This by Greg Burch, about the differences between Marxism and Islam, linked to by Instapundit, strikes me as shrewd. And the posting is also, unlike other blog postings I have found myself reading recently, mercifully brief, saying a great deal in a few pithy paragraphs.
Marxism, Burch reminds us, promises heaven on earth, and in time, this promise will prove wrong. So, to defeat Marxism all you have to do is quarantine it, and then wait for it to defeat itself. But Islam makes no verifiable and hence self-defeating real world promises.
This difference makes the nature of the protracted struggles faced by the West against these two fundamental challenges very different. In many ways, there was a basic premise inherent in the policy of containment taken against the communist world: Wait long enough and the truth of the superiority of liberal societies will become apparent to the world. But a policy of containment against Islamic imperialism cannot hope for such eventual success. Since Islam does not make any ambitious proposal to improve the lot of its followers in the real world, but only in an imaginary afterlife, no amount of waiting can undermine its claim to truth.
I do not claim that this is in any way a new insight, but it is an important meme, well stated. It also feeds in to what Johnathan said yesterday, about us “setting an example” to Islam rather than barging in and re-arranging it.
Another good Islam-related meme emerged from a not-that-recent (but it deserves to be placed on the Samizdata record, I think) conversation between me and Perry de Havilland. Perry perpetrated that widespread meme-that-ain’t-so, to the effect that Islam needs a Reformation. The muddle here is that it confuses Reformation in the sense of reform in the direction of sanity and niceness with reformation in the direction of more devoted adherence to the original texts, which of course means the exact opposite of sanity and niceness.
My so far rather limited reading of the Koran causes me to agree with Islamic fundamentalists about what the Koran says and what it demands of Muslims. Reformation, in the sense of what happened historically in Europe with Christianity – believers reading the stuff for themselves and not allowing the message to be bent out of shape by priests before it gets to them – is what Islam has for many decades now been busily engaged in, and that, from the point of view of Western Civilisation, is the problem, not the solution.
Perry quickly rephrased what he was all along trying to say. Islam, he said, needs a New Testament. I.e. something fundamentally different for the fundamentalist true believers to read. Again, I am sure that this is not an original notion, but it is still a meme to conjure with, I think. It is a lot to ask, but that is the point. Islam has to change a lot before it can hope to rub along contentedly with the rest of us.
I suspect that lots of people benignly raised within the Muslim religious tradition, but appalled by what Islam actually says, have many times attempted such a project, but that Original Islam 1.0 contains not only the contradiction of all such niceness memes, but also other memes which have the effect of preventing the niceness memes from ever catching on and becoming more than historical footnotes.
However, the world is a very different place now to what it has been throughout most of Muslim history, and I remain optimistic that Islam may eventually reform itself, in the sense that Perry and I and everyone else who is civilised would all like. Such a benign transformation would be unprecedented and utterly out of character with almost everything that went before in Muslim history. But, so are mobile phones.
I would dearly love Islam to acquire a New Testament. However, if Islam received a New Testament, Islam would not be Islam.
Islam exists for many in places like Bosnia by being rather ‘Anglican’… by which I mean simply not taking the whole ‘religion-thing’ too seriously and seeing itself more as a cultural identifier than a way of life.
In the Middle East, cultures under Islam needs some sort of powerful counter-current, which might need some sort of radical reinterpreting of what the Koran ‘really’ means (i.e. rather the way most modern Christians have reinterpreted their holy book in ways that air-brush out all that “not suffering witches to live” stuff and various other things not conducive to brotherly love and non-psychopathic behaviour).
What the Koran actually say does not really matter much just so long as something that calls itself Islam decides to reinterpret itself into modernity and secular reality. What I think Islam needs is to ‘reform’ itself out of existence, at least as we currently understand Islam.
And?
The Baha’is seem to think it has.
I can care less what Islam needs and how it should be reformed. It’s their internal business. if they want to survive – they’ll mend their ways.
So far, their experience with Europe, Canada, Australia and US has been teaching them the opposite: no matter how cheeky, insulting and agressive they get in the face of the Westerners, they are getting what they demand. Just look at the histeria in the media and the UN (and the heads of State…Shirac?) over Israeli response to the Hezballah provocation.
Until the spoilt child is delt with in the firm manner, there will be no fixing of the problem.
Brian: ……to rub along contentedly with the reat of us. Who are we kidding but ourselves. There were, historically, times between much aggression & blood-letting when Islam was consolidating (taking a short breather) and behaving in a semi-benign fashion to impress the natives. The rest-period is over, should you not have noticed, and ‘play’ has been resumed.
Islam has neither wish nor intention to ‘rub along’. Compare it with what you will…….simply look at its history and, critically, what it is doing today.
We are so blind and so deaf.
Guy – true. Still, they’re kinda creepy, what with their rather bizarre fixation on centralised world government. Baha’is are to Islam as the Blairites are to socialism.
Perry – well, I agree with you re. the New Testament bit. However, I just don’t see it as a particularly realistic outcome; unless another prophet rocks up. Saying “What Islam needs is a New Testament” is like saying “what Skoda needs is several BMW engineers and a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant” circa 1980. I reckon we have to deal with what we have in front of us. Islam needs a lot of things – a New Testament would be a great start – but what we can realistically expect from this faith is what we need to work with/on.
Tatyana
I think the value of Perry’s remark about Islam needing a New Testament is not so much that it tells Muslims what they must do, but that it tells the rest of us what Islam is really like, and how profoundly different Islam is from what the rest of us, including me, would like it to be like. As does the point Burch makes, about Islam not being such that it will ever disprove its own claims.
And, the rest of us learning what Islam is really like is all part of the process of learning how to deal with Islamists in our midst. It’s not an either/or thing. EITHER study Islam’s true and truly appalling nature, OR stop spoiling the “spoilt children”. The two processes go together. At present, we are ruled by pre 9/11 people with their multi-cultural delusions, such as the delusion that if we are only a bit more polite to Islam, it will become wholly polite to us. But these delusions are already fading, in the face of evidence of their ineffectiveness.
In the same way, in an earlier time of appeasement, the process of learning not to appease Nazism and learning Nazism’s true nature were the same process.
And if your reaction to that is that it is all rather expensive and unwieldy – too much too late, you might say (WW2 instead of snuffing out Hitler in about 1934) – well, bad luck, that’s Western Civilisation for you. Its default position with all problems of this sort is to ignore them, and hope they go away. Then when the problem is proven to be really, really serious, they spend about thirty years working out and arguing like hell about what the damn problem is. Then, and with an expertise and often a degree of violence that can shock both sides deeply, the West moves in for the kill and solves the problem.
I feel another posting coming on, about how the West defeats its enemies, all of them.
Ain’t gonna happen.
It will first require effort to beat Islam back into the desert as needs be done every 400 years or so.
Perhaps the next cycle can be avoided…but not this one. To follow along with your meme, Islam can reform itself, isolate itself, stay the same, or move off world…but only after this particular flavor is pushed out into the sand.
I’ve had too many heart to heart talks with Americanized Muslims to think that simple acclimation will work. They need to be beaten and broken everywhere they touch other cultures in conflict.
Then maybe there won’t be a next time.
No no no, it is Western societies that are ‘aborting’ themselves out of existance while Muslims have much bigger families.
The result being the next generations will be more Islamic not less.
The ‘extremists’ are winning the race to spread their ideas and are doing it through the womb.
Demographics will decide the future, not the best ideas…
James W. – all what Skoda needed in the 1980’s was privatization. Which, afterall, wasn’t that difficult to do. It only required the fall of communism and that was he trick.
… the trick, sorry for typo.
“However, the world is a very different place now to what it has been throughout most of Muslim history, and I remain optimistic that Islam may eventually reform itself, in the sense that Perry and I and everyone else who is civilised would all like. Such a benign transformation would be unprecedented and utterly out of character with almost everything that went before in Muslim history. But, so are mobile phones.”
By what mechanism do you think this transformation would work?
And what would it be transformed to?
permanent expat
I hate those arguments where the other fellow tells you things you already know, but as if you disagreed or didn’t know.
Of course we can’t rub along with Islam as it is now. That’s the whole point of my posting.
What Islam needs is to admit to itself that the Koran is not a divine text direct and unsullied from the mouth of God.
Once you do that, whatever it says has lost the blind force of divine authority and is then free to be interpreted, revised, updated, truly analysed and, most importantly, ignored freely if so desired.
Right now Islam is The Borg. Islam is subjugation and blind obedience to a man-made clique who fraudulently wrap themselves up in the authority of God. Anyone who thinks Islam is “peace” is thinking of the “piece”, as in “piece of paper” that was in Chamberlain’s hand when he struck a deal with anohter Fascist entity…who also, oddly enough, wanted “peace” through subjugation.
I have posted here before about my fear that, unless Islam can find someone within itself who can lead it into the modern world, i.e., detach its religious leaders from political dominance, the only other realistic course of action is the unleashing of total war upon Islam until that population, like the Germans and Japanese before them, renounce theocratic fascism, and accept secular, representative political structures and a non- aggresive approach to other cultures.
Many believe, with good reason, that such an outcome is unlikely, both because such an effort is now beyond the psychological resources of the West, and because such a transformation is beyond the capabilities of the Islamic mind.
But to counter those beliefs adequately would require much more time and space than even I would dare take here in someone else’s house, so I will have to deal with the questions in a shortened form.
I often get the feeling that many in the West are in a late ’70’s frame of mind, as if they were waiting for some new Jimmy Carter to give another malaise speech so they could all nod their heads and agree that we have lost our way.
All I can say to that pessimistic attitude is that, in a world in which menace has been transformed from glowering, marxist/maoist totalitarian monstrosities to a relative handful of disorganized religious lunatics, such hopelessness is laughably beatnik, like the bearded prophets of doom who haunted the ’50’s, predicting imminent collapse around every corner.
The danger to the West is completely internal. The Islamic fascists are only as influential and threatening as we allow them to be. If they make the ultimate mistake, and bring about some act of destruction that re-energizes the angry belligerence of ordinary citizens, especially in the American middle class, there are no limits on what the response might be, or the level of death and destruction which might be visited upon them.
The simple fact is that the military and other powers of the West have been held in check only by our own good natured wishes for peace, and the relentless efforts of the international progressive community to make any fully unrestrained response to Islamic aggression seem to be illegal and inappropriate, just as they always did in our relations with past threats.
It may happen that the elemental fact that this international community of collectivists is fundamentally opposed to Western individualism and liberty will finally come into focus for many who, presently, do not comprehend the nature of their opposition.
That, even more than the defeat and reformation of Islamic societies, would be a monumentally transformative event.
Realistically, there will never be any final, universal solution for any or all of these problems. People will still desire statist solutions. Religious fanatics of one sect or another will still try to enforce their revelations on the general population. Disgruntled and violent people will always find some cause to justify their acts of hatred and destruction.
Like the myth of the stable climate, or the stable economy, the mythic idea of the stable, universally peaceful human community is incongruent with the history and proclivities of real people, and the never ending volatility of our species.
If a Pax Americana is imposed on the Islamic world, as it was on the never ending warfare in Europe and Asia, it will never be without incidents and problems, and kibitzing from all those who know everything, and are responsible for nothing.
Islam will either change itself from within, or it will be dismantled, and tolerated in another form, from without.
The sooner that Islam realizes these are the only two possible futures it has, the better it will be for all of us who are trying to live in a world without lunacy.
Mene, Mene, tekel upharsin. Islam must read the writing on the wall.
I don’t think Islam requires either a reformation or a New Testament. The problem isn’t that the Islamic world has a certain religion but rather that they have pre-Enlightenment medieval culture.
The details of any particular religion do not matter. I wouldn’t want to share a planet with 15th century Christendom with access to modern technology. The Christians of that era would look to us pretty much exactly as do most Muslims today. Christian did not change the sacred text of their faith, they simply re-interpted them as conditions changed. Muslim can do the same thing and indeed in a few places have already done so.
What Muslims really need is free or at least free-ish societies and economic opportunity. Given that the evolution of the religion will follow as a matter of course.
veryretired – if we have a monumental attack from The West led by the US it might end up with the US working itself into near bankrupcy and then have the Chinese bail them out and win the day…for a massive price. And so the batton is passed to the next Empire.
Of course, Judaism doesn’t have a New Testament, but there don’t seem to be many problems…
I don’t think Burch is quite correct when he states that Islam doesn’t promise anything better in this life, but only in the next. Some Islamic propaganda points to the declining morals of the West, and how Islam is the solution to social problems such as teenage preganancy, drug abuse, etc. Even so, only someone as clueless as Prince Charles could fail to see what lies behind such soothing platitudes – the desire to hoist people from cranes in public parks if they offend Allah.
Shannon, you miss one key difference between the 15th Century Christians and Muslims.
Christians accepted, and taught, that their holy texts were written by men. Thus they were not perfect, since no human endeavor is.
Thus the Reformation in Christianity was an argument over who should interpret the New Testament, not whether it should be interpreted.
Islam says that the Koran is perfect. It is reputed to be the literal word of Allah. You cannot have an argument over who should interpret the text, since interpreting it is heresy.
TimC—China is a boogeyman. Their society, much more than their economy, is a house of cards. Militarily they are back in the ’60’s, and in that assessment I’m being kind.
I have heard this “China is coming” hysteria for some time now and find it foolish and alarmist. The Chinese, as they mature as a more open society, and the former marxist ruling clique loses more and more of its grip on the country, will find themselves so intricately intertwined with the West that there will be no reason for any military adventuring.
Rivals, yes. Enemies, no.
The Chinese people suffered horribly during the maoist lunacy. Any attempt to close off their economy, or become belligerent against their own interests, would cause them to replace the ruling group as quickly and messily as needed. They only tolerate the Party now because it has gradually discarded so much of its former program and embraced modernizing and opening the economy to the world.
There will be no “Chinese Empire”. The ruling remnants of the CCP are walking on eggshells and cringing every time they hear a crack open under their feet.
Indeed, but most Jews have managed to ‘interpret’ themselves into a rational modern future regardless.
Of course it helped hugely that they were (and indeed are) part of broader western civilisation rather than having to do this on their own. There is no skirting around the fact that modern Jewish culture looks the way it does because, unlike Islam, it experienced the European Englightenment from the inside rather than purely as spectators from afar.
Eric has it pretty much right. The Prophet tells us in his book, (the Koran) that he is the last prophet of God. Period. After him God isn’t talking to us any more. There will be no further verses, as that would require further prophets (heresy). Convert or die, propare to be assimilated.
Of course, every time the moslem mounts his horse, draws his sword, rides out shouting the name of god, and gets his ass kicked, it’s God telling him he’s doing something wrong, which gives the lie to the Koran, but who’s listening? To him, it just means he didn’t try hard enough. Many government programs operate on this same principle.
The war with Islam will end when the last mosque is converted to a MacDonalds.
Eric Sivula Jr,
Christians accepted, and taught, that their holy texts were written by men. Thus they were not perfect, since no human endeavor is.
Not sure which Christians you are referring to. Biblical inerrancy is still the tenet of most protestant churches and was definitely the tenet of the 15th century catholic church. The idea that the bible is merely the imperfect work of mortal men is a minority viewpoint to say the least.
Interesting debate, so it’s alarming that the government ‘engages’ Muslims by fawning to the most reactionary groups (like the MCB). It’s rather like the government engaging Catholics by talking only to cardinals from the 1950s.
If the government had the wit to engage/consult more liberal/enlightened Muslim groups out there, it might realise that the ‘sensibilities’ it’s been kowtowing to are the most reactionary sensibilities, which it wouldn’t stomach from any other quarter.
To Brian. The first time I read you, you were talking wittily about your shelves. That seems so long ago.
To all the wrongdoing of Islam, we should add diverting brillant minds from their researches and improvements and exhausting them with delinquance, public expenses and anxiety.
Yes Dave, Islam is womberful.
Outbreading us? Bah. I would be worried if Islam was hardwired into people at birth but it is not. The reason Islam fears us is not that we can out breed them, it is that we can take their children and make them us.
Brian: Thank you for your kind remarks. I hope Alice takes note of them.
I am old enough to have been a callow youth in 1936 & was amazed even then that no-one even wanted to see the ‘Mene Tekel…’ My father reminded me that it was only 18 years since the end of the bloodiest war in history and that he, and 99% of those who had taken part, was not all that keen that we should get into another &, in any case, even a nutter like Hitler couldn’t possibly want to repeat the slaughter we had visited on each other. Father was a nice guy like many of today’s fathers, but even nice guys can be wrong.
The rest is history….& countless millions dead.
I don’t presume to remind academics about history but I do get a tad weary when they ignore it. When I, as a grateful guest, make comments on this particular theme, I try to avoid logorrhoea & say it as I see it.
Hitler, liar that he was, assuaged our fears by saying that he only wanted peace.
The Mullahs have made their intentions loud & clear….& I find that not particularly assuageing.
Time we got our act together…..it’s 23:55.
Thank you.
………………and at the G8, Jacques Chirac calls for a united front to deal with….waiiiit for it…..global warming!
It’s cyclical, Jacques, cyclical….Tour de France, geddit.
The Koran itself saying that it is the last revealed word of god that will be handed down is a feature that Jewish and Christian texts in the Bible do not have.
Also, Shannon, the whole Biblical inerrancy nonsense in Christianity is a function of interpretation. It doesn’t actually say that in the Bible itself. Not so with the Koran, which says that in several places.
There are further differences between Christ and The Prophet which, when combined with the above two points, make any kind of peaceful evolution of Islam much less likely than the mellowing out of Christian culture which occured during the Enlightenment.
!) Jesus said to ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s’, which was the Fundamentalist basis of eventually ending the rule of Kings in Europe as Sovereigns with Divine Right. The Prophet had such political success because he preached a theocracy, and Islam teaches that fusion of Church and State is the only rightful form of governemt.
2) The Prophet himself conquered quite a number of cities and demanded that their inhabitants convert or be put to death. ‘Convert or die’ is hardwired into the Muslim soul. Contrast with ‘turn the other cheek’ and suchnot in the New Testament. Fundamentalist appeals to founding principles lead Christians in a compassionate direction, and Muslims toward violence.
When you combine all of the above, it does not bode well for any kind of change in the Muslim cultural character.
Its not hardwired Perry but its also not easy to convince someone to give up their parents beliefs.
My Grandparents who were no fools, believed in God, I asked them one day, why?
“Its what I was brought up to believe” was the answer. Which sounds ridiculous reason to me but it did see them though two world wars, good times and bad times.
There is also a lot of consanguineous marriage in the Muslim community which makes family / ethnic / cultural loyalty stronger than in Western society, and therefore more difficult to challenge.
Sure it is, happens all the time. The main obsticle to assimulation is not Islamic culture but rather the western welfare state and ‘multi-cultural’ anti-assimulationist policies. Western civilisation is so vastly more attractive and successful that this cultural war is our to lose, not theirs to win.
Spot on Perry!
We (or at least the self loathing emotionally and intellectually crippled leftist elitists) are our own worst enemies. Todays muslims 1400 years ago were Christians, Jews and pagans. Perhaps we could somehow start to educate the poor fools that Islam is the destroyer of cultures. But do it with stealth. Note how Islam conquered the centroid of human science, art, medicine, etc, and it all died out in a generation or so. Meanwhile, uncivilised Europe, under the banner of Christianity (the world’s *only* libertarian religion) became the new centroid of human endeavour.
I believe that Al Queda and the various parasitic Islamist organizations are a direct result of the spread of technology causing a re-awakening of indigineous identities within the Umma. I have read in multiple sources (National Geographic, Time, etc) of the re-awakening and re-assertion of the Berbers, North Africa’s original inhabitants, who were driven inland by the Arab invasions of the 8th century.
Very telling, I saw a quote from a Berber leader;
“Christianity is life, Islam is death”.
Note that the early Christain church was centered in North Africa before the Islamist depredations in the 8th-10th centuries.
Uain: Your point about the religions in the Mediterranean basin prior to Islam is well taken & I can only express surprize that commenting academics seem loth to raise this historical issue but are content to let those who don’t know any better believe, for example, that Crusaders were the aggressors. As the saying goes, “We were there first.”
This certainly does not make any difference to Islamic thinking but it most definitely should to ours.
Syria is the weakest link. It serves the purposes of Israel, the US, and the new Iraqi gov’t, as well as being a boon for the Lebanese and Syrian peoples if the current Baathist regime of “Baby Doc” is knocked out.
A further plus is the fact that the much ballyhooed alliance between Syria and Iran shows up Iran as hopelessly out of date when it cannot protect either its Hez client or its Syrian ally.
One of the constant judgemental errors that obscures what is going on in this war is the narrowness of the focus many people use. Thus the obsessions about every dip in the rollercoaster in Afghan, or the big deal over every bomb in Iraq.
The most ridiculous aspect is the recurring analysis of Iraq as if it was the be all and end all of the war. It is just one battle, one front, in a world wide war. As the Iraqi army and security forces go on,line, the US forces are freed up for whatever steps in this conflict present themselves.
Radical Islam has carried out attacks in Europe, North and South America, Asia, India, and against Aussies in Bali. Many more planned attacks have been prevented.
The idea that Western forces are somehow limited to certain restricted, surgical, and tit-for-tat responses, but prohibited from going on the offensive and taking the fight to the enemy is an entirely artificial construct based on the same flawed reasoning that demanded that the West constantly be reasonable and non-confrontational when dealing with the repeated aggressions and subversions of the marxist states.
This is WW4. Syria is the Italian surrogate—a rhetorically belligerent but militarily weak liability to its stronger partners.
Israel and the US are not on the hotseat. Iran is. Put more coal on the fire.
A literalist interpretation of the old Jewish scriptures woudl not have been a hindrance to “a rational modern future” after the fall of the last vestiges of the theocracy to the Babylonian Empire. Prophecy said that God would eventually cancel the agreement that set up the theocracy after an unspecified time of overall cultural delinquency, and that’s what happened. No tablets from Sinai spelled out how to carry out self-governance while the Jews were subjects of other nations, so they could innovate (as illustrated by the formation of the synagogue) without breaking any commands.
And the prophecies never said that a new theocracy would be set up. That, and the impossibility of identifying anyone as a true Levite to serve as priest (unless Dan Brown can turn something up), are two reasons whey modern Israel is a republic.
The harsh penalties for violating certain laws (such as the prohibition on sorcery) could go away if one reasons that since the theocracy is gone, its Law, while morally binding, is not legally enforceable any more than US statute would be enforceable if the US did not exist. (Modern Christians, of course, discern between symbolic and moral aspects of the law, as the early church’s issues with circumcision illustrate.)
Judaism was never a proselytizing faith, so it never threatened outsiders (except the Amorites, who don’t exist anymore – thanks in part to the empires that wiped out ancient Israel, ironically). Christianity is evangelical, but its founders were building a religion of peaceful and voluntary association, and Emperor Constantine’s fateful decision watered that mission down considerably. (But not completely.) Original Islam represented the mindset of all imperialists of that time: outsiders are to be conquered or killed, and all who have been conquered must subscribe to the state religion. I cannot see how Islam can embrace pluralistic society and remain Islam.
“Judaism was never a proselytizing faith”
Au contraire, mon frère. Throughout the Roman Empire the hellenized Jewish diaspora communities attracted many converts, particularly in the eastern (Greek) half of the empire. However, it was these communities that were Cristianities earliest converts, so they didn’t last. Furthermore, there is the Kazar empire, an empire with a converted jewish ruling class, and a large, multi-ethnic multi-religious population.
but then again, nobody likes a know it all.
Political Islam does make promises to its people about the state of their day-to-day life. It does promise them better living conditions. Political Islam seeks to rule in this world as well as the “hereafter.”
Why do you think that Iranians (despite its infamous revolutionary regime) are so cynical about religious rule? It’s because they have seen the way that it corrupts.
Political Islam is just the latest form of utopianism. It promises two things: a better life on earth and a better one in heaven. Political Islam is dominant in places with dramatic urbanization and is particularly dangerous because it is being combined with advanced technology. But is it really unstoppable just because it promises a better afterlife? I think not.
Pavel –
I think you missed the point.
What do you really know about Islam and muslims.is your information and perception of islam and muslims based on what others say and media propoganda against islam. Let us look into history first when the christians were following the law of church there was all misfortune in european kingdoms(roman, etc) no respect for women,murders,looting and all wrong things.at that time islam was spreading rapidly and when majority of muslims were following the islamic laws,they were prosperous,take for example spain it was ruled by muslims for allmost 800 years,their rule was best in the history of spain,the moment they were defeated the christain rulers destroyed mosques killing muslims.the point i want to make is untill christians followed the law of church they were among the worst community.,once they moved away from following church their growth started they were ahead in fields like medecine,science,technology etc.even today that it is seen.but with muslims they were ahead in fiels of science,medecine,maths,architecture,etc till they followed islamic law,once they started moving away from islam there downward growth started.DONT JUDGE ISLAM AND MUSLIMS BY WHAT PEOPLE SAY,OR HOW THEY LOOK OR WHAT MEDIA SAYS.THERE ARE APPROX 1.5 BILLION MUSLIMS ARE THEY ALL TERRORISTS.Read QURAN AND ABOUT THE LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMED(P.B.UH) WITH CLEAR MIND.OUR BELIEF IN PROPHET JESUS(P.B.U.H) IS MUCH GREATER THAN CHRISTAINS.,MANY CHRISTIANS DONT BELIEVE IN THE MIRACLE OF HIS BIRTH.,BUT NOT A SINGLE MUSLIM DOUBTS HIS BIRTH ,WITHOUT THE INTERVENTION OF MAN..
saad ahmed: Well, it’s a point of view and, although filled with the sort of discrepancies most schoolboys would easily find, you are entitled to it.
By the way, has no-one ever told you that using upper-case characters in writing is the equivalent of shouting?
I fully understand that shouting, like stoning women who have been raped, amputations & beheadings, is all part of your glorious & peaceful culture but…..please, do try to curb your enthusiasm a bit.
I am probably correct in thinking that you are writing from the generous haven of some despised Western welfare State………..aren’t you the lucky one!
I agree that there are many nice Muslims and I agree that there are many valuable cultural traditions in the Islamic world and periods of history when much of the Islamic world was more tolerant than most of the West (although these periods are not nearly so long or so widespread as is sometimes claimed).
However, I also agree that the basic writings of Islam are nasty (I accept that I can not read classical Arabic – but I have read several translations), and that whilst one can pick out nice things from the Koran, the “bad guys” (for want of a better term) are basically correct in their interpretation.
After all they have the life of “the Prophet” to point to, conquest, robbery, rape and murder do not show him as a nice person as we understand the concept.
Therefore, a Reformation (in the Protestant sense) is the last thing that Islam needs (so, again, agreement on that)
As for a “New Testiment” for Islam – well the only way that most Muslims would accept such a document is if God himself declared it (in such way as so that few people could doubt that it was God) – as you do not believe in the existance of God you would hold this to be unlikely (of course even someone who did believe in God could hold that God does not act in this way).
A growth in the power of INSTITUTIONS (as with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches) might be of help – but Islam does not seem to be developing that way (and with the stress on the basic writings seems unlikely to).
The West in the “old days” had a way of combating Islam – Christianity.
True the early Christians might have looked at the Christian troops (might have even seen the whole idea as a contradiction) – but without the deperate fighting of men who believed “God is with us” Islam would have overwhelmed Europe many times in the many centuries of war. Europe would have gone the way of such places as the Middle East, North Africa and Anatolia.
Winston Churchill (in “The River War”) rightly put the conflict in the Sudan in the context of the expansion of militant Islam in Africa (Smuts in his “Africa and other World Problems”, 1930, makes a similar point).
Indeed only a few years before the rise of the Mahdi nominal Muslim women went bare breasted in the Sudan and showed little outward sign of Islam. There are periods of quiet (“decadance” as Muslim scholars would say) and then a sudden explosion – this has happened again and again.
The struggle to exterminate Christians in the Sudan goes back to the 7th century (there were still Christian Kingdoms as late as the 16th century) and is still not completed – nor are the efforts to destroy Christian Ethiopia (a struggle that also goes back to the 7th century) – the Mahdi lauched attacks on Ethiopia (including the sack of Gondar). Today there are more Muslims in Ethiopia than ever before so the defeat of Christians (the nation being weakened by the Marxist period after 1974) is likely in a few years.
However, (to return to matters at hand) people who believe “when you are dead you are dead” (i.e. that life is a process of physical and mental decay ending in nothing – and that accepting all the horror and pain that is life leads to no reward) such an option (Christianity as a focus of resistance to Islam) is closed – unless they wished to live a lie (i.e. pretend to believe in Christianity whilst, in fact, not believing in it).
So the situation would seem to be that the appeal of Islam is to be countered with the appeal of – nothing much.
“But the West offers a better economic system”.
Well this does miss the point (the point of human mortality) and I am not sure that is true anyway – after all the West is just a series of Welfare States with credit bubble financial systems.
The prosperity of the West is not something (given the above) that we can expect to exist in the long term.
Of course reform (saving indeed advancing prosperity) is possible – but, as Ludwig Von Mises was very fond of pointing out, fundemental reform in a democracy depends on the ideas in the heads of the majority of people.
Without majority support reform can only be minor (as with Ronald Reagan or Mrs Thatcher) avoiding both the financial system and the Welfare State.
Economic trouble and rising numbers of Muslims in Europe would seem to mean that Islam will get stonger not weaker over time – and (if anything) more aggressive.
However, although the United States has the same economic problems as the rest of the West it still has stronger relgious faith – so some remains of Western civilization may continue to exist (in some form) and may even prosper in the long term.
The example of Auburn University springs to mind.
During the Civil War the college came to an end, and some years later a government insitute (to teach practical skills rather than the Liberal Arts) was created on the site.
Gradually (with a lot of private help) the University restored itself.
But in the Great Depression the economy of Alabama collapsed – and the academics were reduced to giving lessons in such things as History and Philosophy in return for food (no one had money in this part of Alabama).
Yet the University recovered (for the second time) and is now stronger that ever.
Even economic collapse does not destroy civilization – if people continue to have babies and continue to hold to certain beliefs.
Americans (or at least Southerners) have babies and do have certain useful beliefs (indeed better than in the past, as such bad beliefs as racialism are less popular – whereas religous faith and doubts about usefulness of the government in D.C. are as strong as they have been for many decades).
So not all is lost.
In a few decades the world may be a better place (with the advance of technology) than it is now. Although the next couple of decades will likely be very nasty indeed.
I like reading this blog and everything but sometimes the way you guys discuss Muslims makes me think of what German public conversation about Jews must have been like before the rise of National Socialism. The intellectual gulf between you and them is so big it is no wonder there is so much hostility. Don’t forget that it wasn’t that long ago that this division didn’t really exist in the public consciousness. Paradoxically I blame Multiculturalist propaganda for encouraging this gulf despite their ‘good’ intentions.
Indeed, but most Jews have managed to ‘interpret’ themselves into a rational modern future regardless.
That is probably because of Judiasm stresses education so much.
Islam seems to frown on it.
Read QURAN AND ABOUT THE LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMED
I have mate and it further strengthened my opinion of the backward religion that is called Islam. Furthermore it make it clear to me that to call Islam a “religion of peace” is a complete and total nonsense.
“Judaism was never a proselytizing faith”
Mostly true. Anyone converting to Judaism is refused two times and accepted only on the third time and that is only after lots & lots of study.
abc: ….what German public conversation ‘must have been’ like before the rise of National Socialism.
The answer to that one is fairly easy: Not that much different from conversation about Jews in any other country. German Jews were German citizens & had fought for their Kaiser along with the rest, as a sobering visit to the Old Jewish Cemetery & other ‘Friedhöfe’ in Frankfurt/Main & elsewhere will testify. Jews live peacably in stable societies & you are correct that the shambles of Weimar was unstable. In times of depression, in any country, the traditional ‘Sündenbock’ gets the stick…and no, I am an ‘Aryan’.
My sincere condolences go to the family of the young Muslim soldier(PUBH) who gave his life for his country in Afghanistan.
It always makes me laugh that when a Muslim replies to a less than flattering view about his religion here, most of they say “you do not understand Islam! or “Islam is not the way it is portrayed in the media!”… as if they could possibly know how much I (or some other) actually do know about Islam.
The notion that I might actually know quite a bit about Islam and THAT is why I do not much care for it just seems very hard to accept, it would seem.
I think the article’s somewhat mistaken: Islam theoretically promises nothing, but in practise has always promised aid for the chosen from Allah, especially in war. It’s very likely a root cause of this current Islamic asceticism, the fact that these promises are NOT delivered. The reaction of a man who is completely invested in religion to something that threatens to shatter his worldview, is to become loudly zealous and critical of others, to the point of projecting scandalous unbelief upon them. Bin Laden and friends are best understood as the “kicking and screaming” part of Islam’s belated Enlightenment.
Julian: Was that last word really ‘Enlightenment’?
We’ve got to turn a large portion of Muslims in to Jack Muslims. IOW, we’ve got to corrupt them.
IIWK, I’d create a new magazine, filled with liberal propaganda, printed in Farsi and all the various Arabic dialect, etc, and filled with pictures of naked women.
Distribute it free – hell, drop it like leaflets during the war.
Get the younger guys reading this, and see what happens. Texas has liquor by the drink, which every Baptist ministers condemned in thier sermons to what it most cases, was 90% of their town’s population. Playboy did them in. In a contest for the “hearts and minds” of young men, I’ll take sex over preaching every time.
bud,
I ‘ve had very similar thoughts. A large aspect of our current troubles is that imams muftis et al are worried by the temptations of the West. It is partly in that sense that they’ve got themselves (in their own twisted way) into the idea that they are fighting a defensive war. They are so convinced that the West is deliberately trying to wipe out Islam anyway that we’ve got nothing to lose by trying your approach.
The less respect we give Islam the more the more the Islamicist might start to realise that we are not quite as decadent and weak as they thought. They do not respect our tolerance, we should not respect them.
Right on Nick M….
Muslims see tolerance as weakness. In their culture, if you have power, you use it, as in the ancient times of conquest and subjugation.
Actually, Islam is a religion of conquest and subjugation. Interesting to think that we could be witnessing a time capsule of the human psyche that drove the ebb and flow of the ancient middle east empires, millenia ago. Fascinating!
Yeah, Uain, fascinating in the same way that leukeamia is. I bet it’s not too amusing if you’re hunkered down in a bomb shelter in Haifa right now.
You make an excellent point though. It is a time-capsule and a very specific one. There is very little in Islam that cannot be explained in terms of the society and economy of C7th Arabia or the military and political ambitions of one man. Even the expedencies of his life:
Expediency in the Koran
My biggest philosophical beef with Islam is that we expected to take the instruction manual for the follows of a particular C7th Arabian despot and treat it as mankind’s One True Faith – applicable to all people at all times.
The Koran is a terrorist training manual from the dark ages. I do not believe that a religion which includes the Koran as the final exact word of God is something that can be reformed 1300+ years later.
As to Islamic New Testaments. Elijah Mohammed produced one in the 40s. Result: Nation of Islam.
The problem is in the ground. The oil that gives them so much wealth.
Most countries that have wealth today, got there as a result of reasonably liberal markets and wealth creation. This also relies on having a reasonably free society. When the freedom is taken away, the wealth creation goes with it. And that also means that you don’t have the financial capacity to sustain being warlike.
In much of the middle east, they can spend money AND be illiberal nations, because they don’t need wealth creation, because the wealth is in the ground.
When the wealth in the ground disappears, either through use, or when someone cracks fusion and makes it worthless, then these countries will either become free, market-led democracies and kick out the more extreme religious attitudes, or become a threat to no-one.
Nick,
I currently live among approximately 65 million Muslims in Iran. I would say that the vast majority of them *are* Jack Muslims. How did they arrive at that? Thirty years of disappointment… Perhaps utopianism is its own cure.
I would say that most of the people I meet on a daily basis are tolerant and kind and peaceful and adverse to violence and war. Even when they are observant Muslims, they are tolerant.
Iranians, in many ways, are comparable to American Catholics. They love their religion; they disobey it when they need to without too much fuss; and they hate their clergy.
bbbb,
“Switzerland was a country fortunate enough not to be blessed with natural resources”.
Esther,
I’m sure they’re pussy cats. I know a lot of Iranians are kinda secular. I’m not saying anything against muslims (or the muslim-ish) – I was commenting on the religion (which is obnoxious) and not the people. I will take issue with you on one thing though – tolerant – tolerant of what? tolerant of you having a beer, drawing cartoons of whatever you please, criticising the ol’ Ayatollah, having a lesbian lover, your hair uncovered in public, you wearing a bikini?
They tolerant of people who toe the line. Hell, who isn’t? What matters is being tolerant of those who don’t.
PS. I’m not implying that you’re a bear swilling lesbian cartoonist in a bikini – I’m just making a point.
Oops that should have been “beer” not “bear”.
CHECKMATING MILITANT ISLAM:
I am most worried by the rise of militant islam and the capitulation of christainity in recent times. I have many examples to give to support this assertion:
1. The Pope recently made a quotation from the 14th century byzantine emperor and was forced to apologize to God knows who in the islamic world.
2. France has almost been taken over by Islam even as they strive to outdo Arab nations in sabotaging US efforts to checkmate islam in every area of life.
3. The UK gives so much freedom to Islamists that they have now set a new target of ” No rest until the flag of Islam flies off 10 Downing Street”.
4. In Rome, Birmingham, Toronto, etc. these guys have Mosques that rival the best in Riyahd while they will not even allow christain hold a house fellowship meeting in their areas of authority and control.
5. In Nigeria where i come from, christains are routinely subjected to violence by illiterate moslems for trivialities like the recent Pope’s quote about islam and violence.
I am fed up and absolutely fed up. I am capable of extreme violence even morethan these jihadists can imagine but the teachings of our Lord Jesus forbids us to behave like these animals. Right now, I believe that the point to checkmate these guys has come and I am basically looking for like minded Christains and Jews to plan strategy and operations.
I am Nigerian but I say ” May the Lord God Jehovah bless the USA”. I wonder what would have been our fate if not for the little effort they are making to checkmate these animals. Europe has disappointed me. When I visit the UK, I think I am in Saudi Arabia. Mullahs everywhere with flowing white and semi white gowns, hooded women, etc.