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Interesting lecture at ESU
Mar. 27th, 2012 11:08 pmI attended a very interesting lecture yesterday. It was given by Drs. Nasir and Amira Rashid, a husband and wife couple of Islamic scholars. Both are on faculty at ESU. The topic was “The role of mutants in the Ummah”. For those who don’t know, the word ummah generally refers to the Islamic community worldwide. They present a strong support for integrating mutants in society, but on the other hand they also point strongly to responsibility that mutants have to learn to control their powers as far as possible and that they use their powers to help and not to harm. The other people have the responsibility to welcome mutants, even those who look strange or have powers that could be scary. The idea is that everybody are brothers and sisters.
There have been many people who have said this before and some have called this view naïve, but what was really interesting to me was how they used Islamic sources to build and support their view. It’s a way of interpreting things I haven’t seen before, though I am no scholar. If this gets more attention in countries in the Middle East for example and the scholars there accept it, it might help to improve things there.
I enjoyed listening and thinking about this topic. In Attilan I studied at the mosque to learn more about my faith and I went to an discussion group for young people who were both Islamic and a mutant, where we talked about this kind of topics often. I have been missing that the last few months, so it’s good to get back to it.
