Posted 8/25/2002 03:53:00 PM by Ocean Guy
Moderate Islam Watch

Victor Ghalib Begg, writing at iview, changes Bernard Lewis' title question from What Went Wrong? to What Have Muslims done to Islam, and How Do We Fix it..

To start with, the answer maybe lies in recognizing that there is indeed a problem, especially in the inflexibility of Muslim attitudes that stifle freedom of thought and expression. We must accept that there have been changes made in the Islamic practices that are sadly neither Islamic nor taught by the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Then next, we need to think about how as Muslims Americans we can take corrective actions to bridge this gap:

**Recognize that there is nothing un-Islamic about the West. Muslim Americans must participate extensively in America and American politics to bring about a moral change, together with our Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters who will work with us in promoting Abrahamic values.

**Motivate and encourage our communities, especially the youth to follow an important and early tradition of our Prophet to engage in businesses and trade. Our community centers must also be run like an efficient business.

**Encourage Muslim women to participate and run our community affairs equally. We need the talents and energies of the half of our population.

**Incorporate and practice democratic process in all our institutions, starting from our mosques and encourage Islamic national organizations to do so as well.

It's a start, I hope more of this thought gets attention.... that is until you read the comments.