Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sohel NR
great thread. thanks p. warner, i hope your erudition opens a door or two here. sadly, islam as culture often mitigates islam as the intellectual deen it's ought to be. it terrifies me to see fellow muslims separating rituals from intent, being unkind to themselves and others, either transgressing themselves or tolerating transgressions, and are being led to silencing other voices in islam... there is no priesthood in islam as there can be no intermediary between Allah and the individual's salvation. the quadiyaat seeks to deter activities that can destroy social equilibrium through examplary punishment. one is always free to do what he wishes in private, and inevitably pay for it later.
|
Dear Sohel,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
I think it would be fair to tell you the background to my readings on Islam. My knowledge of Islam is not based on rituals and daily practise that most folks here would come to know it from. I do believe that the rituals give one an added advantage towards achieving faith which a rationaliser like myself does not have the advantage of. In my earlier years I spent two years in the academic study of Classical Arabic. Please note that this was not a Madasa based tuition. We followed a 1963 'Teach yourself Islamic Grammar' text by R.S. Tritton. Since the Quran is by far the easiest to follow text (no disrespect intended) when learning classical Arabic, we basically used many of the shorter suras in our translations. I also remember using Ibn Issaq's biography of Muhammad (the first biography of the prophet) as an aid because there was a very good translation of it by Guillaume. Like latin, classical arabic is a dead language that can only be accessed through texts now. Modern arabic is quite different from classical Arabic although if you have a knowledge of classical arabic you might find it an easier route to modern arabic.
Classical Arabic aside, my early study of the Quran and what I know of Islam is through a study of comparative religion. I took some interest in studying Tabari as his completed hadith collection was in the library I had access too. This was of course an English translation but anyone interested in genealogy and the process of transmission (known in Islam as Isnad), Tabari is a minefield of information that is very well presented. I also spent some years concentrating on pre-Islamic Arabia and presented a few academic papers on this subject some years ago. This is the period known as Jahilliya in Quran. The sources I used for this were the Greek and latin sources as well as a study of the graffitti left all over Arabia. The scripts used were anything from Thamudic, Safayitic, Lihayanite and at first might appear daunting, but much of this has been translated and gives a very distinct impression of what life would have been like in Arabia. If I remember correctly, one of the papers I presented at a BASR conference (British association of the study of religion) was entitled, 'Muruwwa & Din, a study of religiosity in the pre-Islamic Arab'.
I would like to pick up on a comment you made about religion being seen as part of a culture. Ramadin, from my understanding of his books finds this the chief source of all problems. He sees the rituals and practises of Islam in the Magrib (North Africa), Middle East and South Asia as having taken on specific geographical traits. He even thinks of these as bad habbits! The solution for him is to globalise Islam, particularly in the West, to create a European Islam that is different from Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Somali or Iraqi Islam, and that this new form should reinterpret only the Quran and the well documented sunna based on a modern day context. He basically feels that this new interpretation would be different from what the ullema living in South Asian countries had interpreted it as and would also go a long way towards fighting the fanatical Islamic terrorism.
On the surface I see this as a wonderful solution. However, my main problem is that ramadin denigrates the part played by the ethnic cultures that has shaped the lives of second and third generation muslims. So to embrace this unified and re-interpreted Islam one would have to forget specific Bangladeshi ways that got into the practise of Islam. I see these ethnic ways as being very important to our being. Multiculturalism might have its problems but I don't think that trying to clean the Indian, pakistani or Bangladeshi identity from a second generation muslim in the west and for that matter the youngsters like yourself from these countries to contain enough substance to maintain the social bonds. So I am personally of the view that new interpretations of Islam is needed where a through study of the Quran and sunna is essential for the young muslim, however, this should be done without forgetting the cultural roots of the muslim. With this in mind I think Yusuf Islam should not deny his white identity and try to be an Arabic Muslim. He should try to be a British muslim and contribute to Islam (since that is his wish) in a very British way.