Islamic politics and its acceptance to the western world.

Just a couple of news I have been coming across recently:
        In a November 2009 referendum in Switizerland, over 57% of participating voters vote in favor of   banning the construction of new minarets.
       Huge opposition within European Union countries on whether to include Turkey in EU.
Of course, The now old story of
      US Republican parties opinion on why to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan.
      Chaos in the Indian Parliament over Chidambaram's comments that religious terrorism is not just Islam but other religions as well.

There is a common thread in these three stories - presence of political Islam as an antagonist.
      I had read Hege Storhaug's article on why the swiss where right in banning minarets. Despite the overwhelming criticism of the swiss on such a move, it was good to see a different angle to the whole story. I initially felt the article was very one sided. But later on, I felt the core concepts were true to an extent.

    The article despite attempting to be politically correct and considerate to readers of all communities initially, progresses towards a Islam vs christianity war and  the inabilities of Islam in the current world. Some of the examples were mere speculations, and most statements were very imbalanced like Christianity is not a political religion and Islam struggles to distinguish between religion and politics.

To start with, I believe despite swiss employing direct democracy, the people were scared into voting for the ban via false propoganda. Clearly the posters of forests of minarets springing out of the swiss flag and the image of the Burka clad lady has send a wrong image in the public eye - that Islam is here to take over the swiss and enforce sharia law. Sharia law has "many interpretations" and a "less than a handful" of countries employ a harsh, literal interpretation of Sharia (path). The article states that "why should we build mosques in our country when there isnt a single church in islamic countries?" It's blatantly false information.There are churches in middle eastern countries like Kuwait, UAE, Turkey and other middle eastern countries. In Fact a new church is being built in Kuwait that is tipped to be larger than the grand mosque of kuwait.

It is falsely stated that Islam cannot coexist in a democracy. There are approx 1.8 Billion muslims spread primarily around middle east, south east Asia and africa. Many secular countries have significant muslim population like India- where there are around 160 million muslims (more than 20 times the population of switzerland). They vote and run for political offices just like citizens of other communities. There hasnt been any such setup of political coup and enforcement of sharia laws in these democracies. These democracies do employ a parallel sharia court binding for muslims but which should abide by the constitution of the democratic country.


I believe political parties / rulers have leveraged religion for meeting their political agendas - and not vice-versa as the article suggests. The one sided argument in the article only mentions Islam and its coexistance with politics. They stress that Christianity is devoid of politics. Well a couple of examples;

Crusades were religiously sanctioned militiary campaigns led by Latin Christian Europe against not just muslims but against a series of communities as well as "political enemies" of the Popes. These series of wars waged over 200 years and claimed well over 2 million deaths. During the course of these wars, there are articles which state clear accounts of peope around baltic sea and central Europe being subjugated and made to convert to Christianity. Moreover there were major instances in the Indian Subcontinent and many other countries that were invaded colonized by the British (a christian country as there is a link between the church and the state) during the 1700's and later years civilians were being forced to convert to Christianity by Christian Missionaries. These incidents are similar to the incidents we get of actions of political parties ruling some islamic nations. Even Christian Countries oppose liberal thoughts like gay marriage, abortion etc. In the US the republican party (church based) have lobbied against the approval of gay marriage -which is still illegal in most of the states.

The article also implies only christianity and not islam is secular. You can find a number of articles in the web about the secular nature of islam. Countries like Turkey despite being previously muslim country has adopted a secular and democratic government with equal rights to men and women.

Hege also states that Islam tells muslims to lead a certain way of life and christianity doesnt. I believe this is a very biased opinion - every religion does teach its followers on ideal way of leading life.

It is primarily the organization that executes sharia that dictates how every law can be placed. I have personally read lines in the Bible on how to slave trade - that doesnt mean we follow it to the "T". Its interesting to note here that there was slave trade in US little over a century ago.

Quran was written centuries ago within a particular society in the middle east and a number of preachings were suited to that particular society. Its in best interest to the world and especially the whole of the islamic community to reinterpret and re-adapt this to the present world. Multiple sections of the islam community have re-interpreted Quran and have adapted it to the modern world. Its a shame that some sections are not ready.

I believe this reluctance is clearly politically motivated by fuelled by the greed of power and wealth. As Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, a renowned Muslim cleric and former Indonesian president, said jokingly “To certain Muslims, God is so distant that they need to use minarets and loudspeakers to call and communicate with Him.” As Khairil Azhar mentions in his article within the need for Muslims to be more patient and tolerant. The last thing the community needs is a reinforcement in public opinion about the extremist nature of islamic politics. It is also neccessary to adjust our religious needs to fit in with a secular organization.

I absolutely agree to that.