Gina Khan
A very interresting interwiew with a supposidely "moderate" muslim. She makes some very good points though. But I will give you here an excerpt of the interwiev:
[...]
Islamic history is important to study and analyse. It wasn't always like this. Islam was frozen in the middle ages: it's time to defrost Islam. The Quran is a magnificent historical record. Even Imams couldn't possibly understand the depth of it. Millions of us read the Quran in Arabic...that doesn't mean we under stand what we read, we are dependent on translations. That's why I call it the biggest con of the century...interpretations and translations imported into this country for 40 years were more to do with Jihadism than with a peaceful Islam that gave equality to women and was plural. There is an American woman, Laleh Bakhtiar, who is a convert and isn't extreme...she still wears jeans - she doesn't wear the hijab as most do, she has interpreted the Quran in English and has had death threats. I'm waiting to read her translation. Jihadists don't want women translating the Quran or women becoming Imams...Yet the Prophet had a woman Imam in his first mosque who preached where men and women weren't segregated.
Islamists have almost written Muslim women out of history and their natural rights. I do acknowledge that the Quran has violent edicts, but you have to read the Quran in context and time. To say that what happened in the 7th century must be revived and considered the 'true Islam' is ridiculous to any reasonable thinking human being - that would mean reviving desert Arabic Islam, which is becoming obvious and beginning to look like a cult. Muslims have to revive the spiritual message of the Quran, which is often suppressed by Jihadists. I guess I'll get a lot of hostility, but no one owns Islam. We all can have our own personal relationship with God. I'll do as I damn please. Islamists psychologically suppress us. It never worked on me, but that doesn't mean I'm not a Muslim. I'm against the idea of a revived Calipha...I mean for God's sake, who do these people want as a Caliph, Osama bin Ladin or Omar Bakri??
This all sounds reasonable? Well, to some extent it does, except for the line: "I do acknowledge that the Quran has violent edicts, but you have to read the Quran in context and time." - This is because according to the quranic scripts there is no way to read it out of context! It's UNIVERSAL... And if you do- then you are nothing but a apostate- of which should be killed according to sharia law. It is a very simple equation. Either you are an islamist who follows the quran to the letter- or there is no islam! And you're no muslim...
This is what the mujahideen has understood all to0 well. They are the ones who are "good" muslims. Islam is really only a one way road to hell. Either you're with us or we will kill you! That in turn doesn't mean that all muslims are bad or evil. It only means that their ideology are!
posted by pela68 at 23:50
2 Comments:
Your argument can -- and does -- go back and forth, Pela.
Gina's whole point is to stop letting the bad guys set the agenda. When we repeat the bad guys' argument, however widely held -- and that is what you are doing -- are you not helping the bad guys set the agenda?
What I know of her, I like Gina.
Saturday, 15 December 2007 at 13:56:00 CET
Well. that's also sort of my point. I like Gina to. But that particular line is the islamist apologist number one argument.
The apologists argue that the islamist terrorist has taken the "message out of context".
Of course WE know that the terrorists are just doing what the quran and the ahadith tells them to do, and Gina would have a snowballs chance in hell in a theological debate with a muslim cleric.
She might be the right stuff- but her ideology is not. It's a bit like saying that all Germans was bad people during the thirties and the fourties. They were not! But their ideology was!
As much as I admire her courage, I just can't get over that "out of context" excuse. The quran CAN'T be read out of context, and that is what the mujaheedin has understod all to well...
As I pointed out before; Gina Khan can be a very nice individual- no doubt about that. But what she really are doing here is excusing violent acts from her ideological peers with a miss context argument.
No way no never!
Then SHE is the one who has missunderstood the texts of the quran and the ahadiths.
It's that line- and that line only- that ruins all of her other arguments in the interviue and contradicts everything else. It's a pity, because otherwise she seems like a likable and intelligent person with a free spirit soul.
Saturday, 15 December 2007 at 21:22:00 CET
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