Given the recent flap over the Bill Maher show, during which time Ben Affleck took great issue with Maher and best-selling author, Sam Harris (The End of Faith), I thought I would offer an appraisal that is far more accurate and balanced from Fareed Zakaria. Too often, it seems to me, arguments about the status of Islam today fall in between knee-jerk Islamophobists and equally simplistic apologists for Islam. I have always treated Islam as a multiplex phenomenon and, thus, I often speak of many Islams. At various times in history (and today is one of them), Sunni Muslims tend to posit a single, more monolithic Islam that conforms to a certain form of orthodoxy. Since nearly 90% of Muslims subscribe to Sunnism, and since the good doctors of the law (fuquha) wish them to believe the same thing, there is a big push to slowly articulate what Islamic adherence really entails. What these scholars often come up with is often particularly problematic to those who adhere to liberal values. This part of the argument, Bill Maher got correct. Two essential freedoms enshrined in liberalism are NOT followed in conservative Islam. Those two freedoms, which are cornerstones of liberal democracy, are free speech and freedom of religion. I recently published the juridical opinions (sing. fatwa) of 126 Muslim scholars who affirmed those freedoms unequivocally, and I was happy to see that. On the whole, however, the majority of conservative ulama do not agree with them, nor do many Muslims living in Muslim-majority nations. Heres how Zakaria frames the problem --
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 02:17:20 +0000
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