Battling Islamic Puritans

[Guest]

LA Times did a good article on UCLA law<br>professor Khaled Abou El Fadl. A scholar of Islamic Law, Kuwaiti-born Abou El Fadl attacks Muslims who promote a strict, literalist trend in Islam, most prominently the creed of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia.<p>UCLA professor, once a fanatic himself, is now a leading scholarly voice against intolerance among Muslims. Death threats don't deter him. For tackling the puritans in high-profile forums, Abou El Fadl has received so many death threats that new security systems are going up around his office and home. His books are banned in Saudi Arabia and his visa applications denied in Egypt.<p>In his writings and through the electronic media, he accuses them of an "intolerant puritanism" that values ritual over morality. He blames them for oppressing millions of women, creating hostility toward<br>non-Muslims and giving the likes of Osama bin Laden their theological justification for terrorism. He issues scathing critiques of Saudi legal rulings that permit everything from the mistreatment of dogs to<br>the beating of women.<p>By devoting himself to a modern interpretation of the Koran, Abou El Fadl is perhaps the most articulate enemy of the Wahhabi creed that shaped Bin Laden's brand of Islam.<p>"The supremacist creed of the puritan groups is distinctive and uniquely dangerous," the scholar recently wrote in the influential Boston Review. "They do not merely seek self-empowerment, but aggressively seek to disempower, dominate or destroy others."<p>To many muftis, ayatollahs, sheiks and their followers throughout the world, Abou El Fadl has become "America's most dangerous corrupter of Islam," as one foe put it.<p>The whole article can be read on the following URL.<p>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... ar.story<p>