By Dr. Murtaza Bulutay on
5/8/2010 7:59 AM
Speech delivered by the author during the Round Table meeting with Special Representative of the Department of State of the U.S.A. to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith, held in the U.S. Embassy in Almaty on 13 October 2009.
Dear Guests and Participants,
I am grateful to the U.S. Embassy for giving us this unique opportunity to meet with Special Representative Farah Pandith and share with her our thoughts and suggestions in regard to the progress we would like to see take place in the relationships of the U.S. with the Muslim World in general and Kazakhstan in particular.
There is no doubt that the religion factor is getting more importance in international politics and we witness new initiatives by global organizations and actors to build dialogue among religions, civilizations, and cultures.
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By Farouk Peru on
5/6/2010 7:40 AM
Indonesia took a regressive step from democracy this week with the implementation of it’s new blasphemy laws. I always looked to Indonesia as the better example of religious democracy in South East Asia. It was certainly miles ahead of Malaysia in terms of religious freedom. According to this news however, Indonesia will now uphold the ‘1965 law, which allows for criminal penalties and bans on people or groups that “distort” the central tenets of six officially recognized religions, was in line with the constitution and was vital to religious harmony.
This law , in my opinion, is a mockery of the religious freedom promised by Indonesia and worse still, an obstacle against the process of democratisation in the country. What is worse however is the logic involved in formulating such a law which utterly obfuscates the processual nature of religion itself.
Minister of Religious...
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By Interviews on
5/4/2010 6:01 AM
DRC presents today an interview with Dr. T.O.Shanavas, an Indian-American pediatrician, member of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo and vice-president of the Islamic Research Foundation.
For the last ten years, Dr. Shanavas has written many articles on Islam and controversial issues as for example the real age of Aisha, one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad, and on Islam and Science. Current Muslim thought has made many beliefs, histories and opinions of Islamic thought into sacred dogma's and thus exclude the possibility of differing with these concepts. In the West, the idea of Aisha being 9 years old when marrying the Prophet, is considered as unacceptable and has created logically a bad image of the Prophet....
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By Dr.Lubna Almenoar on
4-5-2010 5:36
Selected verses from Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s English language translation of the Quran were used as a literary text to teach both descriptive and figurative imagery. Several steps were taken for the preparation of this case study.
1. The selected verses can be obtained through websites under the list of topics of the Quranic verses. A teacher can choose from a wide range of suitable topics for students. For this case study, the selected verses were verses 49-51 and verses 55-57 from Surah Sad. Verses 49-51 are verses about Heaven and verses 55-57 are verses about Hell.
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By Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer on
3-5-2010 10:02
The title might come as a surprise for many readers as the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has been very frequently projected as the Prophet of violence by media and religious extremists. A Danish cartoonist even showed bombs in his turban. But here in this paper I want to show the Prophet (PBUH) was indeed a Prophet of non-violence. For this I would not fall on traditional sources as Maulanas and muftis (who give religious opinion) but use Qur'anic values and discuss circumstances in which the Prophet lived. And on these grounds there are no disagreements among Islamic scholars.
First of all a question what is non-violence and is absolute non-violence possible? It is crucial to discuss these questions if we want to form opinion about any personality whether he is violent or non-violent. Also, in order to be non-violent what are crucial pre-conditions? Can non-violence be practiced in any given circumstances? Also, can non-violence depend on one person's philosophy?
Let us take these questions now. What is non-violence? Non-violence is not mere act of non-aggression. A meek or a person totally lacking courage can also apparently be non-aggressive but this meekness or lack of courage becomes a store of aggression within him or her and strikes in devious ways including conspiracies and even can deliver mortal blow. Thus absence of violence cannot be treated as non-violence.
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Blogs by DRC researchers
DRC's own researchers discussing and posting on diverse subjects on the Qur'an, the world, human society, interpretation, Muslim world, history, science, philosophy etc.
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