...and dynamic West and the stagnant and obscurantist Muslim world was the collapse of the latter. Even a cursory glance leads one to the conclusion that the Muslim world starting from Morocco to Indonesia and from Africa to Central Asia is in turmoil. Most, if not all, of the Muslim countries are going through a phase of internal convulsion and uncertainty marked by political instability, economic under-development and deprivation, scientific and technological backwardness, and cultural dislocation. The situation for the Muslim world is further aggravated because of the multifarious challenges confronting it on the external front. The need of the hour is for the Muslim intelligentsia and leaders to realise the gravity of the situation and present to their compatriots well-considered views on overcoming the political, economic, social and cultural hindrances blocking the way to progress, prosperity and internal stability. The present condition of the Muslim world needs to be analysed in correct historical perspective. The Muslim civilisation, which had been in the vanguard of human intellectual and economic progress for several centuries after its birth, started showing signs of slackening around the seventeenth century A. D. Muslim scholars lost the appetite for intellectual enquiry. Instead of opening new horizons for intellectual growth, they simply became the followers of dogmas inherited from the past. The Muslim civilisation thus lost the vitality and dynamism...
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...held in Pakistan on 11 May 2013 to elect the members of the 14th National Assembly and to the four provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Elections were held in all four provinces, the federal capital territory of Islamabad and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The remaining two territories of Pakistan, the Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, were ineligible to vote due to their disputed status. Pakistan is the world's fifth largest democracy[3] and the world's second largest Muslim democracy after Indonesia.[4] The elections are noted for the first civilian transfer of power following the successful completion of a five-year term by a democratically elected government.[5] The election took place in 272 constituencies, whilst a further 70 seats were awarded to parties having been reserved for women and minority groups. None of the parties achieved the 172 seats needed for an overall majority.[6] The Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by Nawaz Sharif, won the largest number of votes and seats but still fell six seats short. This resulted in a hung parliament where no party was able to command a majority in the National Assembly.[7] This was the second consecutive general election to return a hung parliament, the first being the prior 2008 general election. Unlike in 2008, the potential for a hung parliament had this time been widely considered and predicted and both the country and politicians were better prepared for the constitutional...
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...The Muslim World and its Problems in the 21st Century The Prospects of Muslim Renaissance Problems of the Muslim world in 21st century and Prospects of Muslim renaissance In the twenty first century the Muslim world is passing through a very challenging and crucial situation. We will face countless problems in the near future and we have to fight for our survival. There are multidimensional external attacks as well as internal challenges in the Muslim world. The Muslim world is under cultural raid and very fatal conspiracies. In order to know about the problems of the Muslims, it is necessary to look briefly at some of the aspects of physical and demographic profile of the Muslim world Area and population of Muslim world The Muslim world represents one fifth of the humanity occupying a global land mass spreading over 57 countries. It represents 23% of world population. The birth rate in Muslim world is 3.4%. about 80% of Muslim population is living in Muslim countries and the rest in the non-Muslim countries. DEFENSE The Muslim world is very weak as far as their defense is concerned due to low literacy rate and short of science and technology. In this case they cannot compete with the western world. Most of the Muslim countries look to the west for their defense. Total army of the Muslim world is 67 lacks. Although the Muslim world spends almost 76 billion dollars...
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...New York Times«. The article deals with some outcast from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron’s speech from the 5th of February, 2011. David Cameron has been the Prime Minister for Britain for the past seven years. He is from the Conservative Party. He is a well educated man and has a nice work history. He studied philosophy, politics and economy at Oxford University, England. He is claiming that multiculturalism in Britain has literally failed, because Britain has become one of Europe’s most active bases for terrorists’ spots. One of David Cameron’s biggest statements from his speech is that he claims that the main roots of this terror-problem is that because of multiculturalism has encouraged segregated communities where Islamic extremism can live and live separated lives, apart from each other. One of the problems is also that very religious people live by their own rules and faith, because of their holy scriptures and their religion, that they are having a hard time sticking to the law, democracy, human rights and social integration, because they are guided that much about their faith. He shares these attitudes with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. One of David Cameron’s main arguments is that the racism or discrimination is mutual....
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...one’s skin. Nearly every conflict in recorded history comes from prejudice: World War I, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War, to name a few. Prejudice is a serious problem in the world today, and its presence is especially prominent in the United States in the form of Islamophobia, or the bias against people of the Islamic faith. Many political leaders are doing nothing to stop the spread of Islamophobia in America. In fact, quite a few encourage it and share its beliefs. Many people, political leaders included, believe that people of the Islamic faith are terrorists and are a threat to America based on the actions of very few Islamic people. Islamophobia is morally wrong because it encourages a mob mentality in Americans, stereotypes an entire race, and prosecutes innocent people based on the actions of a few. Islamophobia encourages a mob mentality in Americans because many people, especially those of Caucasian descent, are...
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...Islam today is facing challenges from within and from the wider world. The critical problems are the fundamental tensions within Islam. The attitudes and criticisms common in the outside world can be ignored as misguided or hostile, but the tensions within Islam throughout the world must be confronted. In a simple geographical sense, Islam has to come to grips with its changing centres. The religious centres define the heartland: Saudi Arabia maintains its guardianship of the shrines at Mecca and Medina, and the conduct of the hajj, against the claims of Shii Iran, the Shii tradition, and other sects disillusioned with Saudi Arabia's credentials within the ummah. Saudi Arabia enjoys much of its strength to repudiate other claims because it...
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...which extremist governments like Taliban and fanatics like Osama bin Laden emerged. 86). similarly, their policies about marriage, divorce and other legal proceedings are also derived from their religion (Aronoff, p. He wanted to give back Germany its past glory and respect in front of the world, and for that he wanted to create more living space for Germans and thus he conquered the surrounding German speaking areas and created hatred among the leaders of those countries. This is the only way to co-exist peacefully in today’s world. This is important because it is seen in the past that attempts to bring democracy and socialism in the Arab world have failed so badly that it has made the people of the Arab world to denounce these ideas altogether. This attack is important not only because of how widespread it was; but it is also important because of the way it changed the course of the West towards Islam. With that, the West needs to incentivize the Muslim world to adopt democracy and liberalism so that they see the benefits of these systems themselves. ISLAM AND THE WEST – AN INTRODUCTION Islam and the West are different entities in many ways, but because of the globalization in the world; we see that there is an increasing interaction between these two entities, which becomes a reason for conflict in many situations. Modernization, liberalism and globalization are appreciated. This does not mean acquiring Western culture, music, language; but it modernization requires learning...
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...take possession of the gifted port. He had never commanded a ship, to say nothing of a fleet. Throughout his career, Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys had worked only as a customs officer. Woefully, the Muslim world today represents the tragic story of the Medusa, the ill-piloted French naval ship that ran aground because of its captain’s blunders and his dependence on others for navigational guidance, leaving behind a tale of helplessness, desperation and death. The Medusa’s wreck is still out there, lying stuck on the West African coast, and isn’t going anywhere. The Muslim world today is in no better shape. Like the Medusa’s wreck, it is just lying out there, aimlessly floating like a stricken ship, with no one to steer it out of troubled waters. Representing one-fifth of humanity as well as of the global land mass spreading over 57 countries, and possessing 70 per cent of the world’s energy resources and nearly 50 per cent of the world’s raw materials, the Muslim world should have been a global giant, economically as well as politically. Instead, rich in everything and weak in all respects, it represents only five per cent of the world’s GDP. As a non-consequential entity, it has no role in global decision-making or even in addressing its own problems. Poor and dispossessed, Muslim nations emerging from long colonial rule may have become sovereign states but are without genuine political and economic independence. Their trade,...
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...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY There is currently widespread discrimination against Muslims around the world due to numerous terrorist activities that occurred over the past decade. However, it is important for us to understand that although many of these activities were carried out by Muslims, we cannot stereotype all Muslims to be terrorists. Unjust discrimination against them may trigger more problems. Thus, a good approach to fix this problem would be educating the public not to stereotype as some Muslims may be the victims themselves. THE ISSUES AND WHO ARE INVOLVED The world has been plagued by terrorism, especially so over the past decade and this has led to widespread discrimination against Muslims. This is due to the fact that many of the terrorist acts were carried out by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah whose members are mainly of Muslim religion. However, there are much overlooked facts such as majority of the Muslims are actually not involved in those terrorist acts and some of the Muslims may even be victims of those terrorist acts themselves. One example of discrimination against Muslims would be the Oklahoma City bombing incident executed by Timothy McVeigh, an American, whereby Muslims were suspected for the bombing even before investigations started. Another would be the very recent French study led by David Laitin of Stanford University in California which shows that Muslims in European countries are more likely to be unemployed compared to people...
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...Is Islam a religion of violence or non-violence? An examination of misconceptions in the Western World? The world is full of acts of violence and acts of peace and non violence. We as people try to comprehend these acts by establishing whys. The why that we will examine is one of consistent misunderstanding and misrepresentation specifically in the Western world. When a suicide bombing occurs why is it if you asked most individuals in the west what the offending individual’s religion was their almost instant response is they were a Muslim. Does Islam automatically mean every Muslim is willing to attack peoples who do not believe as they do. Does it mean they espouse killing all Jews? Or is the truth that a majority of all Muslims would consider themselves peace loving individuals, that you would more likely see them working alongside Jews and Christians in a nature of acceptance and love for them. But yet when we look at history we see Islam in wars against Arab peoples, in the Crusades, and in the more recent conflicts in the Middle East. So does the Quran allow for wars against others or are they more of the outcome of societal problems and conflicts in the region. We will most likely see that circumstances beyond their control contribute to the rise and the necessity to defend themselves in these various conflicts through out history. Overall it will probably be a surprise to most Westerners the...
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...Abstract The research is aimed at solving a problem in Media and how it reports. The Problem which this study wishes to study is how is the handling of the Media Landscape in the fields of Terrorism Crime and the Violence in Mindanao and how did it affect Muslim Communities attitudes and Behavior towards the institution of Media. The hypotheses is the there is a significant effect on the behavior of the community and their views on the institution of Media. To gather data and to analyze this problem the researchers used a descriptive status analysis which seeks to answer questions to real facts relating to existing conditions in group of cases that is chosen for study. The sample is determined using a simple random sampling which aimed at a minimum target of 300 respondents which is the 10% of the population of the area which is 3,000. The respondents where chosen out of the 19 Muslim Communities found in Metro Manila, the number of ethnic groups in the area is more diverse than most other Muslim Communities in the Metro Manila area. The subjects aged 15- 40 years regardless of educational background and social status. The study did not put too much stress on the quality of the respondents because it is important that a more honest response and to measure their knowledge of issues, this is done to observe their experiences outside of the Muslim Community. The researchers opted to use a survey method to gather the data needed for this research. The study employed a Likert...
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...EAST IS EAST, MY JOURNEY MY ISLAM, MUSLIM COOL, DEBATING THE VEIL RESPONSE PAPER Islam Despite its huge following around the world and the growing Muslim communities in western countries, Islam is foreign to most westerners who are familiar with Christianity or Judaism. Because most Americans know little or nothing about Islam, they have many misconceptions about Muslim beliefs and rituals. These misconceptions are formed by the media and the lack of research most people do on Islam. There have been many movies and documentaries made to show people the life of a Muslim person and to show people what Islam really is; East is East, My Journey My Islam, Debating the Veil, and Muslim Cool are examples of movies portraying Muslims in a different light. These movies although very different from each other in the way they are portrayed all are out to achieve the same goal, which is to show misinformed people what Islam really is. East is East is a movie about a Pakistani immigrant in the UK by the name of George khan who tries to push his family to abide by his strict Pakistani Muslim ideals. Having an English mother and being born and raised in England, his children see themselves as being English and disobey their father’s rules on how they dress, the foods they eat, religion, and other aspects of life. East is East, portrays Muslim Isolationism, patriarchal authoritarianism, white English racism, and teenage rebellion. The film perfectly explores connections between comic modes...
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...ON ISLAM and INEQUALITY Introduction Fish (2011) in his book named “Are Muslims Distinctive: A Look at the Evidence.” discusses whether Muslims show any systematic differences on individual and country levels in various issues such as democracy, large scale violence, corruption, tolerance and social inequality. In terms of inequality, Fish compares Muslim and non- Muslim countries in relation to gender and income inequality. As a result of his data analyses he concludes: “On gender based inequality Muslims lag; on income inequality they lead” (Fish, 2011: 228). I consider the finding about income inequality as an unexpected one because in the income inequality literature, religion in general and Islam in specific are not commonly considered as potential determinants. Fish`s proposed causal mechanism makes his study even more suspicious because his references are anecdotal and his reasoning is culturalist. This is why, I decided to investigate his findings deeper and conduct a test on his claims that Muslims are culturally more egalitarian than Christians. The plan of this paper works in the following way: I will start with a literature review and continue with a brief summary of Fish`s data analysis and his major claims about the causal mechanism behind the relationship between Muslim culture and egalitarian state policies. Afterwards, I will continue with my alternative replication of Fish`s regression analysis with a different dataset which measures inequality in an...
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...school of dentistry and his wife had planned to register there in the fall. Razon was also an undergraduate student; they were all students at the North Carolina State University. (Alam, Monavvar) In the wake of this horrendous incident, there has not been any protest, demonstration or marches held anywhere. This is partly due to how it is being reported in the news. After Craig Hicks turned himself in and was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, investigators reported that Hicks had shot the victims over a parking dispute. (Bill O’Reilly, Fox News) According to James Carey, news is not information but drama. (Martin Christopher, Social Problems Readings) In America this is especially true. The news conveys just an adequate amount of information to create a persuasive drama. (Martin, Christopher, Social Problems...
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...The New Population Bomb The Four Megatrends That Will Change the World Facts The UN Population Division projects that global population will nearly halt by 2050. By that time, the world’s population will have stabilized at 9.15B people. Global income will increase far more than population over the next four decades. Four historic shifts will fundamentally alter the world’s population over the next four decades: the relative demographic weight of the worlds developed countries will drop by nearly 25 percent, shifting economic power to the developing nations; the developed countries labor forces will substantially age and decline, constraining economic growth in the developed world and raising the demand for immigrant workers; most of the worlds expected population growth will increasingly be concentrated in today’s poorest and youngest countries; and for the first time in history, most of the worlds population will become urbanized. The West is experiencing a drastic decline in population growth, and its relative decline is even more dramatic if one also considers changes in income. The proportion of global GDP produced by Europe, the US and Canada fell from 68% in 1950 to 47% in 2003. This will decline even more steeply in the future, and in 2050, the global GDP produced by these countries will be <30%. This means that, the world’s GDP growth between 2003 and 2050 will occur outside Europe, the US and Canada. From now on, therefore, the main driver of global economic expansion...
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