Letter to The Editor

to THE AUSTRALIAN
     Intolerant rejection of Islam as a whole (12/4) itself needs to be firmly rejected. It is possible to admire and/or follow this sacred tradition without supporting repressive aspects of man-made Muslim law practised in some nations. Thus there is both truth and falsity in Catholic Babette Francis’s claim that ‘Muslims are the main victims of Islam and need liberation.’ Equally true-and-false would be a claim that Christians are the main victims of Christianity, whose erratic ‘orthodoxy’ was not so long ago a straitjacket imposed by burnings at the stake and witch-hunts.

     John George notes that ‘Turkey was once a country where Christianity and Islam lived harmoniously side by side.’ Australia, now and in the future, can be the same. Both Christians and Muslims need, however, to acknowledge that their sacred scriptures are the products of human writers, inspired in varying degrees in some parts and thus needing subtle and compassionate interpretation. If Islam is understood as ‘submission to God’ and not, say, acceptance of all sharia law, then it is indeed ‘the only religion’ - one recognised by Christians as ‘obedience to the Almighty’.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic