Many Muslims are misled into believing they must help Islam dominate the world, Sultan Shahin, editor of an online magazine on Islam, said earlier this week.
He was part of a panel discussion on December 21 at the Bangalore International Centre, Domlur, focused on the history of Islam, its theologies, and the concepts of Jihadism and pluralism. The session was titled ‘Islam and modernity.’
Shahin, founder and editor of online news magazine New Age Islam, and Syed Mohammed Faisal, postdoctoral fellow at the International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru, spoke, while well-known columnist Aakar Patel moderated the discussion.
Shahin said he was concerned about the “extreme resonance” of Jihadism among educated youngsters.
“Today, we are living in a very different world, we just can’t go out and conquer other territories and expect to be accepted as legitimate rulers. Through New Age Islam I am trying to evolve a new theology of peace and pluralism,” he said.
Mohammed Faisal asked a question: “What makes these so-called ‘Jihadis’ talk about Islam in such a dismembered manner, completely out of the context?”
Many tend to give more importance to the Hadith—collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet, a majority of which were rejected by Imams as fake. A man called Shami used the Hadiths to propagate ISIS ideology in Bengaluru and had about 18,000 followers on Twitter. Elevating the status of Hadith to that of the Quran is problematic, Shahin explained.