I doubt that this post will survive the censor - sorry, moderator - for long but some folks in the magic kingdom might just be tempted to think badly of all Muslims right now. The leader of UK's Muslims sets the record on this score straight as follows:
How Islam became intolerant
To the New Statesman
Ziauddin Sardar is one of those Muslim scholars who shakes the believers from their sleep. He highlights four categories of mistakes which have turned a "humane and open-minded" religion into a most intolerant creed. His conclusion that "the agony of being a Muslim in the 21st century is self-inflicted" is not open to dispute. Muslims have yet to come to grips with their political decline. Having contributed so much to the stock of human knowledge, one wonders how the same people could acquire the characteristics of the ignorant. However, this is the history of the rise and fall of civilisations according to the Koran. A people rise when they excel in creating ideas and decline when others, their contemporaries, are able to create better or more powerful ideas. The Muslim decline began when their learned agreed, in the 11 th century, that henceforth the doors of intellectual reasoning (ijtehad) were closed. Blind following of precedent (taqlid) set by the forebears (aslaf) became a standard mark of their thought processes. When eventually the Muslim political systems collapsed in the 19th century, Muslims refused to draw me logical conclusions. They failed to recognise that new sciences, philosophies and ways of running the state economy and human relations had emerged elsewhere to dominate men's actions. No amount of piety or closeness to God would save them from humiliation.
The events surrounding September 11th have shaken the majority of thinking people within the Muslim community. They feel that if fundamentalists be not repudiated from within, then Muslims will be marginalised and criminalised beyond recovery. Herein lies the opportunity for scholars to lead an intellectual movement. Islam must be rescued from insanity and emerge again as a force of justice and fairness.
Dr G. Siddiqui. Leader of the UK Muslim Parliament