PukhtunWomen

Ltr from Oct. 6, 2006 Karachi DAWN re Westerner's views on Islam & theocracries

October 06, 2006 Friday Ramazan 12, 1427

Islam and western media

ANIL Khan Luni in his letter ‘Islam in the eyes of western media’ has done a pretty good job of explaining the views of all us westerners towards the mixture of civil and Islamic law, violence as we know it, cutting off hands, heads, murders in the name of religion, and so on.

However, not all countries which are majority Muslim population are theocratic states, as is the case of Pakistan.

I think Mr Luni is mistaken on this one point. Many Muslim nations are ‘heavily influenced’ by Islam but not all Muslim population majority nations are theocracies.

Finally, many rough and tough actions in the guise of Islam are in fact not called for by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) nor the Holy Quran.

Men and mullahs have created their own often self-serving interpretations.

Finally, many people today in what we loosely refer to as the Islamic world wish for more democracy and what the West refers to as the separation of church and state, as Mr Luni correctly explains all westerner’s viewpoint on that topic.

On balance, his letter is a good and fair one. It just assumes a bit too much from this westerner’s viewpoint, and perhaps from the viewpoint of many aspiring young Muslims worldwide today.

As a final example, I can assure you that Muslims in the US while having 100 per cent freedom of religion are not allowed to have a theocratic state within the US, politically. They must and do live under a democratic system of governance which insists on separation of church and state, and always will so insist.

And, they are in the main doing very well as I have many Muslim faith US citizen friends, some naturalised citizens, some natural-born US citizens. While Christianity is a way of life for some of us who are Christians in the US, Christianity is not our national religion.

We will never have a national religion, only separation of church and state.

All religions which abide by the laws and Constitution of the United States are welcome here and otherwise free to practise their different faith systems.

COL (r) GEORGE L. SINGLETON
Birmingham, Alabama, USA