Abdul Rauf: Aim for rooting the positive role of Muslims in their communities
Center - Mansour Jamri
«Center» dialogue Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (Photo:
Mohamed Almkrq) 
Prime «Cordoba Initiative» Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who oversees the plan for the construction of a mosque in New York near the site subjected to attacks of 11 September 2001 (Ground Zero), that the constitutional rights granted to the Muslims in the United States and a broad and more in line with the principles of Islamic law restrictions imposed by some Islamic countries. He added that the civil and religious freedoms set forth in the Constitution reflect the essence of Islamic values. This came in an interview «center» with Abdul Rauf, the day of his visit to Bahrain, and will also take him to Qatar and the UAE in his tour in the region to discuss efforts to combat extremism and spread the concepts of dialogue and tolerance among followers of religions, as well as spreading the idea put forward by «Initiative Cordoba »aims to keep the letter to the American Muslim is consistent with being Muslim, as well as U.S. citizens they are to other duties and to them as to other rights.
«Center» Prime dialogue mosque construction project «Ground Zero» in New York ...
Abdul Rauf: Aim for rooting the positive role of Muslims in their communities
Center - Mansour Jamri
Prime «Cordoba Initiative» Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who oversees the plan for the construction of a mosque in New York near the site subjected to attacks of 11 September 2001 (Ground Zero), that the constitutional rights granted to the Muslims in the United States and a broad and more in line with the principles of Islamic law restrictions imposed by some Islamic countries. He added that the civil and religious freedoms set forth in the Constitution reflect the essence of Islamic values. This came in an interview «center» with Abdul Rauf, the day of his visit to Bahrain, and will also take him to Qatar and the UAE in his tour in the region to discuss efforts to combat extremism and spread the concepts of dialogue and tolerance among followers of religions, as well as spreading the idea put forward by «Initiative Cordoba »aims to keep the letter to the American Muslim is consistent with being Muslim, as well as U.S. citizens they are to other duties and to them as to other rights, as is the text dialogue.
How do you know yourself?
- I see myself as a student of Islam try to understand the basic motivations of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and on that basis, see also the historical aspects, the objective circumstances surrounding the jurisprudence and Islamic thought, and then look at the issues facing our Muslim communities, and I think that every religious society faces the challenges of everlasting which is how examination of the core values of religion, commitment, and how we express those values in the movement of life that Iezaretha community in the time and place. If you look to the history of Islam, and how it is when started from the Hijaz and went to the vast areas stretching from Morocco to Indonesia, we find that the teachings of Islam in terms of worship remained the same, but the understanding of the practical application of religion in the life varied from place to place, and even Imam Shafi'i is Rulings when he moved from Kufa to Egypt to harmony with the environment where Muslims live. Scholars of the city were called Ahl al-Hadeeth, and scholars of Kufa were so-called opinion leaders, because they contain Kufa on the diversity of a larger community than it was in the city, and therefore the need to view the urgency of the Msameen time in that region.
You bring a project is talking about moderation in Islam, and the harmonization of the Islamic religion with the Muslim environment, and Ballenbsp you, this means that the U.S. can win the Muslim religion Muslim and his citizenship to America ... What is the idea exactly? And where to meet with the idea that she was talking about the Islamization of science and Islamization of life, an idea launched by the founder of the International Institute of Islamic Thought in the late Ismail Faruqi in America in the Eighties the past?
- No, what I put is different from what he put (the late) Ismail Faruqi, and he was my friend, but I disagree with him about the idea of Islamization. You can not Twslm Science, Physics, chemistry, mathematics and philosophy can not be Twslmha, it is aware of all, even the Islamic banks can be released by the banks but of usury, but to give it the name of Islam and if you failed, you say that Islam is a failure. Can not convert to Islam to the brand companies, and can not say that Islam says this or that, Yes, you can say that a Muslim in this opinion, he says, another Muslim opinion of the other, but Islam is not a brand for the company, for example, for instance the groups reporting to the Muslims, this in my opinion, «Islamization» of the work of Christian missionaries in the Muslim world.Before the colonization of Muslim movements were not there and emailed an Islamic missionary, but a reaction to the missionary movements have emerged groups counter.
The concept of Islamisation is now a problem to have, and now we see that there Osalmat to aspects of various reactions, and we have Islamic terrorism, the Islamization of terrorism, and we in our determination to shape many of the issues in the title of Islam, we see this call on everything, eating the Islamic Islamic art, Islamic Party, the Islamic state, even though we are talking about the limits of nationalism give it a title Islamic, and the nation state is essentially a Western idea, even if we go back to history we find that the talk was about the ruler and the ruled and the caliphate and the issues and things are completely different than what has been proposed concept of the State Islamic now.
If we look at the Koran does not find that God says, «O Muslims», but talking about the faithful, and faith means believing in the existence of a group under different circumstances, and not in the presence of an Islamic state in the sense before now.
I shall say that the title «Islam» has become like a title company, or brand, and hear some people ask «What does Islam say such and such?», And this language is wrong in structural terms, which is incompatible with the legacy of Islamic thought available to us. We read in our old asks «What is the opinion of the public?» Rather than «What is the opinion of Islam ?»... Thus, the answer is «God said in Surat, and the verse as well as well as» ... This Mtarhat Muslims in the heart of Islam.
But the Islamic movements in control of the squares of the Islamic derives its strength from the ideas of characters is very impressive, for example, Maulana Abul Ala Maududi and Syed Qutb, Imam Khomeini, and others, and those posed thought was tough on several issues concerning the relationship with the West, for example, and these continued to cast him (such as the concept of governance has some Sunni scholars, the concept of clerical rule in some Shiite scholars) through the writings and interpretations of the Koran and the modern ... How you will be able to put forward an alternative system of thought be able to reach the minds and hearts of religious scholars and youth activists scattered all over the world?
- I do not confine myself in the terminology, but what concerns me is the understanding of the subject before stuck to the window and the term, we must look to what the Muslim thinkers and look to the nature of the circumstances in which they went through and how it influenced their interpretation of the data of religion for political realities they experienced and been affected by it, and this is natural if we understand the circumstances and, therefore, with the understanding of the changed circumstances changed, but the core concepts and values of the Islamic remains. Figures are written and considered not done so in a vacuum but were in the process of political clashes that often affects the nature of the theory and the understanding that threw him.
Therefore, our young people today when they read the books of Sayyid Qutb Ibn Taymiyyah or may not know the political circumstances surrounding them, and we must be aware of all the historical circumstances in order to understand why they said what they said ... If the political circumstances are different, I think that the IPO will be different without a doubt.
Do not you see that you put forward ideas of renewal and modernization of Islamic thought have remained trapped in academic circles small you can not move to the public Muslim students scattered in universities or to Muslim scholars who are leading the Friday prayers and the congregation in the mosque, and thus end of such proposals to folders only books .. . How will emerge from this impasse?
- The hope that I am driving through the Cordoba Initiative, is to establish an Islamic approach raises harmonization and understanding among all religions and other ideas, and that this depends on the read-conscious and committed to the values and motivations Koran. For example, the Koran presents «There is no compulsion in religion», and this clear guidance, if you look to the verses of the Koran you will see that they blame on those who do not believe in faith, but the verses also protects the rights of human beings to believe in Islam and engage in rituals, or do not do so. And if you look to the practices of Muslims in history you will find the Jews and the Christians and Muslims live in harmony, and even Egypt has been for a long time after the entry of Islam to the majority non-Muslim, because Islam does not impose by force, but persuasion.
I am currently trying to communicate with Muslim scholars in a number of different areas in order to get to the «quantum critical» critical number sense consists of a consensus among a number of Muslim scholars who Etwavqon about offering the Islamic push for mainstreaming the role of Muslims in their communities on the basis that they are part of those communities, They have full citizenship preserve their rights and play their role in the political process and development of the countries where they live, I'd very well that Muslims in America to do so, if we look at the American Declaration of Independence will see that it speaks of principles approved by our religion, we have the materials in the U.S. Constitution protects our rights What exists in our American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution is much better than what is found in many Islamic countries.
