Are all muslims "orthodox"?
My International Relations teacher claims that the HUGE, overwhelming majority of Muslims are strongly religious, and follow all the rules set down by their religion.
I found this really hard to swallow, and I’m still convinced that there’s a large portion that are essentially the “reform” Muslims.
I know there are at least some, but is my teacher, mostly right?
By “large portion” I mean greater than 10% of all Muslims.
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I don’t know a lot about Muslims, but I would agree they try to follow their religious beliefs closely. However, there are many different groups (e.g. Shiites and Sunnis) in Islam and different interpretations of the laws and such. I recently read a book entitled No god but God that I found to be very interesting.
I should also mention that there are a lot of blogs by Iranians, many of them in English. I’ve found that many of them are open to questions about their culture and religion if you are respectful.
I have 2 Muslim friends, one Palestinian and one Persian. I also have a pretty Orthodox Muslim nephew who DOES pray 5 times a day.
Neither of my 2 friends are “fundamentalist,” but one seems to be more “faith oriented” than the other. I love talking to him about our faiths, and what we have in common. He has also volunteered to talk to my Bible study to assure them that all Muslims do not seek the annihilation of our country, something that a very bright friend believed was true. Funny that I answered this question right after answering the question about tolerance.
Funny also that I sort of freaked out answering this question wondering if any of the words I used caused the government to flag my response and put me on a watch list because I have Muslim friends. I must be paranoid, but then again, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not watching, right?
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