“Reshaping Islam for the modern age”

“Reshaping Islam for the modern age”. This is the headline of a report in the English daily The Hindu (May 18). And the correspondent Hasan Suroor, in sub-heading, says that “British Muslims, mostly of South Asian origin, want to open their religion to critical enquiry and debate”. And the same kind of story has been knit as is regularly finding place in the western media these days, with reference to western people’s objections to Islamic norms and values, their support to certain non-practical Muslims and the views of Muslims suffering from inferiority complex. Such stories are concocted, basing them on some incident or assumption. Or then, giving some colour to the reality, it is claimed that Muslims living in western countries have become fed up with “wrong interpretation and explanation” of Islam and want that those teachings should be reinterpreted so that they might be compatible to modern conditions and necessities. This time this story has been woven on the basis of a reported act of some Muslims, who were sent behind bars for sexually assaulting some white girls. The story is interesting.

Part of a planned campaign
And such stories are part of that planned campaign which is being run at international level with a view to defame Islam and Muslims and this campaign is the offshoot of “war on terrorism” continuing on the assumption of “9/11”. This campaign is being run in different forms and directions with different methods and umpteen weapons. One attempt is that certain injunctions of the Qur’ān and Shari’ah are explained in such a way that on its basis “modern edition” of Islam can be prepared, which can be acceptable to Muslim Ummah as well. Although this attempt is very ancient, the origin of which can be traced to Lawrence of Arabia and Humphrey during the British regime, but for the last 20 years, with the end of cold war and after the American slogan of “new world order”, this work has been done in organised ways. For this purpose individuals from among Muslims are being searched and prepared. Influencing with different methods the brains of the various sections of the Ummah, attempts are being made to capture them. Control over the rulers of wealthy countries is one of them and this is the most successful attempt.

This is the anxiety of western minds
These efforts of the western minds, in fact, show their anxiety. They do not understand what to do. Their purpose is not achieved fully even by staging drama of terrorism the world over in order to prove Islam as the religion of terror and bloodshed.  By indulging the rulers of prosperous Muslim countries in obscenity and moral ills, they do get their wealth but they are not getting any success in bringing their populations to “modern Islam” by disenchanting them from the roots of Islam. To them the condition of poor Muslim countries is rather worse. The rulers of those countries are brought under their control very easily but to disenchant their populations from the fundamentals of Islam is more difficult than disenchanting the populations of rich countries. Therefore their “propagation” of “modern Islam” depends entirely on comfort-loving Muslims living in western countries. As they have been addicted to the material wellbeing of the west consciously or unconsciously, they easily fall into the trap so much so that the west gets from among their ranks intellectuals, scholars and journalists who prove helpful in this cause.

22/05/12 khabar-O-Nazar by Parwaaz Rahmani, sehrozaDAWAT, translated by: Abu Yusuf