[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Well, keep in mind, it's about as difficult as getting all of the Christians in the world to make one pronouncement en masse. It isn't like the Muslims have a central figure who dictates all. It's a lot more like all the different denominations of Christianity ... who would be the person to command that the position be made clear??

There wouldn't be. There are a number of different important imams and ayatollahs whose views command respect and whose pronouncements tend to be accepted as definitive, but the position is one of popular acclaim. There isn't a priestly hierarchy like the Catholic church, or anything similar.

And, I think that the central mosque in the sixth largest city in the US is not exactly an isolated group. However, the big problem --as I see it anyway -- is that there is this silent majority in almost every group. We just want to live and let live ... but we keep our mouths shut on most topics because we'd rather not get hammered down. I mean ... it's not that I fear for my life, but I gave up arguing with the religious right a loooong time ago. It was like arguing with a rock .... a big ol' unthinking rock.

The way you argue with a rock like that is to hit it with a bigger rock...

I have a sneaking feeling that my moderate (and some liberal) Muslim friends are in much the same position.

I suspect so. If you stand up and voice an opinion on something like that, you are letting yourself in trouble, even if the trouble doesn't take the form of physical danger, and you think hard about whether you really want to poke that hornet's nest with a stick.

You know ... when the Taliban blew up those beautiful statues of Buddha in Afganistan a few years ago, my heart just broke. Not because it was a statue of Buddha ... we don't perceive Buddha as embodied in a piece of rock, and it's impossible to dishonor Buddha just by blowing up a piece of rock, that's just laughable. But, what made me sad was that the Taliban was trying to erase a part of the history of the Afgan people ... those statues were a valuable piece of the history of art in Afganistan. It's like blowing up the pyramids (because they were built for god-kings and are therefore un-Islamic). Where would be the sense in that??

Who said it makes sense? The Taliban are hard core fundamentalists, drawing their strength from poor and ignorant rural populations of the "anything that is not explicitly permitted is forbidden" mindset. I saw an article a while back talking about the challenges faced by the Afghan Folk Orchestra, a group of noted Afghan musicians playing traditional music from the area. The Taliban had forbidden music, and the members of the group had considerable rust to blow off when they could emerge and actually play again.

There was an interesting bit recently from Turkey, where a group of Islamic scholars are engaged in a project of re-examining the Hadiths. The Qu'ran is the fundamental basis of Islam, but the Hadiths are collections of sayings and practices attributed to Mohammad, and holding nearly the same authority as the Qu'ran. The scholars believe that the Hadiths need to be examined as products of a particular context, and modified to suit the present day.

For instance. orthodox Muslim practice forbids a woman traveling alone, and believes Mohammad made the original pronouncement. The scholars suggest that he probably made that pronouncement because back then, it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone. They think Mohammad was attempting to protect women from very real dangers, and not simply subordinate them to men, and that the practice needs to be adjusted for modern times when it isn't physically dangerous for a woman to travel.

It will be very interesting to see how this progresses.
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Dennis