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Author: Robert Spencer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 636
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Book Description
This collection of essays by some of the world's leading authorities on Islamic social history focuses on the juridical and cultural oppression of non-Muslims in Islamic societies. The authors of these in-depth but accessible articles explode the widely diffused myth, promulgated by Muslim advocacy groups, of a largely tolerant, pluralistic Islam. In fact, the contributors lay bare the oppressive legal superstructure that has treated non-Muslims in Muslim societies as oppressed and humiliated tributaries, and they show the devastating effects of these discriminatory attitudes and practices in both past and contemporary global conflicts.Besides original articles, primary source documents here presented also elucidate how the legally mandated subjugation of non-Muslims under Islamic law stems from the Muslim concept of jihad - the spread of Islam through conquest. Historically, the Arab-Muslim conquerors overran vast territories containing diverse non-Muslim populations. Many of these conquered people surrendered to Muslim domination under a special treaty called dhimma in Arabic. As such these non-Muslim indigenous populations, mainly Christians and Jews, were then classified under Islamic law as dhimmis (meaning "protected"). Although protected status may sound benign, this classification in fact referred to "protection" from the resumption of the jihad against non-Muslims, pending their adherence to a system of legal and financial oppression, as well as social isolation. The authors maintain that underlying this religious caste system is a culturally ingrained contempt for outsiders that still characterizes much of the Islamic world today and is a primary impetus for jihad terrorism.Also discussed is the poll tax (Arabic jizya) levied on non-Muslims; the Islamic critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the use of jihad ideology by twentieth-century radical Muslim theorists; and other provocative topics usually ignored by Muslim apologists.This hard-hitting and absorbing critique of Islamic teachings and practices regarding non-Muslim minorities exposes a significant human rights scandal that rarely receives any mention either in academic circles or in the mainstream press.
Author: Robert Spencer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 636
Get Book
Book Description
This collection of essays by some of the world's leading authorities on Islamic social history focuses on the juridical and cultural oppression of non-Muslims in Islamic societies. The authors of these in-depth but accessible articles explode the widely diffused myth, promulgated by Muslim advocacy groups, of a largely tolerant, pluralistic Islam. In fact, the contributors lay bare the oppressive legal superstructure that has treated non-Muslims in Muslim societies as oppressed and humiliated tributaries, and they show the devastating effects of these discriminatory attitudes and practices in both past and contemporary global conflicts.Besides original articles, primary source documents here presented also elucidate how the legally mandated subjugation of non-Muslims under Islamic law stems from the Muslim concept of jihad - the spread of Islam through conquest. Historically, the Arab-Muslim conquerors overran vast territories containing diverse non-Muslim populations. Many of these conquered people surrendered to Muslim domination under a special treaty called dhimma in Arabic. As such these non-Muslim indigenous populations, mainly Christians and Jews, were then classified under Islamic law as dhimmis (meaning "protected"). Although protected status may sound benign, this classification in fact referred to "protection" from the resumption of the jihad against non-Muslims, pending their adherence to a system of legal and financial oppression, as well as social isolation. The authors maintain that underlying this religious caste system is a culturally ingrained contempt for outsiders that still characterizes much of the Islamic world today and is a primary impetus for jihad terrorism.Also discussed is the poll tax (Arabic jizya) levied on non-Muslims; the Islamic critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the use of jihad ideology by twentieth-century radical Muslim theorists; and other provocative topics usually ignored by Muslim apologists.This hard-hitting and absorbing critique of Islamic teachings and practices regarding non-Muslim minorities exposes a significant human rights scandal that rarely receives any mention either in academic circles or in the mainstream press.
Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674737067
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 75
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Book Description
In this dialogue between a famous atheist and a former radical, Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz invite you to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? Why do so many Muslims seem drawn to extremism? The authors demonstrate how two people with very different views can find common ground.
Author: Khaled Abou El Fadl
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807002292
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Khaled Abou El Fadl, a prominent critic of Islamic puritanism, leads off this lively debate by arguing that Islam is a deeply tolerant religion. Injunctions to violence against nonbelievers stem from misreadings of the Qur'an, he claims, and even jihad, or so-called holy war, has no basis in Qur'anic text or Muslim theology but instead grew out of social and political conflict. Many of Abou El Fadl's respondents think differently. Some contend that his brand of Islam will only appeal to Westerners and students in "liberal divinity schools" and that serious religious dialogue in the Muslim world requires dramatic political reforms. Other respondents argue that theological debates are irrelevant and that our focus should be on Western sabotage of such reforms. Still others argue that calls for Islamic "tolerance" betray the Qur'anic injunction for Muslims to struggle against their oppressors. The debate underscores an enduring challenge posed by religious morality in a pluralistic age: how can we preserve deep religious conviction while participating in what Abou El Fadl calls "a collective enterprise of goodness" that cuts across confessional differences? With contributions from Tariq Ali, Milton Viorst, and John Esposito, and others.
Author: Yohanan Friedmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139440799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Since the beginning of its history, Islam has encountered other religious communities both in Arabia and in the territories conquered during its expansion. Muslims faced other religions from the position of a ruling power and were therefore able to determine the nature of that relationship in accordance with their world-view and beliefs. Yohanan Friedmann's original and erudite study examines questions of religious tolerance as they appear in the Qur'an and in the prophetic tradition, and analyses the principle that Islam is exalted above all religions, discussing the ways in which this principle was reflected in various legal pronouncements. The book also considers the various interpretations of the Qur'anic verse according to which 'No compulsion is there in religion ...', noting that, despite the apparent meaning of this verse, Islamic law allowed the practice of religious coercion against Manichaeans and Arab idolaters, as well as against women and children in certain circumstances.
Author: Sherman A. Jackson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
"Abu Hamid al Ghazali, one of the most famous Muslim intellectuals in the history of Islam, set out to provide a legally sanctioned definition of Unbelief (kufr) as the basis for a criterion for determining who is to be considered a Muslim and who is not, as far as theology is concerned. The translation is preceded by an extensive commentary in which the author reconstructs the historical and theoretical context of the Faysal and discusses its relevance for contemporary thought and practice." "This is particularly relevant to the contemporary Muslim theological scene, given the on-going controversy between Revivalist groups, Rationalist and Traditionalist, as to what is the true interpretation of religion and what constitutes a grave deviation from it."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Reza Shah-Kazemi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857735276
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
In 1932, the eminent British scholar of Islam, Sir Hamilton Gibb, wrote: "The nobility and broad tolerance of this religion [Islam], which accepted all the real religions of the world as God-inspired, will always be a glorious heritage for mankind. No other society has such a record of success in uniting, in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavor, so many and so various races of humanity." (Whither Islam?) Such scholarly objectivity towards the tolerance which has historically characterized the Islamic tradition as a whole is in short supply these days. Through an insidious symbiosis of fanatical Muslims and prejudiced Islamophobes, the very opposite image of Islam has emerged as one of the most dangerous stereotypes of our times. The most cursory glance at history will not only reveal the falsity of this stereotype of an intolerant Islam, it will also reveal the little known fact that, not so long ago, it was the Islamic world that provided models of tolerant conduct for a fanatically intolerant Christian world tearing itself apart over dogmatic differences. The first part of this monograph examines the historical record of tolerance in the Islamic tradition, illustrating the expression of the principle of tolerance through the rule of such dynasties as the Ottomans, Mughals, Fatimids, and the Umayyads of Spain. In the second, the principle of tolerance is shown to be rooted in the spirit of the Qur'anic revelation and embodied in the exemplary conduct of the Prophet.
Author: Mitra Rastegar
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966761
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
How apparently positive representations of Muslims in U.S. media cast Muslims as a racial population Portrayals of Muslims as the beneficiaries of liberal values have contributed to the racialization of Muslims as a risky population since the September 11 attacks. These discourses, which hold up some Muslims as worthy of tolerance or sympathy, reinforce an unstable good Muslim/bad Muslim binary where any Muslim might be moved from one side to the other. In Tolerance and Risk, Mitra Rastegar explores these discourses as a component of the racialization of Muslims—where Muslims are portrayed as a highly diverse population that nevertheless is seen to contain within it a threat that requires constant vigilance. Tolerance and Risk brings together several case studies to examine the interrelation of representations of Muslims abroad and in the United States. These include human-interest stories and opinion polls of Muslim Americans, media representations of education activist Malala Yousafzai, LGBTQ activist discourses, local New York controversies surrounding Muslim-led public projects, and social media discourses of the Syrian refugee crisis. Tolerance and Risk demonstrates how representations of tolerable or sympathetic Muslims produce them as a population with distinct characteristics, capacities, and risks, and circulate standards by which the trustworthiness or threat of individual Muslims must be assessed. Tolerance and Risk examines the ways that discourses of liberal rights, including feminist and LGBTQ rights discourses, are mobilized to racialize Muslims as uncivilized, even as they garner sympathy and identification with some Muslims.
Author: Reza Shah-Kazemi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857721461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
In 1932, the eminent British scholar of Islam, Sir Hamilton Gibb, wrote: "The nobility and broad tolerance of this religion [Islam], which accepted all the real religions of the world as God-inspired, will always be a glorious heritage for mankind. No other society has such a record of success in uniting, in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavor, so many and so various races of humanity." (Whither Islam?) Such scholarly objectivity towards the tolerance which has historically characterized the Islamic tradition as a whole is in short supply these days. Through an insidious symbiosis of fanatical Muslims and prejudiced Islamophobes, the very opposite image of Islam has emerged as one of the most dangerous stereotypes of our times. The most cursory glance at history will not only reveal the falsity of this stereotype of an intolerant Islam, it will also reveal the little known fact that, not so long ago, it was the Islamic world that provided models of tolerant conduct for a fanatically intolerant Christian world tearing itself apart over dogmatic differences. The first part of this monograph examines the historical record of tolerance in the Islamic tradition, illustrating the expression of the principle of tolerance through the rule of such dynasties as the Ottomans, Mughals, Fatimids, and the Umayyads of Spain. In the second, the principle of tolerance is shown to be rooted in the spirit of the Qur'anic revelation and embodied in the exemplary conduct of the Prophet.
Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674065913
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
What impulse prompted some newspapers to attribute the murder of 77 Norwegians to Islamic extremists, until it became evident that a right-wing Norwegian terrorist was the perpetrator? Why did Switzerland, a country of four minarets, vote to ban those structures? How did a proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan ignite a fevered political debate across the United States? In The New Religious Intolerance, Martha C. Nussbaum surveys such developments and identifies the fear behind these reactions. Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, she suggests a route past this limiting response and toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society. Fear, Nussbaum writes, is "more narcissistic than other emotions." Legitimate anxieties become distorted and displaced, driving laws and policies biased against those different from us. Overcoming intolerance requires consistent application of universal principles of respect for conscience. Just as important, it requires greater understanding. Nussbaum challenges us to embrace freedom of religious observance for all, extending to others what we demand for ourselves. She encourages us to expand our capacity for empathetic imagination by cultivating our curiosity, seeking friendship across religious lines, and establishing a consistent ethic of decency and civility. With this greater understanding and respect, Nussbaum argues, we can rise above the politics of fear and toward a more open and inclusive future.
Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 1250256070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making an argument for an "Islamic Enlightenment" today In Reopening Muslim Minds, Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and opinion writer for The New York Times, both diagnoses “the crisis of Islam” in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment — freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science — had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for political ends. Elucidating complex ideas with engaging prose and storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes), to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range of sensitive issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of religion, or freedom from religion. While frankly acknowledging the problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and hopeful vision for its future.
