We live in a time about which there is a widespread feeling that it is already over; that something very essential has moved out from our being and we live as residue of a civilization past. Travelling back to historical times when sheer living was an adventure; nature was not used up and life was not a process of instant squeezing, needs a radical dismantling of our thought structure, which at the present is based on sociologism i.e. reduction of thought systems to the personal or group interest of the proponents. We need to create a new paradigm in which the stale worn-out concepts of the last three hundred years of philosophizing are effectively deprived of their defining powers. In short, we need to create new tools for new thinking.

Not too long ago, a certain Dutch politician – Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Dutch Freedom party – caused a stir in that rather flat country by suggesting that the Quran should be banned on the grounds that it was a ‘dangerous book’ that spread the message of hate and violence. If Muslims can get so worked up by the fact that some right-wing Dutch politician hungering for publicity can stir up a debate by demeaning the Quran, why is it that so many Muslims remain indifferent to how their fellow Muslims treat the holy texts of other faiths and belief-systems?

Change in the Middle East is inevitable, and the only question is what  kind of change:  will it be slow, peaceful, and progressively move us  toward real democracy, or will it be violent and revolutionary, and lead us toward another form of dictatorship.  To guard against anarchy  and the possibility of a theocratic state, we need a strong coalition  of moderate reformers and democrats (both moderate Islamists and  secularists) who trust one another and work together for the public  interest.  Arab democrats need to develop a consensus on what  democracy means, how it can work in their societies, and how to  encourage progressive, modern, and moderate interpretations of Islam.

The establishment of the Allegiance Commission indicates that the Saudi royal family has begun to address complicated issues in heredity and governance, as the House of Saud prepares to pass political power from the founder’s sons to his grandsons. By reforming long-standing customary procedures, the Allegiance Commission allows the founding King’s sons and grandsons to take part in the democratic selection of the country’s future kings, from among their ranks. Furthermore, it ensures a smooth transition of power from one generation to the next, in total legitimacy. Since the Commission has been created to address future events, only the future can judge its efficacy.

Women lost in ahadith what they had gained through Qur'an. Today if world thinks Islam treats women in very unfair way it is because we follow hadiths rather than Qur'an as far as women are concerned. In pre-Islamic period women had lowest of low social status and Qur'an lifted them far above and our 'Ulama never tire of saying this. But within few decades of the revelation of the Qur'an women came down to their pre-Islamic status in a fiercely male dominated society. And this was accomplished through ahadith as a legitimizing factor.
Those who narrated these ahadith never thought for a moment how they contradict Qur'an as these ahadith served the social purpose very well.

The Muslim believer must have critical consciousness when facing the issue of his relation to the world, his spiritual life in today’s society. Without the critical distance from the world it is not possible to solve in a right way the problem of adjustment of the Muslim life to the present circumstances. To be more specific, first of all we should know clearly what “Muslim” means, what is Muslim way of life, so latter this could be a measure in the relation with the world. This is the foundation in judging the Muslim or anti-Muslim nature of today’s civilization, in making it a foundation for today’s Muslim way of life.

“Islamo-Fascism”, Western Hegemony and Cress-Culture Violence
By Ali A. Mazrui

Muslims are often criticized for not producing the best – but they are seldom congratulated for having standards of behavior which have averted the worst. There are really no Muslim equivalents of systematic Nazi extermination camps, nor Muslim conquest by genocide on the scale perpetrated by Europeans in the Americas and Australia, nor Muslim versions of rigid apartheid once approved by the South African Dutch Reformed version, nor Muslim equivalents of the brutal racism of Japan before the end of World War II, nor Muslim equivalents of Pol Pot’s killing fields in Cambodia; nor Muslim versions of Stalinist terror in the name of Five Year Plans. What is it in Islam which has resisted the ultimate depths of human depravity?