Prophet Muhammad in the Christian Context
Karen Armstrong is our favorite author. I learned a lot about Islam. Her book “History of God”, “Muhammad”, “Battle for God“, and “Muhammad the prophet for our times” are fantatic testimonials about Islam and defends Islam in American and British vernacular. Each of the books are well researched with a bibliography for each chapter. Her discussion of Sufi Islam, and Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd are superb and fantastic. She discussed the Iranian revolution in positive terms and discusses terrorism in the right context.
She discusses tolerance and how Muslim treated the Jews and Christians with honor and dignity in the Middle Ages.
We post two stories about the event. One is a Pakistani newspaper and the other one is by Reuters. The results inform us about everything that is wrong with some Western reporting.
Muslims need to revive their intellectual traditions’
* Karen Armstrong urges today’s Muslims to follow the example of reasoning undertaken by the companions of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)
LAHORE: Dr Karen Armstrong asserted on Saturday that Muslims today needed to follow the example of the companions of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who, in the time immediately after his death, had re-explored the verses of the Holy Quran within the framework of ‘reasoning’ in order to establish a pluralistic society.
The internationally renowned religious historian and scholar said this while delivering a seminar entitled “Intellectual Traditions in Islam” – part of a series of lectures to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Imamate of His Highness the Aga Khan. The lectures, organised by the Ismaili Council of Pakistan, were aimed at developing a comprehensive understanding of the need for pluralism and tolerance within society.
Dr Armstrong stressed that the world often passed through periods of great turbulence and upheaval. Indeed, she noted, Muslims had faced such crises directly after the death of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Fitna (chaos or mischief), she said, ensued after his death. For many at that time, his death represented a religious and political vacuum. Others saw the crisis as having the potential to give space to non-Arab influences that directly challenged the prevailing Arab-Islamic culture. Thus, she noted, the companions of the Prophet (PBUH) began addressing these problems within the framework of Quranic injunctions and the teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in the form of the books of the Hadith, which were compiled in order to offer additional guidance to Muslims.
Dr Armstrong stressed that great Islamic scholars such as Abne Rushad (Averros) and Ibne Seena (Avicena) were also at the forefront of those who pondered and followed the teachings of their religion within the framework of reasoning in order to form a just and ideal society. Thus, she said, Muslims today should not shy away from adopting the same approach towards Islam. This was especially true given that the Holy Quran represents a code of conduct, which promotes the idea of pluralism and, as such, is open to new ideas. “We need to assume confidence which we do not have at the moment and then we need to recover spiritualism.”
Given that Muslim tradition had demonstrated an introspective approach to the crises of a particular era, she urged Muslims today to adopt a similar approach. This would help them fulfil the visions of Muslim saints, including the Sufi leaders, who had practised Islam in its true form to promote humanity, equality and respect for all.
Indeed, Dr Armstrong said that since the Holy Quran itself urged believers against blind faith, Muslims should engage in exploring the true meaning of its injunctions in order to advance further the cause of humanity.
Earlier, President Ismaili Council for Pakistan Iqbal Walji addressed the gathering saying that it was essential for Muslims to promote a pluralistic society in order to foster peace and harmony. In addition, he said that communities needed to be provided with a greater range of choices and understanding in order to promote mutual respect and tolerance. Towards this end, he said that it was imperative to promote good governance in the bid to eradicate poverty. Stressing that the world should strive to become an alliance of civilisations, Mr Walji appreciated the role played by Dr Armstrong in building bridges between the West and the Islamic world.
After the end of the lecture, the audience was invited to participate in a brief questions and answers session, where Dr Armstrong again stressed that the Holy Quran outlined the need for understanding of Islam’s true meaning and that this could not be developed until its injunctions had been fully explored. Such an approach, she said, should extend to madrassa education.
Dr Armstrong is the author of many books on religion, many of which have been translated into forty languages worldwide. In 1999, she was honoured by the Muslim Council for Public Affairs (USA) and in 2004 by the Muslim Association of Social Sciences in recognition of her contributions for building bridges between the West and Islamic world. staff report
By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The future of Pakistan, and how it balances the need for Muslim symbols with the secularism needed to run a modern state, will be important for the future of the world, according to historian and theologian Karen Armstrong.
Nuclear-armed and reaping the grim harvest of “extremism” resulting from the West’s support for a religious war to drive the Soviet Union out of neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan has a big question to answer, says Armstrong.
“How do you become a secular Muslim state?”
Last Thursday, Armstrong, whose writings have highlighted the tolerant and pluralistic nature of Islam, met President Pervez Musharraf, who hoped to change Pakistan into a state where “enlightened moderation” prevailed.
Musharraf, who came to power as a general in 1999, has made little headway, according to critics, and his popularity has plummeted, while support for the United States has provoked Islamist militants into waging war in tribal areas of the northwest where al Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding.
“Pakistan is on the frontier of this present struggle,” Armstrong told Reuters during a visit to Islamabad to celebrate the golden jubilee of the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.
“I think it is not so much important for the future of Islam as important for the future of the world,” said the 63-year-old Briton, whose book “The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam” was released a year before al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the United States.
“What happens here will be very decisive in how the so-called war against terrorism proceeds in other regions.”
Pakistan, the world’s second largest Muslim nation, has been locked in a struggle between liberal progressives and religious conservatives since it was carved out of the bloody partition of India in 1947 as a homeland for the Subcontinent’s Muslims.
Both sides try to interpret the words of Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah to suit their ends. Jinnah died a year after Pakistan, which then included modern day Bangladesh, was formed.
“The kind of conversations I have about this topic remind me very much of conversations I had in Israel, another secular state born out of displacement and tragedy.”
Armstrong said Israelis faced a similar struggle between secularists in tune with the vision of their country’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, and ultra-orthodox Jews, some of them militant.
Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, realized the need to have a degree of secularism in order to run a modern state, she said.
Khomeini, just before he died in 1989, told mullahs not to meddle in defense and economic policies, she said.
CORNERED BY SECULARISM
The separation of religion in the state represents a modern, major change in societies where religion is a way of life.
When it happens too quickly, people feel threatened and if attacked through the media or by force, they become aggressive, said Armstrong, a former nun who describes herself as a “freelance monotheist”.
“Most of these extreme movements are rooted in profound fear, a fear of annihilation,” she said, stressing that the same dynamics play out in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
“In small-town America there are Christians who believe they are going to be wiped out by a so-called liberal establishment.”
During the interview, Armstrong cited the example of Sayyid Qutb, whose writings from an Egyptian jail in the 1950s and 60s helped craft a strain of Sunni Muslim fundamentalism that spawned the global jihad of al Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.
People should study Qutb’s texts rather than the Koran if they wanted to understand al Qaeda, she said. But they had to be read in the context of the torture Qutb suffered and his reaction to efforts to secularize Egypt, she said.
Attempts to introduce secularism, which took centuries in the West, has been done too quickly in the Middle East, according to Armstrong, resulting in religious movements that tend to become lethal if they occur in regions where violence is endemic.
Despite his fundamentalism, Qutb probably wouldn’t have approved of bin Laden, according to Armstrong, who views the al Qaeda leader as “a criminal” rather than a thinker or ideologue.
Armstrong didn’t see militancy in Pakistan’s tribal lands, or Hamas or Hezbollah movements, or even bin Laden’s al Qaeda, as being motivated principally by religion.
“They’re a form of religiously articulated nationalism, religiously articulated identity politics”, she said.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
