Political Religion

Recently a friend of mine wrote an article called Political Religion. All well and Good, but there was a slight problem, his article talked about Quran and Prophet Mohamad PBUH, sensitive issues for any Muslim. His Article somehow brought back memories of when I was in Speakers Corner of Hyde Park In England, there you can talk about anything under the sun, but do you know what the majority of the Speakers were talking about? You guessed it, it was Islam.


Speakers Corner, Hyde Park ENGLAND

As a Muslim, it was very interesting to hear the Speakers from all over the world giving a speech about Islam. What were they talking about Islam, well they were not forcing people to convert but rather clearing the bad press that Islam is getting these days. But you can sence from the general audience that prejudice runs deep, very deep indeed. No matter what the Muslim Speaker says to clear the misconception of Islam, some of the crowd simply refuesed to even lend a listening ear. I am not saying that you have to accept whatever the muslims say about Islam at face value, but to be impartial at least. Lots of people's perception about Islam comes from the media with all its distortion.

People are beginning to think of Islam as a cult bent on world domination and destruction. But is Islam preaching to the Muslims to do all these nasty things that you see on tv and hear about on the radio. Is Islam really behind the terrorist bombings and carnage? Can you really blame Islam for the acts of a few misguided people. One of the thing that really bothers me is that whenever there is an act of terrorism, the media quickly calls it an act of Islamic terrorism without really investigating who was behind the blast. And I have wondered to myself, why call the act of terrorism, Islamic terrorism in the first place. There are always people of other faith who do these nasty things around the world today, but you don't hear about christian terrorism or hindu terrorism. So my question is, Is the Islamic faith only about killings and carnage? What makes a so called Muslim person commit acts of terror when it is clearly forbidden in Islam to take an innocent life. Is it because like what my friend Ganga says in his article 'Political Religion' that the Quran is so complex that it is misunderstood by the reader?

I guess there is alot Muslims and non-muslims can learn about Islam. I think that dialogue is the only way we can clear some of the misconceptions about Islam. I hope readers would contribute their thoughts generously to this blog.