'Moderate' Sultan Shahin on Islamophobia: ‘Knowing Islam’ blog jeers at New Age Islam

“When I came across this article, actually it is a verbatim of speech given by an Indian Muslim to UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council), I recognized the name 'Sultan Shahin' immediately and also his website 'New Age Islam' which claims to be speaking against radical Islam. Previously, I never read his works as I never believed that Islam can be reformed.

“When I read it, I found that, in most places, he says all the right things like hardship of religious minorities in Islamic nations, cruelty of blasphemy law and moderate Muslims having no influence among Muslims, desires of Muslims to implement Shariah law.

“It is quite easy to get carried away by this kind of presentation - seemingly honest - of acceptance of prevailing Islamic extremism and extend trust to believe in whatever he says regarding the nature of Islamic teachings. Because, he completely misrepresents many things, as one will understand while reading, like Islamic stand on other religions, position of Islam on interreligious marriages and teachings of Prophet Mohammad. I never read his work on Jihad, its meaning and implications, but I can imagine how that could be.

“So, is he an Islamic scholar standing for reforms in Islam or a deceiver or a Muslim who believes Islam to be a different one from mainstream line?

“He tells that Islam of terrorists, extremists and Islamic ulema - who spend their life in studying Islamic scriptures - is an aberration of true Islam and is a product of some 'Petro Dollars'; in the process he innovates by telling blatant lies and half-truths. So, the natural question should be 'why'?”

Above quotation is the introductory part of a 6, 000 word essay posted by a blog called Knowing Islam. This blog was created by someone who sought to understand Islam in the wake of dastardly attacks on Mumbai (26/11) by so-called Muslim or Islamic terrorists sent by Pakistan. His studies have led him to believe, like many Muslims themselves, that the Saudi Petrodollar Wahhabi Islam is the real Islam and the mainstream Islam is fake. He also has come to believe, understandably because of the immense visibility of Petrodollar Islam everywhere on the internet, that most Muslims in the world are Petrodollar Islamists. He (possibly she) has written a 6,000 word essay denouncing “Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam,” as in his view “Sultan Shahin” represents moderate Islam. In his view Islam cannot be moderate. Hence the denunciation. He has spent so much time and effort dissecting every point “Sultan Shahin” makes in one of his oral statements to the UN Human Rights Council, that it would appear in his view he must be doing a great service to humanity by exposing the “claims made by Sultan Shahin on behalf of moderate Islam.”

It would be easy for us to denounce such a person as an inveterate enemy of Islam and leave it at that. This is what most of our columnists in Urdu Press would do. But there are several disturbing facts that emerge. One, this person was at least neutral, if not friendly towards Islam until 26/11/2008 Mumbai killings, that is only three years ago. Two, he has reached the conclusions he has because we have left Petrodollar Islamists to dominate the internet discourse on Islam. Three, he has not become an enemy of Islam, only an enemy of moderate Islam. He doesn’t spend time denouncing extremist Islam. Why, apparently because he thinks extremist Islam will demolish Islam by itself. He doesn’t need to expend any energy denouncing extremist Islam. Only stumbling block in the destruction of Islam in his view is moderate Islam, as represented in New Age Islam. That’s why he has to spend so much time and energy fighting New Age Islam. Time we looked within. Why are we creating more enemies of Islam? Why are we allowing extremist Petrodollar Islam to dominate our discourse? Our Prophet (pbuh) had followed the policy of turning determined foes into dedicated friends and followers of Islam. Why are we doing the reverse?

Please read the following essay carefully. You will find this person has not invented arguments, mostly. He is merely using information that has come to him from Islamic, early Arab sources, so-called history books and Hadith books written by Arabs, clearly as part of their effort at Prophet’s character assassination. Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) was presented in these books of hadith and history as a sexual pervert and cruel tyrant, so as to justify the tyranny and sexual deviations of the dynasty that had taken over the Islamic state after killing all the family members of the Prophet merely 48 years after his demise. What kind of Muslims theses Arabs would be who accepted the killers of the Prophet’s family and even their children and grand children as their rulers and allowed them to engage in various perversions.

 One of the comments on this blog reads, in part: “One simple reading of biography of Prophet Mohammad, written by pious Muslims like Ibn Ishaq, Tabari, Ibn Sa'ad, will tell that moderate or liberal Islam is simply an oxymoron.”

This is a general refrain on the internet. Not only that the Arabs do not denounce the writing of Ibn Ishaq, Tabari and Ibn Sa'ad, etc., indeed they use them as justification for their own perversions. Even today Saudi courts, of course, “puritan Islamic” courts, give judgements, Islamic judgements, of course, - everything they do is pristine Islamic - allowing, even ordering sexual perversions, like paedophilia, and justify it by presenting the Prophet himself as a paedophile. They cannot find justification for their deviations in the Holy Quran, so they justify it by what they call the conduct of the Prophet and his sayings. Wahhabi Islam is the main ideological support base of Saudi dictatorship and calls itself Islam.

Muslim Press never stops gloating over how many non-Muslims are converting

to Islam. But we don’t realise how many Muslims are leaving the fold of Islam openly to join the ex-Muslim brigade. We are not even aware that many Muslims themselves, until recently moderate, liberal, mainstream, have now come to feel, like this non-Muslim blogger, that Islam is an extremist religion inimical to humanity, a curse for mankind. Hence, they have no option but to leave. Some stay within the fold, ostensibly, due to family and other pressures, while denouncing Islam in their heart or in the company of close friends. �" Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

Author's Note

The Author has been write in the field of Radical Islam & Islamist Extremism