Response: Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims

Like I have stated in my previous responses, the views on Islam and Muslims have always been one of hazy dispositions. No one really knows what to believe and think especially since the tragedies taken place on 9/11. But like I've said, there's much more to this mystique that we call Islam. In Charles Kurzman's "Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims" he defends the Islamic traditions by believing that they are no longer the radical traditions established centuries long ago, but rather evolved and "westernized" even. Although Bin Laden is a "quintessential" symbol of what we perceive the muslim religion to be, Kurzman opens his argument by stating that he is a " medieval, reactionary, and eager to return the Islamic world to its seventh-century roots." Kurzman is completely correct, and backs his argument adequately by comparing the Taliban to the Islamic Republic. "While the Taliban barred girls from attending schools, the Islamic Republic of Iran more than doubled girls' education from pre-revolutionary levels. While the Taliban barred woman from working at most jobs, Iranian woman entered the labor force in unprecedented numbers, as television anchors, parliamentary deputies, government typists and sales clerks." This just goes to show that the majority of muslim countries and muslims in general are in no way shape or form intentionally trying to hold back from springing forward. Simply put "The Taliban reintroduced tradtion; Khomeini and other Islamists reinvented it." Bin Laden is just a symbolism of terror and is one of the main reasons why westerners are frustrated with Islam in general. But why haven't our views changed drastically then if we've started to see these changes? Much of Islam countries want to modernize like the West and "wish to abolish long-standing religious practices" and in fact they've succeeded. What's even funny is that the culture has become extremely tolerant, "in North America as gay convert to Islam produced a Website called Queer Jihad that espoused tolerance for homosexuality." What we see being portrayed on the media of Islam is quite different than the actual reality of it. Rather than solely focusing on the negatives we are exposed to so much, we must focus on all the good things that are coming from this considered backward culture. It truly has been making a change and all for the better.