About another kind of still powerless and "moderate muslims"
Reader comment on item: Erdoğan: "Turkey Is Not a Country Where Moderate Islam Prevails"
in response to reader comment: Moderate vs. Consevative Muslim--Islam in Europe

Submitted by Ophelia (Switzerland), Apr 17, 2009 at 23:38

Only 10% of the muslims are arabs, but must pray and demonstrate their knowledge of the Koran in arabic.The paradoxe is that, in arab countries, too many people live their culture in total or partial illliteracy. They never, or rarely, open a book. They speak dialect the all day long. At home, they only watch television shows where ethnic variations and regionalism are more important than the deepest meaning of the situations. They cannot read arabic without the compulsory phonetic signs that cover every line of the Koran in the coranic shools.

Out of there, after having spent many years repeating "by heart" tens of surats, they manage to remember four or five of them, generally the shortest, in order to use them while praying. By the way, a moroccan illiterate does not attend algerian, tunesian,libyan or mauretanian theatrical plays (turn it in every way round). So, what unites them? Islam.

With regards to the rest of the muslims worldwide, the great majority of them have never studied the arabic language. They too, know the koran only by reciting surats, under the flogging and insults of coranic masters, up to the state of unconsciousness. They too, once they have stopped going to the madrasahs, just want to keep in memory the same short and easy surats, useful for praying. That also was the case In Turkey, even before the arabic script was officially replaced by the latin one.

The difference, or better said disadvantage,between that huge majority and their muslim arab "brothers", resides in the pronounciation! Very important in Islam, since the times of Mohamed. That is one of the reasons why he prohibited alcohol drinking! In fact, many muezzins and imams of his new baked religion used to get fully "charged" before calling to prayers and reciting surats. Which is dangerous in all religions, but especially in arabic, where your "r" and, above all, emphasis of the two "l" of Allah cannot be babbled! Have you ever heard Cassius Clay Alias Mohamed Ali (I have), and other black american or nigerian muslims say some verses of the Koran? Arabs laugh at them! The prophet of Islam would have let them be hung or beheaded!

Here is another reason why in Africa,Europe, Indonesia, America, any half-illiterate ethnic arab can pretend to become an imam or ulema. They just pronounce better! Now,are "our" illiterate-in-arabic muslims less dangerous, or less susceptible to temptations than the others? No! They too can decide to learn the beautiful language in which the Koran has been written.They too can be thrown onto the streets by leaders and manipulators, when it comes to insulting Jews and christians. And the more they will understand what Islam is all about, better will they be conscious that it is useless to try to define oneself as a "mild" muslim.

Koran= Read it and take it like it is, because it is not reformable! And you cannot leave Islam, unless you accept the idea of living the rest of your life in hiding, or expecting that, one day, a fatwa which will allow one of your "brothers" to place a couscous pot full of nails and explosive in front of your door.

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