Talk:Islam/Archive 16 - Misplaced Pages

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Statements without citing sources

The form of the Qur'an most used today is the Al-Azhar text of 1923, prepared by a committee at the prestigious Cairo university of Al-Azhar.
- This statement never shows that who believe it.

Many others but I think we should go one statement at a time. Zain 12:53, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The first statement is true. See

THE QUR'AN IN PRINT

http://www.ymofmd.com/books/uaq/ch3s4.htm

The Qur'anic text in printed form now used widely in the Muslim world and developing into a 'standard version', is the so-called 'Egyptian' edition, also known as the King Fu'ad edition, since it was introduced in Egypt under King Fu'ad. This edition is based on the reading of Hafs, as reported by 'Asim, and was first printed in Cairo in 1925/1344H. Numerous copies have since been printed.

OneGuy 20:13, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't you think that some mention must be made of the shahada as recited by Shi'as. The article ends the Kalima at mohammed ur rasul allah. The Shi'as add 'aliyun wali allah' to that. --Notquiteauden 19:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Scapula's edits

Someone recently added a rambling and discursive para to the article that was not only marginally literate, it was wrong in many cases. The statement that put my teeth on edge was that Judaism and Chrisianity were the only religions of that time and place that weren't didn't worship idols. Um, Zoroastrianism doesn't worship idols, so far as I know, and Buddhism doesn't unless it's mixed with folk religion. Not to mention the fact that Eastern Orthodoxy was riven with conflict between those who venerated icons, and those who didn't (iconoclasts).

I reverted the article to the pre-addition version. I don't want to discourage Scapula from editing Misplaced Pages, but I'd suggest that he/she start on less contentious articles that are closer to his/her areas of expertise. Zora 20:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Problematic statement

The article states "Unlike Christianity, Islam has not undergone any period of reformation...". This phrase makes it seem like Islam is a monolithic unchanging entity, and smacks of outdated viewpoints (i wont use the O. word dont worry!). What do you think about removal?

I've occasionally thought that this should be rewritten. The wording assumes that every religion needs a period of reformation, just like Christianity. Hmmm. I'm a Buddhist and I don't think Buddhism has ever had a period of reformation. It just keeps changing all the time.

Now if I were a Muslim I'd probably be a reformist and believe that many Islamic religious professionals were medieval in their viewpoints, and that the gates of ijtihad should be opened again -- but that shouldn't be an assumption underlying the article. Zora 08:17, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely that, like any tradition that spans the globe, Islamic traditions are not monolithic, encompass a wide range of cultures from N. America to the Philippines, and have undergone many changes, a number of which can intelligibly be referred to as reformist. For example, in the tenth century, the great scholar and lecturer on Islamic law, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, right in the middle of his regular lectures, interrupted his lecture could speak no more. While those near him thought he had suffered from some sort of physical attack, he had, according to his own autobiography, undergone a profound crisis of conscience. He found an emptiness beneath the impressive body of legal precepts, and left his secure position as teacher of law, and went on a seven-year physical and philosophical journey that led to a major reform of the tradition that could be compared to that of Martin Luther. Ghazzali focused on an inner dimension to the legal traditions, by focusing, for example, on the intention of the person behind the performance of ritual and the precepts of legal rules. Moreover, he contributed to integration of Sunni Islam and Sufism, which by his time become a movement of interior spirituality that criticised the superficiality of legalism and what they considered the moral decline that came with the enormous wealth and power in the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, Ghazzali was called "mujadded" that is, someone who brought something new, or fresh. His interpretation of the Verse of Light (Sura Noor) of the Qur'an, written after his journey, gives a whiff of that freshness. His autobiography, which covers his crisis, and illustrates his searching, sharp mind, his poignant honesty and is as lucid and self-revelatory as the writing of any a reformer.

What is the likely origin of the view that Islam never went through reform? It is probably the conception that Islam is essentially a pre-modern, medieval tradition. However, between the ninth and thirteenth centuries could arguably qualify as "Classical" rather than medieval, as is commonly understood. Why? This period was formative in several senses: individuals asked fundamental questions about the human condition, there was much diversity of opinion, there was significant dialog between reason and spiritual experience, individuality was respected, and there was a profound and general respect for the validity of one's experience, observation and powers of reason, and finally, a healthy suspicion of received knowledge or tradition.

Another example from that period is an encyclopedia call the "Treatise of the Brethren of Purity", written about 700 years before Diderot, by a group of individuals in many walks of life, in the city of Basra, in present-day Iraq. This massive work covered the knowledge of the day from music to mathematics, from physiology (which included knowledge of the human circulatory system) to natural history, as well as narratives that would today be called precursors of fiction. One of these narratives is called "Trial of the Animals Versus Humanity", in which a group of animals revolt against the domination of human beings, and question the assumption that human beings make that they are superior to animals. These animals do not trust human courts, so resort to the court of Genies (Jinn). This segment of the encycopedia covers probably one percent of the total work, and has recently been called the first example of deep ecology in human history.

My next submission will be a summary of several such texts, and believe that these texts should fall under a new heading in the sidebar "Islam": Literature and Science. I am new to this encyclopedia, and would like someone's assistance in this.

Appreciation

Sorry to interrupt your work with this, but I have just been reading the article on Islam and your talk page, and I have to express to you all how impressive it is to see such consummate civility and mutual respect in your discussions. --Jmenon

Article requests

For a list of requested article topics regarding Islam, Islamic culture, and the Muslim world, see Misplaced Pages:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts#Islam. -- Karada 13:10, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Islam POV

It is my point of view that the entry for islam and the talk page associated is very far from npov it is apparant that it is muslim point of view. there is nothing that I have found, (although I don't have more than a couple of hours to read this one article) about how women are repressed and abused. You all have created a wonderful recruiting page for islam, good for you. Furthermore, you edit out what people put in that disagrees with what you think islam should be, not what it is in reality. I may have missed it, but all of the various sects are not delved into, only what would be pristine islam. God is the only God, and he said 'thou shalt not kill'. May His light open your eyes.

I agree that Islamism is not as clearly separable from Islam as suggested in this article. There should be a section briefly outlining the history of radical interpretations of Islam, rather than simply the plain link under 'see also'. dab (ᛏ) 12:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

But this is also true for some other religious articles on Misplaced Pages, especially Hinduism. I don't see Hindutva even mentioned (even in see also section) in Hinduism article OneGuy 22:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

hm, in my opinion Hindutva should definitely be linked from Hinduism. I'm not saying we need a long paragraph about Islamism. One sentence is enough, just making it part of the article text rather than linking it without comment. Also, the Islamism article makes it sound like it's a 20th century phenomenon. Afaik, there were similar discussions in medieval Persia, contrasting fundamentalist/strict interpretations with more 'Persian'/mystic ideas (origins of Sufism?). But I'm not knowledgeable about this. Do we have an article where these controversies are explained? dab (ᛏ) 16:24, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Creed "translations"

also, can people please stop messing with the translation of the "creed"? la ilaha illa-llahu means " no god but God". End of story. It does not mean "no god is rightfully worshipped" or anything similar. These are theological interpretations/implications, not translationss. dab (ᛏ) 14:48, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reason I removed links in "academic sources"

Another #$%@#$ anon editor inserted four links to various websites and publications of Al-Mawrid Institute in Pakistan. That's a little much! I thought that I might narrow the links to one, and looked through them for academic content. But there wasn't any, really. Those sites are directed at devout Muslims who want to deepen their faith; there really is no academic content. I found one paper on a Christian gospel, which started out with a note to the effect that "I'm busy, I didn't have a chance to finish this term paper, but here it is." Unfinished undergraduate papers are not the stuff of a peer-reviewed academic journal.

I would suggest that the anon editor make sure that all those links are included in the Open Directory listings. We link to the Open Directory, so an interested reader could follow the links to the Al-Mawrid site. Zora 11:05, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Prophets

Since you asked, the hadith giving 124,000 is in Musnad Ibn Hanbal. It may not be significant enough to mention on the main page, though. - Mustafaa 22:15, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Environmentalism and religion

I have added a section "Environmentalism and religion" to the Environmentalism article. Perhaps someone familiar with Islamic theology could add to it. --Erauch 19:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Sect" problem

The sidebar on this and (presumably) every other major article relating to Islam lists articles on Maliki, Hanbali, etc. among "sects." This is not accurate, they are complementary schools of jurisprudence. Note that they are insistent on that point, inasmuch as Qur'an pronounces breaking the religion into sects as a sin. In any given Sunni masjid in US, one may encounter practitioners of all four of these schools of thought, or madhabs. They're better understood as distinct scholarly approaches to how best to perform the same obligations; they're not sects in the sense of competing subgroups. May I suggest we retitle heading as "Schools of Thought" wherever it appears? BrandonYusufToropov 14:02, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How about just using madhab and then defining it? Any attempt to coin an English phrase ends up being as long as a definition anyway. Zora 19:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. You will notice that it is not the madhhabs that are defined as sects; but Sunni and Shia, with the schools of thought within them listed after those two with a colon. And though not exactly the same as, say, Christian sects, Sunni, Shia, Mutaza'ila, etc. are close to what a sect is. What say?—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 19:33, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Having taken another look at the sidebar, I'd say that it is misleading, and that the decision to present it that way may have been due to a perceived need to balance the list of Shi'a sects with a list of Sunni "sects" and make a visually balanced presentation. It would seem to be clearest to introduce another category, Madhab or Legal Tradition, and rework the sect list. It wouldn't look as pretty, having Sunni all by itself on one line, but it would be more rational. Zora 22:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I can try to add another category, but I'm afraid I don't know how to edit a template. Where exactly is the text I would change? BrandonYusufToropov 11:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

D'oh. I don't know where templates are stored. Zora 12:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I found it (with help from User:OneGuy. It was here: template:Islam, and I made the edit without totally messing up the graphics, which was a concern. What do people think? BrandonYusufToropov 18:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks Brandon. Zora 19:16, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Misleading. Why are Sunni madhabs in separate section while Shi'a ones are in sect section? Ithna Asharia, Ismailiyah, Zaiddiyah, are all Shi'a OneGuy 19:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to fix that and other issues - tell me what you think. - Mustafaa 19:47, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone have any good sources?

Hello. I'm trying to find some information on why the Abbasid Dynasty in Baghdad weakened and lost to the Mongols. I'm trying to find some good books/cites/articles on the reasons why the caliphate weakened and not just what happened. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

Thanks!

Given that the Mongols trounced everyone for thousands of miles (Central Asians, Chinese, Russians, AND the Abbasids), I'm not sure that it's necessary to conclude that the Abbasids were WEAK. Would the outcome have been any different if the Mongols had arrived earlier, when the Caliphate was still "strong"? Could the Mongols have beaten the Arab warriors of Uthman?

I'm reminded of sf fans and discussions such as "Could the Starship Enterprise beat the Death Star?" Zora 08:06, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good point. However, during the Umayyad dynasty, the empire was very large. After the Abbasids overthrew them and moved the capital, the empire gradually became smaller until it was just the area around Baghdad. I'm looked for the reasons why the empire became smaller. Green789 15:26, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Was the link that bad?

OneGuy, you reverted the addition of a link to arabic-islamic.org -- or something like that. I had already taken one look at the link and decided that it might actually add to the article. Could you share your thought processes in deciding that it was part of a link spam? Zora 18:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Most of the site is in Spanish. Put in Spanish Misplaced Pages if you like the site OneGuy 19:18, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Removed forum sites

Fansher, I removed the forum sites you added. Those are proselytizing sites, and if we allow them, out of the hundreds or even thousands of proselytizing sites on the web, we'd have to allow them all. Just make sure that those sites are in the open directory (to which we link) and then people can find them if they look. Zora 09:24, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

FA status

Hello all,

I just want to say that I found this article to be an excellent article to Islam. It is clear, seems NPOV (I can't say - I'm a Christian) and well written. It uses summary sections well (though I'm not so crash hot on a section that has no summary form and refers to another article on Misplaced Pages) and the infobox is pretty cool. If only the Christianity article was so good!

Anyway, I'd like to know what we need to do to get this to FA status. What do people think? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:27, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Simply go here and follow the instructions. Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates --Christofurio 00:31, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

I agree -- it would be a nice feature article. No idea how to nominate, though.BrandonYusufToropov 11:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, it's quite an acheivement considering the amount of vandalism and well-meaning spamming. I think the sections containing nothing but a "main article" link should just be moved to "see also". The "English version of the creed" needs some work (can we get the original Arabic?) what is the difference between Angels (which means, Messengers), and "Messengers"? What is the term translated by "Angel"? Maybe include some stuff from Angels#Islamic_views? dab (ᛏ) 12:11, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

malak means "messenger" in Hebrew; in Arabic, it has no meaning but "angel", as far as I know. - Mustafaa 23:22, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

With an eye toward nomination, I have cut-and-pasted a key paragraph from the "Islam and other religions" article to fill in that blank spot, and copyedited what seemed to me a few unclear spots in "Islam in the Modern World" -- thoughts? BrandonYusufToropov 11:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Proper name of Shi'a

Hi, I'm no expert on Islam, so I'm not exactly sure what the proper way to refer to Shi'as is. What should wikipedia use? I've seen the following on various pages:

Shiites
Shi'ites
Shiite Muslims
Shi'ite Muslims
Shia
Shias
Shia Muslims
Shi'a
Shi'as
Shi'a Muslims
Shi'i

Also I am confused whether to use:

Shiism
Shi'ism
Shia Islam
Shi'a Islam
Shiaism

This problem is illustrated by What links to Shi'a Islam. Needless to say, all of this variety is a bit confusing. I think it would be useful for Misplaced Pages to adopt one standard, and stick to it on all articles. The problem is that it takes quite a while to change existing articles to match that standard. I am willing to do a hundred of the articles linking to Shi'a Islam via redirects, but no more than that (There are just too many). If anyone else would like to help out, just click the above link, find a page, and change the references to Shi'a to be in whatever form is thought best. Let me know what you think at my talk page, or we can have a discussion here. --Jacobolus 07:02, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

some are more common than other spellings, but it's a matter of convention I suppose, and uniformityu will be difficult to impose on WP. Myself I would opt for Shi'ites, Shi'a, only if because the apostrophe makes it looks less similar to shite :o) dab (ᛏ) 13:32, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

System problem

During a recent reversion, the final third of the article simply evaporated, and attempts to resave from the same version resulted in the same missing text.

I cut and pasted from the article page to restore the missing text, but I know there are some ugly spots and missing internal links. At least the text is now current, and Godwilling I will fix the links later on. BrandonYusufToropov 14:47, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've used up my three reverts for the day ...

... and the vandalism of this page continues. Help, please. BrandonYusufToropov 19:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've got it. For future reference, though, 3RR doesn't apply to simple and obvious vandalism, so feel free to revert that as much as you like. —Charles P. 19:35, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

atheism

could somebody check out Atheism#In_Islam, please? I was under the impression that shirk and kafir were not overlapping concepts, and that kafir was more or less equivalent to atheist. The article now claims "the concept does not exist", I am not sure who inserted that. dab (ᛏ) 11:57, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I added a pronunciation of "islam" in Arabic. I'm not a native speaker, though, so please remove if it's too crappy. - karmosin 08:23, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

wtf? and then you replaces islam with muhammad with the edit summary

"And then he crapped up the name of the Lord, and the Lord was wrathful..."

-- is this some sort of surreal vandalism? And why is the file called "ar-islam"? I suppose the audio file should include the article, al-islam, and if it is to be at all useful, be spoken by a native arab (Saudi? Bedouin?) dab (ᛏ) 09:26, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sheesh... Sorry! I can't read Arabic, so I must've accidently gone to Muhammad and copied the text there. I was looking at both pages at once. And I was trying to make a joke with the description because I thought I had messed up the Arabic text while editing and thought i set it right.

And the file name is "ar-islam.ogg" because that's the standard for naming soundfiles on Commons. "Ar-" is the 2-letter ISO 639 code for Arabic and those instructions are clearly stated at Commons if you just look around. Also, try not to assume the worst because of one mistake. I don't enjoy having "wtf"s thrown at me for no good reason.

Now I know I'm not a native. But since no one has uploaded any samples of Arabic, is the pronunciation bad enough to merit no pronunciation at all? - karmosin 09:53, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

sorry for the "wtf", no offence intended -- I just couldn't figure out what was going on :o) I understand the "ar-" now, I was confused because the file should properly say "al-islam" (and be named "ar-al-islam", I suppose, then). I am obviously no native either, but your file seemed to get the accent wrong, it said íslam, while it should be islám (with a long a), the i- being just a prothetic vowel (to the root slm, "peace etc.". regards, dab (ᛏ) 10:27, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, then. Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to love to learn some Arabic, but I have my hands (or rather my mouth) tied with Chinese, German and Spanish. Is the word "islam" usually refered to in everyday speech as "the islam"? For example: if someone answered the question "What religion are you studying ?", would the proper answer be "al islam", and not just "islam"? Let me try one more recording and if I still don't get it right I'll leave it to the Arabs.

Btw, does the prothetic vowel become a sort of schwa or does it simply not occur on its own at the start of a clause? - karmosin 14:35, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's almost invariably used with the article, i.e. "the submission" as opposed to some submission of someone to somebody, just as the koran always has the article, "the lecture", as opposed to some unspecified lecture. The prothetic vowel is necessary before any cluster of two consonants, see arabic grammar. it is an i-sound (but I suppose dialects will vary). I strongly believe that if we're going to have sound files to illustrate pronunciation, they should be recordings of native speakers (Arabic has how many? a quarter of a billion? shouldn't be too difficult to find one :) dab (ᛏ) 15:22, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apparantly not enough of them know that there's even an option of uploading sound files since there are no sound files in Arabic at Commons nor here (to my knowledge). Now unless this second attempt really is horribly substandard, how about we try to be bold? I mean, what's the worst scenario, really? An upset Arab replacing it with a native pronunciation? :-) This, if anything, is a good way of letting people know there's the possibility of creating sound files on wikipedia.

Here's the second attempt: listen - karmosin 21:15, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

well, it sounds like "al ísslam" to me, but I am open to other opinions. dab (ᛏ) 10:18, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you can be bothered, you could extract the word from a qur'anic recitation. It occurs e.g. 3:19 or 61:7, you could rip it from a recitation on (the faq says the files are freely redistributable). In this mp3 file, the word occurs at ca. 1:42–1:45 (but it is chanted, not spoken in a natural voice). dab (ᛏ) 10:41, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I can't hear any difference at all between the chanter's and my own "i". I'm also definetly not stressing it; that much I know about phonetics. The chanter's "a" is more closed, though. Almost on the brink of becoming a Swedish e:. Is that due to dialect or the chant?

In any case, I modeled my pronunciation on sound files from Nationalencyklopedin, which are cleary pronounced by a native speaker who clearly pronounces the "i". Incidentally, he also doesn't use an article, but I'l trust your syntactic judgement on that one.

Eventhough I really like that chant, the extremly low quality and clearity make it pretty useless as a guide to pronunciation. I suggest we use what we've got and hope some native speaker will come along and be urged to do a proper recording. I mean, it's not like I'm pronouncing it Audio file "Crappy Swedish and American islam.ogg" not found... - karmosin 12:09, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

(*lol*) fair enough, let's see what the natives say :o) dab (ᛏ) 12:30, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now that's bold! :-D

Islamic Civilizations

I am new to this encyclopedia, and would like someone's assistance in this. I would like to suggest an additional heading under the category "Islam" which so far, understandably focuses mainly on doctrine and religious communities, schools and orientations, but also has architecture. I would like to suggest a heading that contains architecture, as well as a wide range of other phenomena. Islamic Civilizations is in the plural because as a world tradition, the faith has interacted with a wide range of cultures: pre-Islamic Arabian, African, Iranian, Turkic, Indian, South-East Asian, Chinese, etc. This category of knowledge goes beyond theology and practice to encompass culture, scientific knowledge, medicine, technology, the meaningful relationship different Muslims have with their natural environment, with different cultural traditions, as well as the understandings and practices that are hybrid and creative integration of different traditions and cultural practices.

Islamic Civilizations covers various works from around the world such as poetic literature, stories, philosophical and scientific treatises, travel accounts, maps, and encyclopedias. This section would thus embody the pluralism and breadth of concern that is to be found in any tradition that encompasses about one billion people spanning the globe, over a period of one thousand four hundred years.

I shall start in a small way by describing texts that demonstrate a small piece of knowledge that would fall in such a category. Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries was a period of scientific and cultural development among Muslims and others who shared a cultural space that could arguably qualify as "Classical" rather than medieval, as is commonly understood. Why? Despite some degree of political turbulence, this period was formative in several senses: individuals often asked fundamental questions about the human condition, there was much diversity of opinion, there was significant dialog between reason and spiritual experience, individuality was generally respected, and there was a profound and general respect for the validity of one's experience, one's own powers of observation and reason, and finally, a healthy suspicion of received knowledge or tradition. During this period, many texts developed, mainly in Arabic, some of which are in English translation. For example, in the tenth century, the great scholar and lecturer on Islamic law, Muhammad al-Ghazzali, who lived in in Baghdad, which was then in the middle of a period of creative ferment. Right in the middle of his regular lectures, al-Ghazzali stopped his lecture and could speak no more. While those near him thought he had suffered from some sort of physical ailment, he had, according to his own autobiography, undergone a profound crisis of conscience. He found an emptiness beneath the impressive body of legal precepts, and soon left his secure position as teacher of law, and went on a seven-year physical and philosophical journey that led to a major reform of the tradition that could in some respects be compared to that of Martin Luther. Ghazzali focused on an inner dimension to the legal traditions, by focusing, for example, on the intention of the person behind the performance of ritual and the precepts of legal rules. Moreover, he contributed to integration of Sunni Islam and Sufism, which by his time become a movement of interior spirituality that, for the most part from the "outside" criticised the superficiality of legalism and what they considered the moral decline that came with the enormous wealth and power in North Africa, Western, Central and South Asia. In fact, Ghazzali was called "mujadded" that is, someone who brought something new, or fresh. He could be critiqued for being conservative, and hermetically sealing his innovative synthesis. Nevertheless, his interpretation of the Verse of Light (Sura Noor) of the Qur'an, written after his journey, gives a whiff of his respect for the inner life and his freshness of mind. His autobiography, which covers his crisis, and illustrates his searching, sharp mind, his poignant honesty and is as lucid and self-revelatory as the writing of any a reformer. Both his interpretation of that famous verse and his autobiography have been translated into English.

Another example from that period is an encyclopedia call the "Treatise of the Brethren of Purity", written about 700 years before Diderot, by a group of individuals in many walks of life, in the city of Basra, in present-day Iraq. This massive work covered the knowledge of the day from music to mathematics, from physiology (which included knowledge of the human circulatory system) to natural history, as well as narratives that would today be called precursors of fiction. One of these narratives is called "Trial of the Animals Versus Humanity", in which a group of animals revolt against the domination of human beings, and question the assumption that human beings make that they are superior to animals. These animals do not trust human courts, so resort to the court of Genies (Jinn). This segment of the encycopedia covers probably one percent of the total work, and although it is not ecology in the modern sense, and represents a rudimentary but genuine observation of animals and insects, has recently been called the first example of deep ecology in human history. I will obtain the references to the above texts and post them ASAP. My next submission will be a summary of several such texts, which should, hopefully, encourage others who know other such texts to summarize and reference them. ~saffroncoconut

You don't need anyone's permission to start an article. It needn't be linked to Islam at first. If you want to start writing articles about Islamic scholars, jurisprudence, literature, just go ahead. Just do a search first to make sure that it's not covered already.

Note: search on various terms to make sure you've looked everywhere the subject might be filed. As a newbie, I set up several pages that I later discovered already existed, under slightly different names.

Once you start accumulating the little bits, it will be clear how things should be organized into categories (note that they can belong to more than one category). Also, there IS Islamic material in Misplaced Pages that's NOT linked to the Islam article. Frex, there's hijab and Islam and clothing, which need to be combined, really, and Sufism, Islamic music, Arab music, etc. If you want to set up some categories that don't already exist and start cross-linking things, that's fine too. I don't think it should ALL go to the Islam article -- we'd end up with ten zillion links. But we could link the Islam article to a few link-collection pages.

Starting with the major categories and working down may not be the best approach. I'd also be somewhat concerned about the idea of an "Islamic" civilization. While Islam may have provided the framework, a lot was contributed by the Christian and Jewish dhimmis. Whenever you start with a huge, vague conception, you end up with vapid generalities and lots of arguments. When you start with the bits and work up, I think you're going to have an easier time getting consensus on how existing bits should be classified and organized.

Welcome! Write lots! Explain what you're doing on talk pages! Zora 01:59, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A round of edits by non-communicating editors

Several editors went to work on the article without any explanation of what they were doing, or why. I reverted, and I invite those editors to come here and talk to the rest of us about changes. This article is a result of a long period of consultation and negotiation. It is better to work collaboratively in such cases.

Skywalker added a link to a Russian website that doesn't appear useful to people searching for general knowledge about Islam. Xbla (or some such name) was busy simplifying and deleting -- edits that in some cases I thought made sense, as stripping away an aura of Muslim religiosity that has gradually accreted -- but such edits are bound to be controversial, and I think should be done gradually and carefully. Zora 18:21, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, article "Fundamentals of the Islamic Ethics" is one of independence view, but it may be very interesting becouse author have a good spiritual practice. Excuse me for my bed english. Best regards, Skywalker.

regarding a round of edits by non-communicating editors

As it been remarked in earlier discussions, the text, as it stood after Grenavitar 's 01:05, 14 Mar 2005 reversion, was tainted with religious proselytization and bias while masquerading itself as an objective presentation of facts.

Though parts of the article could be informative and helpful to the reader, there was also present, a noticeable religious slant.

More precisely points in contention are:

A) The article was salted with assertions one would expect in a religious sermon,

B) It presented disingenuous misrepresentations about actual beliefs and practices.

C) It made a shrewd attempt to draw legitimacy by portraying belief of a relationship or camaraderie to Christianity and Judaism, which clearly does not exist anywhere in the world today.

D) It makes deliberate omissions of important facts and qualifiers such as relating to the true nature of dhimitude in Islam,

E) It makes subtle condescensions towards non-Muslims faiths.

F) It lists blatant distortions of population statistical information.

It seems like a far cry from the honest scholarship that one would expect from encyclopedic researchers.

I have attempted to correct this by eliminating the some of faulty sections, which fit in the four types of categories above.

Hope this helps

You may have a case regarding the population facts (I do not know about this) however I don't believe you do with the rest of your edit. You show no basis for removing the etymology of the word "Islam". You change "fellow Abrahamic religions" to "competing Abrahamic religions" which if anything adds the opposite bias. You change God to Allah making him different although God is a concept and Allah is a name for that concept therefore Allah can always be called God. It is Muslim belief that God gave his message to many of the Jewish prophets, John the baptist and Jesus and their followers distorted the message. The reason it was revealed to Muhammad is supposed to be because his predecessors communities bastardized the words. These are the beliefs of Islam and removing them so that it sounds harsher is wrong. The text compares itself to the other religions and tries to make itself look better and it is the obligation of an encyclopedia to report on the traditions of the people and what the text states. The text is an historical document and if it asserts these things then we report them. Christianity assert Jesus is God and we report that so I fail to see how this is any more biased. It is considered to be final revelation and your removal of that more or less asserts that we should remove this article too for bias. Your edits are leaving out beliefs of the people who follow Islam which is bias in itself. gren 06:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I still stand by the points I made=

I am afraid, Grenavitar, that your statement reflects your personal opinion which you have allowed to color your actions when trying to suppress the restoration of the NPOV. Essentially , your version of the article presents a sanitized face that is meant to be favorable to Islam and demeaning to other faiths. You, yourself could not help blurting out your true opinion of other faiths which you evidently regard as inferior and not as a fellow faith. This being one of my points above. I hope you can take a moment to regain your NPOV on this topic. Try to consider carefully the points I made above and see if you cannot recover an NPOV on this. Your attempt to label my changes as vandalism is ridiculous and a pretty uncalled for tactic.

X, not everyone working on this article is Muslim. The article as it stands (now that I've reverted it) is the result of many months of work by editors of various faiths. The non-Muslim editors (such as myself) have tried hard to include everything that the Muslims think is noteworthy about their religion, but state it so carefully that Muslim belief is described as belief and not stated as fact.

If your experience on Misplaced Pages has been of working on derelict or abandoned articles, then it hasn't prepared you for dealing with an article watched by a large community of editors. You can't just come in swinging. You can either approach your edits one by one, gradually, and argue for accepting them on the talk page, or you can write an alternate version, put it up on your user talk page or a subsidiary page attached thereto, and then call for comments.

Misplaced Pages is rather bad at teaching editors HOW to work with the community, such as it is. You have to learn by banging your head against the wall, as I've done too many time <g>. Please accept this advice from a veteran wallbanger. Zora 18:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

your edit was also bad in other respects than npov. Don't expect people to clean up after you. You broke the formatting of boldface Islam. You removed information for no good reason. Your tearing into the first section of the article makes it clear you have not read the entire article: You just seem to have read the introduction and decided to make it less "Islamophile" as a kneejerk reaction. It is true that some points of the present article could still be npoved. For example, the assertive "as it is, after all, the direct word of God to mankind." of the introduction is redundant, and you could politely argue for its removal. It is conceivable that the less attractive sides of Islam should be mentioned here, rather than stashed away in Islamism. To that effect, you could suggest a balanced "Islamism" section (this would be the Islam in the modern world: What is "fundamental'? section which, unlike the intro, is pretty recent, and could still be substantially improved. Have you even got so far as to notice that section?). Just tearing through a half-read article like that, however, will simply get you nowhere. dab (ᛏ) 18:55, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your removal of that redundant line. It made it seem like you were repeating it to convince the reader and now it is less preachy. gren 20:05, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Xl... an article of a religious nature will always have a sense of bias that a scientific one can more easily remove. It is a Muslim belief that their revelations have been kept perfect whereas Christian and Jewish ones have not been and they therefore surpass Christianity and Judaism in terms of truth. This is their belief and we are obliged to report this even if we do not agree. When you write an article about religion you must first report what the general mass of adherents to the religion assert as the basis for your article and this will inherently sound biased towards their beliefs. However, any educated reader should realize that we are reporting the beliefs of a group biased in their own favor and they should look further to see critiques of the religion. As for my bias, I am not Muslim either but I do have a great sympathy for the religion as I do for Christianity as well and POV is added through means of trying to remove the reporting of beliefs of any religion and I see it I will try to stop it. gren 19:38, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Women in Islam

After four years, not a single contributor to Misplaced Pages has had created an article (even a stub!) on the role of Women in Islam. One must wonder why, especially since people have repeatedly brought this subject up for years. I do understand why many people might be frightened. For several years I have read many articles in newspaper about death threats towars those who openly discuss this subject. (Unless, of course, the article is limited to presenting traditional apologetics.) Frankly, it is about time that this changes. Misplaced Pages has articles on Christian views of women, the Role of women in Judaism, Feminism in the western world, and in many other areas. I thus will create a short article on this subject, and request that others unafraid of writing in our NPOV style help out. RK 21:06, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Well, be bold and create the article. --Samuel J. Howard 12:38, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Death threats for writing a Misplaced Pages article on Women in Islam, huh? What newspapers do you find those in? Anyway, back to the real world... The idea of woman imams has recently become a topical issue, which may interest editors of this article. - Mustafaa 05:25, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You misread my words and point, Mustafaa. The death threats are being made to Muslim authors and journalists, and to women imams, and to anyone involved in promoting a liberal version of Islam. These death threats have been reported in both American and European newspapers for years. RK 18:46, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

Your statement implies that there is something inherently wrong with a 'conversative' version of Islam, and certainly there are many people, particularly in the West, who have such a disdain for conversativism or fundamentalism in Islam. IMHO, however, the people and behaviours that you are referring to have absolutely nothing to do with liberalism versus conversativism or whatever. They are violent fanatics, pure and simple, and unfortunately there are many of these in the Islamic world at the moment (let us forget that such fanaticism is relatively recent in the history of Islam).
Evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews are certainly conservative, and there are many amongst both groups who are fundamentalists, but the Wesetern media never confuses even the most conversative, fundamentalist Christian or Jew with those who would commit violence in the name of the aforementioned religions. When Baruch Goldstein committed his act of terrorism, nobody condemned conservative or fundamentalist strains of Judaism, and rightly so, since such an act had nothing to do whatsoever with religion or religious conservatism. But it had everything to do with fanaticism, and there are those in Israel who support the actions of such an individual, and they, in turn, are considered lunatics. But certainly not religious conversatives.
Point is, you may not agree with conservative Muslims, but their conservatism does not automatically make them violent zealots ready to send someone to their death for speaking out in favour of women's rights, just as the conversativism of an Orthodox Jew does not automatically make him an extremist with a violent hatred for Palestinians.
To give yet another example, the Ayatollah Khomeini, prior to the Iranian Revolution, was considered by most Iranian Islamic theologians to be a far-left liberal (I kid you not). Most of the conservative Ayatollahs were on the side of the Shah, and opposed Khomeini's so-called "reforms." Most Western liberals (including such leftist luminaries as Michel Foucault and former President Jimmy Carter) supported Khomeini as well. And we've all seen how "successful" that revolution has been, yes? The problem is not conservativism or even fundamentalism, since most religious people of any creed, no matter how conservative they are, are not inclined towards violence. It is that vocal and violent minority found in all socities who choose to wrap themselves in whatever religion or secular ideology most convenient and available, and then go off on some killing spree to justify their insanities. And they do just love seeing their names in all the papers, don't they? Ghostintheshell 03:43, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

By the way, and this is a bit off-topic but I feel is something consistently overlooked by those critical of Islam (and Eastern traditions in general), is the fact that when we are talking about pure Islam, we are ultimately talking about the Qur'an and nothing else. The Qur'an, by it's own account, is the only authoritative book of scripture. And this is common in Eastern traditions where personal interpretation is held above all else - and certainly in the case of Islam personal interpretation of the Qur'an is the only authorititative method. Again, this is all illustrated by the book itself.
All these so-called Islamist groups with their self-styled madrassas and lunatic mullahs advocating all manner of filth and rubbish and calling for death threats against those they perceive as heretics or whatever - these are all not only a bunch of (usually) uneducated idiots (the Taliban for example were notoriously uneducated, especially in all matters Islamic), but from a theological perspective, they have no spiritual authority whatsoever. Nowhere in the Qur'an can there be found any support for organised clergy or special schools or anything like this.
The Saudi's, the Pakistani extremists, Hamas, the Taliban types, al-Qaeda, and so forth, these are all widely reviled (even in the Arab world, especially in Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco) and for good reason, because they are against Islam, as their very actions not only work against the faith, but there is no Qur'anic justification for their murderous actions. And again, this has nothing to do with conservatism or fundamentalism.
Islam is essentially a traditionalist faith, and thus like Orthodox Judaism and traditional Catholicism/Orthodoxy is conservative. In some ways more so, in others less so. After all, from a historical POV, Islam itself can be seen as an attempt to return to a pure, back-to-the-basics Judaism. But unlike the others, Islam has no organised body which represents the whole, and thus it is very easy for someone or some group to pick up a Qur'an and attempt to speak for everyone else. This tactic, of course, never works, but they do end up cultivating a group, always cult-like and dedicated to spreading violence to both Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
Again, to say that these types are fundamentalist is highly prejudical since this implies that Islam advocates senseless killing and terrorism, which it does not. A terrorist is a terrorist, just as a criminal is a criminal. If someone is a Muslim fundamentalist, then they cannot be a terrorist since a literal interpretation of Qur'an will not lead someone to fly planes into buildings or beat or kill a woman because she is an imam. To say that Islam needs more "moderates" or liberals implies that Islam inherently is a dangerous religion. And that is pure bigotry. Ghostintheshell 06:33, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mustafaa, I don't know which country/continent you operate on, but death threats for things that the extreme right finds inconvenient are not something to be trivialized. For three generations, we have dealt with that. One groups of students I worked with had to stare down the barrel of an AK-47 (one of us literally, at one point) for having the temerity to organized an evening that included musical entertainment (just music; sung by people standing very stiffly and very modestly dressed) for students of a major engineering school in Pakistan in 1984. It drives me nuts to have the student organization that did that (the pointing of the gun) and it's parent political party mentioned as one of the more "moderate" Islamist groups. (One of the largest in the MMA.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 19:51, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

Having been busy with Algerian Civil War for some time (not to mention Abdelkader Alloula), I know full well that death threats for things that the extreme right finds inconvenient are a serious problem. However, I find RK's suggestion that people might be "frightened" to write a Misplaced Pages article about women in Islam appallingly unrealistic and rather condescending. It suggests at once that every Wikipedian's name and address are publicly available, that some radical "Islamist" group somewhere is tracking Misplaced Pages for people whose writing they dislike, and that such an article will in itself, no matter how NPOV, drive such people (whoever they may be) into a murderous frenzy - and that every contributor to Islam-related topics must believe all this! It would have been more polite to assume good faith reasons for the article's nonexistence, such as the most obvious possibility - no one had gotten around to it yet. - Mustafaa 23:17, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now, now, now. One doesn't have to be actually threatened to be stifled. Self-censorship--or, over about a generation or so, the complete disappearance of alternative points of view in all but the fringes of a body of opinion--can happen without clear and present threats. As an example, just consider the dominance of the Zionist POV in modern Jewish society, especially in the US.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 00:21, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly true; every culture has topics in which alternative POVs are virtually unknown, and sometimes this is a good thing (as, for instance, the near-complete absence in most societies of multiple POVs on cannibalism.) But that's a rather broader and more complicated issue. - Mustafaa 01:03, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Islam growth today

"In the U.S., more people convert to Islam than any other faith, especially amongst African Americans." This is unsubstantiated , where are the statistics on this? What about people who convert out of Islam ?

"There are approximately 5 million Muslims in North America." This is also unsubstantiated , considering that there is not statistical count of muslims in North America. Where do these numbers come from ? Xlaba22

Unsubstantiated references in the article

I have removed the references to other prophets which are not mentioned in the Qu'ran. If the article is to reflect the beliefs of Islam it must not introduce extraneous interpretations by editors. The statements "including Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus" implies acknowledgement of these names in the Qu'ran yet these names are no where to be found in the Qu'ran so why is it made ? Should we also include all other self appointed prophets of the world who also are perceived by their followers to speak the words of God?

If you wish to reinsert those names please make your case and provide references. Xlaba22

Muslims believe and follow many things which are not spelled out in the Qur'an -- just as most Christians believe in doctrines, such as the Trinity, which are not spelled out in the New Testament. Most Muslims (except the Salafis) accept the authority of the hadith (traditions), and especially the sahih hadith of Bukhari and Muslim. By insisting that the Islam article be "Qur'an only" you are in fact imposing an extremist version of Islam. Please do some research on Islam! Zora 18:52, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Irregardles then you should provide actual references to substantiate your claims . I realize you may not have been the originator of those particular references to other prophets's name but since you chose to defend this , please provide us with quotes from the hadith that support those claims. The purpose of the article will be better served with direct quotes than a vague " this is what they believe" Xlaba22

I did put the names as well their Quranic references in this article, please check all verses. I think now those names shall be returned back. Adam, Ibrahim, Musa, Isa, and so on are indeed mentioned in the Quran. The names Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and so on are derived from Biblical characters based on similarities in their story. DiN 19:52, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hadith (all Bukhari)

"This is a thing which Allah has ordained for the daughters of Adam."
"Then Adam will remember his Sin and feel ashamed thereof."

Books that mention them

What Everyone Should Know About Islam and Muslims by Suzanne Haneef
Islam: Beliefs and Teachings by Ghulam Sarwar
Muhammad: Man and Prophet by Adil Salahi

I picked up three rudimentary books on Islam I have in my possession at the moment and they all mention Adam and Abraham. The Hadith collections (a major source of Islamic teaching) mention them often. It just comes down to you being wrong, there are countless examples if you would take any effort to search. Add them in as footnoots to the article if you want references. To make this extra easy go to Hadith search from USC and search for the names and see the references. Or search the Qur'an for that matter... ~_~ gren 19:41, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Gren. I should have just checked one of my own translations of the Qu'ran. The index to the Arberry translation has MANY references to Abraham, Adam, Moses, and Jesus in the text of the Qur'an. Plus ten references to Prophets. D'oh <g> Zora 20:00, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reformation

Is this comment regarding 'reformation' in the introduction necessary? I've changed it from "Unlike Christianity ..." to "Unlike other Abrahamic traditions ..." but that seems just as prejudicial and biased. This line makes the Eurocentric assumption that Islam *needs* to be reformed - in other words, there is something inherently wrong and dangerous about Islam (see my comments made above in response to RK), and that it needs to be made "liberal," whatever that is meant to imply.
Just to make things clear to everyone, Islam is not Catholicism, nor is it Reform Judaism, both of which are Westernized Abrahamic religions. Whether Islam can be Westernized is open to debate, but I do not believe that it should be implied that such a Westernization would be proper and required. Does Tibetan Buddhism need to be reformed (i.e. Westernized) as well? What about Hinduism? Honestly, I simply do not understand this Western obsession with destroying other peoples' traditions and forcing them to reconcile their belief systems with the Western world. Not even the Japanese have forced their Shinto faith to become Westernized or liberalized or whatever.
At any rate, 'liberal (or reform) movements in Islam' is all very good and well, but I do not believe it should be linked to the Christian Reformation or whatever. Ghostintheshell 23:55, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'd agree with you, at least in part. There's no reason for Islam to repeat the same process that Christianity underwent. I would say that any venerable tradition has the challenge of facing and absorbing what's NEW, whether it's textual criticism or evolution, especially when what's new contradicts things that people previously took for granted. The pace of change has accelerated enormously in the last few centuries, but it's the same problem every believer faces at every moment: how do I interpret the teachings NOW? The difficulty of doing this is radically increased when the guardians of the tradition refuse to admit that there's any difficulty at all. IMHO, they've fossilized -- and hence are no longer alive. Zora 00:40, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The earlier statement drew attention to aspects of Islam which is widely viewed as in need of change, particularly in the area of Freedom of other religions to practice freely and in the open, including both monotheistic and non,The emancipacipation of women,Tolerance of apostates and freedom to leave Islam,Freedom of speech and freedom of thought.,Freedom to disbelieve without stigma or punishment.The comparison to Christian reformation is a much softer way of of making the point than listing the above points directly. --4r2emi 14:20, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your obvious prejudice against Islam aside, the issues you are referring to are all political, and have nothing to do with Islam itself. There are many Muslim countries in this world, and most of them are not like Saudia Arabia or the Taliban. Perhaps you would like to think that, just many other anti-Muslim bigots, but that's your problem. Plus, the Christian reformation is just a bad example, plain and simple. It didn't really "reform" anything, and it's primary result was a schism between the Protestants and Rome. But the Protestants were just as conservative and "hardline" as the Catholics, if not more so, as evidenced by the extreme austerities of groups like the Puritans and the zealousness of modern Evangelicals. Ghostintheshell 04:09, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am not the originator of the original section regarding reformation, but I do think it made a good point. Reformation is discussed extensively in a wide array of books dealing with Islam and modernity, some of which you may want to read directly. Mentioning it in the article seems quite appropriate as it is reflective of current public discourse on the topic of Islam. On the subject of the listed issues, I am afraid that a great deal of Muslims do not share your POV ,indeed we would like to see you stand on any street in the Muslim world with a sign promoting those freedoms.--4r2emi 05:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As I've stated before, there have been a number of reform movements in Islam - Wahabism, for example, which originated out of Saudia Arabia and which heavily influenced the Taliban. But that obviously is not the same type of reform we are talking about, since the Wahabi's are eerily similar to those Puritanical Christians who first settled New England. And you will recall that the Puritans were Christian reformers, which is why they left England for the New World.
Now, as to your statement that the "majority of Muslims" do not share my POV - you really cannot expect to be taken seriously with a statement like that, do you? Do you know how many Muslims there are in this world, and how diverse a community it is we are talking about here? Do you honestly think that the vast majority of Muslims, or even any large percentage of Muslims agree with the sott of religious tyranny to be found in Saudia Arabia?
It might surprise to find out that most Muslims are very much against the Saudi regime, most especially Saudi Muslims (particularly those who are not part of the Wahabist cult, i.e. the majority) themselves. Did you know that most Muslim-majority nations are secular? Do you know anything about (or better yet, ever been to) Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Bosnia, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco - to name a few prominent examples? Did you know that in those Muslim-majority countries like Iran where self-styled Islamist regimes are in power, that such regimes are extremely unpopular and despised by those nation's population? Do you know anything about how the majority of Afghans (majority of them very religious) felt about the Taliban?
Your statements are so illogical and ignorant, that I should even bother to reply, but unfortunately attitudes such as yours are common in the West, as evidenced by the popularity of commentators such as Daniel Pipes and the like, anti-Islam this, anti-Islam that, ad nauseum. You can be a bigot if you like, just don't hide behind all this innuendo of "reform" and "modernity."
There is plenty of modernity in the Muslim world, and there is plenty of political reform underway. Of course, does the West really want secularism (which is the most popular form of government in the world, including the Muslim world) in Muslim countries? From recent political events (you will recall the Saddamite regime was staunchly secular and the pre-Taliban government in Afghanistan during the 80's was secular as well), it would seem that the Western powers want Islamism to spread. Not everything in this world is black & white, and Muslims are human beings, not stereotypes you can condemn at will. Last I remember, most Russians were against Communism, but that didn't stop those like you to condemn and stereotype them all as tyrannical collectivists. Ghostintheshell 11:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have an article on Religion and modernity or some such title, discussing how various faiths have reacted to the increasingly fast pace of change in the last few hundred years. Then we could link the Islam article to that one. That is, if it doesn't already exist ... ??? Zora 05:40, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, but one could also create a section (or separate article rather) dealing with reform movments in Islam - from religious extremist reform movements like Taliban to secular and liberal type reform movements, and so forth. Because reform can mean many things, and it can be good or bad. As it is, there is already a link to liberal movements in Islam, which of course deals with a very specific type of reform. But I think there is also a great deal of misunderstanding in that non-Muslims assume that Islamic law (Sharia) is in effect all over the Muslim world, which is simply not true.
You have these people such as the individual above who think that every Muslim country is like Saudia Arabia, which is not only a very stupid and uneducated thing to prmote, but grossly erroneous. It's the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell type of mentality. Quite frankly, I've debated these types of issues in the past with ignorant types concerning Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, and Hinduism, and it was all very much in this same vein - having to argue against stereotypes and disinformation. It's ridiculous and one has to have plenty of patience, and unfortunately, I can't say I have much tolerance left for this sort of stupidity and prejudice. Ghostintheshell 11:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)