Bloodshed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir as a suicide bomber attacks Shiites. Five people dead, 81 wounded, 10 of them seriously.
Earlier I blogged about the issue of minority victimization in Pakistan which seems to be finding its source and inspiration in strident Sunni Islam. The Spittoon has a blog post about minority victimization in the Middle East. It raises a fair question: What will be consequence to Islamic civilization if large segments of the Muslim population lose the experience of living respectfully with diversity?
The Spittoon blogger accurately describes the situation now:
Together with the Jews, Zoroastrians, Mandeans, Bahai, Yazidis, and other, smaller groups have all left the region that gave birth to all the monotheistic faiths. Those that remain have often been reduced to what one Christian commentator has called an underground, “catacomb” faith, recalling the persecuted faith of the Early Church.
Anecdotally, I live near a large city in America that has a huge refugee population of Mandeans. According to Wikipedia, before the US overthrew the secular Saddam government, there were about 60,000 Mandeans in that country. Today, there are 5,000.
The Quran speaks to diversity as well:
…the Quran says: “O humankind, God has created you from male and female and made you into diverse nations and tribes so that you may come to know each other. Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous.” Elsewhere, the Qur’an reaffirms that diversity is part of the Divine intent and purpose in creation, and so it states: “If thy Lord had willed, he would have made humankind into a single nation, but they will not cease to be diverse…And, for this God created them [humankind].
In answer to the question I posed, the consequence will be, I think, a devolution – not an evolution – of Islamic civilization as Muslim communities thwart Divine intent and are acculturated to arrogance and disrespect.
