Ibrahim N. Abusharif has another couple of brilliant posts. The first is on how the Qur'an connects despair and disbelief; the second on the subtext of many reports on "radical Islam" which link salat and the ritual practice of Islam with violence and extremism.
Despair and Disbelief: "Despair and disbelief are soul-mates, according to the Quran: “None despairs of God’s mercy except people who disbelieve” (12:87). What’s implied here specifically is the loss of hope for God’s compassion as a quality of those who willingly or unwittingly scoff the sacred, or, as the word kufr strongly suggests, those who are ungrateful to the point of denial."
Prayer and Violence: "I noticed something in the two-hour report -- something which I had noticed before in many a documentary or report on "radical Islam" -- that the film footage accompanying the narration that speaks of OBL's radicalization process included men praying in a mosque. Now this is hardly the first time we see the Ritual Prayer of Islam linked (through image) with a scripted narrator's screed about violent teachings and extremism. We all sense it: image is a formidable conveyor of a message, especially in a time of intellectual sloth in which "image" is paramount culturally, politically, and commercially, more so than the written word, which also struggles with dilution."
thankyou for linking these, very interesting articles..
Posted by: seekerofwisdom | September 06, 2006 at 10:49 AM