Islam is all over the news today. Since September 11th, 2001, and later the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been a growing interest in Islam and the Middle East. In May I will recieve my Master’s degree in Religious Studies with an emphasis on Islam. I have given a few talks in the past year to church groups, trying to explain the basic beliefs of the worlds 1.2 billion Muslims. I would like to continue that here. While I reserve the right to post my thoughts on meaningless topics (see below) I will try to use this forum to discuss the issues and topics that surround Muslims today and what that means for the non-Muslims in the U.S.
Rather than write one giant post trying to encapsulate all of Islam, I will tackle one topic at a time. In other words I will discuss the issue of the veil in one post and the hajj in another and so on. If there is a particular issue that you wish to see discussed, please let me know in the comments section and I will do my best to address it.
In modern Islamic scholarship there tends to be two dominant points of view: (1) Islam is inherently violent and aggressive toward other religions or (2) Islam is not inherently violent and those that use Islam as a cover for violence are misinterpreting the religion. I personally feel that each of these perspectives are a bit too simplistic. Religion is complicated. Islam is a very large tent and there are numerous perspectives that exist under it. Islam, like any religion, has its warts and scars, but it also has beauty, poetry, love and peace. I seek to understand all of the above.
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