewarded, while the power of reason is reprimanded.

In our schools, we get an “A” if we can memorise someone else’s teachings but an “F” if we dare to analyse it. Worse yet, we can be branded as heretics. I have heard many proudly say that one should value repetition over the use of one’s mind.

But if God had wanted us to be parrots, he would have given us feathers and beaks instead of minds and free will.

We need to move on.

In Europe the Renaissance helped break the control of those who favoured recitation over reason. Art played a huge part in that revolution. Suddenly, people were encouraged to have opinions about art and to discuss its implications. Meanwhile, art in our neck of the desert was, until recently, limited exclusively to the beautiful calligraphy of the Qur’an.

As beautiful as our art is, its meaning gave no room for openness of interpretation. How could one comment? I don’t like the colour purple on that verse? Maybe the writer should have used a larger font?

I once asked my ten-year-old son, Hamad, what he thought of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, the Mona Lisa. He liked her smile but not the colours. “Too dark”, he said.

I then asked him what he thought of a beautiful piece of Qur’anic calligraphy that honours a wall in our home. He looked at it and asked me what I meant. “Hamad, you just told me what you liked and didn’t like about the Mona Lisa”, I replied. “Why can’t you tell me the same about this piece of art?”

He looked at me confused and said, “It’s the Qur’an. Of course it’s beautiful.” And indeed it is. But that is beside the point; someday he will know of his own intellect why it is beautiful.

This must be "lame articles" week at AltMuslim, this one written by a Kuwaiti businessman who spent more time reading Archie then study and present insightful arguments on religion. Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa's(a clinical psychologist) claims are surprisingly redundant. He seems to confuse interpretation with translation. For an Arab he sounds surprisingly ignorant of the Quran, tafsir, and recitation. Doesn't know history too well either. He seems to be a man who neither knows Islam nor lives Islam. Reading some of his interviews online, I had to laugh at how utterly clueless he is(seriously, google this guy for a case study in inferiority complexes). Much like the professionals in the Muslim community who think degrees in engineering and medicine are substitutes for genuine knowledge and scholarship of Islam. This explains why 5 star Masajid are run by people who don't know even basic adab and akhlaq, but hey I got a degree so its all good!
BTW, I skimmed the "99" comic, and frankly it sucks out loud(a weak one dimensional story line with poor generic attempts at aping Manga drawing style) for lack of a better word. Reminds me of the lame 109 villains Marvel called the "Elements of Doom" (based on the periodic table). Sorry Naif ol' chap but its not going to cut it(you might have gotten away with it in the 70s or 80s). American comics today are crap, reflective of a culture with no real heroes, hence they have to invent them. We have our heroes, and they aren't fictitious men who stick to walls, leap over buildings in a single bound or get nuked by a gamma bomb.
At least be creative instead of ripping of the X-men or Gen13. Anybody remember Marvel's ridiculous "Arabian Knight"(introduced in a Hulk comic) who flew over Riyadh on a carpet with a turban and scimitar? Some geeky memories never go away.

>> He seems to confuse interpretation with translation. For an Arab he sounds surprisingly ignorant of the Quran, tafsir, and recitation. Doesn't know history too well either.

I don't think the intention is to give up the Arabic, but rather to allow people to refer to their translations when in need. Yes, Arabic translations do improve, our knowledge of the times of the Prophet SAW does get more complete, and that should be used to help Muslims and not hinder them.

But with improved translations, the rest of the non-Arabic Muslim world can also start confronting the Arab world about their notions of Islam, politics, civilisation, law and society. All of which we have all unwillingly been subjected to. In my opinion, the best non-Arab Islamic scholars are in fact secular academics. Non-arab Muslim ulema are not inclined to subject Quraan to the rigours of western educational tools.

We have unwittingly created an Ulema class of citizen. Who aren't inclined to have their female children receive secular education beyond the age of twelve, and aren't open to sharing Deen/Masajid with people who hold different views from them (I admit it tends to be a situation that worsens as arguments are thrown back and forth). And this is one of the reasons, a mistaken notion of orthodoxy as the most broadly practiced and Islamically legitimate form of Islam. And an increasingly restricting view of the Taabieen and classical scholars.

The objective is to know the history, the structure, the tafsir and recitation better. Saying that the answers are all there and well presented is something that will unravel with time as Muslims areound the world engage with the new materials more freely.

>> The way religion was taught in the Arab world was always in absolutes.

This is not true of all of our history or all of the Muslim world. A new political paradigm has overrun our institutions like Saudi funded and Egyptian controlled Al-Azhar.

>> In Europe the Renaissance helped break the control of those who favoured recitation over reason. Art played a huge part in that revolution.

I don't think the renaissance is a template for Muslim development, or any other societies development, but it does provide some clues as to civilisationary development. My now axed president (Thabo Mbeki) and his party also coined the term African Renaissance, resulting in my non-Muslim governments efforts to recover the Islamic manuscripts of Timbukhtu. Its uniquely African and inspired by African values and being implemented by Africans. The European renaissance is a good reference for some elements, but not the template itself.

If Dr Naif is indeed a psychologist, he can contribute immensely to empowering Ulema about the basis for psychological methods and the way they are managed. He can provide the basis to test the effects of Islamic jurisprudence and social norms on society and individuals. I think the Comic Books is a good idea, but the gaps between secular understanding/knowledge regarding the implementation of Islamic theology is broad.

>But with improved translations, the rest of the non-Arabic Muslim world can also start confronting the Arab world about their notions of Islam, politics, civilisation, law and society.>

Confront? More divide and conquer strategy to further fragment Muslims? Set the Arabs and non-Arab Muslims against each other under the guise of making the Deen better? The British used this technique quite nicely ensuring the destruction of the Khilafah.

>In my opinion, the best non-Arab Islamic scholars are in fact secular academics. Non-arab Muslim ulema are not inclined to subject Quraan to the rigours of western educational tools.<

You're displaying your ignorance of Islamic Scholarship. The best scholars in the Islamic world languish in jails, while the court appointed scholars for hire continue to fool the people. Secular academics are the amongst the worst "authorities" on Islam. People who neither know Islam or live Islam, seeing it as mere human phenomenon which grew from the desert. "Western educational tools"? What, more orientalist chaff after more then a thousand years to this day? By this yardstick, Islam doesn’t cut it. Buddhism and Hinduism can work -- hey, the Beetles were into it -- as long as they are “cleaned up” and reassembled for Western consumption. It’s hip, it’s trendy, and it's a status symbol of one’s cosmopolitanism, one's "open mind".

Read "The Qur’anic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society" by Dr.Fazlur Rahman Ansari, possibly the best original work in the English language on Islam.
http://www.fazlurrahmanansari.org/QFSMS.html

or any Sheikh Imran Hosein's amazing work in the field of economics. His teaching seminars on the subject must be taught in every dar al-Uloom.
part 1 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2359766249581522328

part 2 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7791938638232429363&hl=en

I appreciate the author's intentions - to READ & UNDERSTAND the Quran, no matter what language you're reading it in! No one is trying to pit Arabic-speakers against non-Arabic-speakers...

The call for tolerance in Islam is completely in keeping w/ my understanding of the tenets of Islam - if we accept God as the ultimate judge, then we shouldn't busy ourselves w/ judging each other, each other's profession, each other's names, dress codes, level of education etc.

Personally - I enjoyed this article - if we wait for the Islamic scholars to explain the minutiae of the faith to us, we'll be completely clueless. It's basic common sense to read & try to understand the Quran by oneself as the first step in acquiring knowledge. It would take me years to master Arabic proficiently - so I'm quite happy to refer to several different English translations in an attempt to approximate the original meaning.

>Personally - I enjoyed this article - if we wait for the Islamic scholars to explain the minutiae of the faith to us, we'll be completely clueless. It's basic common sense to read & try to understand the Quran by oneself as the first step in acquiring knowledge. It would take me years to master Arabic proficiently - so I'm quite happy to refer to several different English translations in an attempt to approximate the original meaning.<

Then why do you pray in Arabic? There's a reason for that. Use translations, but don't think its a substitute for the original. I wish Muslims, regardless of nationality would set a higher standard for themselves then fall for this wishy washy watered down excuse of deen. Scholars(and by that I mean true Scholars, not the court appointed jesters we see today) are there to guide us with the knowledge and understanding of the deen the average Muslim lacks.
Its more about Taqwa then Fatwa.

>> Confront? More divide and conquer strategy to further fragment Muslims? Set the Arabs and non-Arab Muslims against each other under the guise of making the Deen better? The British used this technique quite nicely ensuring the destruction of the Khilafah.

No. Muslims are already divided with an orthodoxy in place. The truth has a healing quality about it. The British didn't CREATE the differences, they USED the differences. The distinction is clear. We ourselves can NOT live with different and conflicting opinions. Anyway you look at it, from Sunni to Shia, from Orthodox to Sufi, between schools of thoughts and revisionists (modernist and Salafi alike), or between countries .. there are differences. But instead of monopolising on the knowledge from each other (as Allah says in the Quraan ~ to learn from each other), we do the opposite and ultimately pay the price.

When I say confront, I don't mean walk into Saudi and overthrow the regime and attack Salafis. I mean allowing the knowledge to discharge itself. People will confront themselves when they allow themselves to know better. If yours truly is the case, there wouldn't be such widespread censorship in the Arab religious presses.

>> You're displaying your ignorance of Islamic Scholarship. The best scholars in the Islamic world languish in jails, while the court appointed scholars for hire continue to fool the people.

You're dramatizing a few incidences. When I pointed out Scholarship, I refer to the technical and objective tools used to understand the Quraan, and not the politicization of the message (whether that politicization was for good or bad). Can you name 5 Orthodox scholars who languish in jails because they added truthful meaning to the Quraan? I doubt you'd find a single scholar who confronted the abuse of slavery by the Muslim empire, or the decline of our womens rights/recourse in Islamic law, or the lack of workers rights/recourse. Those groups would account for majority of our society. How many Muslim scholars pronounced judgements on men who abused their children? ... Maybe you want to blame that on a Jew?

All of what we call Islamic Scholarship is actually wrapped up in doctrine and schools of thought that themselves aren't even fully understood, but readily applied. They are meant to affirm that each scholar was infallible or that their understanding was complete. Even Fazlur Rahmans biography reads that he read 500 pages of ALL fields to broaden his knowledge. Taking me back to the fantastic stories Bukhari RA reciting sixty thousand hadith in one sitting before his peers had to stop him.

>> Then why do you pray in Arabic? There's a reason for that. Use translations, but don't think its a substitute for the original.

Its not about finding a substitute, its about knowing as much objective truth about the original as possible. Performing Salaah in arabic is easy. Understanding that Arabic is more fundamental but infinitely more difficult. Even Imaam Shafi RA recognised during his years the importance of understanding the Arabic of the Prophet SAW (Arabic had many dialects). If he was cautious and as technical as he could be, why should we be less so?

>> Sheikh Imran Hosein's amazing work in the field of economics.

Amazing work in Economics was accomplished by Marx, Smith, Friedman etc. who developed and understood the science of economics. I can't attest to how much your Sheikh knows about Economics, but I can guarantee you he probably knows even less about the economy of the Prophet SAW. What was inflation at that time (next to nothing)? What was the GDP of Makkah/Madinah? What was the value of land? How much land did the government own (nothing~lands and homes were valueless and took about two days to build)? How many promissory notes were in circulation (i.e. cash money)? etc. What was the value of intellectual property? (intellectual property rights were not established) What was an acceptable minimum wage? The Baitul Maal was not a central reserve.

We're not brain washed westernised wishy washy anything. We have learnt and we will begin to apply in the light of Quraan and Sunnah a more comprehensive and deeper understanding. Like the first Arabs/Persians/Turks translated from latin, we will do the same, and we will perform our Salaah just the way it always has been.

>> I wish Muslims, regardless of nationality would set a higher standard for themselves then fall for this wishy washy watered down excuse of deen.

Wishy Washy is when you give up control and understanding of your Imaan and objective Truth to an elite. Wishy washy is when you don't have to understand a single economic concept but can still present a economic "thesis" on the failure of usury. Wishy washy is when you don't understand basic legal theories about testimony and law of evidence and can still be a Qazi. Wishy Washy is when you give up the sciences for the "sciences" of deen but you don't know what science itself is. Wishy washy is when you talk politics but live speeches and disengagement.

I don't doubt traditional scholars who have quite alot to offer on the metaphysical side of things and on the side of Tafsir itself. But we've got five hundred years of purely intellectual catch up to make, which isn't alot in terms of knowledge, but is much more in terms of implementation and extrapolating. Denying that the knowledge gap exists is for me a destructive notion. There are reasons they grounded their understandings in certain ideas. For example the racism directed at Hindus in Muslim India, or the notion of womens intellectual inferiority. Things prescribed with preconceived notions that have ironically become our bedrock.

I also think that the field of linguistics itself has evolved so much that we would be foolish to ignore it.

I think the best way is the way it has evolved naturally: keep bilingual copies of the Quran in circulation. Keep a running translation together with the original Arabic text (ah, but of which Reading: Warsh's? Nafi's? Hmmm, that complicates things doesn't it?). Or, make the translated text a kind of tafsir, a sort of interpretation. However, the Hilali and Khan translation does this according to Salafi viewpoints, and the results are less than stellar. Salman is said to have translated Fatiha into Persian in the 600's. Abu Hanifa at first let Persian converts pray in Persian and then reversed himself to *sensibly* prevent the fracture of Islam along linguistic lines. Arabic unifies us, but we must not limit ourselves to a linguistic chauvenism. Comprehension is more important than lniguistic nationalism.

So, we pray in Arabic but the seeming point of this comment is two: 1) learn Arabic so you understand what you're reading, or 2) discard any translations and remain ignorant and reliant on "shiekhs" (which actually means old man and has no religious connotation), Ulema of varying competance in both Islamic and natural sciences (no such thing as secular sciences since its still the study of Allah's creation). The Quran was revealed to every man and woman and was not meant to be a hidden secret accessible and interpretable by a few. In fact, Islam came to liberate us from the tyranny of religious elites which is why it was revealed in the common Arabic of Makka and recited out loud at prayers and in tilaawah: *so it could be directly understood*!

>> 2) discard any translations and remain ignorant and reliant on "shiekhs" (which actually means old man and has no religious connotation),

So much could be said about this and in particular the universal message of Islam. Most of our converts/reverts would not have become Muslim had they not picked up a Quraan, without wudhu, and read and interpreted a translation! with nothing but an open and clean heart.

The truth has a healing quality about it. The British didn't CREATE the differences, they USED the differences. The distinction is clear. We ourselves can NOT live with different and conflicting opinions. Anyway you look at it, from Sunni to Shia, from Orthodox to Sufi, between schools of thoughts and revisionists (modernist and Salafi alike), or between countries .. there are differences. But instead of monopolising on the knowledge from each other (as Allah says in the Quraan ~ to learn from each other), we do the opposite and ultimately pay the price.

The British did both actually. Where do you think the Ahmedis, and Barelwi's, the secular(thats right, I said secular) state of Saudi Arabia came from? Ever heard of divide of conquer? Muslims have lived with differences for well over a thousand years, try reading a history book sometime before going into clue less rants.

>We're not brain washed westernised wishy washy anything.<

Actually you are, and nursing a massive inferiority complex. Shed the euro centric conditioning.

>Amazing work in Economics was accomplished by Marx, Smith, Friedman etc. who developed and understood the science of economics. I can't attest to how much your Sheikh knows about Economics, but I can guarantee you he probably knows even less about the economy of the Prophet SAW. What was inflation at that time (next to nothing)? What was the GDP of Makkah/Madinah? What was the value of land? How much land did the government own (nothing~lands and homes were valueless and took about two days to build)? How many promissory notes were in circulation (i.e. cash money)? etc. What was the value of intellectual property? (intellectual property rights were not established) What was an acceptable minimum wage? The Baitul Maal was not a central reserve.<

Put your Marxist(a thoroughly failed system) pitchfork down for a minute, comrade. All the questions you've raised have been answered in the video links I provided. Imran Hosein is not "my Sheikh," but he is an extraordinary scholar and intellectual whose teaches the subject all over the world, including South Africa.
How about viewing his work before dismissing him, or does your politburo not approve?

>We have learnt and we will begin to apply in the light of Quraan and Sunnah a more comprehensive and deeper understanding.<

Sure you will. Another sect in the template of the failed and defunct pro-regressive cult.

>Wishy Washy is when you give up control and understanding of your Imaan and objective Truth to an elite. Wishy washy is when you don't have to understand a single economic concept but can still present a economic "thesis" on the failure of usury. Wishy washy is when you don't understand basic legal theories about testimony and law of evidence and can still be a Qazi. Wishy Washy is when you give up the sciences for the "sciences" of deen but you don't know what science itself is. Wishy washy is when you talk politics but live speeches and disengagement.<

What a magnificent assortment of straw man arguments. High on Das Kapital.

>I don't doubt traditional scholars who have quite alot to offer on the metaphysical side of things and on the side of Tafsir itself. But we've got five hundred years of purely intellectual catch up to make, which isn't alot in terms of knowledge, but is much more in terms of implementation and extrapolating.<

Save the materialist banter, Scholars of Deen aren't just there for the "metaphysical side of things." What you failed to mention is that the decline of the Muslim world was precipitated by European colonization and complete with the forced secularization and ethnic stratification. Westernized elites("educated" in the finest schools) run the banana republics of the Islamic world today. Their failures are not the shortcomings of Islam, or the true Ulema. Wake up and smell the coffee.

>> Where do you think the Ahmedis, and Barelwi's, the secular(thats right, I said secular) state of Saudi Arabia came from

How can anyone have a discussion with you if you actually consider Saudi Arabia an Secular state? I don't know. Tell me where do the Ahmedis and Barelwis come from? Yorskshire?

>> Actually you are, and nursing a massive inferiority complex. Shed the euro centric conditioning.

You LIVE in the United States. If by your definition, I nurse an inferiority complex, how much more inferior can you get than living in the United States?

>> How about viewing his work before dismissing him, or does your politburo not approve?

I haven't dismissed your references, and I thanked you for the link, but I pointed out some basic concepts for you. Marxism and Capitalism have ideologies and they have sciences. The fact that you've said Marxism has failed, is an ignorant statement. You haven't tested the science, which works. Has it failed in China? Has it failed the worlds labour rights movement? Has it failed the worlds socialist governments?

>> What a magnificent assortment of straw man arguments. High on Das Kapital.

Actually, it sums up the reason for all failure of discussion with dogmatic people. People have dogmas. They don't discuss anything on its merits. There is no merit for some brothers unless it is given its specific "Islamic" view. There is no truth other than an official Islamic one. But so much is new that you will find hardly any real Islamic legal reference, besides the reference that is forced.

>> What you failed to mention is that the decline of the Muslim world was precipitated by European colonization and complete with the forced secularization and ethnic stratification

Blame blame blame. You can't see one basic thing. We view our decline in terms of their successes. But the truth is that we have not had very many successes of our own for a long time. And the decline in our scholarship is precipitated by the dominance of specific political and ideological forces in our Ummah. Ibn Sina's ideas have benefitted the west but was never full accepted or understood by our traditional scholars. Colonialism did quite alot, but you're talking about a period almost two hundred years after the peak of our civilisationary peak. The decline began much earlier.

Anyway, these are assertions related to the topic:

>> The Quran was revealed to every man and woman and was not meant to be a hidden secret accessible and interpretable by a few

>> Abu Hanifa at first let Persian converts pray in Persian and then reversed himself to *sensibly* prevent the fracture of Islam along linguistic lines.

>> I refer to the technical and objective tools used to understand the Quraan, and not the politicization of the message (whether that politicization was for good or bad). Can you name 5 Orthodox scholars who languish in jails because they added truthful meaning to the Quraan?

>> All of what we call Islamic Scholarship is actually wrapped up in doctrine and schools of thought that themselves aren't even fully understood, but readily applied. They are meant to affirm that each scholar was infallible or that their understanding was complete.

>> But we've got five hundred years of purely intellectual catch up to make, which isn't alot in terms of knowledge, but is much more in terms of implementation and extrapolating. [i.e. specifically linguistics and factual understanding natural world]

I accept the Quraan as Allahs truth, but the shooting stars I OBSERVE CURRENTLY are not fireballs being shot at Jinn, but space rocks burning up from contact in our atmosphere as they are pulled in to the earths gravity. Mountains are not placed on top of land to hold the land down, they are the contact points of land itself pushing against each other and rising UP. Allah is not using earthquakes to punish homo-sexuals. Certain countries lie along fault lines in the earths crust and the friction of that crust results in earthquakes. Certain areas are more prone. These observable truths contradict very literal and all-encompassing applications of Quraanic ayats.

Lastly, if I can point out, and in reference to interpretation, I've found Islamic scholars have confused "materialist" as being obsessed with worldly possessions, with materialism as philosophy and methodology. An example is when Galileo measured the rate at which objects fall to earth. Its an application of materialist philosophy. So interpretation and understanding are key because the words are misapplied in understanding others too.

One cannot hold goodness hostage to perfection.
What a fantastic quote.
I often use this when trying to "talk down" Sunnis vs. Shi'a rhetoric.

>> One cannot hold goodness hostage to perfection.

But can you hold it hostage to being exclusively Islamic?

>How can anyone have a discussion with you if you actually consider Saudi Arabia an Secular state?<

I'm afraid you you've drank too much of the kool aid. How can anyone have a discussion with you when you don't know the history of the Saudi client state and how it came about? Saudi Arabia is a secular state masquerading as a religious nation,(somewhat similar to how India is a quasi-religious state masquerading as a secular one). Do some real research and you'll be in for a heck of a shock.

>Tell me where do the Ahmedis and Barelwis come from? Yorskshire?<
Don't be ridiculous. Both groups showed up in India when it was a "jewel in the crown of the British empire." Upon slower inspection we find that the founders(both cousins) of the movements are financed by the British to fragment the Indian Muslim communities and breakdown resistance to British imperialism in the sub-continent. No surprising that their headquarters are in Britain to this day.
No wonder they called the British Empire as the "shadow of Allah" and declared all Muslims who resisted "kafirs."

> You LIVE in the United States. If by your definition, I nurse an inferiority complex, how much more inferior can you get than living in the United States?

Huh? What about the euro-centric conditioning? Having an inferiority complex has little to do with where you reside. Ask any Indian or Pakistani.

>The fact that you've said Marxism has failed, is an ignorant statement.<

Where have you been the last 20 years? What did Marxism, this greatest of human social experiments, achieve for its poor citizens, at this most bloody cost in lives? Nothing positive. It left in its wake an economic, environmental, social and cultural disaster. Marxism has indeed failed, just as Capitalism is now failing.
>You haven't tested the science, which works. Has it failed in China?<
Absolutely. The only thing communist about China is its state party structure, everything else has been Capitalized. Pretty much since the late Deng Xiaoping proclaimed "to get rich is glorious", China abandoned communism. It's now a one-party state dedicated to crony capitalism, a somewhat more brutal version of the paternalistic system in the US. They’re doing what Taiwan did. The Communist Party figured out that Marxism was great except that it didn’t work, and anyway it could bore a tax accountant into the shrieking madness, so they decided to keep the name while doing whatever worked. Then the policy of one child per family, combined with a preference for boy children, has left huge numbers of excess males who aren’t going to find wives. They might become disagreeable. I would. Add that the new wealth isn’t reaching a whole lot of people. Corruption is rife. Poverty remains horrendous in many parts.

> Has it failed the worlds labour rights movement? Has it failed the worlds socialist governments?<

Pretty much, yeah.

>Actually, it sums up the reason for all failure of discussion with dogmatic people. People have dogmas. They don't discuss anything on its merits. There is no merit for some brothers unless it is given its specific "Islamic" view. There is no truth other than an official Islamic one. But so much is new that you will find hardly any real Islamic legal reference, besides the reference that is forced.<

Another badly defined strawman argument. Islam has its own “dogma” ie. it’s own core principles that must be upheld by all followers of the Deen. Islam is the truth, that’s what I and other Muslims believe without fear or prejudice towards others. Your redundancies say more about your lack of knowledge on religion and scholarship. Come off it, you’re no different than anybody else, except your dogmatism is rooted in materialism.

> Blame blame blame. You can't see one basic thing. We view our decline in terms of their successes. But the truth is that we have not had very many successes of our own for a long time. And the decline in our scholarship is precipitated by the dominance of specific political and ideological forces in our Ummah. Ibn Sina's ideas have benefitted the west but was never full accepted or understood by our traditional scholars. Colonialism did quite alot, but you're talking about a period almost two hundred years after the peak of our civilisationary peak. The decline began much earlier.<.

Cause, cause , cause. Effect effect, effect. I view our decline first and foremost because of the departure from Quran and Sunnah, followed by hundreds of years of aggressive colonization which continues to this day. If you think colonialism ended, you are sadly mistaken. It's time people stopped worshipping a fictional past, and started getting in step with the flow of history.
To quote Malcolm X : You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you are making progress.

>> Cause, cause , cause. Effect effect, effect. I view our decline first and foremost because of the departure from Quran and Sunnah, followed by hundreds of years of aggressive colonization which continues to this day.

Sheesh. More political ramblings. Noone stuck a knife in your back, and if someone did stick it in your great grandfathers, its not acceptable for you to do the same in return. Malcolm X has very different views of Islam from you average cleric. I've read enough to know.
China is capitalist veiled as communist, Saudi is secular veiled as theocratic, and you're living in fascist regime. Whatever you say boss. That must have taken alot of "research". And the Muslim Ummahs inability to run a military, a democratic government, protect of human rights and promote development, comes from non-application of Quraan/Sunnah sciences (as it's meant to be applied).

>> Another badly defined strawman argument. Islam has its own “dogma” ie. it’s own core principles that must be upheld by all followers of the Deen. Islam is the truth, that’s what I and other Muslims believe without fear or prejudice towards others.

Human beings make dogma. Allah is not subject to dogma. Neither is truth. The only thing that is redundant is your same old political and disenfranchised arguments that you draw in to every non-political discussion. I've gone through you "sheikhs" discussions about ribaah and "economics", and I've heard the self-deluding arguments about absolute truth and the very extensive "scholarly" work of clerics. It's pathetic and weak. Feminists have destroyed the family units, homsexuality is a scientific fraud, Ribaah is responsible for all the major forms of oppression. The slave girl is her mothers master in the current world, 99% of westerners are sex mad and evil fascists... whatever you and your groupthink-buddies say boss...

In your view, a proper understanding of the Quraan and Sunnah, entails ignoring other "uneducated" peoples views of it and pandering to the extensive "scholarly" output of clerics. In your view, these scholars do respect peoples freedom of conscience, womens rights, political freedom ~ but you need to define those things in terms of the Quraan and Sunnah, because they aren't what your average materialist-educated PHD student thinks they are. And western secular science is really backward science.

Its amazing how objective you can be in analysis, but can't be objective using scientific knowledge because it only considers what you can materially know. Wow. The leaps of logic are fantastic.

Sing your song to someone who actually can be brainwashed.

So. Why do earthquakes occur? What are comets/shooting stars? Does a womans testimony equate a mans in any circumstance? Can a man pardon his brother/son for the murder of his wife/daughter? Do you really think that resorting to the gold-standard dinaar currency is going to feed the poor? Would you prescribe cupping for cancer patients? How do you feel about living in the United States as this downtrodden Muslim? I'm curious. How does the Quraan and Sunnah answer these questions? Please ...mystify us with your brilliant and wise views that have never been tested outside of your mind.

The Surgeon General states that feeding trolls can be harmful to you health.

>The Surgeon General states that feeding trolls can be harmful to you health.<

The Surgeon General also states lying to go die for a barrel of oil isn't worth it, even if you're a pigment impaired war criminal.