Emran Qureshi has written a fascinating op-ed piece on the Harvard Law School website, under the title The Islam the Riots Drowned Out.

Qureshi’s central point is that is a strong humanistic tradition in Islam that is being destroyed by the extremists in the name of what they imagine Islam to be.

Sadly, the recent polarization obscures a rich humanistic tradition within Islam ? one in which cosmopolitanism, pluralism and a spirit of open-minded inquiry once constituted a dominant ethos.

He points out the irony that Islamic heritage is being destroyed by Muslims in the name of religious purity in Saudi Arabia while Muslims have been rioting across the world in protest at the cartoons that were orignally published in Denmark.

It’s a balanced, but sad, piece. Well worth a read.

Technorati Tags: Harvard Law School, humanistic, Islam, Saudi Arabia

Ruth Gledhill’s blog has an excellent article about a deeply worrying development in the long-standing persecution of the Baha’is in Iran. It is well worth reading - and following her links - if you want to find out about this serious, persistent, but not so well known, oppression of a community purely on the grounds of its faith.

Ruth is the religious affairs correspondent of The Times.

The latest development in Iran has been noted on a number of Baha’i blogs including Baha’i Blog, doberman pizza, and Baha’i Views.

Technorati Tags: Ruth Gledhill, Baha’is, Iran

The day the clocks went forward to British Summer Time and I lost an hour’s sleep, the BBC whisked me off at 6.45am (5.45am by my body clock) in a silver car to Broadcasting House to do an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme. You can pick up a link to listen to the programme from the programme’s website. Look for the segment entitled Baha’i persecution. The interview was about the latest and very worrying development in the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran.

The programme goes out from Manchester. I was in London sitting in a studio the size of a walk-in closet. There was a safety notice on the wall proclaiming that there must be no more than three people in the studio. Fat chance, I thought. More than three and there’d be a serious risk of asphyxiation.

Anyway, I sat in the studio, wearing headphones and supping coffee. Seven o’clock came and I heard nothing. Seven-fifteen came and I thought they’d forgotten me. Then my mobile rang. It was the studio in Manchester. Was I in the studio? Yes, I said, but I can’t hear anything. There’s a technical hitch, they said, and the engineers in Broadcasting House would sort it out. A few moments later I could hear the programme. They were in the middle of a package about whether God could be seen as feminine as well as masculine. Can one pray ‘Our Mother…’ just as one prays ‘Our Father…’?

The PA came on the line and said they’d be on to me after the package.

After I’d done the interview, the PA came back on and told me that they’d been able to hear me in Manchester, even though I hadn’t been able to hear them. They’d been shouting at me to see if was awake. So, even the mighty BBC can suffer its glitches!

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, BBC

Technorati Tags: BBC Radio 4, Iran