Although this is being written in haste and hurt, it comes in peace.
I encountered a couple of pages here on blogspot (which I will not link to lest they invite troublemakers), and to my misfortune and hurt, discovered some contributors who love to hate Islam and Muslims. Despite my attempts to talk with reason and respect, I was bombarded with derogatory jargon and mudslinging. I couldn't be apologetic, so I quietly left.
The blame? Islam is imperialist; it promotes genocide, endorses slavery, looks down upon non-Muslims, and seeks to kill apostates; oh, but there's so much more...
Their sources? Al-Qaeda's philosophy, and "scholars" like Bernard Lewis and Salman Rushdie. Lewis is a strong reference for them because he hails from Princeton. And Rushdie is just so darn popular that Britain had to decorate him with knighthood.
I thought it my duty to at least help my own non-Muslim readers to see the other side of the coin and the other face of Islam. In "scholars" like Lewis, Muslims see a bias. Read, for instance, Scholarship or Sophistry? Bernard Lewis and the New Orientalism. As for Rushdie, his claim to fame has not been the quality and depth of his work; it has been the undue attention furious Muslims have so stupidly accorded him. Had they let him be, he would've been consumed by the seas of mediocrity. Ziauddin Sardar, in an interview with The News, has something interesting to say about him. My point is: don't look to the Osamas, the Lewis' and the Rushdies for your scoop on Islam. Look to its own scholars of calibre. Scholars like Ghamidi, who speak with reason and sense, who have their understandings and opinions grounded in primary sources, for anybody to check and verify, who do not choose to flow with the tide, who choose to steer of their own grit.
When I posted some photos from picturesque Pakistan, I was pleasantly surprised to have a fellow blogger comment, "Pakistan in a different light, and one that we never get to see, a picturesque Pakistan!" I felt the need to present Islam in a different light too. One that people don't usually get to see.
Copyright (c) 2008 Saadia Malik
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