Dr Tahir ul-Qadri: The West Now Agrees That Every Salafi And Deobandi Is A Well-Wisher Of Terrorists, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Dr Tahir ul-Qadri: The West Now Agrees That Every Salafi And Deobandi Is A Well-Wisher Of Terrorists

Allegra Mostyn-Owen

26.02.10

On Tuesday in London, a revered Muslim scholar will announce a fatwa against suicide bombing in the name of Islam. Here, Allegra Mostyn-Owen talks exclusively to Dr Tahir ul-Qadri as he outlines his historic vision...

I meet Dr Tahir ul-Qadri in a neat, terraced house in Barking where he emerges from his studies resplendent in an elegant silk striped grey and white juba and a black woollen hat.

I am honoured to be in his presence because he is considered a living saint by his followers. All Sunni and mainly Pakistani, they celebrate his birthday and his photograph adorns all the mosques which are part of Minhaj-ul-Quran, the movement which he has spent years raising into an international organisation. It now operates in 33 countries and advises the British Government on how to combat youth radicalisation.

Minhaj-ul-Quran welcomed, for example, the news last month that plans to build Europe's biggest mosque close to the Olympic site had been blocked. Weeks earlier, the group urged police to prevent Islamic extremists marching through Wootton Bassett. “These kind of extremists do not represent the British Muslims,” they said. Dr Tahir ul-Qadri is impressively ecumenical in his relations with other faiths such as Shia and Christian. He gets a lot of flak for this from those who do not agree with his views.

http://newageislam.com/dr-tahir-ul-qadri--the-west-now-agrees-that-every-salafi-and-deobandi-is-a-well-wisher-of-terrorists/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/2514

Bestsellers, new weapons of religious wars, Spiritual Meditations, NewAgeIslam.com

Spiritual Meditations

Bestsellers, new weapons of religious wars

By Nicholas D. Kristof

November 27th, 2009

Fundamentalists fired volleys of Left Behind novels, in which Jesus returns to earth to battle the Anti-Christ (whose day job was secretary-general of the United Nations). Meanwhile, devout atheists built mocking websites like www.whydoesGodhateamputees.com. The site notes that though believers periodically credit prayer with curing cancer, God never seems to regrow lost limbs. It demands an end to divine discrimination against amputees.

This year is different, with a crop of books that are less combative and more thoughtful. One of these is The Evolution of God, by Mr Robert Wright, who explores how religions have changed — improved. He notes that God, as perceived by humans, has mellowed from the capricious warlord sometimes depicted in the Old Testament who periodically orders genocides.

Wright also argues that monotheism emerged only gradually among Israelites, and that the God familiar to us may have resulted from a merger of a creator god, El, and a warrior god, Yahweh. Mr Wright also argues that monotheism wasn’t firmly established until after the Babylonian exile, and he says that Moses’ point was that other gods shouldn’t be worshiped, not that they didn’t exist. For example, he notes the troubling references to a “divine council” and “gods” — plural — in Psalm 82.

http://newageislam.com/bestsellers,-new-weapons-of-religious-wars/spiritual-meditations/d/2150