My new home
- on 05.04.07
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After being hibernated for a long while and leaving my blog, I come back today with this post. Kamangir believes Shaghaiegh is very hard to spell and even he can not spell it easily. As there are always tons of people before you in the virtual world of www, I was not able to find any domain in wordpress which I would like to switch my blog to. Kamangir has generously offered to host me in his domain with the name I am proud of, Azadeh in Persian means freedom. So, hello everybody and hopefully I won’t disappear this time. By the way being in Kamngir’s domain does not mean my blog is as prosperous as his.
hmm,
“Agnostic Muslim”, if you are Agnostic, how can you be an Agnostic Muslim???…isn’t the term oxymoron?
Well, welcome back. I am a regular reader of Kamangir’s blog, so looking forward reading yours too.
Thanks Frieda for your consideration. I know it seems oxymoron, but by agnostic I meant doubtful. If you have better suggestions please let me know.
Doubtful about God or the Muslim religion? or both?
Dear Frieda,
I am doubtful about Muslim religion or what I was taught as Muslim religion not about God. But please don’t ask what is God which I don’t have an answer for.
Muslim religion needs to go through a renaissance just as the Christianity did in 15th century about the same time that development of printing press started. It was during this time that Bible was accessible to more people and Catholic church lost the control of the information. Muslim religion needs people like Matin Luther who in 1513-1517 he started interpreting Bible differently than Catholic church. He believed that God intended to establish relationships with individual Christians, each capable-of approaching God in Christ without the need for a priestly mediator. His ideas was radical for his time, he challenged the Catholic church and said Scripture was not the private property of the elite. then he started translating the bible into the common language of the people (1521). It was only by having access to the holy texts that the average Christian could understand.
Anyway, what I am trying to say, is that Muslim religion needs to get away from the control of the Mullahs, it needs to be translated into Farsi so average Iranian can read for themselves…Printing revolution brought a huge charge for Christians, maybe internet revolution will bring the same for the Muslims. But we need to find the reformer himself! or herself..wouldn’t it be nice to see a woman bring about the Muslim renaissance?
p.s. sorry for the long comment
Where is my comment? I left a comment for you in Shaghayegh and in a few minutes later you moved here and my commnet disappeared!
Anyway, congrats on your new home and welcome back!
BTW, I think I need to talk to both of you guys regarding your experiences of liveing of an atheist with a believer in god. How did you handel it? Someone is really worried about that. You may be able to help here
Dear Frieda,
Thanks for the informative comment. I really agree with you that Islam or what Muslims believe in needs a lot of moderation and a huge renaissance. It is very important to start to think about Islam without the contribution of mullahs and try to find what the basic part of the religion is. Fortunately Quran has been translated to Farsi which could be very helpful. But still you need to know Arabic as most of the translators add their interpretation to the text without mentioning it. I know that Islam has been mixed with tradition in the last 1400 years and you could see that easily if you talk with Muslims from different backgrounds. It is really hard to try to use the historical backgrounds to find the origin of every Islamic rule and find if it is true or not. I believe as a human being I have the ability to think and conclude and if I think honestly and come up with a conclusion I have to follow that even if it contradicts some Islamic rules. That’s why I call myself a doubtful Muslim.
Sorry for the longer response
Dear Mahmoud,
Sorry for what was happened to your comment. I would be very happy to talk with you whenever you have time. By the way to my understanding living of an atheist and a believer in God is not a big deal as long as they respect each other’s belief and does not try to change each other.
Dear Frieda,
I also agree that internet can be very helpful in changing Muslim’s world and show them the other sides of the world. I have started looking at Islam differently when I was in Iran and I was graduated from high school, but coming to Canada and being exposed to different belief was a great help too. I don’t know so much about other Muslim countries, but I hope the new generation of young Muslims in Iran would change the traditional understanding of Islam.
Dear Azadeh, I recommend this new book called “Trouble with Islam today” (you can actually download the Persian version on her site for free), it’s author is a muslim Canadian citizen actually. It’s not about Islam bashing but its written in an open letter to muslims to call for a reform in thinking, and “ijtihad” - what she defines as opening Islam to different interpretations and not taking Qur’an literally, etc. I think you might like it and if you haven’t heard of it before, I recommend it!
Oh and you have beautiful name!
Mahmood,
I am a strong believer, I practice Christianity but find inspiration and spirituality in many religions.
how did you pull atheist label from my comments?
A great site to read about Islam and muslim progressives is:
http://eteraz.org/
Eteraz is a Islamic philosopher and also great writer.
Atheisim is different than being agnostic, btw.
I also wanted to add that my Arabic speaker husband thinks the Persian translation of Koran is very sloppy and doesn’t accurately correspond to the Arabic version.
Dear City boy,
I have read her book and I have found it interesting. She points to many controversial topics in Muslim’s world. However she does not try to find an answer for them or discuss them in more detail. Now I am reading a book by Fatima Marnissi, the veil and the male elite (زنان حجله نشین مردان جوشن پوش). It is about women’s rights in Islam and discusses the origin of some controversial rules such as Hijab. I have read it in Persian a few years ago, but the translators mentioned they have edited the book a little to be able to publish it in Iran. I would like to read the original version. The book is now banned in Iran
Dear Frieda,
I think Mahmoud meant my husband, Kamangir when he talked about atheist. Am I right Mahmoud?
Dear Serendip,
Thanks so much for the site.
As I said to Frieda I am not atheist, but Kamangir is. I am doubtful about the current version of Islamic rules and try to think about them and find the main message of the rules that makes sens to me.
Re the Quran translation I do agree with your husband, I myself try to understand Quran based on my little knowledge of Arabic. But still I think a sloppy translation is better than nothing.
Dear Azadeh: Do try to read Etraz site. You can also contact him to ask questions. He is extremely knowledgable about Islam and different derivatives of it. He is also a great debator. He recently had a debate with Robert Spencer (the owner of the site Jihad Watch), which was brilliant.
Hey…
I saw it right now!
Welcome to cyber world
Dear Serendip,
Thanks so much for the note. I would do that.
Dear Lafcadio,
Thanks so much. I would do my best to not to disappear this time:)
Frieda,
Sorry I hadn’t come here for a while and that’s why I didn’t reply to your question. Azade is absolutely right. I meant her husband not you! Sorry for confusion.
Thanks Azadeh for your explanation.
(“Agnostic Muslim”, if you are Agnostic, how can you be an Agnostic Muslim???…isn’t the term oxymoron?)
well i think its possible being an agnostic theist right??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism
Nice website!!
muslims it is a word that was pure but defiled agnostic means a lot of things to a lot of people for their own concern.but in is lam it is just a nother way toexperience the beuty of allahs attributes mystically .islam itself mystical attributes is relative to agnostic .yep its an oxymoron,so do’nt even pay attention to the assortment of thesis brought about by integrated religionists who are inclined to negative inclinations they would attempt to reindocctrine us when our destiny as mulims is better our deen and awareness of qu’ran,a’ssalaamalaikum