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Karim Ahmed Kasim, Egypt, Monday 11 February 2008
Over the last few days, an aggressive war of words has been waged on Dr. Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, following from his comments on applying parts of the Islamic Sharia law in the UK. I have followed the news through BBC Arabic and felt that this man was the victim of intolerance, hence I felt the need to write him a letter - I wrote it and sent it to him through the official website of The Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dear Dr. Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury,
It is a great pleasure to be able to write to you here although I understand it is not probably a direct message to you or that it will be - by any means - read by you.
Anyway, I am glad I am doing so. In fact, your last comments about applying "some" Islamic Sharia law in the UK has created a lot of controversy and that is one reason for me to write to you today. I am not going to say whether I am with or against your comments, I am here for actually for more than one objective:
* I want to congratulate you for the thorough knowledge, understanding and respect for Islam, which your ideas and thoughts seem to show
* I want to support you in these days because the pressure by many politicians and people in UK are too much and they are much less open or thoughtful, than you and your thoughts
* I want also to say there is a crisis in the way the west deals or thinks of anything that has to do with Islam in the last few years (yet it is a historic thing, and Edward Said's Orientalism tells a lot about that)
Some of this might be understood in the context of September 11th and/or July 7th, yet it is not acceptable to generalize and to be so aggressive about any topic related to Islam. Such aggressive ways of responding shows an unfriendly attitude toward Islam and Muslims in general, and European and Western Muslims in particular.
Finally I want to say that whether I agree or disagree with your viewpoint is besides the point, I support you and your ideas at this difficult time and I see you as a very enlightened scholar, intellectual and religious man.
Thank you,
Salam
Karim Ahmed Kasim
Related Links and Information:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/world_news/newsid_7236000/7236119.stm
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/102
"The Archbishop of Canterbury is widely respected as a leading advocate and proponent of dialogue between the different faiths. His inter Faith engagement is rooted in a concern for the good of humanity in society and a conviction that religious belief and practice have immense contributions to make to the common good"
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Comments (2)
Yasmeen Akhtar ( 9 months ago )
Point well made Shoaib; the complexities of the English Legal system have leeway for aids both intrinsic and extrinsic for application of the law in its true sense, which in turn is to accommodate the people. We do not have a constitutional set of legislation as such; our law here is based on judgements in cases that set precedent. I don’t even think that as the lay man, readers of The Sun are qualified to make resolutions regarding our state of Law in any case.
Shoaib Azim ( 10 months ago )
The fact is that the Archbishop was deliberately misinterpreted from the very beginning by the media. Now people have a habit of basing their info on the media rather than the original source. The sharia the Archbishop was referring to concerns family disputes and only afects muslims should theyd ecide to opt for it.
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