Sunday, January 2, 2011

Islamic Wisdom From....Cracked?

Check out 5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam.

I love that this is on Cracked, of all pages. Another great example of comics being the most willing to speak truth and wisdom. I'm proud to say I knew 4 of 5 of these, but each of them exposed a misconception I held, and I am glad they did so.

Read the article for the full details; I'm just going to quote enough to talk about the things I learned.

5. If You're a Muslim Woman, You Have to Wear the Veil: This is the one I got wrong, more on a national level than individual; I honestly believed every nation Islamic enough to be identified as such required women to wear veils. Partially this is an issue of visibility; it's not that we don't see non-veiled Muslim women, it's just we can't easily identify them as such. I loved the parallels to Christian sects, and the numbers that reset my sense of perspective and scale.

4. Our Founding Fathers Would Never Have Tolerated This Muslim Nonsense: Knew the Founders got on well with Muslims, didn't know that the early White House hosted Islamic celebrations. Cool!

3. "Muslim" Equals "Arab": More great statistics! Plus a good reminder of the difference between religion and nation, and how the two can intersect.

2. Western Cultures Are Far More Humane Than the Bloodthirsty Muslims: Again, not very surprising. But hey, did you know that core Islam had such humane laws of warfare? Maybe our military could take some lessons.

1. Islam Is Stuck in the Dark Ages: Again, not so much a surprise as a revelation of my own preconceptions. I assumed American Muslims would have as many of the intellectually blind as American Christians do; I was wrong.

This is such a simple list that it amazes me how many times I found myself saying, "I knew that. Of course I did...right?"

No comments:

Post a Comment