Questions to Ed Hussain and reaction to his answers

At 06:10 PM on 26 Apr 2007,

QUESTIONS

Hi Ed,

What does coming to normal life mean to you?

1) How do you stand on controversial issues in UK like the wearing of the Niqab in schools and public places?

2)What advise do you give to young Muslims who are on the brink of becoming extremists?

3)How do you evaluate religious tolerance in UK, especially between the church and the Muslim communities?

4) Do you believe in religious freedom? If so do you think a Muslim has the right to change his/her religion?

5) Do you think your change of attitude towards extremism will serve as an example to radical Muslim, some of whose battles seem difficult to win?

ED HUSSAIN'S ANSWER

question to Ed Hus...

REACTION

At 07:15 PM on 26 Apr 2007,

I listened to Ed Husain account of his “epic “journey in Islam. He must have learnt how to take the right direction the hard way by living extremism and knowing what it means when tested it against reality.

What comes out of his conviction as he stated on WHYS was that religion shouldn’t be politicised. One can achieve religious enlightenment by embracing a religion for spiritual guidance and not seeing religion as a weapon to achieve political power. Before becoming religious, one should be a person with all what human values entails. As he said when one falls into extremism, nothing seems right but one’s own convictions. Those who embrace extremisms just shut themselves to the riches of humanity. They, out of ignorance, keep living prisoners of their narrow beliefs. The world is a wonderful place to live in because there are different types of believers.

The world will become more beautiful if faith is kept personal and if there is interfaith dialogue. In multi-faith countries like UK, it’s a must to be tolerant and open. Otherwise this leads to seclusion and vehement hate of the rest.

Ed Husain must have considered it as a sin, during his radical period, to sit and talk to a non-Muslim during his erroneous radicalism. What made it possible to him to speak on WHYS to Muslims and non-Muslims wearing a beard and a suit? Simply his return to normal life.