07-06-2004, 10:07 PM
Salaam Alaikum!
Forgive my tardiness, sister Musilmah. I've currently been moving at the moment and I haven't been able to set up my computer at home. Though, I want to reply to your questions if I may.
1. I live in the United States of America. So: I do not currently live under an occupation of any sort.
2. I share your sympathy with suffering Muslims worldwide. However, the alternative does not have to be armed struggle for "every" action. The Palestinians are living under occupation but need not to carry out nihilistic terror attacks on innocent civilians. Such undermines their rhetoric and directs judgement right back on them, does it not? It's not like the Israeli's are preventing them from making Salat, confiscating Qurans, or forcing Musilmah's to remove hijabs. So why does the alternative have to be devoid of sympathy or compassion? Why must Islam always be on the defensive? Fight oppression with rhetoric and reason.
I have two points. First, our first ambition is Islam. Everything else is within the realm of Islam. If we are to bring forth the fruits of Islam we must snuff out the "blind" eye that causes us not to see.
Secondly, the real "occupiers" are the fundamentalists*. They've sanctioned thought, denied simple rights to women, caused non-Muslims harm of proportions that I don't even have time to cite, and reduced Islam to nothing more than a mere political ideology. Those avid freaks are the "Sharons" of the Muslim world. As far as I can recount, the only one to deny Muslims anything of Islam was the fundamentalists, not Israel. They impinge on our thoughts and bandy those who don't conform to their Islam "westoxificated" Muslims. I'm tired of making concessions for them by sidestepping attention to Israel or the USA. Their agenda is to literally push the clock back on us Muslims and mold us into medieval thinking drones. Ever since they've taken hold of "Islamic knowledge," we're not equipped to deal with issue's such as epistemology, philosophy, theology, cosmology or any other "ology" you can think of. There's a whirlpool of debates and dialogues on the "origin of the universe." Thanks to the "all-knowing" fundamentalists, Islam has contributed absolutely nothing to the debates. How on earth can we expect non-Muslims to give Islam a stint of consideration when Islam is not even apart of serious debates and discussions? The ultimate consequence, of course, is an outdated mode of thinking and a mechanical Islam that has nothing but rote believers in which Islam plays little relevance in the "real" world. The days of mere assertions like..."I am Muslim, hear my roar".... are out, and the days of the ability to reason and argue are in.
My gist is to repudiate fundamentalism and its bastard offspring "terrorism". By doing so we can open up Islam and allow it to gain conscious on Muslims. An Islamic state where Islam is relevant and discussed without fear. Where Muslim intellectuals can engage in dialogue with non-Muslims about the above "ologies" and offer an Islamic perspective on things. It would be a place where Muslims and non-Muslims can live together, in harmony, in one state. This, I know, is the dream for all Muslims. But the road to it is hard and will be long fought. Only through a long and difficult introspection will the road to victory be clear.
*I used the term "fundamentalism without defining it. I do not believe in "fundamentalism" because I don't believe terrorists are retorting to anything "fundamental". Since my subject is hard to locate outside of the term fundamentalism, I have chosen to label them such.
--Ibn