Every summer, I seem to find a way to depress myself. Last summer I, together with seven other Muslim-American leaders, visited Nazi concentration camps in Poland and Germany where we witnessed the horrific legacy of the Holocaust. This past summer, I spent the first 10 days of Ramadan in Afghanistan. It was very painful to witness the bleeding wounds of Afghan society as a result of four decades of war and destruction. It is not very well-known fact here in the U.S., but Afghanistan produced a heartless communist regime, a brutal theocracy, and went through the invasions by two superpowers and numerous other calamities in one person's lifetime.
I was primarily invited by the Afghanistan Academic and Islamic Research Center (AAIRC) led by an inspirational Muslim leader Mawlana Ataurrahman Saleem, who aims to spread and promote moderate and peaceful teachings of Islam through this organization. I saw it clearly that this breath of fresh air religious think-tank and saintly scholars behind it are up to mountainous tasks in Afghanistan because Islam, as it is understood and practiced by most Muslim scholars in the country, has been nothing but a curse and has been pulling the entire nation down. Religion clearly became a source of oppression, despair and destruction in the hands of the Afghani religious leadership, which represents one of the most troubling interpretations of Islam. Afghanistan is a prime example of how religion can turn into something destructive in a deeply broken society.
I travelled extensively in central and Northern Afghanistan during my 10 days. I gave several talks mainly to Ulama and met with government officials and representatives of various NGOs. Almost everyone I met in the country complained and grieved about the worrisome reality of the role of religion and religious leadership. I was able to get my own "taste" of this grim reality in my personal interactions with hundreds of religious scholars that I talked to. I was primarily dismayed how uninformed and uneducated these people were in various Islamic Studies. It doesn't take too much for any learned Muslim to realize that these Muslim leaders actually know very little about Islamic theology, history and philosophy. Their training is limited to a very selective and literalist approach filled and mixed with many troubling cultural and traditional practices.
A telling example: I was told that women are not allowed to enter the mosques in Afghanistan. I honestly shared my dismay and disapproval of this practice wherever I spoke. I challenged scholars to show me any Islamic justification for this practice. This upset many Ulama. One of the leading ones in his defense of the practice said that there is a verse in the Quran that clearly says "women are incomplete in their rationale and in their religion." He was referring to a controversial "hadith," or "saying of the prophet," which was said in a very specific context -- thinking that it is a verse in the Holy Quran. I immediately pulled out my pocket Quran and extended to him as I asked him to show me where the verse is in the Quran! Through numerous similar encounters with these religious leaders, I was convinced that none of them could pass the graduation exams in any divinity schools in the Muslim world. These Afghani religious leaders' views and practices on women, religious violence / extremism and non-Muslims, are the most painful ones. Despite their troubling views, they are very powerful, and they have a captive audience in the mosques where they pretty much run the whole show in the area of religion with no real competition.
I have been constantly reflecting since I left Afghanistan how come this kind of horrible religious interpretation could resonate with so many people in Afghanistan? How can a beautiful religion, which sustains me and hundreds of millions of others, turn into something ugly, harmful and poisonous like that? I am getting increasing clarity, as I review my memories and notes over and over, that the answers to the questions are neither religious nor political but pastoral and psychological.
I believe the real destruction took place in the mental and psychological worlds of Afghanis. As a chaplain, I went through years of challenging but rewarding training in the area of mental health, especially in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recovery. Almost everyone I met in Afghanistan was revealing different levels of PTSD symptoms. Many of them were in a constant state of grief because of what they had been through. Here in the U.S., we just went through the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Remember the amount of grief we Americans, rightly so, revealed in response to this one day of barbaric attacks which claimed more than 3,000 lives? Undoubtedly, everyday was 9/11 for Afghanis in the last 40 years or so. Generations grew up seeing nothing but bloodshed and murder.
This analogy is not an attempt to justify or even endorse what is going on in Afghanistan, but a humble appeal to empathize with these wounded people. Try to walk in their shoes by comparing some of our similar wounds and hurt. I think our foreign, military and economic policies should be shaped by this kind of pastoral approach. We should seek advice from various mental health professionals and include them to our team as we design our efforts towards Afghanistan. I think if we do not understand the scarred souls of Afghanis, we will continue to limit ourselves to militaristic or cheap economic solutions in our aid efforts to Afghanistan. Most of what we say will end up become blaming the victim and adding insult to their injuries.
Where am I going next summer? I don't know but it is really hard to beat Afghanistan.
When religion becomes a curse | The Chronicle
The curse of religion | AC Grayling | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
CUUC Guest Sermon - James Dace, Religion: Curse or Cure or . . .
When a Curse Becomes a Blessing – Only God Can Do That ...
How does a woman entering into a mosque to say prayers present a problem and demean the religion? All men, with the exception of the perfect man Adam, were born from a woman. This is not to say that women should be glorified, but why not dignify women from whom they came? If women are considered next to nothing then what of the fruit of her belly? Shouldn’t it be next to nothing too? If can get only dirty out of dirty.
All religion should be penalized, and heavily, when they create havoc, mistrust, instigate hate, distrust, and discord. If a religion does not encourage love among its followers and toward others, then it is not a religion at all. It is just an organization that needs to be proscribed.
Often, critics of Islam are told that Islam is a peaceful and beautiful religion at its core and that those who practice it in a violent and oppressive way are wrong in doing so. It's long been my stance that the latter group of people are the ones who really need to hear that message. When I or some other western "Islamophobe" misinterprets Islam as being all about subjugating women and killing the infidel, by and large the worst thing that happens is that we go online, make a nasty post or two about it and somebody's feelings get hurt. When muslims misinterpret Islam in that way, the consequences are far worse. What Antepli is doing in Afghanistan will hopefully be of help to the people of that country, who, as he rightly mentions, bear the brunt of Islamic violence more than anyone, but it can also serve to help Islam's image to people in the west who really need to see that there are muslims stepping up to do something about the violent strains of their religion.
Please forgive me.
Thanks,
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To me, this beautifully and eloquently sums up the problems we Muslims are in today.
There exist currents within Islam that are quite destructive.
Imagine if America ever left Afghanistan, leaving the Afghanis to to sort things out for themselves!
The types of ignorant "Ulema" that the author refers to will likely to come to power.
Just imagine the destruction they will then wreak!
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They should leave immediately.
when afghnaland was a functioning economy an das peaceful as america is today it had a king but republicans got rid of th eking eh voila .
so very briefly simple believers in democracy are part of the problem asare simplistic beleivers in godless capitalism [ Note: freedom is neccessary but democracy is not freedom defacto and in fact no-one knows what freedom is simply put freedom is obeying th elaw of gravity ]
as for peace itself " peace is the automatic result of experience of Bliss" is the Maharishi's teachings
the Imam at Duke is experiencing a bit more bliss than anyone in afghaland today ergo he is mor epeaceful
americais mor epeacefull becaus eits upper class and upper middle class is functioning [andnot exploiting thelower classes too badly ] aghanistan 's upper classes have fled the country so it is without that stable foundation. conditions must be created so that these million good people can return to afghanland etc Bliss ultimately means satchitananda , the transcendental field therefore ONLY practic eof TM and TM Siddhi prgram actually results in peace
Here's one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ0rsUofpQM
Here is a review of the documentary by Riazat Butt, in the Guardian, UK... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/feb/17/lessons-in-hate-and-violence-muslim-extremism
If these people can't even get along with others in the UK, teaching hatred instead, then what hope in Afghanistan where they are the extremist majority? Another project for your kind attention.
I knew the situation was bad, but didn't know it had sunk to such depths. This is absolutely unacceptable!
Off the subject at hand,
I have been challenged in other posts about my statement that science is a myth just as any other myth. Like many things learned in college I remember the general idea but not the specifics. However I decided to refresh my memory by searching for my inner intuitive understanding of what I mean when I say science is myth, and I found what I meant in an article I am sure you would be interested in.
Science and Myth: The Hidden Connection
http://www.worldwisdom.com/uploads/pdfs/237.pdf
--Pema Chodron
Even though I am an avowed atheist, I do believe that the world would be better if more scholarly and peaceful Muslims, like yourself, would stand up to reclaim your religion from those that would use it as a tool of oppression and violence.
Cheers, and watch your back!
The only answer is to abandon such primitive superstitions and begin living in the modern era.
But even in the modern era, there are criminal elements, many of them non-religious!
If your line of argument were to be applied, we'd need to abandon "living in the modern era".
Sincerely,
tolerant
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
Which countries are they? You now have approximately 196 to judge on your peace and prosperity index. Of course one minor problem is that we can't agree on how many countries there are.
Would it be helpful to judge which countries people attempt to MOVE TO compared to which countries people struggle to MOVE FROM?
http://www.pewglobal.org/2007/10/04/world-publics-welcome-global-trade-but-not-immigration/
Well maybe, there is the limiting problem of logistics, even for the invititations themselves. If you send them in 2nd day delivery packages, even UPS, the master of logistics, cant reach a majority of them. Then of course there is the ongoing interference prone Taliban competition. If the leaders leave the villages for training, the village receives new leaders, already thoroughly trained in Pakistan, that hub of traditional Islam.
The u.s. seems to want to provide Afghanistan with a stable government who will go forth and gain power and control over the numerous mountain villages, sometimes protected by u.s. troops. It is not working too well, so far.
...to whom - who are you? Must Islam make sense to you, whoever you are?
In one sense you actually get the point. Islam is a revealed life way which includes what we now, in some parts of the world, call politics and religion and society. When the revealer dies, ALL becomes interpretation, ie not real, only opinion, not Gods dictation. Growth of Islam is man making use of the unifying power of a system claiming the authority of God as its motivating force. In Islam, solipsism is not a correct identity because each individual DOES exist and must submit to the authority known as Allah, as dictated by a man who died and can't be asked for clarification.
You do have miles to go...
We ALL have miles to go, and to acknowledge that is a point of maturity. As we travel, we do well to feel and to listen to the winds seemingly opposing our journey. Those encounters may serve to strengthen and to enhance our resolve to hear and to see and to know.