The story of Mrs. Gibbons reflects clearly the huge confusion we face in understanding the relationship between culture and religion in Islam on two levels. The first one is the confusion in interpreting the story within Islam and that is shown through the immense difference of opinions within the Muslims inside the Islamic countries. Such issues like Mrs. Gibbons’ will keep popping up due to the serious division inside Muslim communities around the world concerning the way to link religion and culture and how to respond to any transgressions or criticism.
The other level is the low awareness in this country about the danger of living in a Muslim fundamentalist regime such as Sudan where religion is never just a private matter.
We must keep asking the Muslims here to talk about the relationship between Islam and culture because only through such dialogue will deeper clarity emerge about how much of the Muslims' practices are religious and how much are cultural. Problems of relating religion and culture become much more complicated when they happen in a religion which is based on a divine law like Islam.
As Christians, the time has come to prepare ourselves to live in an open world which demands a great deal of awareness and readiness to face a reality which is different than twenty years ago. It is time to prepare ourselves to live in an ever changing society by revisiting our roots and identity in order to know our role in this difficult time.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Sudan Saga
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1 comment:
I read your blog with interest and worry that the issues are bigger than cultural differences. There seems to be a worrying increase in brainwashing as was evident in the way so many came out of their mosques on the Friday following the trial screaming for the death penalty for this most trivial of misunderstandings and it is obvious to me that these people had been whipped into a frenzy by the Imams that morning. This is a bigger problem as you cannot achieve any thing to counteract this by discussions with moderate muslims as they are not the problem!
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