Pearl of Wisdom
when he saw a male sparrow saying to a female sparrow, 'Why do you deprive me of yourself, for if I wanted I could take Solomon's crown with my beak and throw it in the seal' Solomon said to him, smiling, 'Are you really able to do so?' The bird said, 'No, O Messenger of Allah, but a man may embellish himself and greaten himself in front of his wife, and a lover cannot be rebuked for what he says.' Solomon then asked the female sparrow, 'Why do you deprive him of yourself when he loves you?' She said, ?O Prophet of Allah, he is not a lover, but a claimant [of love], for he loves someone else besides me!' The words of this sparrow affected Solomon's heart and he cried very much, and secluded himself from people for forty days praying to Allah to empty his heart for his love for Him, and to not mix it with love for anything other than Him.'
Prophet Solomon [as] Bihar al-Anwar, v. 14, p. 95, no. 3
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Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think |
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Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, a new documentary film from Unity Productions Foundation, explores the expertly gathered opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll on the subject, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization.
Gallup researchers began by asking the questions on every American’s mind. Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists and how do Muslims feel about them? What do Muslims like and dislike about the West? What do Muslim women really want?
Crucial policy decisions hang on these questions. They continue to generate passionate disagreements in the public square. Yet for all the heat and controversy, the actual views of the world’s Muslims have been conspicuously missing from this debate.
Now, we have the missing answers and statistics, gathered, parsed, and analyzed not by pundits but by professional researchers.
As part of this groundbreaking six-year project, Gallup conducted tens of thousands of interviews with residents in 35 predominantly Muslim nations, as well as smaller populations in Europe and the USA. The broad extent of the polling has delivered findings for the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims with a plus or minus accuracy of 3%
Focused on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy –the film presents this remarkable data deftly, showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course. Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts – not fear.
Experts featured (A Partial List): Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, John Esposito, University Professor, Georgetown University, RamiKhoury, Editor of the Daily Star (Beirut), and Kenneth Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute. |
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