BEWEGING VAN BELGISCHE EX-
MOVEMENT OF BELGIAN FORMER MUSLIMS
STUDY OF ISLAM
One Islam or two ???
There is no religion as confusing as Islam.
Islam, as it is followed by the vast majority of moderate Muslims, must surely be the real Islam. You cannot imagine that the majority is wrong.
But consider the case of the so-called Islamists: the fundamentalists, the radicals, the extremists, the terrorists, the followers of “political Islam”... in other words, those who follow the “extreme” or “literal” interpretation of Islam. It now appears that these Islamists often come from Quranic schools, and have studied Islam thoroughly. Even Muslims living in Western countries follow Quranic courses before going to fight in Iraq.
The moderate Muslims, even those with a good education, generally have a limited knowledge of the Quran. They know a few verses here and there without knowing the context. And it seems that they all share the same small collection of verses saying Islam is peaceful.
The confusion is complete. The more you study the Quran and Hadith the worse it gets. With the so-called "Islamists" there is a familiar pattern: at a certain moment in their lives they become very religious, they decide to dedicate themselves to Islam, and then, without fail, they totally “misunderstand” what Islam means, by planning or committing terrorist attacks, for instance.
Islam, as it is followed by the vast majority of moderate Muslims, must surely be the real Islam. You cannot imagine that the majority is wrong.
But consider the case of the so-
The moderate Muslims, even those with a good education, generally have a limited knowledge of the Quran. They know a few verses here and there without knowing the context. And it seems that they all share the same small collection of verses saying Islam is peaceful.
The confusion is complete. The more you study the Quran and Hadith the worse it gets. With the so-
It gets worse still when even respectable Islamic scholars, who have dedicated their whole lives to studying Islam, seem to have serious misunderstandings about Islam. Take, for example, one of the highest leaders of the Shiites in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani - similar to a Cardinal in Belgium: this honourable man does not know that Islam respects people with different beliefs. On his website he writes that non-Muslims - also named “kafir” - are unclean (“najis” in Arabic). See his website on following link.
Ayatollah Sistani is no extremist; he is a respected religious leader. He studied Islam for over 60 years, yet seems to misunderstand a few matters.
An extreme example of this tendency is the Taliban, which means “students” in Afghan and Persian. The Taliban are students of Islam (no, they did not study Chinese literature or computer science). No sensible Muslim would claim that the Taliban represent the true Islam. And yet, these Taliban have studied Islam for years.
Why should this be? Are there 2 different versions of Islam? And if so, which is the correct one?
Ayatollah Sistani is no extremist; he is a respected religious leader. He studied Islam for over 60 years, yet seems to misunderstand a few matters.
An extreme example of this tendency is the Taliban, which means “students” in Afghan and Persian. The Taliban are students of Islam (no, they did not study Chinese literature or computer science). No sensible Muslim would claim that the Taliban represent the true Islam. And yet, these Taliban have studied Islam for years.
Why should this be? Are there 2 different versions of Islam? And if so, which is the correct one?