The argument in this book is that religious doctrines matter and are in need of reform. Non-doctrinal factors – such as the Saudis’ use of oil revenues to fund Wahhabism and Western support for the Saudi regime – are important, but religious doctrine is more important. Hard as it may be for many Western academics to believe, when people commit violent acts in the name of religion, they are not trying somehow to dignify their underlying socioeconomic or political grievances.
You could see her face, because she was Somali. Saudi women had no faces.
Islam is not unusual in having a tradition of martyrs. What is unique to Islam is the tradition of murderous martyrdom, in which the individual martyr simultaneously commits suicide and kills others for religious reasons.
Until Islam stops fixating on the afterlife, until it is liberated from the seductive story of life after death, until it actively chooses life on earth and stops valuing death, Muslims themselves cannot get on with the business of living in this world. Perhaps.
Every Islamic value I had been taught instructed me to put myself last. Life on earth is a test, and if you manage to put yourself last in this life, you are serving Allah; your place will be first in the Hereafter. The more deeply you submit your will, the more virtuous that makes you.
Charles Murray, who in 1994 cowrote The Bell Curve. When his book was published I was still a student at the University of Leiden, where it seemed everyone was talking about this horribly racist book that argued that black people were genetically of lower intelligence than white people. I read it, of course, and I found it to be the opposite of racist, a compassionately written book about the urban challenges that confront black people more than white. All black people should read it.
Furthermore, she told me, I was not permitted for one second to imagine that perhaps the Quran’s words could be adapted to a modern era.
Paradoxically, Islam is the most decentralized and yet, at the same time, the most rigid religion in the world. Everyone feels entitled to rule out free discussion.
It even contains rules on what types of blows are permissible when a husband beats his wife.
Hard as it may be for many Western academics to believe, when people commit violent acts in the name of religion, they are not trying somehow to dignify their underlying socioeconomic or political grievances.
If you are a Muslim girl, you disappear, until there is almost no you inside you.
It’s not enough to say it’s shocking, it’s appalling, and to condemn only individual acts. We need to challenge and bring down the tribal honor-and-shame culture as codified in the Islamic religion.
A woman who is baarri is like a pious slave. She honors her husband’s family and feeds them without question or complaint. She never whines or makes demands of any kind. She is strong in service, but her head is bowed. If her husband is cruel, if he rapes her and then taunts her about it, if he decides to take another wife, or beats her, she lowers her gaze and hides her tears. And she works hard, faultlessly. She is a devoted, welcoming, well-trained work animal. This is baarri. If.
I can well remember how when someone in my family lay sick or dying – like my aunt when she contracted breast cancer – the Qur’an was chanted by the bedside, in the belief that its words alone would cure the patient. Analogies with Christian prayer are misleading because the reciter of the Qur’an is voicing God’s words, not appealing to God for intercession.
Confronted with such flagrant acts of intolerance – such abuses of the freedom of speech – a free society must surely do more. For intolerance is the one thing a free society cannot afford to tolerate.
Finally Abdellahi Moussa Boqor asked, “So why are you doing this?” I paused for a moment, and then the words just came out of my mouth. “It is the will of the soul,” I said. “The soul cannot be coerced.
I was learning that in these extremely civilized circles, conflict is dealt with in a very ornate and hypocritical manner.
1. Have faith in the one God, Allah, and Muhammad, His Prophet; 2. Pray five times a day; 3. Fast during the day for the entire ninth month of Ramadan; 4. Provide charity; 5. Make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime, if possible.
Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. And we need to say unambiguously to Muslims living in the West: If you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional. They.
All scriptures contain contradictions and the Qur’an is no exception.