Asharq Alawsat – Speak No Evil: Muslim Experts Sound Off Over the Ongoing ‘Tash’ Controversy

Asharq Alawsat By Huda al Saleh:

Regarding the role of mosques, and the various preachers who participated in rekindling the recent controversy, Muhammad al-Mahmud believes the mosque is controlled through the exploitation of its symbolic holiness and that the power of religious reformation or progressiveness has disappeared. He believes that the mosque has become restricted to the traditional reserved religious discourse, or the provocative one, which exploits the month of Ramadan and other religious occasions by using internet websites and some satellite television channels. This discourse, he said, is only confronted by the official religious discourse (of the official religious institution), which by virtue of its official nature tries to ‘rationalize’, but does not take initiative to put an end to such discourse. Al-Mahmud added that there are points of convergence over some concepts between the two discourses.