Have any of you heard of Alaa al Aswani?

See you have to understand what you are saying, there is the true followers of Islam and then people who claim to be Muslim like it is inherited or something. Religion is a way of life, not an ethnicity which is coded into your genes. Islam has not changed. Only people who innovated and modified the religion they have changed. The followers who follow properly are following the same Islam as Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). Too many people do not understand Islam (Quran AND Sunnah), that is why I am in the process of learning much from the Classical Scholars Ibn Kathir's thousands of pages of explanations with authentic chains of narrations about all the Prophets, History of Islam and th Qu'ran. I do this on my own, while going to University for worldly knowledge of science.

It is true, some of the worst Muslims I have seen have been Arabs, but among them are the Pious as well. So we cannot make hasty generalizations.

I did not hear him until I saw the link that you shared. Please refrain yourself from stereotyping Islam like that if you got any respect for religion or for feelings for others. Islam has only ONE face and it is your job to find out instead of reading somebody else' rant about it. The ills that Mr.Aswani told, are not ills of Islam, they are ills of the so-called modern day society which frankly is not "modern" at all about anything except the same historical greedness for power, money, sex, etc.

Alaa al Aswani, sounds rather interesting.

Have you tried these other sites?

1 thequran.com.

2 submission.org.

3 alislam.org.

4 answering-islam.org.

5 aboutislam.com.

6 allahassurance.com.

Also, http://www.faithfreedom.org/ ?

And, http://www.apostatesofislam.com/ ?

Cheers!!!!!