Post by Aj_June on Aug 23, 2018 14:33:04 GMT
I remember during my days of being a Islam hater I would refuse to believe that a period of time existed in human history when Islamic society in a significant part of world was relatively more developed and there was cultural flourishing of science, mathematics and arts. I refused to believe that there were many Muslims who advocated the goal of pursuit of knowledge as something important. I think my thought process was like this, Islam has been an invading force world over so please end this barbaric ruthless religion as soon as possible. It's a cancer and it needs to go. Over the years I realised not only was I wrong, unthoughtful and biased in denying their achievements during Islamic golden age but my belief that Islam could be finished off in anyway was itself impractical and absurd. Probably one reason I could have developed the bias was that Islamic golden age happened around middle east and I was more thinking about India, where Muslims were largely destroying libraries and putting infidels to sword. But even if they did that in India, they had a relatively good time in middle east and developed centres such as Baghdad which was a seat of learning for a significant time.
That said it is true that Islamic world today is in grips of fanatics and extremists. Because countries such as Saudia or Iran by force of law make you unable to change your religion from Islam to anything else (including atheism) it is extremely difficult to lessen the grip of extremists. Western countries have made the situation even bad by continuously indulging in sickening interventions that ultimately not just cause many people to die but further make the situation even bad by handing the control to people who either can't contain extremists or are religious fanatics themselves. But still there is a hope. If a religion can see one golden age then why not see another age where its adherents are at least on par with people of other faiths in terms of open mindedness, culture and freedom? That can happen though I am not sure how soon.