Islam: From Purism to Extremism of Spiritually Misled some Muslims

This book is made primarily to present the Islamic faith at the elementary level, but particularly to illustrate why some Muslim youth may be “pruned” to see the path to “faith-extremism” as lit by bright light and planted with flowers. In order to see that, Islam should firstly be presented naturally without the due restrictions of the standardized and complicated Islamic Shariah books. Much of the complication apparently comes from the repeated input by the scholars over the course of time. Here, I shed light on Islamic issues that can be pushed for a degree of “normalization” in the Islamic religion pertaining to issues that define a fine line between keeping a pure faith and being driven into extremism. Those issues are simply treated as peripheral to the faith since the core-faith matters are in-divisively agreed upon.

You may find yourself know much of what is being discussed here if you are of a Muslim background. The language of the book is mostly simple words. The content mostly relates current concerns that pertain to the faith and the actively discussed global matters, most importantly the issue of youth radicalization. The faith is discussed from within the Islamic culture, but organized in a simple way for a non-Muslim to follow at ease. Sometimes the same issue is mentioned more than once throughout the book to stress the intended point. You will find the approach to how arguments are introduced and discussed unique and different than those of a standard textbook of the subject, suiting those of concern to the western individual. Even though the book is not a textbook of the Islamic law, some of those of current concern are discussed. The book is not all inclusive, only I choose specific subjects and rules to make my case, stressing a degree of rationalization of the rules and sometimes the reason behind passing them. In general, the book is not strictly conceptual. It is in no way proclaimed that claims made throughout the book are remedies to existing struggles in understanding the faith from outside its shell, but the book exposes some hidden issues that might help those inside and outside the faith-shell to more understand external and internal struggles, and hopefully more effectively fight radicalism. Many may disagree with parts of the book which may be rejected by some people as only pertaining to the author's opinion and not necessarily unanimous. That is the purpose of the book, a critical and hopefully constructive opinion. In much of the Islamic world, to express your opinion in some “specific matters” concerning the faith is a taboo as most of the faith issues are in the hands of the very few of those classified as highly faith-knowledgeable scholars that grant them the right to issue rulings “fatwas”. I call the system that comprises those “few” scholars and the way they handle rule-making process pertaining to the faith throughout the book as the “establishment”.

I will put forward my understanding of the faith as an average Muslim understands his faith and cite references mainly from the Quran or the prophet's (prophet Muhammad) teaching directly rather than cite opinions of others. I took this freedom to express my opinion with extreme caution only to reflect how an average Muslim understands his religion, but I don't hesitate to affirm what I see as misunderstanding by others even if they were highly respected scholars. The free will to criticize is the ultimate gift by the Lord to the human being. We also should not be afraid to make mistakes in the path of our quest for the truth and we should be willing to accept counter-criticism and correction. That is the only path to correct our mistakes and collectively achieve self-satisfaction in all avenues in our lives, most importantly our faith-differences.