An identity crisis of our own making

Found at Shaykh Faraz Rabbani's blog Seeker's Digest

From the UK paper The Observer

Amartya Sen reminds us about Fazlur Rahman Khan in his illuminating new book, Identity and Violence. Muslims can be on different sides of many cultural and political divides; to be a Muslim is not to have an unasked-for, all-engulfing identity. Yet the current enthusiasm for tying people down to one simple identity not only fosters a bleakly reductive view of what human beings are and may become, but also frequently fuels violence. Sen's passionate insistence on the need for a more nuanced view takes him into a discussion of some of the most pressing political issues we face: terrorism, Iraq, globalisation and the management of multicultural societies.