Out of all the readings for Thursday I think that the paper over social justice in Islam stuck out to me the most. This was a very interesting topic and I was able to reflect on it easily due to some of my experiences with different religions, including being raised a Catholic and my time volunteering at Al-Fajr. In this paper the author speaks a lot about the different aspects of Islam, and how it relates to their own culture and how it compares to other more western cultures. Throughout this paper the article focuses a lot on how Islamic societies should not follow the example of western cultures and their separation of church and state. The author believes that Islam should be an even bigger part of their culture and it should play a role in their daily lives and their government. He uses many different examples of this and why it should be done, with a lot of it focusing on the teachings of Islam and their values. At first while I was reading through this I was a bit skeptical and I wasn’t sure how I wanted to interpret it. However, upon further reflection I realized the author had a point. Compared to more western religions, Islam does seem to have different values that would be better in a government setting. When I volunteered at the mosque one of the first prayer services that I got to attend was focused on social justice and Martin Luther King Jr. This differs significantly from the normal homilies at Catholic masses I attend. I think that this paper certainly gives an interesting viewpoint and it was an enjoyable paper to read and reflect on.
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