Changing and Re-tweaking the Blog for the Future and Beyond

This is going to be tricky. Three and a half years ago, I did something with the blogger template to get a great layout without any coding whatsoever. The software changed when I wasn’t paying much attention. I’m not entirely sure I can navigate the blogger to make the necessary changes. I’m almost certain I’ll break something if I try to remove the headers, labels or move things around ..etc. I should proceed with caution when tempering with the layout.

On the content: I’ve finally decided topic of interests which I’ll be pursuing (as of now):

As you can see, I’m big on writing about politics, current events, and social issues. And that’s because as humans, we are always interested and attracted to what other human are doing with their life.

Book reviews: I’m not much of a book reader. I’ve no time to read books especially when everything you need to know can be googled easily, but still, a book review segment may be helpful in identifying good books that could potentially be read by others (not me personally). I could envision how this could easily become a community service where I tell my visitors about interesting books; they in turn read the book and share what they have learned with others who might benefit and I don’t have to waste my precious time.

Article reviews: Hopefully, I’ll be doing more of this in the future. Academic articles are shorter, straight forward and to the point so they can be digest easily and have proven to be very useful, at least to me.

Women. This is a fairly interesting topic. Women in most part of the world are still seen and treated like a second class citizen. In the Islamic context, I’m interested to see how they are viewed, historically and also in the modern time, socially, culturally and religiously.

Philosophy in general has added another perspective/dimension to most religion in the world. The use of philosophy in the Islamic faith has proven to be very useful and seen as an inseparable part of the religion.

Al-Quran: The only Islamic literature that many consider reliable and trustworthy. Widely read in the Islamic world but very little is understood or acted upon. While the book is in an unfamiliar language not spoken by many, the faithful believers have found solace and guidance and the unfaithful/ evil-doers have found justification for their cause and to act sinfully. The book has also been used by many to deal with social ills and to heal a wide range of physical and mental disorders and demonic possessions.

Comparative Religion: Religious people tend to view their faith as the best and the most correct version of the truth. I find this mentality of ‘us-vs-them’ exists across all faiths via what we officially call religious sects. When someone doesn’t like or agree with your interpretation or version of anything (ideas, events, practices) they then provide an alternate ideology and band together with similar minded individual. They gain traction and become an established sect and get more followers and become even more influential. I started this blog to investigate the origin of some of the Islamic sects. I don’t see why the good work has to stop just because I’m changing the overall direction of the blog.

Rationality: Does rationality exist in the Islamic faith? Yes? No? Is rationality useful or not really?

Psychology: This should be a topic of interest for many and not just a branch of study for the experts. Unfortunately we don’t spend enough time studying other human who are just like us. Religion sometimes creates artificial barriers that keep us even more insular and divided: You go to different places of worships, dresses differently, mingle only with people of your own race/religion and avoid others simply because they worship a different god which happens to be the same god as yours via different practices which don’t seem to be any less useful than yours.

Science-vs-creationism: I hardly ever post on this. I’ve sat down and tried writing something but this is not an easy task. I can see why religion takes a very simplified approach to explain mystery of the creation or natural occurrence and makes everything easy for us; Adam was created from clay, Eve burst out from Adam’s rib, they ate something and got thrown out from the heaven, there’s demon that’s attached to your soul whose only mission in life is to misguide your soul, the angels control the air, wind and rain, natural disasters could be seen as a punishment, the world is not supposed to be that old if we came from Adam and Eve. Nowadays, we know more about the creation of the human and the universe than our ancestors. We now know that we are not the only race of human to ever live on earth. We also know that the creation of everything is not a simple as we are lead to believe and that the weather pattern is a little more complicated and that every living being is self-sustaining without ever needing interference from angels or higher power.
The next question would be on how to integrate our new found knowledge with our faith. Is that even possible?

These are all the topic of interests I have as of now. I’m going to think about them, sleep on it and start working when I’m ready ...after I figure out how to work the template.

A Sudanese woman sentenced to death for marrying a Christian man

A Sudanese woman who was born to a Muslim father was sentenced to death by hanging for marrying a Christian man

Ibrahim, who was born to a Muslim father but raised Orthodox Christian by her mother, was first sentenced on Sunday, but she was given until Thursday to change her mind and convert. She refused to do so, Al Jazeera reports.

“I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy,” Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim was found guilty of apostasy — the abandonment of one’s religious faith – because she was born to a Muslim father and married a Christian man. The adultery charge came as Islamic law prohibits Muslim women from marrying outside of their religion, a rule which effectively voided the marriage.

Sometimes when you read this sort of news, you wish it isn’t true. Unfortunately, we are still living in time where human rights don’t exist in most part of the world.

Last week, I posted a brief description of how Atheism is viewed by Islam/Muslim and an overview of regulations governing apostasy. The main justification for death sentence (for apostate) is that those apostates are enemies of the state or for not following the religion correctly or as best as he/she could. I never believed that to be the case. I feel apostasy is a badly conceive law that has been a useful tool to justify tyranny, silencing of the critics, terrorizing those perceived as misbehaving and protecting the feelings of the community that get offended very easily, such as this case of a Sudanese woman married to a Christian husband.

The Sudanese woman is considered a Muslim automatically just because her father is one. The fact that her mother is a Christian or she herself claims to be one doesn’t matter or mean much. She is forced to obey and follow the rules of a religion she doesn’t believe in.
Islamic rules clearly state that a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man. Her marriage is actually null and void. Her parents’ marriage on the other hand is legal because Islam allows Muslim men to marry Christian women. I know this is a bit of double standard but that’s not the point I was trying to make. If her parents’ marriage were invalid then she could at least use the argument of not being legally bonded to her father’s religion because of not being connected to him legitimately, hence free to follow either of the religions.
The most difficult decision this woman will be force to make eventually is what she values the most. Does she value her life more than her husband or she values her marriage more than her life. The news report stated she claimed to always be a Christian and so the claim of abandoning Islam is inaccurate. I don’t think the court saw the irony here.

This is a tricky situation to navigate. She could convert to Islam and get the death sentence remove. But she still has the adultery/fornication charge because a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man. Her husband can possibly convert to Islam and make the community happy so he gets to maintain the marriage until a day in the future when their fake religiosity and pretension is exposed and they are again brought up for ....apostasy.

Islamic rules are fairly complicated. You would think with having complicated rules, you are bound to find some loop holes somewhere to help her get off from the punishment. Unfortunately, nowadays the trends have been to interpret Islam in the most severe and harshest manner possible.

I personally don’t think people should be forced to convert to any religion/faith. Sadly, I’m in the minority here. As whole, the Muslim community has been governed by irrationality and unjust laws/rules that don’t seem to contribute much in the human development. It only seems to reflect their sorry state.

Best hope now is for her to gain asylum somewhere so she can move out of Sudan and live peacefully with her family.

Reference
http://time.com/100815/sudanese-woman-death-marrying-christian/

The Middle East doesn't contribute much in the way of science

The Middle East has very little scientific output/contribution. This report here states the total contribution for worldwide scientific literature from the Middle East is embarrassingly in a low single digit. The two countries cited having the largest scientific contributions are Iran and Turkey.

The Arabian, Persian and Turkish Middle East produces only 4% of the world's scientific literature but output is growing rapidly, exceeding Asia and Latin America in rate of increase.

I've not read the complete report, just a summary of it done by a person who has read it.

We all know that once upon a time, most sciences and ground-breaking work originate from the region currently known as the Middle East. Of course everyone wants to know why the 'Islamic' Sciences declined.

I don't think anyone can pinpoint to a single cause or reason. I'm guessing that wars, politics, social issues, lack of resources (wealth/money/investment), human exploitation, Islamic radicalism and other meaningless pursuit in life might have much to do with the decline.

Moving on.

My favorite medieval Muslim scientist is Ibn al-Haytham (also known as AlHazen). I believe he's probably one of the people who has made significant contribution but has gotten very little recognition or credit for his work. The Wikipedia article seems to be very extensive in regards to his scientific contribution

The article is also mentioning something very interesting about his theological background and a quote ascribe to him about why sometimes the scientists succeed or fails

His religious background, not that it matters, is either Sunni, Shia or Mutazilla. There's also an interesting quote ascribe to him about why sometimes the scientists succeed or fails

Truth is sought for its own sake ... Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough. For the truths are plunged in obscurity. ... God, however, has not preserved the scientist from error and has not safeguarded science from shortcomings and faults. If this had been the case, scientists would not have disagreed upon any point of science...[11]

Alhazen described his theology:

I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge.[113]

How to be a good husband or wife? RANT..

I’ve been noticing people spending a lot of time on Internet discussing tips and techniques on how to be a good husband/wife as per Islamic teaching. When I read them, I sense that these tips are very formulaic, simplistic and also of a questionable value.

How did the Muslims arrive at the formula for being good spouses?

Most probably someone heard from someone who heard from someone who also heard from someone who heard from another.

I’ve always felt that you are either a good person or you are not. If you are a good human being then you can most certainly become a good husband/wife regardless of your faith. But what if you are not?

Since you are who you are; I’m not entirely sure you can change your personality that easily.

Most of the items in the checklist can be arbitrary and of a questionable value. Here’s an example

Muslim Checklist for Good husband and wife
Item 1: Good Islamic husband will buy his wife an apple a day.
Item 2: Good and obedient Islamic wife will only eat chocolates on Friday.

The real challenge is to figure out why these items made the list.

The second challenge would be to see if these items are effective in your life. If you think these tips are effective, then how have you been measuring them? If not, then why not?

My comment about Safavid, Iran and Sufi

I've responded to one of the comments on my blog. Check it out

Why am I not posting sects’ related information?

I’m not posting many sects’ related posts. The last few posts were written a while ago. I’m not losing interest. Reading about them is one thing. Writing about them is something else. I’m very busy and can’t really spend that much time reading, researching or writing about them in a format suitable for the audience.

Since I’m not longer meeting the objective of this blog, I should probably modify the headers of my blog to reflect what I’m actively engaged in. Rest assured that nothing will be deleted. The content will not be changed or removed, but the look and feel maybe. The current headers should be on the right side with other labels in the similar group.

I think this modification is very much needed because I’ve expanded my blog to include things not planned originally when I started blogging in 2011. My newer materials are more about current events, ideas that shape Muslim thoughts, a little bit of general philosophy of religion and random things.

I’ve been meaning to move away for a while. By studying the development of Muslim sects, I didn’t get the clarity I hoped. Back then it was a different mindset. I was narrowly focused on tracing the historical origin of Muslim sects. It was a good exercise in writing, and brought a lot of visitors, but I’m becoming severely bored.

I probably need to sit down and think of the future direction of my blog. I’m not completely dissatisfied with the quality of my posts..well maybe a bit on the writing mechanism …I think I can do better. Best is to have a central theme, and then write as many posts as possible. Stay tuned. My blog will be undergoing some changes in weeks or more realistically in a few months.