[Itse]

Originally Posted by Thor

Look at this bigot

It's funny how this few second soundbite is the one that always gets played by certain people. Considering that Nawaz has so much stuff on the tubes.

Yes, I am aware that Nawaz has spoken against certain kinds of liberals. However, people are dishonestly using it as proof that he somehow thinks that there is a problem with Islam as a religion, when anyone who has genuinely listen to him talk for more than a minute would know this is clearly not the case.

So when Nawaz does not think "Islam" needs to be "dealt with", you can not use him as proof that it liberals should somehow do this "dealing with" (what ever that is supposed to mean).

It's a much more nuanced complaint, as far as I've been able to piece together. Obviously some people just love to play up these fights as somehow proof that all the things they have been saying about liberals are right... and then very typically they start jumping into conclusions that are completely their own insertions.

Here is how Nawaz sees Islam.
Nawaz gives his opening remarks starting at about 11 min. It lasts about 6 minutes.

The whole thing is worth listening to. There are three panelists who were all brought up as Muslims, and all with different views on Islam. Nawaz is sort of the middle guy, who is neither for nor against the notion that Islam is a religion of violence.



Here's what Nawaz says in his opening remarks. He's also the person I'm most in agreement with, as I see him as the most practical.

The conclusion I came to through my studies in prison was that Islam is not a religion of violence. But it's also not a religion of peace.
(...)
Islam is a religion. Like all other religions since time immemorial, it's been interpreted. It's been interpreted like Christianity in the past to cause much devastation on this Earth. And it's also been interpreted towards peaceful ends.

It doesn't help in this struggle (...) to essentialize Islam by saying it's a religion of violence.

Rather the way forward is to say yes Islam is a religion that can be interpreted.

Isn't it better to for us to promote the fact that there are Muslims out there risking their lives to re-interpret this faith? And to demonstrate and promote and to encourage those interpretations that do take a genuine look at scripture, that do recognize that there are two twin challenges that are dominating Muslim majority countries today.

First, the ideology of Islamism, which overly politisizes the faith.
(...)
The other challenge, manifests in the social level, and that's the challenge of fundamentalism.

Okay, so, fundamentalism and Islamism are problems. So, does that not mean that liberals who are tolerant towards those are a problem? Yes, one can certainly take this view.

However, this requires you to take the same view against all fundamentalist religiousness. Nawaz does not at any point claim that there is something special about Islamic fundamentalism, as is already clear from above.

To Nawaz, all fundamentalism is bad. I would not call this a very liberal view, even though I sympathize with this view.

Btw, nik- you being interested in the specifics of Islams teachings, you might want to consider this point that Nawaz makes, which he uses to back his claim that there is nothing especially western about liberalism.

The idea that Muslims are bound to tolerate differences of opinion is ingrained in the fact that Islam does not have a clergy, and therefore there isn't one official version of Islam, and there is nothing inherently unislamic about tolerating differences of opinion.

This hardtalk piece is also excellent, if you want to know what Nawaz thinks.