Interesting Questions Raised by UAE Writer Yousef Ibrahim

"The Muslims have every right to impose Islamic values on their peoples and in their lands, as long as they constitute the majority. The problem is, what happens when the Muslims are not the majority, as in America, Europe, Australia, and some countries in Asia[?]… Can Muslims who immigrate abroad insist on applying the laws of Islamic shari'a to themselves and to others even where it is clear that they are a minority? Can they challenge the secular cultures common in the Western societies [with demands], or resist the will of these societies to separate religion and state?…

"In a secular country, do Muslims have the right to build mosques, teach the Koran, or support the [Islamic] religious schools? Must the Muslim be entitled to have more than one wife in America, Russia, Europe, or China? Can they impose Koranic punishments in these [countries]?…

"In principle, this entire matter begins and ends with our views towards others, with the question of whether we think that others have rights or not, and with the question of whether Islam is a religion capable of coexisting in a secular society without being condescending towards others - particularly with regard to the civil laws in the Western democracies."

*************************

This excerpt is from MEMRI , and I found the views of this columnist who writes for a UAE publication interesting, though MEMRI is only supplying excerpts from the column. I do urge you all to read the rest though, very interesting. Though he does mention that non-Muslims living in Muslim lands are sometimes subjected to laws that get rather carried away (he's speaking of immigrants here, not the dhimmi populations), there is always the caveats such as "just as we do not permit Christians living among us to impose their values upon us…"


Technorati Tags:

MEMRI
Muslims
Islamic values