Distorting the True Picture ... Presenting information

Edward Said said of Bernard Lewis' literature in that it was typically a-Political .... This
rang a bell with me in how Orientalist literature and interpretation of Occident culture
is presented to the masses ...

Briefly, Orientalism being the study of "Other cultures" ... They were instrumental in giving Advice
to Napolean in his invasion of Egypt and (continuing in the tradition) for George Bush similar in his Iraq Foray ...

How facts are "presented" can itself give a distorted picture of reality...

For many years (pre-Iraq war) people thought that the Middle east was a place of conflict, purely from the isolated
Palestinian situation, the whole region was labelled as a "War zone" .. this again was the simplistic journalism inspired
mass "way of thinking"

when i read an article on pakistans history recently it was itself a list of facts presented (with unreoprtional weight given) illustrating a region of chaos,
where tradegy and strife is listed categoricaly in a way that a picture is presented can hide the "reality"

from a historical perspective the deep rooted (secular) principles of dismissing religions
is again followed in this model... The life and times of Zoroaster founder of the iranian religion is presented
so that it seems that Zoroaster influenced the notion of Monotheism within Christianity and islam ... This assumption/allegation
is again an interpretive way to strip divinity from the basis of religions and to purely "look" at it in cultural intercourse
terms in that men were sharing ideas ....

But if one looks closely and deeply into the monotheistic principles of islam is unique, in that it well defined, removed from any paganistic
associations and Rich in its theology ... The complex and wealth of the principles of islam is not given weight and since Monotheism and its purity
is THE most important facet in islam it is not given weight in its comparison with Zoroaster ....

And let us ask, did Monotheism START from
Zoroaster ? ..... or was he a continuation of the message (of old).... ? When the Hajj or Ka'ba is referenced by the orientalists they interpret it
as A Pagan practice that is left behind and islam adopting it ... I am surprised that they do not give another interpretation to this i.e. the Islamic
interpretation .....
In that Pagan practices crept in (via innovations) and abused the pure way of way of Worshiping God ....


Averoes (ibn rushd) and Aristotle

Let us digress again and see how ibn rush (Averoes) is presented ... Averoes is never given weight in what he achieved for Europe ....
He is known as the "Commentator" .... Averoes ideas of Greek-Islamic Rhetoric were "killed" off by islam by the likes of Ghazali) and
deemed heresy and survives to this day purely in academic circles.. Yet What Averoes for Europe is something completely different ....
In his systematic, methodological clarity, interpreting
and explaining what aristotle meant and then presenting this "Curriculum" to Europe aided in giving Europe its Greek culture .... Yet
he is again dismissed as purely a translator .... And as muslims know of Ibn Kathir, Ad-Dhahabee that the muslims are lost without the
"Explainers of texts" .. Yet Averoes in Europe is almost never acknowledged ...