Take this for example:
Muslims and Arabs have done pitifully little to help improve the capacity of the Palestinian people to be good neighbors to their Israeli brethren. Take the money spent by any Middle Eastern royal family at a London hotel or Geneva resort during one month and you could build enough schools and medical clinics to take care of 1,000 Palestinian children for a year. Yet rather than educate and feed Palestinian and Muslim children so they may learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate, instead of by throwing rocks and wearing bombs, the Muslim "haves" put on a few telethons to raise paltry sums for the "have nots" to alleviate the guilt over their palatial gilded cages.
Could he be talking about the Saudis here? They are by far the largest and richest of the middle east oil producing countries. The royal family sits in splendid luxury, they give tons of money to charities, yet their people sit in utter poverty, while being taught that they are suffering because Israel exists.
Bombs don't feed a lot people, they don't clothe them, and they do not educate them. The Palestinians are the Saudis' Arab and Muslim brothers, yet they are kept hungry for food, as well as knowledge and truth. They are lied to and being used as pawns in a struggle to move Israel.
I don't always agree with Mr. Ijaz, mind you. But overall, if we are to ever prevent an all-out clash of cultures, we will need guys like this man to be a voice of reason and win over some hearts and minds. We need someone to help usher Islam out of the dark ages. In every piece that I have read of his, he seems to sincerely want that for the religion of Islam. Whether or not he gets it, will greatly depend on how many others are willing to step up to the plate, be willing to speak for what is right, and to go against the grain without fear.
Give him a read.
2 comments:
Most conflicts in the Islamic world are confrantation among Muslims and Arabs themselves--state to state, ethnic group to ethnic group, sect to sect, class to class, and so on. I don't think they care so much about Palestinians.
In the Following link, I found an interesting comment.
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23872,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
"Islamic civilization may yet produce its Edward Gibbon, a sincere religious voyager who ends up scrutinizing the foundations of his civilization with a skeptical, cynical, and, at times, profoundly unfair irreligious eye."
Shah,
Good quote, sir. I hope the writer of that quote is right. But I am sure you won't mind at all, if I reserve my opinion just a little longer, until that person arrives on the scene and evidence of that reform appears.
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