The Islam-Christian, North-South Divide in Africa and False Gods, Islam and Pluralism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Pluralism

The Islam-Christian, North-South Divide in Africa and False Gods

By Dr. Charles Quist-Adade

Religious Intolerance in Africa

Abstract

Religion and politics are a dangerous mix the world over. Africa is no exception. From Nigeria to Sudan, from the Ivory Coast to the Gambia, and from Egypt to Swaziland, religious conflicts have left in their trail death and destruction. The ongoing Darfur crisis on the Sudan is the latest in the long saga of religious conflicts in Africa. The most notorious religious conflicts are in Nigeria and Sudan. In Nigeria, intermittent clashes between Christians and Moslems in the northern states over Sharia (Islamic fundamentalist laws) crises have claimed the lives of thousands of Christians and Moslems. According to United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “since 1999, a disturbingly large number of Nigerians; 12,000, if not more; have been killed in sectarian and communal attacks and reprisals between Muslims and Christians.” The most recent examples of this strife, in the city of Jos and in parts of the Bauchi state, have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of deaths as well as 10,000 or more Nigerians displaced. The Sudan conflict, which has been raging for more than two decades and has claimed tens of thousands of lives, was ignited by the dominant Islamic North’s hegemony over the largely Christian South. What makes Africa’s case even most tragic and ironic is that none of the religions that are causing antagonism and wreaking havoc on the continent are indigenous to Africa, at least not in their current forms! The question is why two Nigerians who speak the same language and share the same substrate culture are slaughtering each other in the name of alien religions. The answers are legion. I shall try to explain some of them.

http://newageislam.com/the-islam-christian,-north-south-divide-in-africa-and-false-gods/islam-and-pluralism/d/1823

Why are Muslims so sensitive to criticism? Don’t they trust their scriptures? Asks Sultan Shahin

Islam and Human Rights

Why are Muslims so sensitive to criticism? Don’t they trust their scriptures? Asks Sultan Shahin

Bengalis no longer enjoy the freedom of the age of Kabeer or

Raheem or our Vedic ancestors

As you will see in the article below Johann Hari is very balanced and maintains equidistance from all major religions that he mentions. He makes a plea for freedom of expression. His main point is stated in the very first paragraph: “The right to criticize religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian.”

I am a religious person myself. But I don’t see how anyone can be religious in the true sense of the term without having ever been skeptical about religion, without having been agnostic or even atheist for a time. No truly religious person can ever question the right of others to question religion. He would have the confidence to know that this questioning person will come to realize the value of religion in general, and maybe his religion too in course of time. He or she will see that as this fellow is questioning religion, he/she has the capacity to someday become religious. But of course those who follow their inherited religion are not going to see it this way. They are the inhabitants of the land of Jahiliya.

http://newageislam.com/why-are-muslims-so-sensitive-to-criticism?-don%E2%80%99t-they-trust-their-scriptures?-asks-sultan-shahin--/islam-and-human-rights/d/1190

A tricky question: Who is the custodian of a religion?, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Ideology

A tricky question: Who is the custodian of a religion?

Oct 10, 2008

What passes off as religious language has little to do with the traditional functions of religious ideas: as a medium of self-knowledge, a way of endowing the world with meaning as an unbroken totality, as a way of responding to the dissonances of existence, and unravelling the mysteries of value. Rather, there is a complex process by which religion has become ethnicised. It has become a code by which tribalistic boundaries are being drawn around groups to determine who is in and who is out. This question more than anything else, begins to colonise religious consciousness. The fervour of identity displaces the question of meaning, and increasingly religion appears simultaneously assertive and spiritually redundant. What forms of religiosity can rescue us from the pathologies of collective narcissism, will be an important question for our times?

http://newageislam.com/a-tricky-question--who-is-the-custodian-of-a-religion?/islamic-ideology/d/869