Blindspot!
From Issue: 612 [Read full issue]
Contemporary Challenges
In observing the map of the world, we realize that most Muslims live in the southern hemisphere in conditions, which are often dramatic. In effect, 85% of the 1.5 billion faithful are poor, and 60% are illiterate. It is a reality that we know intellectually but without really considering its more or less long-term consequences.
Giving back life to an open Islam that is in tune with its time will require that we take on two of the greatest contemporary challenges: providing for basic needs in the matter of nourishment and dispensing basic education to all children, whether rich or poor. There is through this a response to the most elementary rights of men that everything, in the letter and spirit of the Quran and Sunna, refers us to. It is a priority, and Muslims would do well not to reverse the order; a project of society cannot see the light of day if three-quarters of its members still receive help.
Compiled From:
"Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity" - Tariq Ramadan, pp.319, 320