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Why can't Muslims criticize Islam

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
The author of the article grew up in Muslim majority societies and moved to “the West”, where he thought he could work to reform Islam. Instead he found many strong forces in “the West” - while open to criticizing other religions - are not open to having Islam criticized. Nicely written…

Why Can't I Criticize My Religion?
 

Epic Beard Man

Bearded Philosopher
The author of the article grew up in Muslim majority societies and moved to “the West”, where he thought he could work to reform Islam. Instead he found many strong forces in “the West” - while open to criticizing other religions - are not open to having Islam criticized. Nicely written…

Why Can't I Criticize My Religion?

Islam gets criticized all the time. How Islam is projected is criticized, how it is exercised by other Muslims gets criticized. Are you looking for a critique of the faith or a criticism? Obviously nobody with devout faith is going to criticize their faith to the point of apostasy.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
To be factual, there are numerous stances of just that happening. That is at least arguably how the Shia/Sunni split arose, and also how Ahmadiyya Islaam and the Bahai Faith came to be. To say nothing of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Islam gets criticized all the time.
That's been what I've seen as well. So I wondered what his opinions were and found Dr. Majid Rafizadeh: Understanding the Hijab | myIslam.dk

First, he goes out of his way to make a political blanket statement about "leftists in the West" and then speaks to the indoctrination that women living in the middle east get. He goes further to claim that wearing certain clothing is necessarily part of indoctrination of girls from birth, universalizing his experience to all Muslim women along with speaking well of the current Egyptian dictator. With his either/or view, it's impossible for a women to freely decide what she wants to wear but is inherently weak even when brought up in the West.

And in fact what he's really about is a particular view of what it means to be a Muslim coming from his background. He has a very binary view of what a Muslim is called upon to do Dr. Majid Rafizadeh: Why I Renounced Islam, Allah, and Muhammad | myIslam.dk
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
And this has the stench of bigotry taking the actions of a very few in statistical terms and smearing an entire group
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
There is indeed criticism of Islaam. But it has earned a lot more, and more openly, than it gets. There are odd attempts at playing it easy towards that doctrine, and it is about time to stop that already.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
To be factual, there are numerous stances of just that happening. That is at least arguably how the Shia/Sunni split arose, and also how Ahmadiyya Islaam and the Bahai Faith came to be. To say nothing of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.


In my opinion, after living as a Sunni Muslim for over 7 years, the Prophet Muhammad PBUH did many fine things for Arab tribesmen (And women). He is known to be very moderate, no matter what they say about one of his wives, Aisha. He authored The Constitution of Medina, a groundbreaking document, and in it the first time rights for women were written down. In Kutbah, they all sat in a circular tent, men on one side and women on the other.

My major issue with Islam is their treatment of Isa PBUH (Jesus the Christ). Islam should allow a divergence of opinion around this issue. Instead, some sects say calling Isa a Son of Allah SWT is "Shirk", and the penalty for that is beheading. That is far too harsh in my opinion.

In stead, the fools kill each other over who should take over Islam when Muhammad PBUH died.

I ran into lots of tribalism that supplanted actual Islam.

Other than that in many ways I am still Muslim despite my saying I am a Radical Christian. Most of the Radical part of my belief is that I would fold Christianity, Islam and Judaism into one belief.
 

Epic Beard Man

Bearded Philosopher
That's been what I've seen as well. So I wondered what his opinions were and found Dr. Majid Rafizadeh: Understanding the Hijab | myIslam.dk

First, he goes out of his way to make a political blanket statement about "leftists in the West" and then speaks to the indoctrination that women living in the middle east get. He goes further to claim that wearing certain clothing is necessarily part of indoctrination of girls from birth, universalizing his experience to all Muslim women along with speaking well of the current Egyptian dictator. With his either/or view, it's impossible for a women to freely decide what she wants to wear but is inherently weak even when brought up in the West.

And in fact what he's really about is a particular view of what it means to be a Muslim coming from his background. He has a very binary view of what a Muslim is called upon to do Dr. Majid Rafizadeh: Why I Renounced Islam, Allah, and Muhammad | myIslam.dk

People need to understand Islam gets criticized all the time. Irshad Manji is a clear exampl of a lesbian Muslim woman who criticized Islam both post and present and yet she remains to be a Muslim. There are plenty of Muslims living in secular society arguing on the notion of “ijtihad” daily in both academic and social circles.

The OP wants a particular criticism that borders apostasy something not even the most devout Christian and Jewish person does.
 

Epic Beard Man

Bearded Philosopher
There is indeed criticism of Islaam. But it has earned a lot more, and more openly, than it gets. There are odd attempts at playing it easy towards that doctrine, and it is about time to stop that already.

There is indeed a crucial criticism and staunch ignorance of your belief. Both lacking any intellectual academic background but rather a similitude often resembling armchair scholastic critique begs the question. I do however admire your consistent ignorance and repugnant attitudes that permeate from your words but it does nothing.

We can have a healthy critique of religion that is the benefit of an intellectual discussion but what you want is a shouting match and pejorative word attachment to a religion. I mean if you want to talk that way we can talk about your belief as a faithless godless person who spends an inordinate amount of time discussing and whining about how bad Islam is without actually interacting in the world with Muslims to have a meaningful discussion. Surely, in Brazil there are some.

I’m more interested not in people who have lived several years as a Muslim while battling internal demons and religious confusion, rather, I rather hear from the academics that can implement a historical and academic analysis to the situation. Because I can pull videos about disgruntled ignorant atheists as well who have no life exactly make others feel worse about the world because their godless faith makes them nihilistic.
 

England my lionheart

Rockerjahili Rebel
Premium Member
The author of the article grew up in Muslim majority societies and moved to “the West”, where he thought he could work to reform Islam. Instead he found many strong forces in “the West” - while open to criticizing other religions - are not open to having Islam criticized. Nicely written…

Why Can't I Criticize My Religion?

Being a slave to Allah you don't get to criticize.
 

FearGod

Freedom Of Mind
My major issue with Islam is their treatment of Isa PBUH (Jesus the Christ). Islam should allow a divergence of opinion around this issue. Instead, some sects say calling Isa a Son of Allah SWT is "Shirk", and the penalty for that is beheading. That is far too harsh in my opinion.

I don't think that calling Jesus as son of God is punishable by death, Arab Christians believe Jesus
as son of God and Muslims don't kill them for such belief.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
There is only so far one can get away from the Qur'an while still being a Muslim.

Unfortunately for us all - and probably above all for the Muslims themselves - that is a decisive factor.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
New There is only so far one can get away from the Qur'an while still being a Muslim.
That doesn't seem to stop Christians in the West from going so far away from the Bible they've never read it and still claim themselves as Christian - and this is in face of some of the same and similar dire warnings the Quran issues of such things.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Being a slave to Allah you don't get to criticize.
Then why do so many Muslims criticize Islam? Richard Dawkins even made a group to help such Muslims in Muslim lands. Many of these Muslims come to the West and do criticize the ways of the lands they came from - this tends to fall on deaf ears, especially those who don't realize in the Quran if you go to the next verse or two the full context of much of the violence revolves around defense during times of war.
 
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