Tahar Ben Jelloun Quotes
Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.
Islam had been the center of intellectual thought in the world, until the clerics had decided that innovation itself was a sin and one that called for the death penalty. Although most non-Muslim religions went through stages of death for religious dissent. However, the Koran deals with every part of society. There is no separation of church and state. All knowledge is in the Koran the fundamentalist believes and anyone who expresses a new idea is not only wrong and a heretic, but is dangerous and must be executed. It is therefore not very surprising that the Islamic contributions to science, medicine, and the arts has been so small. The Islamic fundamentalists are opposed by Muslim modernists who try to change the Islamic culture but they are on the minority. Most religions have gone through bad earlier periods where dissent was heresy and warranted death. Fundamentalist Islam is the only one which bans original thought of any kinds even it does not contradict established doctrine.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
Tahar Ben Jelloun is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Darija. He became known for his 1985 novel L’Enfant de Sable (The Sand Child). Today he lives in Paris, France, and continues to write. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
