Madi Palat
After learning that Ernst is actually not a follower of the Islamic faith from class discussions, it really gave me a new perspective and respect for Ernst himself. As a scholar and author, it seems that he tends to give readers the “factual” information about the religion, as well as put it into perspective for others who don’t practice themselves. For example, I thought it was interesting when he said “we have to understand the actors, the time, the place and the issues in order to avoid making serious mistakes.” (Ernst 38). This specifically reminded me of when people refer to things they see on the news and just automatically categorize a certain “type” of people in a negative way without any background information about them at all. I think Ernst is trying to highlight that even people, and scholars like himself that don’t specifically follow a practice can still gain insight and knowledge about something or some “type” of people to knowledgeably generate their own thoughts and beliefs. For the class-Do you guys know of any instances where this commonly happens? Or to a certain “type” of people?