WASHINGTON: Renowned writer Karen Armstrong has warned against stereotyping Islam.
The 61-year old British author, a former nun whose book on Islam has been a bestseller since the 9/11 attacks, is on a tour these days to promote her new book ‘The Great Transformation: the beginning of our religious traditions’. She said in an interview published on Wednesday: “I always knew that Islam was not a violent religion. For 1,500 years, Islam had a far better record of living peacefully than Christians. The point is to separate out the extremists we have in all of our monotheistic religions from the mainstream.”
Armstrong said that belief in God must be about making it work for the world. “It means you have to dethrone yourself from the centre of your world and put others there. According to her, it is a mistake to define God. “I gave it up a long time ago. To define literally means to set limits. That is a travesty to try to define a reality that must go beyond human thinking. The idea of a God overseeing all this death and despair is untenable. That’s the antithesis of God. If you looked at the history of the 20th century, who is overseeing this? That’s just one human idea of God as overseer, and it’s a childish idea of God.”
She said that the United States is unique in the world, being the only superpower. “So what do you do? Do you start wars nobody can win? Al Qaeda can’t bring down the US, but the US can’t bring down Al Qaeda either,” she said.
The 61-year old British author, a former nun whose book on Islam has been a bestseller since the 9/11 attacks, is on a tour these days to promote her new book ‘The Great Transformation: the beginning of our religious traditions’. She said in an interview published on Wednesday: “I always knew that Islam was not a violent religion. For 1,500 years, Islam had a far better record of living peacefully than Christians. The point is to separate out the extremists we have in all of our monotheistic religions from the mainstream.”
Armstrong said that belief in God must be about making it work for the world. “It means you have to dethrone yourself from the centre of your world and put others there. According to her, it is a mistake to define God. “I gave it up a long time ago. To define literally means to set limits. That is a travesty to try to define a reality that must go beyond human thinking. The idea of a God overseeing all this death and despair is untenable. That’s the antithesis of God. If you looked at the history of the 20th century, who is overseeing this? That’s just one human idea of God as overseer, and it’s a childish idea of God.”
She said that the United States is unique in the world, being the only superpower. “So what do you do? Do you start wars nobody can win? Al Qaeda can’t bring down the US, but the US can’t bring down Al Qaeda either,” she said.
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