As I listened to these lines on one of the political forecasting TV shows this evening I thought that generally the factor of sticking to some misunderstood values regarding Islam has caused lots of confusion & as a result, problems to the Muslims around the world.
I am not specifically talking about Iran or any one Muslim State here. It's about the general status of Islam & Muslims in today's time & age. For example you can imagine how threatened the West felt when they got this message from the Islamic scholars and sources in general that Jihad is obligatory on the present day Muslims and their States as it was at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and keeping the prophet's prophecy, they would fight the non-Muslims of the world untill Islam starts ruling the whole world. Naturally the West, specially the Super powers took a hard line on this and decided to suppress and break down the Muslim power everywhere in the world even before they could, in their understanding, become so powerful to suppress or take over the non-Muslim states. The destruction of the small Muslim population of Bosnia in the middle of Europe was a clear example of this and the rest of the links followed this heart rendering incidence in early 90s.We have been seeing the ladies from Bosnia in our clinics here for long time after the downfall and their stories trembled our hearts. You could just sit and imagine yourselves and your children in their place...inna lillah...
Similarly when the message goes to the non-Muslims that Muslims cannot take them as their bosom friends and must not trust them, what do u think their attitude is going to be towards the Muslims except that of hatered and dis-trust. Even if that particular Muslim does not believe or practice this, he/she will be categorized as such because of the general info being spread around amongst the Muslims in the form of Islamic education & teachings everywhere in the world.
There are many more examples. The traditional teachings about the treatment of women in Islam, the penal code, the political shariah, which are not based on the information given in Qur'an or the practices of the Prophet (sws) and his companions ~it is so important to bring the true picture of Islam to the world instead of the self implemented restrictions on each and every value. Which has done nothing but created fear and threat about Islam & Muslims globally and Muslims have suffered individually and as a nation paying heavy price to the misconceptions spread around by the teachers and leaders of Islam who did not do their home-work of separating the stories from the true teachings of Islam. So much so that Muslims started becoming afraid to even get recognized as Muslims on the global canvas. They started changing their names and outlook not to look like a Muslim anymore!
Most scholars of the past century have taken these hard stances not based on the original sources of Islam and they have but caused more and more trouble to Islam and Muslims. It's hi-time that all these misconceptions get clarified & brought to the horizon of the world.
Its a great site about Islamic Education
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