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Unqualified and conservative turbans preside over US mosques
Practically all American mosques are led by the people who have no academic training in Islam, or who have received their training from overseas Islamic academies. They are also highly conservative in their outlook, which colours the version of Islam that they teach. According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor, âMost of these have been taken over by highly conservative elements aligned with the extremely conservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam championed and funded by the Saudi Arabian monarchy. But progressive Muslims in America are taking their inspiration from Islamic scholars trained in Western universities who tend to be critical of authoritarian interpretations of Islam and who treat the real diversity of Muslim societies more inclusively. Today, American mosques and advocacy groups, whose representatives are most commonly called on by the media to speak for Muslim Americans, reflect only a fraction of the larger Muslim American community.â
| Who either keep their mouths shut or aren't interested... |
A study on US mosques, conducted in 2000 by four of the main Muslim American national organisations, showed that two million of the estimated six million Muslim Americans attend Muslim religious institutions at least once or twice each year, and of those, just 411,060 attend mosques regularly. Even allowing for possible exaggeration and duplication â because the survey relied on mosque representatives for its information â the results still raise issues that most Muslim American organisations are afraid to tackle. The most obvious one is that two-thirds of Muslim Americans donât publicly participate even in the most minimal cultural manifestations of their faith.
| Maybe that's why we only hear from the nutbags or the guys who wear brassiere cups on their heads. Maybe there's hope... |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-08-11 |
