Muslim Institute Fellow Rania Hafez imparts some backtalk skills in ‘Teaching Them to Argue Back – Encouraging a New Generation to Think Critically’.
Join the discussion as Rania examines why we need to equip young people with the skills to think critically and how to engage them in the notion of plurality of thought.
Religion and science are often seen to be in conflict. To many it seems that the rational mind seeks to know things that may contradict beliefs held on faith, but the division between reason and faith in science is a false dichotomy.
There is a powerful primitive idea of religion that we can describe in this way: a primitive religious tribesman says “the Spirit of Life lives in that tree. God exceeds science”…. Read the full article at thefreesociety.org
at the Battle of Ideas, Royal College of Art, London. Sunday 30 October
Racism of any kind is socially unacceptable. Or so we thought. Senior Conservative Baroness Warsi declared in January that ‘Islamophobia’ is alive and well and has ‘passed the dinner table test’. She claims anti-Muslim prejudice is now normal and uncontroversial in respectable society. Warsi’s views are echoed by many British Muslims, who claim to experience such prejudice daily. So is there really widespread discrimination against Muslims, and if so has religion simply become a proxy for race as implied by Warsi? Or is the cry of ‘Islamophobia’ simply a way of deflecting legitimate criticism of certain backward ideas associated with religion in general and conservative Islam in particular?
Some argue we should fear Islam and the threat it poses to Western culture and values, often pointing to its ongoing association with terrorism. Others cite Islamic countries’ poor record on women’s rights and their intolerance of free speech as evidence that Islam should not be beyond criticism. But critics of Islamophobia insist it is Muslims who are being vilified and demonised, not just a set of ideas. Among other things, those worried about a rise of anti-Muslim prejudice cite the way senior Labour politician Jack Straw picked up on particular cases to suggest there is a wider ‘social problem’ of Muslim men grooming white girls. And with Muslim veils and minarets being banned in several European countries, many worry that innocent Muslim men and women are being made to suffer for no other reason than their religion.
‘Islamophobia is the new racism’ is now a seeming truism, or so Baroness Warsi and many others would have us believe. She claims that Islamophobia has ‘passed the dinner table test’ and that anti-Muslim prejudice is now normal and uncontroversial in respectable society. Warsi’s views are echoed by many British Muslims, who claim to experience such prejudice daily… Go to the Independent website to continue
As a Muslim who was educated in Lebanon in a Francophone system by Catholic nuns, I can speak with some authority on faith and non- faith-based education. Neither the Catholic sisters or the secular, subject-based education affected my beliefs. Schooling in faith schools can still provide a good education.
The debate about ‘faith’ schools is often about the mistaken idea that ‘faith’ in this context is essentially irrational and a matter of indoctrination of children and young people into a set of unreasoned, if not irrational, beliefs. The popularity of faith schools even amongst people of no belief must mean there’s more to faith schools than this. An Islamic education would be superior to what is now generally on offer in British schools.