Islam - the Good and the Bad

In its earlier days when Islam was in its glory, it was truly a beacon unto the world. Islam embraced its own search for knowledge about the world around it. It perfected the most exquisite forms of architecture. It gave the most sublime art to the world, alerting other artists in the West to other artistic expression which were wholeheartedly embraced, along with elements of Islamic architecture. Islam gave birth to one of the earliest academic institutes of learning in the world. The perfection of Islamic poetry was world renowned and of surpassing beauty.

During the Golden Era of the heights of Islamic culture it embraced the presence of other schools of thought and other religions, permitting them with some strictures to remain under its protective wing, and encouraging among them too, by its very outreach in the areas of astronomy, philosophy, mathematics and medicine, to flourish and become an integral part of the era.

So where is Islam now? Its modern interpretors have hesitated to introduce reforms in recognition of a changing world. Islam's outreach has been vast throughout the world, but too many of the countries for whom Islam is a way of life have abandoned all but strict allegiance to the Koran, utterly negating the progress in intellectual and civil life that earlier Islam had pioneered.

Muslims have become increasingly inward-looking, outward-rejecting. Grievances better forgotten have been nursed to a point where a collective angst of lost glory informs a mob convinced that Islam has been forced to take a back seat to the rest of the world; while other countries progress and their citizens take advantage of a kinder way of life, Muslims are allowed to fester in their anger toward the world.

As such they've become ripe pickings for the truly wayward element among them who seek to avenge their perceived slights against Islam on an unprepared world which does not quite understand the level of the deadly hostility directed against it. Dialogue, exchange of opinion, attempts at understanding and acceptance prove fruitless under these circumstances as a result of the depth of the hostility directed against all those deemed to be infidels.

The way to deal with the West has become that of dire threats followed by sinister plots and finally deadly attacks. That no one really benefits from this trajectory of disassociation and violence doesn't appear to have occurred to the jihad-bent Islamists among the Muslim community. But the average Muslim, that person who sees value in the exchange of good will, and is willing and able to live in harmony with others is also threatened.

Thus we see moderate Muslims, attempting to live in peace with their neighbours receiving subtle threats; if not outright fatwahs, then thinly-disguised ones. Anyone impolitic enough to criticize elements of Islam that appear to contradict one another is targetted as an enemy of Islam and must go into hiding. Muslims have allowed themselves to be used as instruments of repression, even those who identify themselves as moderate Muslims. They see value in claiming their religion, their Prophet and their God to be insulted beyond endurance through the incidence of critical review or comment and demonstrate through an incendiary group-mentality that transgressors are fair game for death threats.

In view of which one can only marvel at the courage it must take for a Muslim living in the West, viewing his Christian or Hindu or Jewish neighbours as equal to himself, and unwilling to permit radical Muslims to enact their scenarios of chaos on an unwary population, aids and assists authorities in the detection and apprehension of criminal elements from among his Muslim community.

That there are such brave and high-minded individuals who recognize that harmony is the only way disparate ethnic groups and religions can live together in peace is the saving grace for us all. But only if that single courageous voice is joined by others of like mind among his community.