Can Women Be Imams?, Islam, Women and Feminism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam, Women and Feminism

Can Women Be Imams?

By Halima Krausen

In the face of the controversy over Amina Wadud's Friday prayer, Muslim scholar Halima Krausen argues that we should have the courage to ask our own questions, to study the matter conscientiously and to reach conclusions which make sense in our times

Koranic traditions must be taken seriously, Krausen says, but it is also necessary to ask questions about their contemporaneity too. Following the Friday prayers led by Dr Amina Wadud in New York on 18th March and the emotional public debate to which that event led, I have repeatedly been asked for my view on the matter. I believe the issue may seem simple, but is more complicated than it appears. So I'd like to contribute a few ideas to the discussion, rather than put forward a clear opinion.

The first point to make is that it's absolutely unclear what we're talking about. Far from defining a clear "rank," the term "Imâm" is used for a wide spectrum of different meanings.

The word Imâm is related to the word umm, "mother"

In the Koran, the word is used in a more fundamental way and refers to leading exemplary figures like Abraham (Sura 2:124) or the judges of the Children of Israel (Sura 32:23-24) or the potential of all upright people in general (Sura 25:74; 28:4-5); but it can also refer misleadingly to characters like Pharaoh and others like him, who lead one "to the fire" (Sura 28:39-41).

http://newageislam.com/can-women-be-imams?/islam,-women-and-feminism/d/2434

The Theology of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

The Theology of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Top Five News Stories

And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint—no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it's incompatible with the very purpose of faith—for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. For we are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached—their fundamental faith in human progress—that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey. … Let us reach for the world that ought to be—that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

http://newageislam.com/the-theology-of-obama-s-nobel-peace-prize-speech/current-affairs/d/2288

Pakistan's Deal with the Devil: THE TALIBAN AT THE GATES OF PESHAWAR, War on Terror, NewAgeIsla.com

War on Terror

Pakistan's Deal with the Devil: THE TALIBAN AT THE GATES OF PESHAWAR

By Walter Mayr

Now, in addition to the wall, three Pashtuns from the paramilitary Frontier Corps stand guard on the demarcation line with Chinese-made grenade launchers shouldered and ready to fire. But like the concrete wall and the barbed wire, they won't be able to do much to stem the tide of onrushing Taliban forces. The fighters from the tribal areas have no need to climb over the wall. They simply drive their SUVs and pickups in on the main road -- direct from the empire of the Taliban.

What the inhabitants of Hayatabad know about the world that exists just a stone's throw away from them is what they read in the newspapers or are told on television: that black-bearded, kaftaned mullahs preach to their disciples the need to wage war to defend the strict moral code of Islamic fundamentalism or that "spies" are beheaded with butcher knives, tribal elders shot, and infidels persecuted barbarically.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan-s-deal-with-the-devil--the-taliban-at-the-gates-of-peshawar/war-on-terror/d/223

Religious fundamentalism is a two way street, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Religious fundamentalism is a two way street

by Peter Kirkwood

Norwegian mass-murderer, Anders Breivik was brought to trial a few weeks ago. The court proceedings have revealed his well thought out motivations for the killings. They hinge on an ultra-nationalism with nostalgia for a white Christian Europe, and a deeply held xenophobia, directed particularly against Muslim migrants.

The interviewee featured here on Eureka Street TV sees the Breivik case as highlighting the urgent need for interreligious and cross-cultural dialogue, and he's well placed to make this assessment. Mehmet Ozalp is a leading Australian Muslim academic, author and community activist, and a veteran of interfaith dialogue.

And he's no romantic, he's hard-headed in this activity. He doesn't shy away from the awkward, difficult, seemingly intractable areas of division and conflict between Muslims and the broader community. In the interview he addresses four key 'fault lines' in relations between Muslims and the rest.

Ozalp migrated with his family to Australia from Turkey in 1984 in his high school years. While studying engineering at university, he went through a settlement crisis and turned to his religion. As he studied Islam further he says he gradually shifted from a blind faith to a deeper and more conscious belief and practice.

A particular inspiration was Turkish Muslim cleric, spiritual writer and advocate of interfaith dialogue, 71-year-old Fethullah Gulen. He sparked the global Gulen Movement which advocates what he calls hizmet, or faith-based community service and activism.

http://newageislam.com/war-on-terror/peter-kirkwood/religious-fundamentalism-is-a-two-way-street/d/7240