Religions have nothing to do with violence, says Armstrong
* Comparative religion scholar says illogical rift being developed between Islam and West, Islam has nothing to do with extremism
Staff Report
LAHORE: Renowned writer and scholar of comparative religions Karen Armstrong has said that “political and selfish ambitions of a few individuals have led the whole world to an unprecedented level of violence, but religions have nothing to do with this phenomenon.
She was addressing a large number of students, teachers and scholars from various universities during a lecture organised by Punjab Governor Lt Gen (r) Khalid Maqbool at Governor’s House on Saturday.
Ms Armstrong said that the recent surge in extremism was a “product” of British colonialism and political agendas, and Islam was wrongly associated with extremism as no religion taught such an ideology. “Islam is a religion of peace and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is the prophet (PBUH) of our age because he taught tolerance and always tried to figure out things through dialogue. Several agreements signed by the prophet with various governments and tribes express his vision for peace and harmony,” she replied to a student’s question.
She said she was astonished to find out similarities between Judaism, Islam and Christianity, while making a movie in Jerusalem. She asserted that Tony Blair and some other governments were wrongly associating terrorism with Islam, and were trying to develop an “illogical cultural rift between Islam and the West to achieve their political goals”.
“I don’t believe in the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ because Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, and these were merely political slogans raised by the US, French and British governments to divert the attention of the world from the absolute catastrophes they committed in Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay,” said the scholar, adding that the veil issue was “unjustly” raised in France.
“The precedent for all Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) to live united under a single state was set by Muslims when Hazrat Omer (RA) called back Jews to live in Jerusalem. This example clearly shows that all of the religions can be united in the future as well,” she said, adding that the system developed by Muslims in Jerusalem was a “million times better than the system in practice in the holy city today”.
Replying to a question, Ms Armstrong said that Muslims held the key to solving these problems, and “it is the time for them to devote themselves to study, especially of the Quran, so that they can undo the spell of exploiters”.
“It is now the duty of Muslims to counter the misleading information against them. It is also necessary for them to answer the questions arising in Westeners’ minds because of the complex disinformation against Islam. They (Muslims) can find the best answers to these problems in the Quran, which is the most advanced scripture in the Middle East,” she said.
The scholar said the world was “desperate to hear and eager to learn, and it is everybody’s duty to make people’s voices heard and keep the hope alive as disappointment causes desperation, which results in extremism”.
“Hope is a virtue, not a mere state of mind, so keep the hope alive and follow the original scriptures that lead to humanity ... an alliance among religions is not possible without learning humanity,” she added.
She said the world was “getting away from the conflict-based clergy system and they want to follow the real teachings of their scriptures”.
“People are loosing interest in joining the weekly church services, and only 6 percent of Britons attend their religious prayers, the majority of them are Muslims, not Christians.”
The Punjab governor said that the ability to speak on all religions was a blessing of God. He said that Muslims were proud of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who had asked his followers to be honest, kind and just.
He said that the lecture had been organised for young people because they were the leaders of the future. |
