Islam: What The West Needs To Know - Opening Tomorow :: Understanding Islam

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July 6, 2006

Islam: What The West Needs To Know - Opening Tomorow

[An examination of Islam, violence, and the fate of the non-Muslim world - 98 mins]

The documentary consists of original interviews, citations from Islamic texts, Islamic artwork, computer-animated maps, footage of Western leaders, and Islamic television broadcasts. Its tone is sober, methodical, and compelling. You'll find and outline of the documentary here.

While the West to hear more about Islam than it ever wanted to hear, and learning more about it than they ever wanted to learn, it's important that we learn about what the Islamists' goals are and what we can do to combat them. We also need to know what the majority of Muslims believe and why they are in Western societies if they find our culture so offensive. It seems that there is a never-ending list of complaints from Muslims about a society that they came to - they weren't dragged into it kicking and screaming. Are they here to "change us" or join us - we simply don't know!

And as to the complaints about Western culture coming from so many Muslims, particularly the jihadists, Jawa Report reminds us that no sooner does the West address one grievance than another is put forth to take its place.

Yet, once in a while, we see are begining to see evidence that there may yet be reason to hope, that there may still be a spark of life in that old creaking shell of a once-mighty Europe and within the bowels of Western Christendom. As an example of this resurgence of the West's long-dormant survival instinct JR points to a Daniel Pipes piece at The Jerusalem Post - The Vatican Confronts Islam:

"Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves." Thus spoke Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court, referring to Muslims. Explaining his apparent rejection of Jesus' admonition to his followers to "turn the other cheek," De Paolis noted that "The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century ... and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights."

De Paolis is hardly alone in his thinking; indeed, the Catholic Church is undergoing a dramatic shift from a decades-old policy to protect Catholics living under Muslim rule. The old methods of quiet diplomacy and muted appeasement have clearly failed. The estimated 40 million Christians in Dar al-Islam, notes the Barnabas Fund's Patrick Sookhdeo, increasingly find themselves an embattled minority facing economic decline, dwindling rights, and physical jeopardy. Most of them, he goes on, are despised and distrusted second-class citizens, facing discrimination in education, jobs, and the courts.

These harsh circumstances are causing Christians to flee their ancestral lands for the West's more hospitable environment. Consequently, Christian populations of the Muslim world are in a free-fall. Two small but evocative instances of this pattern: for the first time in nearly two millennia, Nazareth and Bethlehem no longer have Christian majorities.

This reality of oppression and decline stands in dramatic contrast to the surging Muslim minority of the West. Although numbering fewer than 20 million and made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring, it is an increasingly established and vocal minority, granted extensive rights and protections even as it wins new legal, cultural, and political prerogatives.

This widening disparity has caught the attention of the Church, which for the first time is pointing to radical Islam, rather than the actions of Israel, as the central problem facing Christians living with Muslims.

Few people outside of Islam who function in among the "wide awake" members of our planet would doubt that Islam is in dire need of reform. And there are many Muslims begining to say the same thing, among them, Dr. Bassam Tahhan, a Syrian-born French professor of Arabic literature, who teaches at the prestigious Henri IV secondary school in Paris and who is an expert on the Koran. He advocates a "Protestant Islam," which he defines as Islam that allows freedom of thought and permits questioning the Sunna, abrogating hadiths not grounded in the Koran, and reinterpreting the Koran in light of modern values.

Related Differing Views:
Religion, Terror and Peace - Cardinal Martino Reflects on Role of Belief
Islam religion of peace, brotherhood: Ejaz
Putin warns of clash of civilizations
Yasmin Ooi - To be Muslim

Muslim Britain: A significant minority of British Muslims believe they are at war with the rest of society, the largest poll of Muslims in this country suggests.

But the poll also revealed a stark gulf between this group and the majority of British Muslims, who want the Government to take tougher measures against extremists in their community. What is your view of the Times/ITV poll results? And one year on from the July 7 bombings, how has Britain's cultural landscape changed? Read the report and what Muslims and non-Muslims have to say about the survey

Counsel: Islam can't be renounced at will

Posted by Richard at July 6, 2006 6:15 AM

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