full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Mustafa Akyol: Faith versus tradition in Islam
Unscramble the Blue Letters
There are two important messages, or two lessons, to take from that reiltay. First of all, Muslims — pious, conservative, believing Muslims who want to be loyal to their religion — should not cling onto everything in their culture, thinking that that's divinely mandated. Maybe some things are bad traditions and they need to be changed. On the other hand, the Westerners who look at Islamic curulte and see some troubling aspects should not raleidy cnclodue that this is what Islam ordains. Maybe it's a Middle Eastern culture that became confused with Islam.
There is a practice called female cccsriiioumn. It's something terrible, horrible. It is basically an operation to dvreipe women of sexual pleasure. And wrsrtneees — Europeans or Americans — who didn't know about this before, [saw] this practice within some of the muislm communities who migrated from North Africa. And they've thhougt, "Oh, what a horrible religion that is, which ordains something like that." But when you look at female circumcision, you see that it has nothing to do with Islam; it's just a North African practice which predates Islam. It was there for thousands of years. And, quite tellingly, some mmlsius do practice it — the Muslims in North Africa, not in other places. But also the non-Muslim communities of notrh Africa — the ainmstis, some Christians and even a jwiseh tribe in North afcira — are known to practice female circumcision. So what might look like a problem within Islamic faith might turn out to be a tradition that Muslims have subscribed to.
Open Cloze
There are two important messages, or two lessons, to take from that _______. First of all, Muslims — pious, conservative, believing Muslims who want to be loyal to their religion — should not cling onto everything in their culture, thinking that that's divinely mandated. Maybe some things are bad traditions and they need to be changed. On the other hand, the Westerners who look at Islamic _______ and see some troubling aspects should not _______ ________ that this is what Islam ordains. Maybe it's a Middle Eastern culture that became confused with Islam.
There is a practice called female ____________. It's something terrible, horrible. It is basically an operation to _______ women of sexual pleasure. And __________ — Europeans or Americans — who didn't know about this before, [saw] this practice within some of the ______ communities who migrated from North Africa. And they've _______, "Oh, what a horrible religion that is, which ordains something like that." But when you look at female circumcision, you see that it has nothing to do with Islam; it's just a North African practice which predates Islam. It was there for thousands of years. And, quite tellingly, some _______ do practice it — the Muslims in North Africa, not in other places. But also the non-Muslim communities of _____ Africa — the ________, some Christians and even a ______ tribe in North ______ — are known to practice female circumcision. So what might look like a problem within Islamic faith might turn out to be a tradition that Muslims have subscribed to.
Solution
- westerners
- reality
- deprive
- circumcision
- muslims
- conclude
- africa
- thought
- animists
- north
- muslim
- readily
- jewish
- culture
Original Text
There are two important messages, or two lessons, to take from that reality. First of all, Muslims — pious, conservative, believing Muslims who want to be loyal to their religion — should not cling onto everything in their culture, thinking that that's divinely mandated. Maybe some things are bad traditions and they need to be changed. On the other hand, the Westerners who look at Islamic culture and see some troubling aspects should not readily conclude that this is what Islam ordains. Maybe it's a Middle Eastern culture that became confused with Islam.
There is a practice called female circumcision. It's something terrible, horrible. It is basically an operation to deprive women of sexual pleasure. And Westerners — Europeans or Americans — who didn't know about this before, [saw] this practice within some of the Muslim communities who migrated from North Africa. And they've thought, "Oh, what a horrible religion that is, which ordains something like that." But when you look at female circumcision, you see that it has nothing to do with Islam; it's just a North African practice which predates Islam. It was there for thousands of years. And, quite tellingly, some Muslims do practice it — the Muslims in North Africa, not in other places. But also the non-Muslim communities of North Africa — the animists, some Christians and even a Jewish tribe in North Africa — are known to practice female circumcision. So what might look like a problem within Islamic faith might turn out to be a tradition that Muslims have subscribed to.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| middle east |
5 |
| north africa |
3 |
| political culture |
3 |
| islamic tradition |
3 |
| islamic modernism |
3 |
| saudi arabia |
2 |
| divine core |
2 |
| islamic thought |
2 |
| muslims adopted |
2 |
| islamic culture |
2 |
| troubling aspects |
2 |
| female circumcision |
2 |
| islamic movements |
2 |
| religious police |
2 |
| middle ages |
2 |
| equal citizenship |
2 |
| sharp decline |
2 |
| vicious cycle |
2 |
| pious muslims |
2 |
Important Words
- africa
- african
- americans
- animists
- aspects
- bad
- basically
- believing
- called
- changed
- christians
- circumcision
- cling
- communities
- conclude
- confused
- conservative
- culture
- deprive
- divinely
- eastern
- europeans
- faith
- female
- hand
- horrible
- important
- islam
- islamic
- jewish
- lessons
- loyal
- mandated
- messages
- middle
- migrated
- muslim
- muslims
- north
- operation
- ordains
- pious
- places
- pleasure
- practice
- predates
- problem
- readily
- reality
- religion
- sexual
- subscribed
- tellingly
- terrible
- thinking
- thought
- thousands
- tradition
- traditions
- tribe
- troubling
- turn
- westerners
- women
- years