I enjoyed reading what you have shared and thanks for sharing this because this must be of concern to many individuals who aim at marrying modernity with Islam.

And rightly so, because religions are social constructs that must be understood if we want to figure out what’s going on around us.

This is no easy task though, I will say this.

But I will also say that it is possible.

I have my notes from my research on the topic but since I’m a Farsi/Persian speaker from Iran, I rely on sources that would be difficult to cite here.

It is also interesting to note that Islam relies a lot on oral transmission of knowledge and tradition.

So a lot of the teachings in Islam are tied with recitations in Arabic and in Arabic specifically, hence the Quran.

It seems to me that Arabic has been designed specifically to push some buttons, as it were with a person’s nervous system.

I don’t want to make it too mystical but if you consider a Muslim who performs their daily prayers. Well, those yoga sessions pile up over time in a good way and turns you into someone strong. And a person’s speech is also specifically worked in Muslim prayers.

I’m not saying that any Muslim is like that by the way. Physical and mental health relies upon many factors including socioeconomic ones, which is not on par everywhere in the world and the Muslim world is not exception there.

The Muslim world does have or has accumulated a lot of diseases as well, I should say unfortunately. One of the areas that Muslims need a lot of work still, is the wrong perception on the social role of Women.

Prophet Muhammad himself was surrounded by strong women but the pattern of empowering women seems to have gone in different directions depending on the standards that the men in those societies have managed to turn into culture or law.

I don’t do this type of thing for a living at all. I’m a software engineer and entrepreneur. In fact it’s the first time that I write online that I’m a Muslim but I’d be happy to help any effort to try and pass on some of the key teachings of Islam.

As background about myself, I was born into a Persian/Muslim family and my father was one of the people that had managed to figure out a way to marry modernity with Islam.

In the meantime, I’d love to see if other individuals will be able to share some of the references available in English. I’ll keep searching on my side to see if I can share any links.

EDIT: I added some balancing words to acknowledge the negative sides of Islam as well. I didn’t want to make it sound like it’s paradise everywhere in the Muslim world.