Posted on 08/22/2006 12:50:08 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Islam is history because we live in the 21st century now, opined controversial exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen here Tuesday.
‘The Islam religion and their scriptures are out of place and out of time. It still follows the 7th century laws and is hopeless. The need of the hour is not reformation but revolution,’ said Nasreen interacting with reporters here.
The feminist author of Bengali book ‘Lajja’ is in Kerala in connection with the release of the Malayalam translation of four of her books, which would be released at Thrissur on Aug 24.
Nasreen said a secular state should have a uniform civil code and should be based on equality, existence and not on religion.
‘The state can do a lot of things, and both the state and religion should be separate. The state should not encourage religion. Today religious education and madrassas (religious seminaries) are going up. Jehad is stupidity,’ said the writer.
She said she had been fighting religious fundamentalism for long.
‘I don’t go to the streets, instead I write and that is my way of protest. I was born in a Muslim family and Muslim women suffer under Islam. None told me to fight against oppression. It was inside me. Women are treated as slaves, sexual objects and childbearing machines,’ added Nasreen.
According to Nasreen, noted Kerala writer Kamala Surayya, who was Kamala Das before she converted to Islam, had now realised that she had made a mistake in converting to Islam. She had held a meeting with Surayya here earlier.
‘When I asked her if she regrets becoming a Muslim, she said ‘yes’. She has realised that Islam does not give equality,’ said the writer.
She said she would love to return to her country, and if not allowed to then she would like to live in Kolkata because a writer likes to live in surroundings familiar to them.
She is toast.
I admire her ability to speak up in spite of the dangers.
Islam needs more people like her. People who will say "Hey, wait a minute. What we're doing is ass-backwards. We're not proselytizing Islam. We're killing it".
I wish her well and hope that more like her will speak up.
Why are there no Arabs on Star Trek?
Good point. Islam is beyond reform. It's about 1400 years past being tossed on the ash heap of history.
They evolved into Klingons.
Because Star Trek takes place in the future.
Any list of the fatwas against her yet?
"Go. Or stay. But do it because it is what you wish to do."
One big fat fatwa, hold the mayo, coming right up!
Just like communism.
In 1993, sparked by a series of newspaper columns in which she was critical of the treatment of women under Islam, Islamic fundamentalists pronounced a fatwa against her and offered a bounty for her death.
Later, the government banned her book Lajja, (a Bangla word meaning shame), which drew attention to the torture of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. Again there were calls for her death and her passport was confiscated by the government.
In 1994, organised groups identified with religious fundamentalists demanded her execution by hanging after she was quoted in The Statesman stating that "…the Koran should be revised thoroughly." The government of the day, whilst not taking action against those who had issued threats, filed a court case against Nasrin charging her with hurting the religious feelings of people and an arrest warrant was issued. Although she anticipated that she may have faced a jail term of up to two years, Nasrin felt it was very likely that she would have been murdered in jail; she went into hiding. After two months she was granted bail and left the country.
Seems to me it stops being a religion and starts being a cult (or a criminal organization like the mafia). But in any case, not a religion.
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