I found one blog posted on Prothomalo by Bangladeshi Shaykh Muhammad, titled “The freedom and the worship of the soul in Islam”.

To summarize, this blog discusses from a Bangladeshi Muslim’s point of view what exactly freedom means to a follower of Islam. Muhammad discusses the importance of freedom and to be weary of “evil” which will attempt to deceive man into forfeiting freedom. Muhammad uses a wealth of direct quotes from the Qur’an to support every thing he has to say.

Though it was quite apparent that this blog was poorly translated by the website, I believe I was able to extract a number of interesting specifics from this blog and, with preexisting knowledge of the region and the country of Bangladesh, analyze it for hidden meanings. I realized as I was reading, that a large portion of the blog was in fact direct transcriptions from the Qur’an. However, these transcriptions appeared to be carefully picked and utilized by Muhammad in a clever way to put forth, what I found to be a very strong message about protecting individual freedoms.

Taken at face value, the blog is a very pleasant, even uplifting piece seemingly directed at Muslims in Bangladesh, which details what their faith has offered to them. And yet, the blog is littered with powerful dialogue from the Qur’an discussing in a degree of detail, the protection of personal rights and the rights of others in the face of evil. One of the opening lines to this blog by Muhammad caught my attention right away, “the development of human beings, such as independence is needed, so the soul also needs freedom.” Muhammad appears to be stating that without freedom one cannot grow as a human being, let alone, grow in their spirituality. This, I believe, is exceptionally powerful and strategic as it is placed in the forefront of the blog and challenges practices of Islam (roughly 90% of Bangladesh) to evaluate whether or not they have this freedom Muhammad is refrencing.

After reading the blog I am poised to see it as more than just a call for Muslims in Bangladesh to attribute their freedoms to Islam, but rather as a call to all groups within the nation to be bold in protecting their freedoms from any group, since “people are free from all kinds of servants of the Lord.” I wondered if Muhammad was implying the government at this part in the blog.

The idea of Muhammad attempting to deliver his message to people of every background is something, I believe to be extremely significant in showing that his overarching message within this blog might not be to promote Islam. As he writes,”the freedom of the people, Arabs, non-Arabs, rich and poor have taken shelter in Islam.” including everyone in his message.

 

Blog:

http://www.prothomalo.com/opinion/article/1460036/%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7%87-%E0%A6%86%E0%A6%A4%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B0-%E0%A6%B8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A7%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BE-%E0%A6%93-%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A6%A4