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Seeds of love or seeds of hate?

8/18/2010

5 Comments

 
Picture
Philo CA, May 2009
I am a lover, and I deal in love.
Sow flowers,
so your surroundings become a garden.
Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet.
We are all one body.
Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.
                                        from Rahman Baba, a Sufi saint and poet 


 
Author William Dalrymple sheds light on nuances of the Muslim tradition that are getting lost in all the noise over the planned construction of a Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan, in an op-ed piece published Monday in The New York Times. He says the center will be spiritual home to Sufis, the most peaceful and inclusive believers in the Islamic world. How tragic that this message has been overpowered by the din of politically motivated rhetoric.

Consider the following:

Sufism is an entirely indigenous, deeply rooted resistance movement against violent Islamic radicalism. Whether it can be harnessed to a political end is not clear. But the least we can do is to encourage the Sufis in our own societies. Men like Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf should be embraced as vital allies, and we should have only contempt for those who, through ignorance or political calculation, attempt to conflate them with the extremists.

And…

The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.

Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith. Had the George W. Bush administration been more aware of the irreconcilable differences between the Salafist jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the United States might never have blundered into a disastrous war, and instead kept its focus on rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan while the hearts and minds of the Afghans were still open to persuasion.

For the complete opinion piece, go to The New York Times, August 16, 2010, The Muslims in the Middle, by William Dalrymple.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage


 
For a very different take on the same issue, read Citizen K’s blog conversation  at http://www.killiansaid.blogspot.com/2010/08/viva-las-vegas.html

It opens with this:

The seriousness and depth of contemporary politics came to the fore yesterday when Nevada Democrat Harry Reid joined Republican opponent Sharon Angle in opposing construction of a mosque and community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan, approximately 2200 miles from Las Vegas.

Citizen K. has learned that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg conducted a conference call with Reid and Angle in which he expressed thanks for their concern. The precise responses of Reid and Angle are unknown, but I can reliably report on Bloomberg's end of the conversation:

"Senator, Ms. Angle, I'd like express my heartfelt gratitude for your interest in New York and your concern for the people living here...

"Yes, I do have to thank you. That you could make time to express your opinion about events in a city on the other side of the country when Nevada has a 14.2% unemployment rate and the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, well...I'm touched to say the least...
Picture

5 Comments
Darlene link
8/18/2010 04:15:11 am

I love all of your posts and agree 100%. I read K's post on the cultural center (aka:Mosque) and am thinking of writing a post on the subject myself, time permitting. It is a disgrace that the wing nuts are allowed to rant on hallowed ground when they ignore other hallowed grounds (think Gettysburg). And Harry Reid deserves to lose after joining them. Of course, in his case the alternative is so much worse.

Reply
Diane link
8/18/2010 04:40:00 am

Terrific post!

Thanks for linking to the NYT op-ed and killiansaid. Both brought a certain measure of sanity to this whole crazed brouhaha.

Reply
marie
8/18/2010 05:39:00 am

Dear Birdonawire, I am afraid you and your friends might be a bit naive. I really think that Sufis would not have insisted on having a mosque at the precise spot where it will be built (or expanded). I know that a large part of the Muslims are moderate, if that makes sense, but I also know that some extremists always manage to get into moderate groups. It is not the right place to do that. Moderate people would have given up. Extremists are exulting in some muslim countries. I wish you could come to my country just to see what is going on here!

Reply
tnlib
8/18/2010 10:19:13 am

I love the poem and everything else. K's post was hilarious in a sad sort of way.

I am fortunate to have had Muslim friends for most of my life - and from many parts of the world. I am happy to say they have enriched my life. They came here to get away from all the insanity in their homelands. There are extremists everywhere. All we have to do is look at the patriot groups in this country.

The mosque is two blocks away from ground zero in a business district of lower Manhattan and surrounded by a "gentleman's club," a betting parlor, a deli (and such a good one, too) and oh so many other businesses. I'm sure if some right-wing nuts wanted to put up a temple to Glenn Beck, no one would stop them.

Reply
paula link
8/20/2010 01:47:51 am

Thanks Darlene, Diane and tnlib, plus a special thank you to Marie for sharing her own experience with Islam in France. I, for one, would like to hear more of what you have to say, Marie.

Reply



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