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POPSCatholic-Shiite Dialogue - Reasonable Understanding Against the background of these existing contacts between the Vatican and Muslim authorities, one can look forward with anticipation to the first meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum, scheduled for early November. The forum was founded following a meeting in the Vatican in March this year, which itself was the result of a letter written in October 2007 by 138 Muslim scholars from 43 countries to the pope and other representatives of the Christian churches. The topic of the forthcoming meeting is to be "Love of God and neighbour." The Vatican-Shiite dialogue is also set to continue: another colloquium is planned for two years time in Tehran. See also: The Vatican and leading Iranian theologians on "Faith and Reason in Christianity and Islam" . Deutsch: Vatikanisch-schiitischer Dialog - Vernünftige Verständigung
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POPSIslam and Secularism Volkhard Krech, professor for religious studies , has come to the conclusion that some religious traditions, such as Judaism and Protestantism, represent "secularization factors." Other faiths, such as Islam and evangelical churches have a tendency to combine a strong sense of both national and religious identity, mixing politics with religion. The Berlin Islamic scholar Gudrun Krämer made clear that a "massive rejection" of secularism prevails in most Muslim countries. In Islamic discourse, secularization is regarded as a "hostile takeover" of Muslim society. Instead of the notion of the separation of religion and state, the idea of "empowerment" is stressed. Islam calls for believers to actively participate in the power structures of the state. As a mixture of nationalism and Islamism, the so-called "national Jihad" is pushing its way into the political arena and has given birth to the notion of the "Islamic welfare state."
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POPSOlivier Roy: Europe's difficulties with its Muslims a subject of oversimplification Olivier Roy is one of the most renowned experts on political Islam. In this interview with Michael Hesse, he talks about religious fundamentalism, Islam in Europe, and explains why the Muslim middle classes in the West ought to be recognized as a western faith community, not as an alien culture: the modern brands of fundamentalism (wahhabism, but also protestant evangelicalism) are not the product of traditional cultures, but on the contrary the product of a crisis of traditional cultures, the product of deculturation and globalization. Religious tensions are linked with the crisis of traditional cultures, and are not their expression. Deutsche Fassung: Interview mit Olivier Roy - "Radikale Muslime sind verwestlicht"
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POPSEuropean Values - The Ideology of Fortress Europe? Are the values of human rights specific to European civilisation, marking the continent off from other regions of the world? Traugott Schoefthaler takes a critical look at the positions of European think tanks and foundations. ↗ "Europäische Werte"-Debatte - Ideologie der Festung Europa?
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POPSAufklärung: christlich? Islam: antiaufklärerisch? Aus: Corrina Gomani und Dursun Tan: Die Rolle des religiösen Diskurses in der Erziehung. Aus dem Inhalt: Die Tragweite kultureller Differenzen „Religion als kulturelles System“ Aufklärung versus Nichtaufklärung? Humanisiert versus Nichthumanisiert? Traditionalistisch versus Modernistisch? Die Geschlechtlichkeit des Menschen Religion als „historisches Gedächtnis“ und Diskursform
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POPSKhaled Abou el Fadl: "God Does Not Have an Equal Partner" Khaled Abou el Fadl is both a prominent Islamic jurist and an American lawyer. In his many books he has accused radical Islamists of ignorance concerning the Koran and Sharia law. "We can debate God's will as much as we like. I encourage Muslims to do so in order to discover God's will," says Abou el Fadl. "If, however, we adopt a law and the state implements it, we cannot assume that it represents God's will. If, on the other hand, we give the state the power to represent God, that is not a democracy, but a form of ideology. This contradicts Islamic theology, because God does not have an equal partner." This is why the divine law should only cover questions of faith and should not be subject to the state. It is not the job of the state to regulate the relationship between God and the faithful. Deutsche Fassung: Khaled Abou El Fadl: "Gott hat keine Partner"
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POPSKhaled Abou El Fadl: Jihad Gone Wrong Khaled Abou el Fadl is a professor at the School of Law at the University of California. He is a prominent Islamic scholar and intellectual. In this interview, El Fadl talks about suicide bombings, misinterpretations of 'jihad' and the humanist tradition of Islam. Deutsche Fassung: Interview Khaled Abou El Fadl - Der missverstandene Dschihad Der Begriff des Dschihad geistert seit Jahren durch die Presse. Dass seine wahre Bedeutung weder etwas mit Selbstmordattentaten noch mit "heiligem Krieg" zu tun hat, erklärt Khaled Abou El Fadl im Gespräch. Das, was Selbstmordattentäter als Dschihad verkaufen, ist nichts anderes als eine Strategie offensiver Bombenanschläge, die von der revolutionären Ideologie der 60er Jahre beeinflusst ist, meint Khaled Abou El Fadl. Prof. Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl ist Professor für islamisches Recht an der Universität von Los Angeles (UCLA)
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POPSNavy chaplain fired from teaching job after report exposed his anti-Islamic views
In addition to relieving Waite of his teaching duties, Morgan, the GTF president, said the school has scrapped its Military Ministries program, which Chaplain Waite presided over, in an effort to “distance ourselves profoundly from his name and his ideas.” “It has come to our attention that a "former" member of our faculty, Brian Waite, has written a book which is now withdrawn by the publisher attacking Islam!” says a copy of the email written by Morgan sent to Muslim faculty members. “Please know that we have dismissed him from our faculty and terminated our military ministries program . . . If anyone enquires of you regarding Brian Waite (a military chaplain serving in Iraq), please assure them that he was appointed to the faculty without our knowledge of his book or his feelings about Islam. Please know that the Foundation as an institution and myself as its President are deeply committed to our Islamic program, faculty, and students.”
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POPSWill the Clash of Faiths Go on Forever? Religious conflict rages on, despite claims we live in a "secular age" -- two authors explore the clash of beliefs. This article reviews: Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe by Benjamin J. Kaplan God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis
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POPSAbid Mustafa: "The West to the World: Accept Our Values or Die" The West armed with its secular doctrine and materialistic world-view proceeded to exploit, plunder and colonize vast populations in order to control resources and maximize wealth. In pursuit of these newfound riches the West succeeded in destroying civilizations such as the Incas, American Indians, Aztecs, and Aborigines. Those who survived colonization were forcibly converted to Christianity, stripped of their heritage and sold into bondage to western companies. For the indigenous people of Africa, India, Asia, the Middle East and others, the promises of freedom quickly evaporated and were replaced by colonial rule. Resistance offered by the natives towards their colonial masters was met by brute force . When the West was not destroying the natives they were too busy annihilating each other in a desperate bid to cling on to their precious colonies. World Wars I and II are prime examples of the destructive nature of western values.
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POPSIlluminating Beauty, Illustrating Harmony Interactive Show at the source. Illuminating Beauty, Illustrating Harmony: A Gallery celebrating the 25th Anniversary of The Institute of Ismaili Studies ...invites the viewer to the large and complex subject of the artistic and intellectual heritage of Islam. Ranging in date from the ninth to the nineteenth century, and produced in lands as far westward as Tunisia and as far eastward as China and India, the artefacts reflect the great diversity and range of a distinctive visual culture with its own unique artistic language. ‘Illuminating’ and ‘illustrating’ are appropriate from with the perspectives of calligraphy and the arts of the book, and are also linked to notions of knowledge and learning in Islam. A significant number of items in this exhibition are, therefore, related to the arts of the book, in particular the Qur’an.
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POPSStephan Hallmann: "Nur mehr Demokratie zerreißt den Schleier" Aber Vorsicht! Auch die Gefahren eines aggressiven Islam sollten nicht verharmlost werden. Natürlich gibt es viele, für die die Aufhebung des Kopftuch-Verbots nur ein erster Schritt ist, nicht hin zu mehr Freiheit für Gläubige, sondern zu einer anderen - religiös verbrämten - Diktatur. Aber das kann kein Argument dafür sein, die Freiheit muslimischer Frauen und ihr Recht auf Bildung einzuschränken. Nur mehr Demokratie wird letztlich den Schleier zerreißen, hinter den ein traditionelles Islamverständnis die Frauen verbannt. Mehr Demokratie, das bedeutet auch die Stärkung der Stellung der Frau, wobei Aufklärung und Bildung eine wichtige Rolle spielen.
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POPSWerner Schiffauer on Migration, Youth Violence and Islam If you "Islamicise" a social problem like this, you are distorting reality. You have to look very carefully at who the offenders are. What we urgently need is detailed qualitative studies that give us an impression of the problem situations in migrant families. Deutsche Ausgabe
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POPSA Look into the Muslim Headscarf Hysteria in France
The Conseil d'État eventually ruled that students could not be refused admission simply for wearing headscarves, but it also gave teachers and principals the power to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether such signs of religious affiliation were permissible. In 2003, two teenage sisters were expelled from their high school for refusing to take off their headscarves. The Lévy sisters are the daughters of a lawyer who considers himself "a Jew without God" and a Kabyle teacher who had been baptized a Catholic during the Algerian war. The girls had converted to Islam after their parents' separation and had donned the scarves as part of that process. In an interview with Le Monde, the girls' father declared, "I am not in favor of the headscarf, but I defend the right of my children to go to school. In the course of this business I've discovered the hysterical madness of certain ayatollahs of secularism who have lost all their common sense."
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POPSHow the Neocon-Christian Right Alliance Brought Down the House of Bush C. UNGER: I traveled undercover with Tim LeHay, who is the prophet of the "Left Behind" series. I traveled with him to the battlefield of Armageddon, where they believe the final conflict would take place. Megiddo is -- from Megiddo, we get the term Armageddon, where the final conflict will take place. And I was walking up the hill with LeHay and about ninety of his followers, and as you look over this spectacularly beautiful pastoral valley . They see that it will be filled with blood, the blood of as many as two billion people. And I talked with them about that, and they say there will be a river of blood, 200 miles long, about four-and-a-half feet deep. And I asked one of them when all this would take place. And they said, “Very soon, but not soon enough. Any day now.” So they see this fantasy is taking place, and this is sort of one of the horrific visions that is spelled out in the Book of Revelation.
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POPSChristians are Genocidal Maniacs!? The article is not actually asserting Christians are genocidal maniacs, but explaining how they could be viewed as such if news is selectively shoved down people's throats, as is the case with Islam.
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POPSThe Strange Journey of Ayaan Hirsi Ali: From Devout Muslim to Outspoken "Feminist" Critic of Islam The former "liberal" who becomes an outspoken right-winger has become an American political archetype. Ronald Reagan and David Horowiz are two prime examples of the breed. They use the rhetorical tool of claiming to be just as caring and compassionate as their previous political incarnation, but the left's irrationality and hatred of (you pick it) the West, America, Christianity, capitalism, etc. caused them to wake up one morning and see the light. And having transformed from lefty caterpillar into a right-leaning butterfly, they present themselves as qualified to comment on liberalism's moral and intellectual failures. related version of this turncoat persona : a "reformed" Muslim woman who favors crushing Islam under the boot of Western militarism. Once very devout in her Muslim beliefs, Ali has transformed into an outspoken critic who bases her calls for the destruction of Islam on feminist and human rights principles.
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POPSIslam and the West: Block Thinking Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher who has made significant contributions to political philosophy, philosophy of social science, and the history of philosophy.
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