Practices of Islam, which are often questioned by the people at different parts of the world!
“Religion is a complex subject; you need to be tolerant with the people of the other faiths in order to expect tolerance from them. People often gets offended when anybody says something about their religion, with which they do not agree. However, the irony is that they retaliate by offending the other rather than defending their point. One need to extremely careful while talking about these subjects!”
This book, “The Soul Of Islam” by Author Moin Qazi is written with an aim of promoting religious bonds and tolerance among the people of different faiths and cultures. However, the book has promoted the ideas of Islam more than the idea of having a harmony among the people of the various religions. Through this book, the Author had made an attempt to defend several
Author’s Background: An economist by training and a social worker by practice, Moin Qazi is an author, researcher, and development professional, who has spent four decades in the development sector. He is a firm believer in learning from communities in their own environments. He began his early career as a development journalist. While still in college, he began writing on the issues relating to the plight of child labourers and leading efforts against it. His work ultimately received the attention of Indian Courts, leading to a series of reforms for child labourers.
The author has worked for over three decades at the State Bank of India and has been associated with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NITI Aayog and Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He has also played a key role in the empowerment of women and the education of girls in rural areas, along with efforts to create affordable housing programmes for low-income individuals. He writes regularly for several newspapers and journals. He holds doctorates in English and Economics.
Book’s Introduction: This book, “The Soul Of Islam” by Author Moin Qazi is an Islamic Social title and comes under the category of “Religious Studies!” The book is a compilation of the author’s articles on varied facets of Islam, which have been published earlier in various newspapers as well as in the journals. It gives an insight into the various faiths, and the manner in which they have influenced the lives of their adherents. Much of these concepts have been examined in the context of Islam and Muslim culture.
The author describes this book as is a sincere attempt to encourage not just the general public, but also the youths to directly understand the values and ideas that underpin all these faiths. It is hoped that this strategy or approach could help in resolving several misunderstandings and misperceptions among the people of different faiths. This is the most sensible way for humanity to come closer so that we all can live in peace and harmony.
Readers’ Connect: Now, this is the tricky part as there is not much for the readers to get connected with this book. The Author has failed miserably to cater the people of different faiths and cultures. Even though, the author has described his book to be a medium of promoting harmony and tolerance among the people of various faiths and cultures, the reality is that the book has highlighted the ideas of Islam only!
The description of this book makes it sound very genuine for the people of different faiths as well to pick up this book. However, the readers will find that the book is promoting only the ideas of Islam, which can be quite boring as well as useless for them. The book is not talking about ‘Secularism’ in the manner it has been mentioned in the description. One good part is that the Author has attempted to defend the various practices of Islam, but this will appeal only to the Muslim readers.
Book’s Verdict: Well, a book like ‘The Soul Of Islam’ could be described as a failed attempt to promote religious harmony. No matter, however good might be the author’s intention still this book does not have much to serve to the readers of the vast diversity. The subject matter, which the author has touched in his book, is very sparky as well as controversial. There are parts in this book, which could have been written much carefully, for instance in the chapter – “Nothing Veiled About The Hijab” is nicely defending the choice of Muslim Women to wear hijab, which is good. However, the sentence – “The hijab has now become the most powerful symbol of Muslim women’s rejection of Western notions of feminism” is seriously offensive to the Western Culture. Well, if there is nothing wrong in wearing hijab then there is also nothing wrong with the dressing of the Western Women and their sense of feminism. In the process of justifying your own idea, if you are attacking somebody else’s ideas then it can be regarded as a respectful thing!
The author has done a blunder over here and this is not correct when we talk about religious harmony and tolerance. Every culture needs to be respected and treated equally; while the author has done a great job in highlighting the idea of Islam, he could have written the book more carefully.
Book Link: https://www.amazon.in/dp/9354467121/
