Re: "The Knowledge Book" Is it a cult?

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In Search of Authentic Islam
Global Village News and Resources ^ | May 31, 2004 | (name omitted for privacy-Corboy)
Posted on 6/19/2004, 1:48:49 AM by Mockingbird For Short

In Search Of Authentic Islam by Wim Ahlers (South Africa)

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Terrorism thrives in poverty, ignorance, superstition and fear; remove these, Ben Ali argues, and drain the swamps in which it breeds. ..."

To this extract on Tunisia, I am adding some ideas about Islam that also come from the Middle East, this time from Turkey, where a remarkable and difficult work of over a thousand pages, was revealed in the 1980s. It is called The Knowledge Book and provides some more alternative food for thought about Islam, but from a future perspective.

For those of you who haven't come across The Knowledge Book yet, this may be the moment to make its acquaintance. It has been around in many countries since the 1980s and has already been translated into more than twenty languages. The website address is www.dkb-mevlana.org.tr

My own association with 'The Knowledge Book' is a long story - suffice it to say that after working with it for a few years and finding it quite difficult in parts, I asked the organisation in Turkey for permission to write a story in which some of its ideas could be introduced to a group of enthusiastic fourteen-year olds who wished to change the world.

The teenagers in the story, all great friends and classmates from different races and religions, experienced serious conflict for the first time in their lives†when a traumatic shooting and killing in a nearby school triggered a religious conflict that demonstrated to them what had happened over the centuries to humanity & how religious conflicts could destroy friendships and eventually lead to war. Under the guidance of two teachers, they found the solutions to their differences in The Knowledge Book.

An important point of agreement was a new understanding of the purpose of the real Islam, which was that each individual on Earth should endeavour to become a Genuine Human Being. The Knowledge Book taught them how to achieve this spiritual goal and emphasised that all the revealed Sacred books that have been with humanity for thousands of years, were supposed to unite us, not to divide us; to teach us tolerance and love, not fear, murder and hatred. The Knowledge Book entreated these young people to keep their respective religions, but to go beyond religion and find the unity there. They were fascinated to find explanations of humanity's misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the Sacred Books in their studies.

The young and eager teenagers eventually confront five religious leaders with their new ideas: an Imam, a Rabbi, a Catholic Priest, a Methodist Minister and a Charismatic Pastor. After explaining to the clergy what they have come to accept as their new belief system beyond religion, with some guidance from two teachers, the youngsters ask the clergy for support as their parents and other grown-ups won't listen to them. Instead they tell them to keep quiet and to listen to their elders. They finally convince the clergy, which marks the beginning of their quest to change humanity and to change the world.

The story has been well received and is already being translated into Russian and Turkish.