Don’t stereotype Islam: Karen Armstrong

**sonz** · 03-30-2006

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.

**north_malaysian** · 03-30-2006

Dont stereotype Jews too (This advice is given to all Muslims)

ffended: .

**جوري** · 05-31-2012

interesting old thread

Originally Posted by sonz

being the only superpower

I'd argue against that.. the tide changes all the time and the U.S so obviously on the decline and didn't manage its plans for the 'region'

**CosmicPathos** · 06-01-2012

I am not so sure whats so special about Karen Armstrong. Suddenly she is this poster-child for Islamic history and "spirituality," more like New Age Spirituality, in Muslim world, and everyone I speak to asks me "have you read her work, have you read her works!" She attributes all of the religious traditions to our "need" for making sense of our chaotic universe, rather than to a physically existing Monotheistic Deity. So the idea of God overseeing despair and death is untenable to her, then who gave her the right to speak about Islam in which a Deity does oversee everything happening in this universe and when all the death and despair has actually been pre-determined by Him for eventual good.