Robert Alderson writes about what Islam really needs and has an interesting idea how to nudge things along
In some ways Islam is at the stage that Christianity was centuries ago. Religious texts and debates are in classical Arabic, a language which most Muslims can not understand – just like medieval European peasants could not understand Latin but were still expected to live by the Latin version of the bible.
I have not read the Koran or the Bible but from excerpts and quotations I have seen it would be perfectly possible to justify anything you wanted with selective quotations from either work; suicide bombings, slavery, non-tolerance of homosexuality, wearing a veil, whatever. The Christian Bible has at least been translated into most European languages and interested parties can refer to the source text and argue things out. The Koran has, by and large, not been translated into local Arabic languages and is therefore beyond the practical understanding of the ‘Arab Street’ The interpreters of the Koran are those scholars who have taken the time to learn classical Arabic and therefore may tend to have a different outlook on life than people who have to earn the money that pays for them.
The other point is that Koranic scholarship still regards the Koran as the literal word of God, no metaphors, no allusions – straight word of God no dispute allowed. This type of fundamental literalism was abandoned by mainstream Christian theologians a long time ago.
The West could do worse than translate the Koran into local dialects and publish it on the Internet or even drop it from airplanes! We need an Islamic Martin Luther to open up the religion.
Perhaps not an Islamic *Martin Luther* exactly… there’s enough rabid anti-Jew sentiment in Islamist ideology as it is…
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/1543-Luther-JewsandLies-full.html
An Islamic Martin Luther?
Sounds about right, I seem to recall that Christendom never suffered from religious violence and never engaged in violent proselytizing after he tacked the thesis on the church door.
Seems to me it’s one of those instances of “if you need to ask, you’ll never know.” That is, if you have the better part of a land mass of people who not only fail to shudder in revulsion when gunmen storm a house, chase down a seven year old girl and shoot her in the back, but actually celebrate the gunmen as an example for their children, they’re never going to have a revelation that such activity is wrong, regardless of how some charasmatic cleric might put it.
With regard to the question of Islam and homosexuality, I have just come across a link to this story from last week.
(Link)
“Islam needs a Martin Luther”?
Jonah Goldberg mopped the floor with that meme three and a half years ago:
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg040302.asp
Having seen the damage the Protestant Martin Luther did, I have no desire to see a Muslim version let loose on the world.
Christians, such as myself, do see the Bible as the straight word of God also.
What I should have added to my comment above is that even though we believe it to be the straight word of God, people interpret it differently. That’s why there are disputes.
Argh. I am so sick and tired of this “Islam needs a reformation” talk from people who know little about Islam and less about the Reformation. Steven Schwartz, on the other hand, knows a lot about both. Islam has already had its reformation, and Wahabbism is the fruit of it.
One of the difficulties we have here is that the knowledge of classical Arabic is still considered to be a sine qua non for the observant. This is based not in interpretation but in the text itself – the Koran tells us that it was written in the language that God himself uses to instruct the angels.
This is not a vestigial usage such as the reading of a passage of the Torah at Bar Mitzvah, but a major tenent of the faith. It is in fact a definition of the faithful. It is not lawful to keep as a slave one who can read the Koran (usually taken to mean the first paragraph). The faithful (as opposed to infidel dogs) are entitled to fair treatment. We infidel dogs are not.
Couple of things here.
First, while Christians acknowledge that the Bible (however divinely inspired) was nevertheless still written by human beings, the Koran is supposed to be the direct word of God, as dictated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, supplemented by Mohammed personally. I think an impartial observer would admit that there is a difference here, and that any genuine Muslim would have to respect whatever he genuinely believed the correct interpretation to be. Although it seems pretty sloppy of an omnipotent deity to dictate text in the language of His choice which nevertheless can still be open to interpretation.
Second, you cannot escape another fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity, which is that Islam started out as a religion of violence and militarism, and was spread through these methods right from the start, whereas Christianity is properly and fundamentally pacifist. It seems unlikely to be cioncidence that the Western country historically most enthusiastic about spreading Christianity through force was Spain, which started exploring the Americas in precisely the year they finally expelled the Muslims, and after hundreds of years of Muslim cultural influence.
Islam is *not* just another Christian sect.
And while Islam is being reformed, the West takes how many casualties, our institutions how much damage?
What Islam urgently needs is a covert hit-squad to set about killing the prominent clerics who preach hatred and death.
I generally agree with most things written at samizdata, and even when I don’t I still respect the opinions of the writer. However, there are so many things wrong with this post that I just can’t take it seriously.
Lets just say that Islam isn’t Christianity, and drawing analogies from Christianities past theological evolution is a complete waste of time.
Suffice, no Christian theologian (as opposed to ignorant, obscure and ephemeral Bible thumpers) has ever viewed the bible as other than the word of God AS WRITTEN AND EDITED BY FALLIBLE HUMAN BEINGS.
It is a fundamental tenet of Islam on the other hand, that the classical Arabic Koran is the literal word of God, perfect in every way. If you do not believe this, then you cannot be a Muslim. There is even a theologically respectable view that translating the Koran into anything else, even vernacular Arabic, is blasphemy because it then ceases to be the Word of God and becomes merely the word of a man.
Despite the myths we sometimes hear, nothing like this has ever been true of Christianity. There may have been legal impediments to the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, at some times, in some places, but there were never any theological ones.
And the Reformation? That was about, amongst other things, doing away with the hierarchy of a single universal religious authority, something which has never existed in Islam, and reverting back to a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, exactly what we are fighting against in Islam.
There was a time when Christians thought everything in the Bible was literally true. After the discoveries of Copernicus that view became gradually less popular. I don’t know if there is a cure for people believing the Quran is the literal truth, but the best place to look for one is in a contradiction of scientific or similar claims.
Nigel, that may work for more moderate muslims but I doubt even that. When prominent clerics say a woman’s head must be covered because the “rays” from uncovered female hair drive men crazy, then you’re dealing with something too primitive to be refuted using science.
As JC and others have already said, it is an article of faith that the Koran is perfect. Try to get an English translation to see the effect of this. I did and it was very tough. After several visits to various mosques, I was sent to the Iranian Embassy. They did not have one, but would be very pleased to get me one. It took a couple of weeks, but it was then delivered, free of charge, “we are excited by your interest, sir, we hope you like this lovely hard cover copy of our sacred text.”
I remember that the Soviet Bloc used to produce tons of subsidized works of Marx and various fellow travelers. They then shipped them to the West, where they were far cheaper than any other text book. I remember in 92 when one of my Marxist university lecturers was whining about the sudden rise in price.
Interesting to see the link between subsidized propaganda from the Soviets and the Iranian government paying for my copy of the Koran.
I believe that the author, as well as many people, calling for a “Martin Luther” for Islam have a fundamental misunderstanding of both the bible and koran. This is the key quote illustrating the problem, “I have not read the Koran or the Bible but from excerpts and quotations I have seen it would be perfectly possible to justify anything you wanted with selective quotations from either work”.
I am very familiar with the bible as a whole and have read the koran. People like Nigel Kearney are well meaning but get it wrong when they confuse official Catholic doctrine with the text of the bible. I don’t think Copernicus debunked anything explicitly in the bible and I definitely don’t think that scientific discoveries were the impetus for changing the basis for reading the bible. Chris Harper gets things a little more on point.
The real issue here is that if you fundamentally follow the bible as a Christian, you will not be waging war in the name of God. You can selectively read parts of the bible and say “aha!” I can do this or that. But if you read it as a whole you will find that you must “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, you will “give unto Ceaser his due” while also giving to the church. You will know that Christ’s kindgom is “not of this world” but you also have to obey the law of the land unless it conflicts with God’s law.
There were Christian martyrs but they went to their deaths like lambs to the slaughter because they refused to denounce God. A Christian fundamentalist that lived truly according to Christianity’s teachings in the bible would be someone like Ned Flanders from the “Simpsons.” This is why Martin Luther could attack the Catholic church so easily on things such as indulgences and church governance. None of it was biblically based.
Now let us turn to the Koran. You very clearly can wage war in the name of God. Although there are contradictions in the text, as a whole it is an all encompassing religious/political system that requires “submission”. It is very much an “us” and “them” kind of thing with the “them” being second class citizens only as long as they “feel subdued” and act accordingly. Even then the benefits of that only exist as long as you live in an area ruled by muslims. If you aren’t in the house of peace (under muslim rule) then you are in the house of war. That is why I am always leery about protestations from certain “moderate” clerics that Islam doesn’t condone the murder of innocents. Is it because you can’t be an “innocent” unless you live under muslim rule? Martyrdom in the koran is definitely something different than that discussed in the bible. If a muslim tries to be “moderate”, they are contradicting the literal language of the text. Now things like the viel are a wahabbi mandate not in the text, but the violence surely is and it is very difficult to fight the fundamentalists on these points because the language is there in the text. It is possible to put a spin on things, and some have tried, most notably some clerics in Spain. Nevertheless, those “waging jihad” have a good theological basis for what they are doing based on their religious text and the actual activities of Mohammed. He was a violent man who conquered territory in the name of Islam. The terrorists are working towards the same goal.
That is why a “Martin Luther” for Islam will never work.
Bible and Koran arent comparable . There are few parts of bible that are violent, but they are very few and arent in most important parts of it. Koran is much more violent .
Also Mohammed was a warrior , had slaves, made hudnas when weak to build armies and then broke them when strong, treason, deception and violence is the name of the game. So it’s much more dificult for a moderate and pacific muslim to fight a radical islamit ideologically.
I’m a little hazy on details, but if IIRC in the very early days of Islam, there were different schools on what to do with the Koran, your typical literalist vs metaphorical approaches. When the Arab world was a leading force in the sciences and humanities the latter view prevailed but the ultimate triumph of the literalist approach brought about stagnation and collapse (still going on).
My own opinion is that literal interpretation of any holy text is a moral, ethical and technological dead end and that the highest service that theologians can perform is to water down the content.
What passes for theology in much of the Islamic (non-Arabic) world today is rote memorization of the entire Koran with no understanding whatsoever of the contents (since the people in countries like Pakistan or Bangladesh don’t speak any kind of Arabic).
And yes, as a linguist the diglossia of the Arab world with essentially separate spoken languages (known as “dialects” or “colloquials”) held together by an artificial language no one speaks natively and few speak well (modern standard Arabic) is horribly costly and makes education and literacy very difficult. Unfortunately, no Arab philologists that I’m aware want to raise the “colloquials” to official status or do the hard work necessary to bring that about. The more liberal countries like Lebanon (with a large non-Muslim chunk of population) or Tunisia might be places to try to get that started.
Hello Samizdata,
Calling for an Islamic Martin Luther is to call for the ‘reformer’ already on the scene: Osama bin Laden (Luther’s Reformation resulted in not less than 100,000 dead in Germany alone, a number bin Laden is still far from equalling).
From bin Laden’s ‘reformation’ of Islam (kick out the evil influences from the West, especially those from America) to the Iranian Islamic Revolution’s ‘awakening’ (kick out the evil influences from the West, especially those from America), Islam has its hands full of reformers.
It might be helpful to recall Christianity’s history during its fifteenth century, because it is even more bloody than Islam’s during its fifteenth century, which we are all living today.
Remember the burning alive of Hus? Or Bruno? And especially, remember what Christianity did to Galileo; all this, for their sin of offering an alternative opinion?
The very last person we should wish for as a ‘reformer’ is another holy man with his version of the One Truth.
No, what happened with Christianity was that it realised it was a load of bollocks. Our friend Martin just accelerated the process.
ADE
I think the commenters completely miss the point of this article. It was the reformation which led eventually to the secular humanist western world and it took ‘a Martin Luther’ to get the ball rolling, though of course he would have been horrified if he could have seen where Christianity ended up, what with former Christian Athiests like me running around without geting burned at the stake. I also very much doubt Robert Alderson indended to be taken quite so literally as most of the commenter seems to have taken him.
To end up breaking the power religion has over people’s minds, it really helps if people can read the texts in their own language because, face it, they are pretty damn preposterous when you really take the time to look closely and say it all out loud.
A new reformation of Islam is just a first step and in the meantime, I recommend regular bombings, shooting and shore bombardments to keep things in check. But a new reformation is needed to let the light in and dispell the mystery that at the moment only muslim “scholars” understand. Print Korans in every language to let people see the many references to slavery and the howlingly funny “left hand/right hand” thing and eventually you end up with something like modern Christianity, a fairly harmless faith that does a good job of pretending the more embassassing bits of the Bible don’t exist. If you are an Anglican, even belief in God apears to be optional.
But it all starts with a Martin Luther…
In otherwords, I agree entirely with ADE
Oh, Jack Tar,
I agree with you. No Jack, it’s true love, not just the smell of tar.
We are reverting to paganism, and what a wonderful feeling. The pain, the pain this religion has been?
F… the middle east and everything that comes out of it.
ADE
I think it would help certain British Muslim Leaders and their communities empathize with the anger and frustration felt by victims of Islamic terror attacks if Tony Blair adopted the following policy: First, Blair instructs MI5 to detonate two bombs per week in Mosques during crowded services. Then, immediately following each bombing, Tony Blair goes on TV and states: “We deplore these horrible attacks and the people who committed them, whoever they may be. We equally condemn those who are quick to blame MI5, without gathering all off the facts. Let me assure you that MI5 is all about peace and justice. If it turns out that this bombing was committed by a member of MI5, that person in no way represents what Mi5 stands for. In closing, while I unconditionally condemn these bombings, I can understand why a member of MI5 would want to blow up a mosque, particularly with all of the ‘death to England’ rubbish. Therefore, in order to avoid further loss of life, the Muslim community needs to address the root causes of why a member of MI5 would want to blow you up. Thank you for listening.”
Joe Taboe writes: I believe that the author, as well as many people, calling for a “Martin Luther” for Islam have a fundamental misunderstanding of both the bible and koran.
Well, yes. Given that the writer of the article has admitted that he has read neither book that he is discussing, I guess so.
seems to me, that Islam needs its Enlightenment, as the Reformation has happened already. 😉
Geoffrey Parmer – Very good post! Just one important error. You left out the word “but”. Would you be offended if I just rewrote one of your very clever sentences?
Let me assure you that MI5 is all about peace and justice. But, if it turns out that this bombing was committed by a member of MI5 …
I just feel it adds so much to that authentic ethnic flavour. I also feel, to compliment Tone’s speech, Cherie Blair should be filmed outside Downing St with a black veil on her head – actually, covering her whole face would suit her better – ululating.
What an interesting discussion! I have certainly learnt new things about Christianity, Islam and Martin Luther.
The main point I was trying to make was spelled out well by Old Jack Tar and Michael Farris. I am not very clued up about the details but in my simplistic world view before a certain point in Western history, religion was dominated by a somewhat aloof and corrupt priestly elite who used communicated and wielded their power through the Latin language which was beyond the understanding of almost everybody else in society. After a certain point the Bible was translated into colloquial languages and made more widely available in a form that normal people could read and debate.
In this process the invention of printing is probably as important as Martin Luther. Rather than singling out Martin Luther it might have been more accurate to name somebody like Wesley who did a great deal to get ordinary people involved in religion and smash the idea of a priestly caste.
Some of you may be familiar with this obnoxious website which spouts biblical quotations to justify some quite apallingly extreme homophobic ideas. Because of the cultural legacy of Luther, Wesley, Guttenberg etc. I can get my own copy of the Bible and find passages which contradict the ideas set out on the website. I don’t think that this type of open debate happens in Islam. When it does I am quietly confident that the moderate majority who may very well reject Western culture but also genuinely reject terrorism will have the tools to argue their point.
Although, I confess to being rather inexpert on this there is one area I know something about. The recent civil war / Islamic terrorism campaign in Algeria was, amongst many other things a war about religion. Most people in Algeria speak Algerian (a mix of Arabic, Turkish and French) but there is not only no version of the Koran in that language but no written version of Algerian. People write either in French or classical Arabic and are often unable to express their ideas so well in what are, essentially, foreign languages. The only place you get close to seeing written Algerian is on the cover notes of Algerian music CDs and there isn’t even agreement on whether to use Roman or Arabic letters!
Translate the Koran into languages that the Arab street can understand.
Geoffrey Parmer – Very good post! Just one important error. You left out the word “but”. Would you be offended if I just rewrote one of your very clever sentences?
oh, yes, I love the post and the rewrite.
for some time, I’ve had the impression of the “tripartite” nature of Islamic excusals.
First, the mealymouth condemnation of whatever violence.
Second, “but” … the long diatribe about why they think the West and/or Israel has done whatever.
And a veiled threat at the end, (sometimes not so veiled, depending on how “moderate” the cleric is) of additional violence occurring.
I have watched this pattern for years, now, and I getting rather “militantly” sick and tired of it
/end rant.
I getting rather “militantly” sick and tired of it
am getting – apologies for posting without proofreading.
seems to me, that Islam needs its Enlightenment, as the Reformation has happened already. 😉
And here we have the crap. Enlightenment, Reformation, …
Bring back deepest England. Arthur, Guinevere, these things I understand. ME bollocks – well who understands the Father Son Holy Spirit trinity, no better still, who gives a shit?
Abondon hope all ye who enter here, and be better people for it.
ADE
And here we have the crap. Enlightenment, Reformation
you don’t make your point well.
In the Enlightenment, people actually *questioned* Christianity. Some rather vehemently, in an atheistic manner. Others more in a deistic manner. Some with sympathy to Christianity.
Islam and its followers need to do a lot of questioning, very soon.
*That* is my point.
juliette
No, I never make my point well.
Yes, many questioned Christianity. Yes, some had doubts. That (doubts) is my point.
Here is a wild thought – Christianity did not emerge from the ME, it emerged from the fundamental beliefs of European pagan tribes.
I’ve no proof of this view, but there are a few PhD these in that conjecture.
The West has to face the possibility that it is the most advanced civilisation on the planet. Scarry, eh? Particularly when it includes you and me?
ADE
We cannot study every possible religious text to the extent needed to be an expert, just as we cannot study every possible political “ism”. There are as many understandings of these things as there are people who propose them.
So finding the “true way” isn’t the most efficient way of solving today’s problems.
I am another who has not studied the Koran and I have little interest in doing so. Same goes for Marx and many other political writers.
I think the idea of looking for a “true way” in the field or religion, politics, or science is a mistaken one even if there might be such a thing out there. A better thing is to find a workable way.
A workable way would be one that allows us to live together in relative peace and enabled us to otherwise pursue our differences.
The British and most of the West had a workable way for a while until we were sold multiculturalism (as in there are many cultures and none is superior to any of the others). Because toleration was an important factor it was easy to swallow at the time but multiculturalism is not a workable way.
I think the most workable way so far devised is the classic libertarian “Thou shalt not initiate aggression” principle.
Is this a true way? Does it come from God? Who cares? It is workable. I don’t think it is down to Islam to reform Islam and then all our problems would be solved. I think it is for the British as a society to adopt this principle and perhaps then a lot more of our problems will be solved.
ADE, to understand contemporary society and modern thought there is value in understanding history. and to do this even a convinced athiest like myself finds value in understanding theology. Everyone else here has tried to present reasoned arguments, regardless of their level of knowledge. I don’t think mindless abuse contributes anything.
John, the gospels have often been available in the venacular, problem is, that venacular gets promoted to the status of a liturgical language as time goes by. The 4th century latin vulgate bible, the coptic and the old slavonic are all examples of this. As time changed the spoken language changed but the book was not revised. Eventually you had to be a scholar to understand it and the priesthood had to learn a new language in order to read it. However, the bible being in the venacular didn’t prevent a priesthood from rising in the first place. Although the popular theological disputes in fifth century Rome and Constantinople were wonderous to behold.
I think the most workable way so far devised is the classic libertarian “Thou shalt not initiate aggression” principle.
I agree – however difficult to implement with those who don’t recognise it. It will have to be forced upon them.
I think it’s up to Muslims to reform their religion, not us. It’s up to us in Western countries to not tolerate those Muslims who murder people or insist we bend our culture to suit theirs. One sticking point I have in that is Sharia. There is no way we should ever accept Sharia law. One law should apply to everyone in the land.
Simply, if they don’t like it here, they shouldn’t be here.
I don’t think that Islam needs its own enlightenment, I regard those values as independent of the religious milieu.
More importantly, I think those values should be held to by us, defended and shouted from the rooftops, rather than abandoned as they have been by the multiculti propagandists.
In that, I completely agree.
Chris
“Everyone else here has tried to present reasoned arguments, regardless of their level of knowledge. I don’t think mindless abuse contributes anything.”
Nor do I. I didn’t think I inflicted mindless, abuse, but I am not guided by God. As for abuse, point it out. If true, Mea Culpa, I can only learn, and I welcome it.
Yes, my temperature was a little high, but I don’t like being bombed.
Do you?
ADE
Yes, my temperature was a little high, but I don’t like being bombed.
nothing I’ve written has supported the bombers. Indeed quite the opposite.
I subscribe to the ideals of human rights and freedom that the Enlightenment brought, a movement which was secular, a movement which is the foundation of the culture in which I was raised. Which was why I mentioned it. You then compared it to going back to King Arthur’s court, which was entirely unfair and untrue.
God, as far as I know, are the people who run this website, and I’m a total adherent to the philosophy of God around here. 😉
Chris, Juilette,
Could you be wrong?
OK, I’ll be PC.
Even my wife thinks I’m a shit.
Et vous? Let me know.
(love) ADE
Juliette,
Mon cher, je t’aime.
Yes, God runs this website, but if you want to see Der Uber Website, visit The Belmont Club.
Warning: I comment, and I’m not religious. Abandon sensitivities all who enter there.
ADE
I agree with some of the commenters here that Islam does not need a Luther. One of the periods of European history I studied, the Reformation and the wars of religion at the time, make it pretty clear that the last thing we need is a Reformation, Islam style. Arguably, OBL and his fellow psychopaths are the modern “Luthers”.
I honestly don’t know what the solution is apart from those of us who take our values from the Englightenment to make the case for the values of freedom, rationality, progress and tolerance as frequently and as eloquently as we can.
ADE
Christianity emerged from Israel where Jesus Christ was born. Christianity comes from the teachings of Jesus the Christ, a man who actually lived on the earth. It’s not something a bunch of Europeans got together and decided to make up. If there was anything pagan and twisted about their beliefs, you can rest assured they did not come from the teachings of Christ.
A Duoist
As for fifteenth century violence in the name of Christianity, no where in the Bible did Jesus Christ tell people to burn others alive. Read the words in red print, the ones of Jesus, in the New Testament and see if you can find anything of that nature in there. You won’t. It’s the words in red print where true Christianity comes from. This is where wisdom must come in. One thing people need to remember is that there will always be false profits out there.
The trouble with this teleological view of history which asserts that the reformation lead directly to the secular liberal capitalist democracy we now enjoy is that it cannot account for the fact there have been several waves of securlarization in the arab world already. Indeed, as Sadik Jalal al-Azm (who is sometimes refered to as “the Arab Voltaire”) puts it “To reverse this seemingly irreversible trend they [the Ismalists] literally go to war in order to achieve what they call the re-Islamization of currently nominally Muslim societies.” Yet secular arab regimes don’t even approach the condition of Enlightened Despotism let alone that of stable democracies.
Denise,
Jesus is a story. It’s not true, but it’s nice.
I like the story. The character is good. I like him. What a shame that he didn’t exist. I want him to. He could have been one of my mates.
But the myth struck a chord.
Denise, I am lost beyond all hope of recovery. I believe that Operation iraqi Freedom is the best thing that the US has done for the West.
Get your head around that, you see it my way. Not pretty.
ADE
We all need to wake up in the west and stop agonizing over what WE have done wrong. The simple fact is that Islam and the culture it promotes, cannot be assimilated into western democratic societies without some major concessions on the part of the host democracies. The naivety of liberals who think it can demonstrates the degree to which some people are prepared to turn themselves into pretzels in order make the unworkable … work.
A recent poll in the U.K. has 1/4 of all British Muslims (at least those prepared to admit it on a phone line), saying they sympathize with the actions of the London bombers. There is a subterranean consensus that exists among many muslims that is “code” to the rest of us – cryptic and indecipherable – which lends tacit support to a world view that is inimical to our western values; even to our survival. Yet the starry eyed dreamers among us, the Marxists and humanists and do-gooding altruists, insist on overlooking the deep seated polarization that exists amd somehow imagine it can all be resolved with goodwill and charity lol! It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
The Theo van Gogh killing is – in micro form – an example of the consequences of this cultural cleavage. The grotesue murder of the fifteen year old Scots lad Kriss Donald by a gang of Pakistani thugs is another. The hatred and antagonism is deeper than life itself for many, and no amount of altruism will ever change that in this lifetime.
On a visceral level, this is indeed a clash of civilizations … a clash of ideologies … a clash of value systems.
Many in the Islamic communities in Germany, the UK, France, Holland … have aspirations to “take over” the societies in which they live by outbirthing the indigenous – getting sharia law provisions included in governmental decision making – influencing the culture and popular thought by subverting everything in western culture they consider decadent and venal. Such a mindset is not conducive to compromise or mutual understanding.
We need to stop descending down this slippery slope blindfolded and take a look around. This rush to embrace “the other” since the unfortunate excesses of the nazis, has become almost a psychological disorder. Europeans have reached a degree of personal alienation from their own roots, that simple talk of heritage and traditional values fills them with strange loathing. I find all of this very weird and disturbing, especially given the fact that europe has introduced an Islamic culture that feels none of this self loathing about its own heritage and its own traditions.
Time to wake up!
Juliette:
Up until this last attack on Thursday I regarded it as being up to the Muslims to reform the Muslims. But they haven’t yet done it and I no longer feel it is tolerable to have my friends and family at risk of life and limb whilst they don’t get their house in order. So it is no longer up to the Muslims to reform themselves whilst we stand by as far as I’m concerned. We, as a nation, need to assert our own rights and culture.
Alex Finley that was an excellent post.
Bernie – I agree, but still, we cannot reform the Islamic faith for Muslim people. Rather, we can decide how to deal with people who hold beliefs hostile to our values. That’s not reforming them, that’s giving them the boot. 😉
Juliette – quite
Islam does not need a Luther. The first poster is totally wrong that after the Reformation Christians did not engage in religious violence. Why do you think the Enlightenment happened? Protestant-Catholic and intra-Protestant violence got worse.
What Islam needs, if indeed it is capable of pulling itself out of its bondage to the 7th century, is an Abraham Geiger. He was the rabbi who initiated Reform Judaism. Islam needs a Reform Islam designed, not to find the pristine original doctrine (which is pretty bad) but to adapt Islam to modernity and especially to pry it loose from its worship of the Koran and the wretched Sharia.
I haven’t read all the comments, so forgive me if it’s come up already.
What Islam requires is not more religion. Islam requires nothing. Its Moslems that require something.
What Moslems require are two things that I presently see:
1] A concept of the Public Sphere, properly differentiated from the Ummah, Dar al-Islam/Dar al-Harb split. They do not have an equivalent notion of one to debate within in their world, no ‘marketplace of ideas’.
2] They need to cease ceding their individuality to Scholars. Follow teachings, yes. Blindly obey, no. I’m told that for Moslems there is nothing outside of their community, that their spirituality is centered on that. But there doesn’t seem to be much sense of an ‘everyman’ about them, as if their everyday lives are of no consequence.
Yet surely their everyday, workaday lives are every bit as hard and joyful as ours. There is surely a meeting of minds to be had in that, isn’t there?
EssEm, I didn’t say that the reformation stopped religious violence.
I had never heard of Abraham Geiger I will find out more.
Islam need a Reformation?
First, the question assumes that European progress came from Luther’s Reformation of the established church. Second, it assumes that this “progress” developed directly – not indirectly as it really was.
In fact, Luther went backward, believing he was reviving a purer, uncorrupted Christianity that Catholicism had lost. Many others had attempted this task and failed. What made Luther successful was the invention of the printing press which made possible the spread of cheap copies of the New Testament. This technological invention propelled the Protestant missionary spread of literacy. Thus, the egalitarian genie – the Christian doctrine of the equal worth of all souls in the sight of God – could be realized only as the faithful absorbed God’s message unmediated by a hierarchical clergy.
The impact of Protestantism on Europe was indirect: progress was really achieved only by setting up a competitive rival to the established Church, and thereby setting up competition in Belief.
Yet centuries would pass before the full import of competitive processes would result in true Enlightenment: competition in politics, competition in economics, competition in theoretical knowledge – today which we know as liberal democracy, capitalism, and science. Jonathan Rauch rightly generalized Karl Popper’s veneration of the Open Society and the institutions that sustain them as “liberal science.”
Fortunately, just as Islam, and especially Arabic speaking Islam (which is more prone to valorize its heritage than non-Arabic speaking Muslims are), is engaged in a debate over backward looking, revitalizing Islam much as Luther advocated a similar solution to widespread corruption of public authority in the sixteenth century, most Muslims admire and envy the very institutions of liberal science that propel the West.
This makes the authoritarian, bubble bursting Iraq intervention by the US and UK extremely timely. For there is an enormous demographic boom among Muslim youth, and now they get a chance to re-debate the place of Jihadism – the sixth pillar of Islam – in a globalizing world where its classical, aggressive, extenalized form has no realistic place. Nearly all of these young are poor and illiterate. The question remains: will computers and the internet function now much as the printion press did for Luther? Will it liberate and propel this re-examination and debate toward a libertarian end? It’s unclear.
What is clear is that, as Stephen Hayes (of the Weekley Standard) noted six months ago, the US and UK effort to democratize Iraq will initially result in a reassertion and re-strengthening of traditional Islam, eg, women are being segregated. This week includes the ominous report that the new constitution will rest itself on the notion that no law will be allowed to contradict Islamic law.
But fortunately there is a lot of lattitude here: law need not be congruent with Islam, simply not contradict it. This could open the door to Ijtihad – the doctrine of interpreting the Koran within the lights of reason, an Enlightened practice rejected seven centuries ago and corresponding to Islam’s decline.
As Hayes points out, what the Shia are doing in embracing democracy they realize IS un-Islamic. What is Koranic is embracing the most powerful authority – typically a corrupt authoritarian we see all over the Middle East as if they were mediating philosopher-kings between God in Heaven and the plebe here on earth. What makes democracy “un-Islamic” is exactly what the Islamist reject and actively persecute: rasing oneself up to assume God’s powers, which only the temporally powerful deserve. Thus, the Shia of Iraq are actively engaged in an Experiment in Islamic government.
A powerful dialectic has been unleashed in the Middle East, and only institutions and ideas already existing will guide how far and how many competitive process institutions can root themselves within the makeup of Islamic civil society. “Liberal science” of the West need not stamp out Islamic faith – it may even be revivify an Islamic an alternative to the Islamist death cult. But what took centuries in the West needs to take place over mere decades in the Middle East. These are heady times indeed!
Orson Olson: an interesting comment indeed, though I must disagree with “This makes the authoritarian, bubble bursting Iraq intervention by the US and UK extremely timely”… Authoritarian? Overthrowing mass murderous Ba’athist Socialism is ‘authoritarian’? How does that work?
If anyone is still reading this thread, I blogged a lengthy response, with a hat tip to TJIC for the Goldberg article.
(Link)