world view clash

was catching up on listening to podcasts from radio4 today, and was astonished to hear one of the 0810 interviews by john humphreys as he spoke with a young muslim. this young muslim, abu izzadeen, was the man who heckled the home secretary, dr john reid, when dr reid visited my izzadeen's community a few weeks ago. mr izzadeen said that dr reid had no right coming to a muslim local community. hhhmmmmm, the home secretary has no right to go to a part of the country for which he has parliamentary responsibility....

as you listen, i'm sure you'll be aware that there is a definite clash of worldviews going on here. there's an interesting point made my mr izzadeen that is indicative of the clash of worldviews, where he talks about allah making and owning the universe, therefore, all muslims have an a priori duty to obey allah, follow his laws (ie, from mr izaadeen's perspective, sharia law), and work toward implementing those laws wherever muslims live. so, the law of the land in which they live is of little importance to mr izadeen and people of his views.

christians say something similar, in that god created the world and all in it. christians would also say that the law of god - loving god with all you've got, and loving your neighbour as yourself - holds pre-eminence over the laws of the land. this approach allows the church to have a prophetic voice in the community where it can critique the laws of the land with the laws of love. i think it fair to say the muslim can also bring a prophetic critique to the government's laws.

but as i listened, there was something disturbing about mr izzadeen's approach. what do you think about it?

anyway, its an astounding interview that you can get through itunes by subscribing to the bbc radio4 podcast. the date of the interview was 22.9.06.

you can also follow a thread about the same kind of thing on kester brewin's blog.

Tags: muslim, christian, radio4, john reid, abu izzadeen