From this month's editor - Brief Article

New Internationalist, May, 2002 by Ziauddin Sardor

'GOD is gentle,' Prophet Muhammad once said, 'and loves gentleness in all things.' And he added: 'Gentleness should adorn everything; its absence leaves everything tainted.'

Islam, it seems to me, has been tainted by a serious lack of gentleness.

Muslims are very quick to blame the West for their plight. Colonialism, support for Israel and despotic regimes, double standards and misrepresentation of Islam are high on the list of grievances. There is much truth in these assertions.

But such truths do not explain, for example, why sexism is so deeply entrenched, or violence in the name of God has become so endemic. Or why semi-literate Mullahs are so venerated and blindly followed by so many. Nor does it clarify the gulf between the ideals of Islam and the reality on the ground.

As a Muslim writer, I am often asked: why are Muslims so reluctant to look at themselves? Why so hesitant to reexamine their own assumptions and prejudices, their own perceptions of themselves and 'the West'?

Here is a stab at an answer. It's an attempt to go beyond apologia, to start a self-reflective debate in Muslim societies, and usher an engagement between Muslims and concerned people everywhere that rises above mutual blame and suspicion.

Above all, it is a call to move forward to what Prophet Muhammad described as the main characteristics of Islam: modesty and gentleness.

Ziauddin Sardor for the New Internationalist Co-operative