My Hero, the U.K.'s Maajid Nawaz just now on the Australian show ABC's One Plus One, here in Hong Kong. He's on tour in Australia.
Maajid says that his wife left him when he left the radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir. His wife is still a member. She has brought up his son, now 15, who says that his father is "not a good Muslim" and won't talk to Maajid.
Maajid says that he speaks up for Muslims of all stripes, feminist Muslims, gay Muslims, minority-sect Muslims, and for non-Muslims too.
Then, in answer to a question whether he questions what he's doing, he says that he does that every day. But that if he stepped down from his counter extremism organization the Quilliam Foundation he doubts someone would step in to run it because there are so few Muslims who talk like him.
The interviewer didn't ask the obvious question: if that's the case isn't this a big concern for the U.K.? That Maajid's family, his friends, other Muslims, think that he's a "bad Muslim" for speaking up in support of values that we fought centuries for and which are now firmly embedded in our liberal secular societies? What about that??!
It sure worries me. Maajid is just one man. And Muslims say they simply don't want to listen to him.
What hope is there? When a guy who spent five years in an Egyptian dungeon as a radical, reforms and tries to argue for a more tolerant Islam, but is reviled by his coreligionists? What hope? For an inclusive, secular, democratic, integrated Islam?
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/one-plus-one:-maajid-nawaz/7181716?pfmredir=sm
Sent from my iPhone
Maajid says that his wife left him when he left the radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir. His wife is still a member. She has brought up his son, now 15, who says that his father is "not a good Muslim" and won't talk to Maajid.
Maajid says that he speaks up for Muslims of all stripes, feminist Muslims, gay Muslims, minority-sect Muslims, and for non-Muslims too.
Then, in answer to a question whether he questions what he's doing, he says that he does that every day. But that if he stepped down from his counter extremism organization the Quilliam Foundation he doubts someone would step in to run it because there are so few Muslims who talk like him.
The interviewer didn't ask the obvious question: if that's the case isn't this a big concern for the U.K.? That Maajid's family, his friends, other Muslims, think that he's a "bad Muslim" for speaking up in support of values that we fought centuries for and which are now firmly embedded in our liberal secular societies? What about that??!
It sure worries me. Maajid is just one man. And Muslims say they simply don't want to listen to him.
What hope is there? When a guy who spent five years in an Egyptian dungeon as a radical, reforms and tries to argue for a more tolerant Islam, but is reviled by his coreligionists? What hope? For an inclusive, secular, democratic, integrated Islam?
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-18/one-plus-one:-maajid-nawaz/7181716?pfmredir=sm
Sent from my iPhone
