Scholar
The diverse ways of understanding of the Qur'an are echoed in the documentary by Dr Scott-Siraj Al-Haqq Kugle of Swarthmore College in the United States, currently a research fellow at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He believes that sharia – Islamic law – is determined by male jurists whose interpretations of Islamic texts are based on cultural assumptions situated in particular times, and particular political and geographical locations. Rather than sharia being divine, Kugle believes that it offers different avenues for Muslims to live their lives. He also points out that there is no word in the Qur'an for "gay" or "homosexual", and no mention of lesbians.
Read more about this topic: Gay Muslims
Famous quotes containing the word scholar:
“It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“The scholar requires hard and serious labor to give an impetus to his thought. He will learn to grasp the pen firmly so, and wield it gracefully and effectively, as an axe or a sword.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The scholar was not raised by the sacred thoughts amongst which he dwelt, but used them to selfish ends. He was a profane person, and became a showman, turning his gifts to marketable use, and not to his own sustenance and growth. It was found that the intellect could be independently developed, that is, in separation from the man, as any single organ can be invigorated, and the result was monstrous.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)