New Straits Times
31 August 2015
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- The Need for Religious Literacy
The Need for Religious Literacy
THE Washington Post published an article on July 10 by Daniel Philpott entitled “Are Muslim countries really unreceptive to religious freedom?” His argument was that despite Muslim-majority countries showing high patterns of repression, Islam was not the problem. While I agree with his conclusion, there are problems with the way the discussion was framed.
Three statements stood out from the article: “a dearth of religious freedom in Islam”; “Islam clearly has considerably lower levels of religious freedom”; and “the presence of religiously free countries in Islam”. While one could surmise what he meant to say, it actually makes no sense: what is this generic “Islam”?
Elsewhere, the writer uses the much better term “Muslim-majority countries”, which makes sense. Islam, like any religion, is diverse (not just Sunni and Shia, but also Sufism and others); it has changed over time. There is much diversity within Islam.
… The writer is an associate professor with the Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
RSIS / GPO / Print
