Comments on: Muslim review of “Jewel of Medina”

By: AnonyMouse

AnonyMouse — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:24:06 +0000

Thanks for this post, and correctly observing that I’ve never been a little boy :D

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:26:23 +0000

How about being proper muslims? The main reason religion is mocked to the extent it is in the west, is because of the hypocrisy of a lot of religious people.

By: Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:52:44 +0000

I strongly agree with you that we have a moral obligation to refrain from insulting Islam, and other religions, although I certainly don’t think that this obligation should be enforced by law.

Something in the tone of your post troubles me though. You seem to be saying, we Muslims have tried everything to stop such insults against our religion, but to no effect. Even arson and murder wouldn’t stop them. It’s in our interests therefore to show ‘wisdom and dignity’, because ‘over-reacting’ might damage those interests in the longer term.

Am I right in seeing this as a pragmatic argument against silencing verbal (and pictorial) abuse of Islam with violence, rather than a principled one?

Or to put it another way, are you saying, “Answering insults with physical violence doesn’t work”, or, “Answering insults with physical violence may be effective but isn’t a good tactic at present”, rather than “Answering insults with physical violence is wrong.”?

If the use of violence were shown to be effective in this case, what would you advocate doing?

By: George Carty

George Carty — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:41:02 +0000

I remember reading an alternate timeline on soc.history.what-if called “The Affair of the Necklace” where Aisha and Ali became allies instead of enemies - this led to an early Fall of Constantinople.

In that world, Islamic civilization was much more Hellenized and Christianized than in our world* (Constantinople - renamed “Medina as-Salaam” was the Caliphate’s capital.) Also, the name “Cairo” was applied to our world’s Venice, with our world’s Cairo retaining its original name of “Fustat”.

*For example four versions of the Qur’an were accepted (comparable to the four gospels in Christianity).

By: Umm Ahmed

Umm Ahmed — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:01:48 +0000

She actually has another book written that might stir up more trouble. Its on the conflict between Aisha and Ali.

By: Ali Abdullah

Ali Abdullah — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:56:52 +0000

An American news magazine - Time - has also come out with a review of this book, and comes to much the same conclusion. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1851965,00.html