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Universalist Muslims
The Muslim position of supporting human rights in the West, while casually condoning harsh Islamic punishments in Muslim countries, is hypocritical.
Mainstream Muslim institution stakeholders often ignore the contributions of progressive Muslims. However, despite their small numbers, progressive Muslims have been relentlessly working on issues that include Syria, Palestine, racism, human rights abuses and Islamophobia.
Not all traditionally conservative people are judgmental, sexist or homophobic. They may reject a worldview without God and traditional rules of ethical conduct while being compassionate neighbours and friends.
In 2005, Muslim scholar Dr. Amina Wadud led Friday prayers despite bomb threats. Curiously, 12 years later, a Muslim consultant, Yasmin Mogahed, invoked consensus that men should lead prayers and that women should stop mimicking men.
The objective of this blog is to resist juristic opinions that forbid Muslim women from marrying outside the faith. Many Muslim scholars and Imams affirm interfaith marriages of Muslim women to non-Muslim men. Ten such voices follow.
Under wide threat of injustice, supporting one another, regardless of faith is essential. How? By supporting Standing Rock while demanding peace for Syria. By attending multi-faith gatherings at our local synagogue. By marching behind Black activists because Black Lives Matter. By emailing our MP.
Concerns have been recently raised about the Muslim Toronto police chaplain on his personal views about women and marriage. Officer Musleh Khan's viewpoints come across as strongly patriarchal and infantalizing of women.
Toronto Police Muslim chaplain Musleh Khan said that a woman should be "obedient" to her husband at all times. The message it sends to victims of abuse interferes with the ability of police to encourage women - particularly Muslim women- to tell police their story.
The worldview based on salvific exclusivism and cosmic conflicts must be replaced by mutual cooperation and radical inclusion. It should not always be how we are oppressed by the world but what we can contribute to it. This necessitates addressing the supremacist tropes in our respective faiths.
My articles are based on a hermeneutic that is religiously plural, atheist inclusive and LGBTQ affirming. Yet, time and again, I have received strong responses from those critical of faith and Islam. Ignoring socio-economic and political factors, the critics simplistically blame all the ills in the Muslim world on Islam.
