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Why Extremism in US & Pakistan لماذا التطرف في الولايات المتحدة وباكستان

لماذا التطرف في الولايات المتحدة وباكستان
COMRADE Stalin must be laughing in his grave. The two states, the US and Pakistan, that collaborated to bring down the empire he had assembled, are now being threatened by the monster they had created together — religious radicalism — to dismantle the `evil empire`.
Two recent events bring home the truth more poignantly than any number of books and speeches. The cold-blooded murder of Governor Salman Taseer by a religious fanatic in Pakistan, and the near-fatal shooting of liberal Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and the killing of six others in the US by a right-wing fanatic, Jared Loughner, happened at about the same time. This is not the only similarity.
Let`s see how these events were seen in the two countries. The religious conservatives in Pakistan haven`t even condemned this act of unmitigated murder, nor have they expressed any regret for the constant drumbeat of hateful rhetoric against the voices of moderation. The reaction of the right-wingers in the US is not that bad, but is not entirely different either.
As journalist Michael Tomasky has observed, the Republicans who have condemned Loughner “are silent on the question of violent rhetoric that emanates from the right-wing American society”. He goes on to say that “for anyone to attempt to insist that the violent rhetoric so regularly heard in this country had no effect on this young man is to enshroud oneself in dishonesty and denial”.
What we are looking at today in the world, especially in the US, has been in the making in the course of three ideological conflicts that took place, one after the other with hardly a pause, during the last 70 years —perhaps the most violent 70 years in human history. These three conflicts, where the US assumed a dominant role, happened in this order: first, the conflict with the fascist alliance; second, with the communist Soviet Union; and now with the Muslim extremists. These conflicts played on the psyche of the antagonists in a way that has not even been noticed, let alone understood. Let me make an attempt.By a little understood working of the human psyche, the antagonists in a mortal combat absorb part of the personality of the adversary through a process that can best be described as `psycho-osmosis`. Having gone through this process, the oppressed become the oppressors, as for example the Zionists; the law-enforcers become the law-breakers, like the police and intelligence agencies; and freedom fighters become ruthless dictators, like so many post-independence leaders in Asia and Africa. The Americans having been a party to all three conflicts and have undergone that transformational experience thrice.
In the conflict with the fascist adversary, the American society absorbed a part of Nazi worldview — racism. During the war with the fascists and the Japanese the US did not act against the Italian or German Americans, but did so against the Japanese Americans. By the executive Order 9066 of 1942, President Roosevelt gave army the power, without warrant or indictment or hearing, to arrest every Japanese American on the west coast — 110,000 men, women and children — and intern them in camps under prison conditions. It was later upheld by the Supreme Court on grounds of military necessity. Reminiscent of that racist policy is today`s `profiling` by the US security agencies.
The second phase of psycho-osmosis was experienced by the American society during the Cold War. While opposing a totalitarian regime, the US produced its own version of commissars, prosecutors and ideologues, vividly portrayed by persons like John Foster Dulles, Joseph McCarthy, Edgar Hoover and Billy Graham, who almost succeeded in turning America into an ideological police state. In the Muslim world too the US allies grew closer to the totalitarianism they were supposed to fight against, and persecuted the liberals and secularists so relentlessly and ruthlessly that even today, two decades after the end of the Cold War, the liberals remain weak and almost irrelevant in most of the Muslim societies.
In the third phase, the Christian fundamentalists and the Muslims radicals have locked horns, and have assimilated part of each other. In response to Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Ayman al Zawahiri, Baitullah Mehsud and others, the US has produced its own version of religious fanatics — Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwel, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush and others who have laid the foundations of the `American theocracy` as Kevin Phillips calls it in his book of that title. Holy war has been declared by both sides, and the crusaders and the jihadis ride again after 700 years. There are other similarities too, including the one that is rather comic.
Donald Rumsfeld, himself a crusader, believes that this is a clash between Good and Evil, and would continue for a long time, maybe for ever. Bin Laden also believes that this is a clash between Good and Evil, but he is more optimistic. Islamists, he believes, would prevail over the infidels in not too distant a future. Then there is that curious case of statues. While Mullah Omar had the statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan blown up to establish the piety of his rule, George Bush`s attorney general, John Ashcroft, also found the statue of justice at his department quite improper, but stopped short of blowing it up. Instead, he had the bare upper portion discreetly covered with blue cloth, and covered it stays even after his departure.
As a consequence of this clash of faiths with a medieval mindset, the two societies, the American and the Pakistani, are now the most intolerant within their respective civilisations. That this should happen to the Pakistani society is a regional disaster. That this should happen to the American society is a global calamity.
The writer, Iqbal Jafar is a retired civil servant. iqbal.jafar1@yahoo.com
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The next horizon for kings and Dictators in Arab World and beyond

"الأفق المقبل لملوك والطغاة في العالم العربي وخارجه"
By M.J. Akbar 
IF I had to shortlist the best journals of the English-speaking universe, the Economist would certainly be at the top of a short and thin pyramid.
Insight, interpretation, information and the quality of writing make it a perfect companion; even the British tendency to surrender before the pun [‘The buys from Brazil’, ‘The Middle Blingdom’...] is more endearing than irritating.

But even the most thoughtful commentators of the present can find the future beyond their vision. The February 19 issue of the magazine has a cover story on the Arab awakening. On page 71 is a house ad for the Democracy Index prepared by its Economist Intelligence Unit for 2010.
It concludes that democracy is in worldwide retreat. Even the most perceptive observers can miss a tsunami. After all, the great wave travels under the surface.
It is not entirely foolish to suggest that 2010 is separated from 2011 by a decade or more. Time does not always travel at the same pace. The anger that has lit the Arab streets has been burning below the skin and inside the mind for at least a decade and in many cases far longer. In fact the length of the fuse is evidence of the time that the despots had to take corrective action, but did nothing since they were lost in their own greed, conceit and that ultimate sin of madmen, a sense of indispensability.
Muammar Qadhafi sounds genuinely hurt at the thought that Libyans want him and the lurid pests that constitute his family out of their lives.
The rest of us did not know whether to laugh or cry when Qadhafi compared himself to Queen Elizabeth, but he was genuinely puzzled.
He was no longer a 28-year-old army officer who had rid Libya of a monarchy; he had become the founder of a dynasty for which every Libyan had to be eternally grateful. His mirror told him that he was on his way to martyrdom; he could not recognise the hell he had created for his people.
He must believe, therefore, that his murderous mercenaries are fighting some sort of holy war in his defence. He always lived a few steps outside reality. He has now stepped into the comfort zone of lunacy. Neither his region nor the world can afford his survival in office.
An interesting pattern has emerged in the Arab turmoil. Monarchs are proving more durable than dictators. This cannot be only a consequence of personality; nor is blue blood impervious to the temptation of venality. Kings are rediscovering the power of tradition; unlike a Hosni Mubarak or a Ben Ali or a Qadhafi, they represent something much older than themselves.
It is possible for a king to reconcile himself to the republican spirit; and if Arab dynasts understand that they have the option of peaceful transition to popular rule, they can still squeeze some shelf life out of the demands of historical change. Europe is flush with royalty in designer clothes because both princes and their people have learnt to appreciate the value of a constitutional monarchy.
A sensible monarch understands the tactile strength of soft hands. Royals, exceptions apart, take far more care about popular sensibilities than civilian dictators; they have had power for so long that they know the easiest way to lose it is by letting it go to their heads. The price of such folly is, of course, losing your royal head.
It was ever thus. Britain welcomed the coup by Oliver Cromwell, and the fall of Charles II’s head. But when Cromwell decided that his son could become his successor, he learnt that there were limits to British tolerance. Britain cheered the restoration of royalty, but rejected the imposition of a false line on a virtual throne. The rage on the street should persuade Arab monarchs to understand both their peril and their opportunity.
There is one serious potential obstacle however; the advice of a too-clever-by-half courtier who will suggest that the palace can buy time by throwing meaningless titbits to the people. That option is over. The people have changed, many far beyond their wildest expectations. Armies and bureaucracies have changed. The Arab world has changed. The past is dead. Its memory can be included in the mosaic that is being constructed, step by step, to fashion a new future; but it cannot be revived.
The palace can still co-exist with parliament, but its primacy has been smashed. It can cooperate in nation building but cannot control it.
Its word can serve as suggestion; it cannot be law. The law must shift to the legislature, as in any system that is of the people, by the people and for the people.
All of us missed the horizon last year. That horizon is now amidst us. We must open our eyes to the next horizon, taking shape before us.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/27/the-next-horizon.html

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The Egyptian revolution and Moderate Muslims الثورة المصرية ومعتدلة مسلم

الثورة المصرية ومعتدلة مسلم
Hawks and neocons in America need to acknowledge that much-needed political reform in this part of the world does not depend on outside pressure, but on the internal demands within each country and the will of its people.

By Anthony Galli
I RECALL a study a few years ago that reported that while it is true that the vast of majority of Muslims in the world are moderate, which validates my own experience, the majority of this moderate populace is not liberal, which unfortunately also validates my own experience.
Moderate’ here simply means not believing that violence should be used to advance political or religious goals (i.e. not violently spreading Islamic rule and Sharia around the world), believing that non-Muslims should only embrace Islam through their own free will. This does not mean that all moderates are against authoritarian government per se. Nor that they necessarily support equal rights for women and religious minorities, universal access to education, birth control, or freedom of choice in marriage and other social matters.
What this does mean is that a democracy, which at minimum is defined as majority-rule, can exist and not necessarily be liberal. As I’ve argued before, if most citizens in a country do not believe in liberal policies, it is not feasible, or democratic, for a minority in power to try to implement a political revolution in that direction, especially if they are seen as westernised and part of the privileged elite class.
Perhaps liberalism is a purely ‘western’ idea. Perhaps it has no place in the Muslim world, or in any traditional, non-western society, although
one could argue that during the rule of the early caliphs Muslim society was indeed more democratic than despotic governments in the Middle East today.

One of the oldest critiques of democracy is that it could lead to mob rule. As the biologist E.O. Wilson noted, lower species like ants, while not smart individually, do show collective intelligence, whereas humans seem to display just the opposite. When a crowd is angry, it’s not difficult for a few clever manipulators to sway it; group prejudice and scapegoating come into play. Most of Roman education focused on rhetoric, and it’s not surprising that their leaders felt it was important to be skilled at articulation. Is this any different from unscrupulous, silver-tongued politicians today, or slick lawyers who can convince juries to convict the innocent or let off the guilty?
Only a rational public, unswayed by emotional manipulation, can make sound choices in a democracy, if it is to benefit its members. I would add, too, that it depends on a population that isn’t overworked, underpaid, insecure in their job situation, or full of debt, with enough free time to contemplate, deliberate, inform themselves, and participate fully in the political arena. This has been America’s big hurdle to overcome.
America, with all its advantages, is struggling to get its economy moving again and needs to reform its political system to curtail the regressive influence of big moneyed lobbies hounding its Congress. However much anger its foreign policy generates in the Muslim world, it cannot be denied that America is a social experiment that is continually evolving, and other emerging democracies still, despite its diminishing prestige, watch it closely, look towards it for guidance, and learn from its excesses. Liberalism, like democracy itself, might be more an ideal to aim for, more than other else.
Egypt is not so much a poor country, as one which has had much of its wealth plundered by kleptocracy (sound familiar?). And while Cairo is a comparatively liberal city for the region, and is a large film hub, this does not necessarily reflect the cultural realities of Egypt as a whole.
Despite disparities in wealth, there are some uniting factors in the country, which the Mubarak regime no doubt used to good effect. Egypt, like many Arab countries, trafficks in anti-Semitic and racist propaganda. It has a history of oppressing religious minorities. Most Egyptians believe that a Muslim who converts should be killed. A popular government there might not survive if it allows freedom of religion and doesn’t kowtow to the ultra-conservative ulema.
These are not uneducated people; in fact, Egypt has a high rate of Ph.D holders. But the education Egyptians have received has been rather unbalanced, focusing mainly on applied science. Scientific research and the arts and humanities have been less emphasised, or not emphasised at all, in government-run schools. The thousands of Al Azhar schools teach an old curriculum that mainly focuses on religious subjects, and little on that which enables students compete in the modern global economy. They pressure the government to limit free speech, and do not foster a spirit of free inquiry essential to the success of universities the world over. And due to the imbalance in quality education, tutoring services proliferate at a high rate, with a majority of students now attending private tuitions.
This is a consequence of a country ruled by a government that may have been secular, but not necessarily progressive or democratic.
Educational reform is the key, and isn’t likely to happen without accountable leaders.
With rule of law and equality at least among the majority Muslims — assuming women get to enjoy these rights too — Egypt can progress.
More importantly, this recent democracy movement, which started in Tunisia, rocked Egypt, and is now influencing protests in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, and is likely to spread to other parts of the Middle East and the Muslim world, did not result from the intervention of the US military, violent protests or terrorism. If democracy spreads, it was not because of any domino effect caused by the war in Iraq, or any other nation-building efforts.
Hawks and neocons in America need to acknowledge that much-needed political reform in this part of the world does not depend on outside pressure, but on the internal demands within each country and the will of its people.
Related Posts Links:

The term moderate Muslims is not only becoming important in the post September 11 discussion of Islam and the West, it is also becoming highly contested. What do we really mean when we brand someone as a moderate Muslim? ...
The Egyptian revolution and Moderate Muslims
I RECALL a study a few years ago that reported that while it is true that the vast of majority of Muslims in the world are moderate, which validates my own experience, the majority of thismoderate populace is not liberal, ...

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Writing, philosophy and compassion الكتابة والفلسفة والرحمة

الكتابة والفلسفة والرحمة
Writer and thinker Karen Armstrong engaged in a conversation with scholar and teacher Abbas Husain at the recent Karachi Literature Festival. They discussed Armstrong’s role as a writer, the lack of genuine dialogue in the modern world and the need to cultivate compassion
Do you see yourself as a writer? Or is writing merely a medium to get your message across?
I see myself as a writer. I only get the message from my long, long hours of study. And the process of writing actually clarifies things and as you are writing a book, things change all the time. It’s all part of the process where I get the message. Without it, I wouldn’t have this message at all.
What you are saying is in sync with what a good many creative writers have said, that the book got itself written.
Yes, but I would probably put it less mystically, though. I would say that in a sense, it seems as though the books talk back to you.
Hans Kung has said in his book, Islam: Past, present and future, that there will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions and no peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. And that dialogue must investigate the foundations of the religions. Do you see your work as an application of this formulation?
I would say that there would be no peace in the world unless there is peace among the nations first. I think it is not religions that make these problems. Of course, once a political conflict has got started, religion, like everything else in the society, gets sucked up into it. Our modernity has been especially violent, and it is not surprising that religion has soaked up some of that modern intransigence. But certainly, we need to have openness about the foundations of religions, all of them.
Hence in the charter of compassion you say that children of all ages have a right to accurate and correct and respectful information, rather than demeaning and hostile stereotypes?
With what we know now about other religions in depth, which we didn’t know two or three hundred years ago because communications weren’t so good, it is impossible to say that only one faith has value.
One thing that resonates with me, among many others, is your statements on dialogue. Debate, discussion, dialogue, are three modes of conversation. Debate is when we talk about something we disagree about, discussion is when we disagree on some things but put them aside and talk about what is common.  [see Quran3:64] But the point of the dialogue is deeper, the willingness to see the other also as a representation of the divine. How would you respond to that the fact that a good many times the word dialogue is abused in modern parlance?
Well, there isn’t much genuine dialogue going on right now, not in the Socratic way, whereby you enter the dialogue prepared to be changed by the encounter. Socratic dialogue, as Socrates himself understood it, meant that everybody ended up realising the depth of their ignorance. That is one thing. But in religious terms there are various doctrines that take us beyond what we know, into the great unknown. Because the divine, or what we call the divine, or the Brahman, or nirvana, sacred, is illimit-able and beyond words, it is not surprising that there are many different formulations and many different religions and we should expect that. And it is very enriching I think, if you open your mind.
I think the point of the dialogue is not to make you convert to a single faith, but it helps you to understand your own faith, by seeing its reflection in the Other. And you learn about yourself and you should deepen your understanding of faith, of your own tradition, rather than diminish that in any way.
I felt alienated from religion, for many, many years. I left my convent as a young girl and I wanted nothing to do with religion, ever again. Over the years, I started studying other traditions, Islam, Judaism, Greek and Russian Orthodox Christianity initially. Then Chinese and Indian religions, Buddhism. The more I studied I began to see that there was much in my own tradition that I hadn’t understood. I saw what my own tradition was trying to do at its best and where it had fallen short perhaps.
In this conversation, I am noticing consistency in your use of the word depth. When I get to know the other, I learn the depth of my own tradition. When I enter in genuine dialogue, I am willing to change, but that change happens at a deep level. I feel that modernity has a freeze frame, a TV image, a one liner, that is endemic to our times and fatal to anything depth would bring us.
It can be. But the best of modernity, in its novels, poetry, science, physics for instance, could teach us how little we know, and take us to the end of what we know. There is certainly the soundbite, the superficial, and also we often have information rather than wisdom. We often don’t know how to access the facts we have easily available on our laptops. The stress on empirical, rational knowledge, that happened since the scientific revolution, has made it difficult for us to appreciate forms of knowledge that come from other sources, that come from the intuitive, the imaginative, and from quietness and contemplation.
There is always something that eludes us, that we never really grasp. That is part of our experience. And that is true about other people. We know other people so little. And yet we make these generalised remarks about them and make superficial assessments of whole cultures, not realising the depth and intricacy of each culture, each tradition. A half remembered article here, a television programme there, congeals our perceived ideas, our opinions.
Pakistan is a country of young people. Sixty three per cent of the people are twenty four and younger. That’s a lot of energy, a lot of passion. Based on the charter of compassion, what is that the young can do for the world, for the decade?
Do better than us. But we have got to help them do that, by teaching them of the compassionate nature of all spirituality or of all morality or of all ethics. That requires training. Compassion is rooted in our minds; it is natural to humanity. And when we meet a compassionate person, we recognise this. I mean, people flock literally, in tens of thousands, to listen to the Dalai Lama. They are pulled like a magnet to that. But there is not much education for us, to help us to acquire passion. Like any natural ability, compassion needs to be cultivated.




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Muslims Today: Changes within, challenges "المسلمون اليوم : التغييرات داخل والتحديات"

"Muslim Hari Ini: Perubahan dalam, cabaran"

The discourse of double-critique, which is an attempt to carve out a critical space for dissenting against religious authoritarianism as well as American imperialism, is becoming widespread in contemporary Muslim thinking. Tariq Ramadan and Sheikh Hamza Yusuf are two prominent examples. Chandra Muzaffar’s work, Muslims Today: Changes within, challenges without, is part of the reformist tradition of Islamic thinking with a staunch emphasis on human rights, democracy, gender equality, tolerance and freedom. What is also remarkable is Muzaffar’s [ Malaysian Muslim political scientist, and an Islamic reformist and activist. He has written on civilisational dialog, human rights, Malaysian politics and international relations.] analytical and stinging critique of American-led globalisation and its eco-nomic and political hegemony over certain regions of the Muslim World.
Muzaffar’s work is a lucid example of Islamic liberalism — searching the Quranic text and religious scriptures as well as using contemporary political moral philosophy to find the moral foundations for a democratic order. For Muzaffar, faith should be a source of inspiration and provide the moral substance for democratic initiatives. Theocracy is not a path for spiritual renewal and the contemporary failures of self-styled Islamic governments is discussed throughout the book. The so called “Islamic states’’ have failed to come up with economic solutions and political ideas and have seen their living standards fall as their populations sink into deeper and deeper poverty. Muzaffar’s critiques of the Islamic world have a certain socialist edge about them, lambasting the excesses of neo-liberal economic frameworks which erode the traditional lifestyles of Muslim communities. The economic ideas underpinning Muzaffar’s work are critical of globalisation in its economic and cultural manifestations.
Muzaffar’s vision of a just world is compromised of a core set of virtues and universal values which he says can bridge the differences of faiths and doctrinal sectarianism. Clearly, the empty moral discourse of procedural secularism does not do enough to provide a source of ethical reflection, so instead Muzaffar looks back to the spiritual wellsprings of faith traditions. He articulates an alternative narrative, where faith as a transformative force can guide people to a consensus about a transcendent moral ideal. It is an inclusive message grounded in Islamic theology, but there is a gap in Muzaffar’s work.
Like all other Islamic modernists, Muzaffar takes the phrase “the spirit of Islam’’ for granted, and rather than elaborate an alternative legal philosophy to base his theological project, he simply resorts to quoting religious scripture. This is classical Islamic modernism at its best — plenty of free-flowing rhetoric about the “spirit of Islam” peppered with references to religious scripture and history. But there is a deeper more fundamental question which plagues all attempts of Islamic modernity.
Why should we interpret the Quran historically? 
Why should we interpret the Quran in its historical context? 
Why do we have to question religious authority and religious tradition? 
Why can we not stick with the traditional framework of Islamic law? 
Muzaffar’s justification is based solely on the classic appeal that we must change our conceptions of religious knowledge to follow “the spirit of Islam’’. Just exactly what this “spirit’’ is and why we should agree with Muzaffar’s views on critical issues of human rights and democracy (which are eminently sensible) is a theological question which he does not answer. How and where we locate the “spirit of Islam’’ in Muzaffar’s theology is really left up to the moral intuition of the reader who is already assumed to believe in the core moral message of his work.
And here is where all attempts at Islamic modernity collapse. There is no systematic legal methodology to Muzaffar’s ethical project. There is no interpretive scheme that justifies Muzaffar’s progressive interpretation of the Quran. What is lacking is a legal methodology and hermeneutical scheme which give theological rigour to his progressive and pluralistic positions. The way Muzaffar tackles the dogmatism of conservative jurists is not to directly challenge their philosophical foundations, but rather reframe the whole debate. Instead of focusing on rituals and laws, Muzaffar urges us to focus on the more pressing priorities of social injustice, poverty, education and development. This shift can be seen in Muzaffar’s incredibly rigorous analysis on economic structures and economic inequality which is a rarity among Muslim intellectuals who instead get bogged down in technical debates.
Though Muzaffar has no alternative legal methodology to offer, he does ask us to reconsider the very nature and purpose of faith. Is faith meant to be a strict set of rules, regulations and laws, or is it meant to inspire us to seek a higher moral ideal in cooperation with other human beings? This work offers us a theology of humanity, which grounds the dignity of all men and women into the fundamentally egalitarian message of the Quran.
If there is an alternative, it is less of a methodology and more of an attitude and means of moral reasoning. The “Maqasid al Sharia’’ approach has been very popular with contemporary Islamic modernists and has been given serious treatment by eminent authors like Mohammad Hashim Kamali and Jasser Auda. This methodology focuses on the “aims’’ and “priorities’’ of an Islamic applied ethics rather than the rules and regulations.
The Sharia is no longer a rigid set of rules and injunctions, but is rather transformed as a guiding moral force which shapes and cultivates virtues of love and tolerance. The Sharia is a path which fosters dignity and prevents injustice. The powerful combination of dignity with Muzaffar’s brand of passionate liberation theology makes for an animated and dynamic challenge to defenders of American globalisation and religious orthodoxy.
But there is still the massive edifice and theology that provides the foundations for classical legal theory and theology that Muzaffar leaves untouched. This is clearly in line with a decisive shift in the way reformists and modernists deal with questions of religious reform. The new emphasis is on shaping a new vision of “post-legal’’ ethics, where Muslims shed their fiqh based moralisms and embrace a wider more universal narrative for ethical reflection in partnership with other faiths. The emphasis on inter-faith relations and working towards an ideal of ecumenical cooperation is reminiscent of the Catholic theologian Hans Kung’s declaration, “No world peace without peace among religions;  no peace among religions without dialogue between religions’’.
This collection of essays released by the Iqbal Research Institute demonstrates the impressive depth and sophistication of Chandra Muzaffar’s learning, philosophical sophistication and concern for justice. It is a powerful selection designed to make us think about the gross injustice and inequality that we see and experience in the world around us. What Muzaffar offers is a powerful spiritual antidote premised on the sacred notion of human dignity with the aim of forming a powerful coalition of faiths and peoples united on a core set of virtues.
Muslims Today: Changes within, challenges without (SOCIOLOGY) Book By Chandra Muzaffar
Emel Publications, Islamabad, ISBN  978-969-9556-00-5 , 282pp. Price not listed


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