Iran is also the theatre of very optimistic developments. Hashem Aghajari is an Islamic revolutionary-turned-history-professor. He was one of the student activists of 1979 who later fully participated in the brutal repression after Khomeini’s coming to power. He is now challenging the infallibility of the ruling mullahs and calls upon Iranians to think for themselves instead of blindly accepting whatever is preached in Friday sermons, a piece of advice for which he has been sentenced to death. But he is now supported by the students and professors at most of the country’s universities and thousands of ordinary citizens, workers, and cultural leaders.
Where Aghajari wants to reform Islam; the students want a total separation between mosque and state. He wants an Islamic Reformation, but the demonstrators are interested in the creation of a secular civil society. He is a reformer, but they are revolutionaries.
– Ibn Warraq who is both optimistic (as in the above quote) and pessimistic (as elsewhere in the same piece) about whether the Muslim world can become civilised
Right so…
He was a religious figure, he then told people to think for themselves and is now going to be executed.
Apart from this not exactly appearing optimistic in my book it sounds like “The Life of Brian”.
You can never civilise Islam because it was started by an illiterate warlord, rapist, peadophile and plunderer. Or in short a barbarian.
The Islamic reformation is going on right now and it’s whabbist (or in Iran whatever demented form of Shite which is the official party line) and it’s returning right back to the depraved ramblings of Mu himself.
This is not an original insight. I got it from Mid on this very Blog.
NM
I agree with you about Warraq’s confusing use of the word Reformation, and have long preferred your definition, having also said this myself, in at least one posting here, and before that in comments. But Warraq means something more like “toleration” and “enlightenment”, and this is clear from his article. Your argument (and mine) with him is partly about how to use a word. He doesn’t at all welcome what you and I call the Islamic Reformation, which I agree and he agrees is the problem, not the solution. And in further defence of Warraq, he has done a hell of a lot more to stand up for civilisation against this “Reformation” than you or I or Midwesterner, or anyone here.
As to the substance of what Warraq says, the cause for optimism is that people in Iran are, in large numbers (key point), many of them young (another key point), denouncing this primitive and barbaric punishment. I think he is right that this is good news, and disagree with you if you think this mostly bad news. The tide of opinion in Iran certainly seems to be moving strongly in a good direction.
But if you are determined to be pessimistic about Islam as a whole, I agree, it’s not hard, and Warraq agrees with you, for all the reasons he then states in his article.
The problem may not be Islam.
In an interesting piece in a magazine whose name escapes me (I was just browsing, but I think it begins with ‘Foreign’ something), the idea is raised that we blame Islam for what might be Geopolitics. Suppose that a variant of Christianity had suppressed Islam when it was first starting out. Do you think all would have been peace and light? The Christian nations of Europe have always squabbled and had bloody fights amongst themselves, so would Christendom writ large be different? Rather, wouldn’t the nation which had all that oil have simply assumed that this was a sign from God that their variant of Christian dogma was the only true one? It would probably have been a Church-state monster like the Byzantine Empire, and would be doing just what the muslim nations are now doing! Maybe the fault is simply human nature, trying to get through war rather than trade for what it wants?
Nick, human nature is a big part of it, but that is only the very broad base, the core of our behavior. There are layers on top of that, and the next layer is culture (and the next is one’s particular upbringing/genetics). Islm’s origin is in the desert nomad Arab culture, with whatever that implies.
As to the “what if” historical game, it is the same as saying that a violent criminal is not responsible for his crimes, because of his personal circumstances as a child etc. The fact is, Islam is what it is today, and it is a problem. (Not to detract from the fact that Western culture is what it is today, and it is also part of the problem, or at lest not conducive to the solution)).
Nick,
Individual Christians may have sought to declare the personal superiority of Christians over those of other faiths, but Christian doctrine makes no such claim. Islam does.
Individual Christians may have established theocratic states, but Christian doctrine does not require it. Islam does.
Individual Christians may have used violence to force Christianity onto others, but there can be no doubt that such use of force is contrary to Christian doctrine. Acting in this manner is to act in conformance with Islamic doctrine.
Christian doctrine makes no claim for secular political authority. Islam does
Christian doctrine does not grant a Christian the possessions of non Christians. Islam does.
Christian doctrine does not condone and encourage rape, murder and theft. Islam does
Islam is not just another faith, I know of no other religion which has beliefs like these.
As far as a reformation is concerned? This has been discussed here on a number of occasions. I do believe people take an analogy with Christianity too seriously when discussing Islam.
Being grossly simplistic, those who took part in the Christian reformation sought to reduce, or eliminate, the authority of a single overarching religious establishment which insisted God could only be found through its offices. They established a movement which claimed each person could establish their own relationship with God, and acknowledged that each person could find their own path within the Christian faith, unmediated by priests. They also rejected the rather baroque edifice of Catholic theology and sought return to a simpler and more fundamental interpretation of the Bible and its teachings.
Islam, on the other hand, has always had this structure. Individual Muslims have always been able to find their way to God, unmediated by a structured priesthood. There has never been an overarching body, equivalent to the Church hierarchy, building ever more complex and (sometimes) self serving interpretations of doctrine for century after century.
Under these circumstances a reformation, along the lines of the Christian one, can’t happen because the preconditions don’t exist.
A return to a strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islam occurred in the the eighteenth century with the development of Salafism in Arabia, but even that is not a reinterpretation, but a strengthening of previously existing thought.
What is needed is not a Christian style reformation, but more a counter reformation. Something which seeks to replace, or supplement, the traditional literalist interpretations with something more metaphorical, or at least less violent and supremacist.
This won’t happen in the the next few years, but Islam in the West will be influenced by Western thought, and the economic success of both Malaysia and Indonesia will result in ideas from these countries influencing Middle Eastern Islam.
Hope is there, just not tomorrow.
Sorry, that was directed at Nick gs geopolitical point. I am aware Nick M knows all this stuff.
Alisa,
Oh I appreciate the desert stuff. Some of the strictures of Islam only really make a whole lot of sense in the context of a desert culture etc.
Nick g,
I have a fondness for counterfactuals but… We can only go so far… Your’s is such a biggy that frankly we might as well be contemplating “what if nobody ever took fire into the cave”.
Yes. Unfortunately, some of them seem to be designed to turn every place where they are implemented into a desert. Or, to abuse your other metaphor: instead of bringing fire into the cave, they are bent on extinguishing the fire everywhere else.
There is in this day, a meme in Christianity that is “W W J D“. This is part of a contemporary Christian reformation.
Can anybody imagine an Islamic reformation along similar lines?
Incidentally, Wikipedia says “thousands of Christians”. More like millions. It is ubiquitous.
Actually, the Muslim equivalent meme (W W M D) is much older, and the answer to that question is not pretty.
What matters, as so often, is two things.
Are the decent Iranians prepared to fight (not “to die” – but to kill)? And do they have the weapons, training, organization and leadership to win?
If the answer to either of these questions is “no” everything else is a waste of time.
Whilst a lot of the arguments are good, I still think we have a ‘Clash of Civilisations’ going on here. When Germany became a nation under Prussian rule, they had to be at least as tough as their neighbours to survive, and they did, and went too far in the Militarism side, just as the Spanish did when they kicked out the muslims from Spain, and then carried their militarism over into the New World, and tried to enslave the Amerindians. (Can you say ‘Inquisition’?) It’s true that you can’t find Democratic theories in Muslim writings, but this was rare through-out the world! The Chinese and Indians also had no philosophers advocating popular rule.
Perhaps we should find out why Europe was different, and if those differences are exportable, and go on from there.
If anybody did everything their religion required, they would not live long enough to procreate, and would remove themselves from the gene pool.
The nice thing about religion is it’s self limiting.
Ibn Warraq is surely more knowledgeable about Iran than I, but this morning’s Analysis (BBC World Service) painted a grim picture of Iran and the up-coming election. All reformist candidates filtered out, and hardliners set to win. Khamenei, thought of in the West as a bridgebuilder has built himself a powerbase by pouring money into the Revolutionary Guard which is now 10 million strong, and getting involved in all sorts of areas, eg construction.
We tend to hear Ahmedinejad is posturing to win support from the people, but the programme suggested he was actually the puppet of Khamenei and the Guard which is not quite the same thing. Ahmedinjad playing hard man with 10 million genuine hard men behind him sounds quite a bit more threatening.
In short, the reformists (and we) should be braced for trouble.
Rich Paul – actually a religious life style tends to be a rather healthy one.
For example, Mormons have a high life expectancy in the United States – and I doubt that one in five of their daughters carries an S.T.D. virus (which is true of the rest of the population).
As for breeding – it is the religious who tend to bring up familes.
It is the non religious who do not tend to have many (if any) children. Indeed in all Western nations the nonreligous breed at below replacement level.
As for Iran – the moderate candidates have been mostly excluded from the elections. And there has been little (if any) resistance to this.
Perhaps the only hope is that the President and other radicals mix Islam with statist print-print economics. This is not found in the Koran – but they do it anyway.
It seems that Lord Keynes may be the great weakness of the “Islamic Republic”.