ABSTRACT
We live in a ‘spiritually orphaned’ and alienated epoch – the age of estrangement, anxiety and universal stress. Unlike an older age when uprootedness was a sort of deliberate punishment against undesirable elements by ruling authorities, in our modern time of economic globalization, tyranny, gross human rights violations, warfare and polarization, exile has taken the form of mass exodus of faceless, amorphous and innocent people (80 per cent of whom are women and children). They are uprooted from their native places mostly because of reasons beyond their control. For example, refugees and migrants from Islamic countries are forced to leave the lands of their birth due to their secular views or their progressive interpretation of Islam. Moderate Muslims have been victimized and tortured by fanatical governments who use Islam as a tool for maintaining tyrannical powers.
