Subcontinental Chain Reaction

re: TAhmed on arjun_m and sadna

...you`ve put your foot in your mouth again...your heart is in the right place, but your brain short-circuits every now and then...

tahmed321 #200
You seem pretty hate-filled yourself. I think its a real stretch to say someones upbringing or values are bad because they contest the thesis of this article or disagree with you, tahmed.

The thesis of this article is that poverty and lack of resources foster terrorism.

As for your point of upbringing and not family wealth being more key, well Mohammad Atta`s family background got a lot of press coverage, it was not just a well-to-do one, it was a loving background, his sibling(s) has/have done well enough. The same with John Walker Lindh and his siblings.

sadna/arjun: I will probably not respond to whatever you two write in response to my post below, since I dont expect you to have the courage to admit that you are wrong and we will therefore simply go around in circles. Any objective reader reading my post below will agree that your posts clearly indicate what I say they indicate.

sadna #197 I see you jumping to arjun_m`s defense, and note that you have never done the same in the many occassion in the past when I have similarly pointed out poor upbringing on the part of the one or two Pakistanis for their insulting behavior towards hindus which mirrors arjun_m`s insulting behavior towards muslims. This tells me a lot about your mindset.

And to respond to your post, kindly re-read the helpful hint I provided in #196 on how I deduced the poor upbringing on arjun_ms part. I wrote ``Your posts have nothing to say other than abuse and insults for other ``communities`` as you perceive them in your reptilian hindutva mind.`` He may have been born in a rich household or poor - that has nothing to do with poor upbringing. The fact that you think that being born in a rich household like Saeed equals good upbringing, says something about your values. The fact that arjun_m helpfully adds McVeigh as another example indicates he indicates race with good upbringing.

You two have a lot to learn about what constitutes good upbringing, I think. Start with lesson 1: It is low class to ridicule and insult communities of people.

lesson 2: Being rich or poor, being white or black, has nothing to do with upbringing or low class behavior.

Repeat this lesson every day until it penetrates your heads. Then we shall open lesson 3 which has to do with what is religion (and you will learn that this chapter easily covers ALL religions, since they all have the same message which escapes people like you).

arjun_m: You say you are not a hindutva because you are an atheist tells me that you have no clue about hinduism. You can be an atheist and a hindutva at the same time, but you cannot be a true hindu and a hindutva at the same time.

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tahmed321 #196
arjun_m`s upbringing or his previous posts have nothing to do with the fact that 19 hijackers were from oil-rich countries. Omar Shiekh is another well-educated terrorist from a well-to-do family as is Bin Laden. I donot think Masood Azhar is from a illiterate or poor background either.

arjun_m #194 Further to my post below, you must be puzzled and impressed at how I managed to deduce so much about the nature of the household in which you were brought up. And knowing that you are too stupid to figure it out for yourself, here is a helpful hint: go back and read all your posts on chowk. Your posts have nothing to say other than abuse and insults for other ``communities`` as you perceive them in your reptilian hindutva mind.

arjun_m: I dont know about terrorists and about illiterates, but you have revealed quite a bit about your own self on chowk by now. You may speaka the English (like an ``educated man``), but your mind is that of a subhuman who grew up in some stinking little household where pita ji announced his waking up each morning by swearing a couple of cuss words at mata ji and the ``smelly bast!rd arjun_m`` (as pita ji would lovingly say) whom he swore he never fathered.

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``In Pakistan`s Squalor, Cradles of Terrorism

Village Illustrates Challenge as U.N. Prepares to Address Poverty as Root Cause



By Paul Blustein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, March 14, 2002; Page A01

SACHADINO SHEIKH, Pakistan -- In a country where economic misery provides a fertile environment for terrorist groups, the crumbling one-room school in this village is a testament to the conditions that keep millions of Pakistanis impoverished.

Sitting on battered benches, their feet scuffing the dirty concrete floor, two dozen boys and girls listen as their teacher reels off the school`s main problems, which are common to many in this country: no working latrine, no drinking water, no electricity. The students have no textbooks for math or Urdu, Pakistan`s main language, because the government doesn`t provide them and parents say they can`t afford them. A few months ago, the situation was worse, because the teacher wasn`t bothering to show up.

The abysmal state of Pakistan`s education system is the sort of problem that must be addressed if the international community is to wage a successful war on terrorism by attacking the root causes, according to many experts and world leaders, including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn. Since Sept. 11 they have called for mobilizing great amounts of money aimed at reducing poverty, ignorance and disease in developing countries, and they are stepping up their rhetoric in advance of a U.N. meeting on the subject next week in Mexico that President Bush plans to attend.

``Poverty is the war we must fight,`` Wolfensohn said in a speech last week exhorting rich countries to double the $50 billion that is currently spent on aid each year. ``Rarely has there been an issue so vital to long-term peace and security.``

If only reducing poverty in places like this were as simple as, say, toppling the Taliban. Pakistan is a depressing case study of how hard it is to eradicate the economic circumstances that foster terror.

The links between deprivation and terrorism are particularly glaring in Pakistan. The shortcomings of the nation`s public schools, combined with low living standards, have helped drive more than half a million students to enroll in religious seminaries, called madrassas. Supported by Muslim charities around the world, madrassas provide pupils with food, shelter, training in the Koran and, in some cases, a heavy dose of anti-Western ideology that helps produce Islamic holy warriors.

Given such problems, pouring aid into Pakistan might seem to be an obvious solution. But the history of foreign assistance is discouraging in Pakistan, where efforts at economic development have been thwarted by a quasi-feudal system that entrenches a corrupt elite and oppresses the poor. Pakistan`s record offers plenty of ammunition for the Bush administration, which is resisting calls by Wolfensohn and others to double aid.

Over the past four decades, Pakistan has gotten more aid than any country except India and Egypt. ``Yet after all this, social indicators like infant mortality and female primary and secondary enrollment are among the worst in the world in Pakistan,`` William Easterly, a former World Bank economist who is now at the Center for Global Development, writes in a soon-to-be-published study.

That is true, Easterly adds, even in comparison with other countries that have similar incomes per capita (adjusted for purchasing power), such as India, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Bolivia and Lesotho. Pakistan`s 55 percent illiteracy rate, for example, is 24 percentage points greater than the average figure for other countries with roughly the same per capita income.

Pakistan`s social indicators have remained poor despite a concerted effort to improve them over the past eight years: the multibillion-dollar Social Action Program, backed by the World Bank and other international donors.

In a report issued in late January, the World Bank admitted that the program`s ``gains have been marginal, and especially so in education which has been the main area of focus.`` School enrollments among lower-income groups fell in the 1990s; today only about half of Pakistani children ages 5 to 9 attend classes, and of those who graduate from primary school, ``perhaps as many as half`` are functionally illiterate, the World Bank said.

At the World Bank and other development agencies, Pakistan is viewed as an illustration of a principle that officials have learned the hard way: Aid works well only in nations with good policies -- that is, prudent control over budgets and money supplies, respect for the rule of law, and reasonably clean government. Conversely, in countries with bad policies and bad governance, foreign assistance produces few lasting benefits and is often largely wasted.

For Love of Islam

For Shafi Mohammed Sheikh, a 35-year-old tenant farmer with six children and one grandchild, home is a dank mud-walled hut with a straw roof. Some family members sleep in less luxurious surroundings consisting of lean-to structures with straw walls fortified with ragged sheets of burlap.

Similar living quarters are inhabited by most of the residents of Sachadino Sheikh, a rural village along a bumpy dirt road a couple of hours` drive from the port city of Karachi. Cattle, goats and chickens roam around the houses, and in the event of medical emergencies, villagers are piled into donkey-drawn carts for long, grueling rides, during which some have died.

Mending a fishnet in the afternoon sun, Sheikh grimaced when asked whether anyone in his family is educated. One of his five sons attends primary school, but that is all. ``If I were educated,`` he said without looking up from his net, ``I wouldn`t be sitting here doing this.``

For anyone wishing better circumstances for their male children, the Darul Uloom Islamiamadrassa in Karachi offers a number of benefits. The 10,000 boys there receive proper meals and medical care at a clinic staffed by doctors. The youngest boys -- ages 5 to 7 -- mostly sleep at home, but older students stay in rooms that usually sleep three or four. Tuition and room and board are free.

The teachers and scholars at the madrassa were held in high esteem by Afghanistan`s Taliban leadership and by Osama bin Laden -- so much so that bin Laden invited half a dozen members of its faculty to attend his son`s wedding in February 2001. The madrassa is believed by Pakistani experts to be a breeding ground for terrorist organizations. Violentanti-American demonstrations erupted near it after the United States began bombing Afghanistan last October.

In a carpeted, brightly lighted room, Maulana Mufti Mohammed Niaz, the madrassa`s administrator general for internal affairs, said ``we don`t generally discuss with the students`` issues such as the events of Sept. 11. ``But the general impression here is that what happened in America was a result of its tyranny against Muslims`` around the world.

Not all madrassas encourage their students to join a jihad against the United States; many of them simply teach the Koran. And their appeal is not entirely economic. ``It is the love of Islam for which students come here,`` Niaz said.

But many Pakistanis say it simply stands to reason that madrassas will thrive in a society where schools fail so miserably at providing a way out of poverty. ``If the government had been able to provide decent education, we would have been able to avoid the diversion of these kids,`` said Ishrat Husain, a former World Bank economist who heads the nation`s central bank.

Abdul Qayum runs a small madrassa in a village outside of Islamabad. Asked what sort of students he gets, he replied: ``The really poor. And orphans.``

Abuse of Power

Why is Pakistan such a developmental disaster? This is a country whose expatriates flourish in business and the professions around the world. And it is a country whose economy has grown at a respectable rate -- an annual average of 2.2 percent per capita from 1950 to 1999.

The problem most widely cited by experts here is the power of the nation`s elites to rig markets and political contests for their own benefit at the expense of the poor. That power stems from the corruption pervading the society -- especially the civil service, where appointments and promotions are heavily influenced by political factors -- and from the feebleness of institutions such as courts that are supposed to protect individual rights.

Among the most egregious examples is the clout exerted by rural landlords, redolent of the feudal systems that disappeared centuries ago in most countries.

Almost all elected Pakistani presidents have come from the class of large landowners, and landlords dominate local governments, winning elections by dispensing patronage and protecting their supporters in legal disputes. Although their power has been diluted in some parts of the country, they maintain oppressive control in Sindh province (home to nearly a quarter of Pakistan`s 140 million people) and the southern portion of Punjab province, Pakistan`s most populous.

A village down the road from Sachadino Sheikh, which is in Sindh province, illustrated how landlords engage in what social scientists call the ``elite capture of public goods`` -- in this case, the takeover of school buildings and the appointment of friends and relatives to teaching and administrative jobs, where they can earn salaries and pensions without exerting themselves.

A cluster of buildings in the village is supposed to serve as a boys` and girls` primary school, middle school and a library. But on a recent school day, only the girls` primary school was in session, with a single teacher. One school building was being used as an autaq,a sort of public meeting hall, by the landlord, who is also a local politician, and the library was being used as his guest quarters, according to local people. At the girls` middle school, no students were enrolled and no teachers were teaching, according to the headmistress, who was sitting in her office with nothing to do. She is one of the landlord`s two wives.

Haris Gazdar, a Pakistani social scientist, is all too familiar with such cases. Gazdar conducted a survey of 125 Pakistani village schools in which he and his associates showed up unannounced to find out how the schools were functioning. His study, published in late 2000, cited landlords using school buildings as farm sheds and for keeping goats, and schools where teachers who enjoyed the protection of powerful ``patrons`` (one, for example, being a landlord`s son-in-law) weren`t reporting for class.

The worst-performing schools were in regions where landlord power was strongest. But landlords are by no means the only culprits, according to Gazdar. ``Every single part of the system has to be viewed as being at fault,`` he said.

Gazdar`s researchers found a wide variety of problems that couldn`t be pinned on landlords -- for example, teachers using classrooms to store timber for sale in side businesses. They recorded cases of teachers who confided that local education officials were demanding bribes to keep them from being transferred to remote schools.

The researchers also found evidence of how education can run afoul of the myriad rivalries that divide Pakistanis along ethnic, religious and linguistic lines. In some villages, communities had organized to establish reasonably well-run schools, but often, those schools excluded children of less powerful rival groups.

The overarching finding was that only 38 percent of the schools were deemed to be ``functional,`` which meant that all teachers were present or accounted for, children were organized in classes, active teaching was being conducted, and efforts had been made to provide minimal infrastructure such as drinking water and usable blackboards.

Foreign Assistance

``I think we all agree that Pakistan is a hurry-up case,`` a senior World Bank official wrote in a July 1993 memo to his superiors urging prompt approval of a loan for a project that was stirring the enthusiasm of many on the bank`s staff.

Thus was born the Social Action Program, or SAP. The hope of those who conceived it was that Pakistan would finally make significant progress in fostering human development after decades of repeated flops. As far back as Pakistan`s founding in 1947, a national conference had set a goal of universal primary education within 20 years. A series of initiatives to improve education in the years that followed likewise set grand aims that were never achieved.

The SAP was based on seemingly sensible reasoning: Pakistan needed to spend much more on education and other social services, which had been badly squeezed because the government was pouring so much money into the military. Under the SAP, about $8 billion would be spent on education, health and improving water supplies, with the World Bank and other foreign donors putting up $2 billion in loans and grants, provided the Pakistani government fulfilled its responsibility to spend $6 billion of its own money.

But realities in Pakistan resulted in substantial ``leakage`` (World Bank-speak for money going where it wasn`t supposed to). A major scandal erupted in 1998 over the discovery of thousands of SAP-financed ``ghost schools`` and ``ghost teachers`` -- payments to contractors for school buildings that were never built, and payment of salaries to people who weren`t teaching.

A revamped SAP II incorporated elaborate financial controls at the insistence of indignant donors, but it fared little better. The rigidity of the controls generated other problems for honest public servants.

The World Bank ``stipulated these major headings under which money could be used by schools, such as repair of buildings and repair of furniture,`` said Themrise Khan, who worked at a quasi-government agency involved in the program. ``But some of the schools didn`t need those particular things.`` If a school with ample furniture desperately needed teachers, she recalled, ``we would say to the bank: `Can you please allow money to be used for hiring teachers? We`ll show you accounts to prove the money won`t be misused.` But they would say, `Sorry, that isn`t one of the categories.` ``

A World Bank official conceded that so much energy went into ensuring the proper accounting of vouchers and invoices that the Pakistani government and its foreign backers lost sight of the ultimate goal -- improving indicators such as enrollments.

``We underestimated, quite frankly, what it takes to fix a broken-down public institutional system,`` the official said. ``There has been a recognition that the [education] system was totally broken, and pumping in more money would just not do the trick in terms of getting kids to school.``

Another Opportunity

This time, it`s going to be different. That`s the message from Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan`s finance minister, as he explains why the government led by President Pervez Musharraf will far surpass its predecessors in making effective use of the money provided by the international community.

Reaping economic rewards for its staunch support of the U.S.-led coalition against terror, the military regime in Islamabad has successfully appealed for a substantial aid package that includes a $1.3 billion, three-year anti-poverty loan from the International Monetary Fund and several billion dollars more in loans and grants from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and a host of friendly governments.

Aziz has all the credentials -- and the reputation for integrity -- that might be hoped for in an official responsible for Pakistan`s economy. The former Citicorp executive has already impressed Washington with economic and budget policies that enabled Islamabad for the first time to meet the fiscal conditions set by the IMF for a one-year loan. He has also won plaudits from the World Bank for the government`s plan to tackle Pakistan`s most pressing social problems.

``We know that putting money into bottomless pits doesn`t get results, so we are all focusing on outcomes rather than just spending more,`` Aziz said. ``We now have a tracking and monitoring matrix to see what we`re getting for the money we`re spending, like the number of schools, absenteeism and dropout rates.``

Aziz and other top officials are particularly enthusiastic about an initiative launched by Musharraf that, they say, will help ensure that the foreign aid being showered on Pakistan ends up producing benefits. The initiative involves shifting a substantial amount of decision-making authority from the central government to elected local governments, the idea being that communities are far better suited to decide their priorities than Islamabad and that officials will feel a much greater sense of accountability to voters.

Yet skeptics wonder whether ``devolution`` of power to local officials will achieve much. ``The devolution effort can be expected to succeed only to the extent that it solves fundamental governance problems that have bedeviled earlier efforts,`` the World Bank said in its January report. ``In particular, devolution will succeed if local government officials exhibit a notably greater interest in improving the provision of public goods than in targeting private goods.``

Nowhere is the skepticism deeper than in places like Sachadino Sheikh. The latest dollop of foreign aid ``is not going to do any good,`` scoffed Shafi Mohammed Sheikh, the tenant farmer. ``That sort of thing never reaches the poor.``

Ferozk: I think the questions you raise are very pertinent. The moment one recognizes that there is no concept of a clergy in Islam, the logical implications are indeed far-reaching: Islam places responsibility for interpreting the Word of God with the individual. And indeed the Quran is very clear and explicit here. The fact that someone even has to ask such a question tells us how far Islam has been twisted as through the ages men have used it as a means to gain political power or to earn an income.

Zeemax: Agreed with much of what you say. However, I think it is incorrect to say that Islam (i.e. the Quran) is ``progression from Torah and Injeel``. The Quran takes a much more modest view of itself - it calls itself the ``Arabic Quran``, written in a language in which the message had not as yet been revealed. Elsewhere the Quran says there is nothing in it that has not already been revealed to Moses. The word ``nothing`` is interesting, since it is obviously being used in a broad sense (since there are clearly issues of detail - e.g. on how to speak before the Prophet - that are not present in earlier books). The logical conclusion is profound: the Quran is concerned with the broad substance of issues, and does not see itself as providing detailed instructions (since, as explained above, it even treats issues like how to speak before the Prophet as well as other things not found in earlier books as being immaterial relative to the basic message conveyed in the Quran). And yet, it is this basic message that the ``Muslim`` extremists are in total violation of, and which I dont think they are even emotionally capable of following.

RE: Reply #: 131 Romair wrote:

``Ras #127: Bhutto is dead. Get over it....``

Couldn`t agree with you more. So let us quit blaming him for the Ahmadi problem and many others ...
They need to teach Pakistanis that over 23 years
after his death, Bhutto has become a scapegoat
for the failings of many people in uniform.
Romair, someone needs to remind Pakistanis to look at their own collective deeds and not look for excuses in a long dead man.

You continued:
``Do you have a deathwish for Pakistan? There are 140 million other Pakistanis who can lead Pakistan (at the very least, they won`t destroy Pakistan, even if they don`t lead it very well).``

Romair, Patriotism is not the sole domain of people connected to the Pakistan Army. The masses
of Pakistan can also patriotic. And they have been in spite of the many failures of the men in Khaki. But there is hope. Even the uniforms are seeing the light..

Ras

Reply #: 185 Ferozk

Dear Ferozk,

All of your questions are valid but belong to an elemantary point of view as all these are answered in the text. For example, Qura`an recognises Issa Ibn`e Mariam (Jesus) as a Prophet sent by Allah, as well as Moosa (Moses)of the Jews. Qura`an only accuses those people who killed the Prophets before their natural time. Muhammed was sent after them and people betrayed Muhammad too. Jang-e-Uhad refers.

That should be enough as far as the intended path of religions is concerned. Islam was a progression from Torah and Injeel because people didn`t learn. It`s all quoted from Al-Baqra.

The blasphemy law is wrong and Qura`an doesn`t endorse it. The clergy also is nowhere ordained. As for extremism, On the subject of Jihad, Yusaf Ali`s translation describes Jihad as `fighting, striving, struggling, endeavoring`. The relevant sections pertaining to Jihad are quoted below from Yusuf Ali`s traslation of Al-Baqra:

``Quote:

190. Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.

191. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there;

but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

192. But if they cease, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

193. And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah. but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.

Unquote``

This is Jihad. Make your own interpretation but it seems clear enough to me. Jihad means struggle in any form against oppression and turning out of people from their land; but it`s graduated to higher degrees in case of increasing oppression. However there is the clear instruction not to transgress limits, which is considered open to interpretation. The 9/11 people

interpreted this to mean they could make their own limits, but in many other Sura`s it`s clearly stated noone should harm innocents.

Reply #: 184 tahmed321

I prefer an arabic text alongwith the translation because Yousaf Ali, Pickthall translations are very different while the Arabic text is the same. Of-course the middleman is there even in the translation so one has to read the arabic at the same time. There`s one Urdu/Arabic version though but it`s not on the web. It`s only in print. Do research on it.

Regards

Re: SameerJB

``... It is the only surviving river of Asia before Indian plate buckled under the Tibetan and Asian plate creating Himalayas thus blocking all other rivers` passage to the Sea...``

Sorry, but in India, Sutlej and Brahmaputra also cut right through the Great Himalayan Range because they too predate the collision of the continents. Ditto for the Kali Gandaki river in Nepal, that cuts between Mt. Annapurna and Mt. Dhaulagiri. This particular river valley holds the world record for the deepest canyon (20,000+ ft.). Both Annapurna and Dhaulagiri are 26,000`+ and are only about 20 miles apart, while the river bed between them is at approx 6,000`.

Feroze

You raised some very interesting points, we all need to think more deeply about these points, for instance:

``are the blasphemy laws designed to protect Islam or silence political opposition, as those laws are presently practiced in Pakistan?`` Who could possibily argue that Islam is protected by such laws?

``If my interpretation of Islam and its teachings is different from yours, who is right and who is wrong? If my interpretation is different from the offical clergy`s, am I wrong and are they right? Does an interpretation, by defination, has to be uniformal or it can be different? If it can be different, can the clergy`s interpretation be considered as wrong?``

Who would deny that generally speaking the validity of any interpretation, is dependent on the rules, laws of interpretation, the presuppositions, the points of view, the interpretator brings to his or her task and of course the knowledge of the day. All interpretation is a Human activity and gains and suffers from Human intellect. Who would deny that the categorizing of interpretation as ``right`` or ``wrong`` is in the same vein as suggesting that ``normal`` or ``abnormal`` are anoything but a statistical phenomenon.

``Secondly, are the clergy`s interpretation based on a holistic view of Islam or do they subscribe to a particular viewpoint of Islam, such as the Deobandi school of thought, as an example? If the clergy`s interpretation is absolute, where does that leave the issue of dissent of that interpretation?

Holistic view of Islam? Who dthat? Organized Islam has four universally recognized schools of Law, not that there are not lesser known or that may not be more in the future. NO interpretation can be Absolute - it is a human endeavour, requiring human knowledge, it, by definition, cannot be absolute. God is absolute, not the endeavours or the knowledge of his creature. Shariah or the Law, itself was pluralistic and is a HUMAN structure and is subject to those elements and agents of change that effect all HUMAN constructs. Interested readers may want to examine ``The Theory of contraction and expansion of Shariah``.

``Does dissent imply a questioning of a particular view of Islam or the religion itself and who decides what consitutes as a dissent?``

Not just a point of view but the religion itself is open to criticism - but not obscuritanist clergy. Ijtehad (learned Criticism is inherent, integral to Ijethad), Ijam (again learned criticism is integral to concensus), Shura (and yet again, learned criticism is integral to representation)!

`` If dissent of a particular viewpoint of Islam and its teachings is not allowed and dissent is prohibited in the name of an uniformal orthodoxy of opinions, does that not encourage extermism, because of a failure to tolerate a different opinion?``

The lack of criticism does not necessarily lead to extremeism - such a conclusion is unsupportable, however; the lack of criticism is an abomination to the religious faith of Islam. Ijtehad would not be necessary, if it were not recognized that society and knowledge changes, evolves. if the evolution of knowledge is not acknowledged, then understanding of the ``word`` can be said to have ceased to exist, in this time and this place. This is precisely the case with much of obscuritanist Islam, you may note that our ethics do not match our morality and this has realized in a genuine crisis of ``faith``, of the general acceptance of a religiosity of emulation and a concurrent misunderstanding that ``certitude`` is superior to ``faith``.

``Thirdly; why has Islam, as a religion, been subjected to extermism? Is it, because of our interpretations, which do not brook dissent and in doing so, polarize the issues, with extermism and extermist acts being only the form of dissent available? If that is the case, is the real problem with Islam or our interpretations, which have characterized the religion of Islam as an extermist religion?``

Extremist attitudes exist within obscuritanist clergy and among their flock, because they refuse to use the knowledge of today, to understand the ``word`` - they misunderstand, that the Guidance is Eternal, it can never change, but our understanding of it, our interpretations is temporal, evolving - this is what makes the Eternal nature of Guidance, more clear.



``So, who is extermist? Islam, as a religion or its followers? Where is the fault and with whom does the problem originate with?``

For some of course the answer is ``it depends on your prejudice`` - less serious persons will wonder what kind of religiosity, what kind of ethics, what kind of morality, is it that emulates instead of concentrating on the struggle to have ``faith`` and to realize the meanings of guidance.