Reza Aslan Quotes
It is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy. A democratic state can be established upon any normative moral framework as long as pluralism remains the source of its legitimacy
Reza Aslan, Islamic Author, “From Islam, Pluralist Democracies Will Surely Grow,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 11, 2005
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He was referring to whether or not Iraq should be a Muslim state.
A major problem of new and emerging democracies is that many people believe that majority rule per se is democracy. In Egypt for example, Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood won the election. They then assumed that they had the right to do anything including exempting the government from judicial review or deciding the role of women in society or denying freedom of religion to non-Muslim citizens. Democracy is not a serial autocracy with each new autocrat being selected by a free and fair election.
This quotation illustrates that a narrow orthodox view of Islam is not the only one in Arab nations. Khaled is not an obscure cleric, but a popular television personality. While his views are considered heresy by many orthodox Muslims, the narrow view is by no means universal. Orthodox Islamists believe that God has commanded that all mankind be Muslims and the ones who are not are either ignorant so need to be “educated”, or evil and therefore should be killed. However, Muhammad ordained that an exception should be made for “Children of the Book”—Jews and Christians who revere the Old Testament. This was at a time when Christians would not allow any other form of worship but Christianity. Christianity, Judaism and most other religions have become tolerant of other religions and allow open alternative worship. Islam which early on led the way to tolerance, has in many countries gone back to the intolerance that existed amongst many Christians at the time of Muhammad.
This book is endorsed by major religious organizations of all faiths as well as National School Boards Association, National Education Association, National PTA, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of Elementary School Principals, American Association of School Administrators and others. It is used as a guideline by most schools systems in the United States.
Dewey was opposing the concept of “released time” from the public schools for religious instruction.
Reza Aslan is an Iranian-American scholar of religious studies, writer, and television host. A convert to evangelical Christianity from Shia Islam as a youth, Aslan eventually reverted to Islam but continued to write about Christianity. He has written four books on religion: No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth and God: A Human History.
