What's up with Islam? (page 3)

stillajwexelder

Islam needs a martin Luther and a Reformation

Islam has alway been an expansive religion and they, that's the collective "they" based on the Koran, do intend to convert or kill everyone on the planet. Their history is one of expansion by fire and sword and they have only stopped when they have been defeated militarily. If you actually read history it is very clear. In Islam there is only the House of Islam and the House of War, telling don't you think?

Forscher

I am secure enough in my belief that I care little whether Ellison swears his oath on the Bible or the Koran.

Since freedom of religion is so important that it is garaunteed in the first amendment to the Constitution, he is welcome to swear on whatever Book he considers holy. Just as long as he respects my religious freedom as well, we'll get along alright.

As for "what is wrong with Islam," one must consider what Bernard Lewis wrote in The Crisis of Islam; Holy War and Unholy Terror is probably the biggest reason for the difference between Christianity and Islam. Islam is a religion born of conquest and Christianity is not. Mohammad was a conqueror and Jesus an executed criminal. That effects our views of each other as well as our attitudes towards a whole host of issues.

Due to Jesus' execution and the early history of persecution of his followers, most of the rest of the world, much less Islam really can't respect Chrit's followers. Sure, they can fear them when they are powerful. But respect? Forget it!

Islam was born of the blood of conquest. Mohammad conquered most of the Arabian penninsula and executed most of his enemies before he died. He set up a theocracy, though not quite along the lines of the accepted scholarly definition of that word, which continued to spread by conquest throughout the early centuries of its existence. Therefore, the views of Muslims in regards to such matters as government, war, and the morality of both is very different from our own western views.

Their view of history is also quite different. Western culture is hated, not particularly for its modern history of colonialism in particular, rather it is hated for having been the first one to successfully stop the the march of Islam across the globe and its reconquest of lands which once brought under the control of Islam by whatever means is considered Islam's forever. The hatred runs very far back in history and very deep in a manner that we, in the west, just cannot fully grasp. As the inheritors of Brittain's legacy of world superpower, in the eyes of the Muslim world, we, here in the United States, are hated for every loss suffered and every slight imagined by the Muslim world since, and including, the defeat on the battlefield of Portiers in 732, when the Franks ended the years of unchallenged conquest and domination by the armies of Islam. As I said, our world views are so different from Muslims that we in the west just can't seem to grasp their attitudes.

Even that fairly complicated explanation of the problem is a bit simplistic. Those who might be interested might like to read the book I mentioned for a complete exposition on the subject.

Forscher

Narkissos

Islam needs a martin Luther and a Reformation

I used to think that.

But contrary to the saying history rarely repeats itself. The European Reformation belongs to a specific trajectory from the Middle-Ages to secularism, which is now being globalised. The tension between Renaissance humanism and the Catholic church which triggered the Reformation might be compared to the tension between Western secularism and Islam. But there are a lot of differences too. First, Islam is not a hierarchised and centralised religion which can be easily reformed, even locally. Second, secularism is perceived as foreign and neo-colonialistic by the Islamic world -- the Roman papacy otoh was perceived as foreign by the German church and princes, and that helped the Lutheran Reformation tremendously. Third, Reformation occurred in the politically and economically dominant part of the world. Islam today is in a defensive position, while drawn to an unexpected function of polar opposition to the West with the fall of the Soviet union... any hint of "reformation" (as is being advocated by a number of Islamic theologians, btw) is always suspect of surrendering to the enemy.

stillajwexelder

First, Islam is not a hierarchised and centralised religion which can be easily reformed, even locally.

Second, secularism is perceived as foreign and neo-colonialistic by the Islamic world -- the Roman papacy otoh was perceived as foreign by the German church and princes, and that helped the Lutheran Reformation tremendously. Third, Reformation occurred in the politically and economically dominant part of the world. Islam today is in a defensive position, while drawn to an unexpected function of polar opposition to the West with the fall of the Soviet union... any hint of "reformation" (as is being advocated by a number of Islamic theologians, btw) is always suspect of surrendering to the enemy.

Having read your post I think you are correct.

Merry Magdalene

Is there an actual, factual historical view of the spead of Islam? (My book list for this coming year is growing by leaps and bounds!)

Historian De Lacy O'Leary wrote in Islam at the Crossroads (1923):

History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims, sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.

James Michener wrote in Islam: The Misunderstood Religion (May 1955 Reader's Digest):

No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam. The West has widely believed that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts this idea, and the Qur'an is explicit in the support of the freedom of conscience.

Mahatma Gandhi said (1924):

I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind...I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.

Although not dismissing the battles that were fought internally and externally, Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion also made this comment:

From the end of the effective power of the caliphs in the tenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth, the size of the Muslim world almost doubled. The vehicles for expansion were not conquering armies so much as traveling merchants and itinerant teachers.

I thought it interesting that the Qur'an Ellison used was Thomas Jefferson's.

~Merry

Fangorn

Read Bernard Lewis. He is the best by Far.

Merry Magdalene

This Bernard Lewis? http://www.counterpunch.org/alam06282003.html

Thanks for the suggestion. I shall add it to my list, as always keeping my salt shaker handy

~Merry

Fangorn

Yes, that Bernard Lewis. As you can see, he's not popular with certain segments of Islam.

stealyourface

Merry Magdalene, It is interesting that the Qur’an used by the gentleman from Minnesota belonged to Thomas Jefferson. I can understand why any pol would want to capitalize on Jefferson's fame. But does Mr. Ellison have any idea of what Jefferson's thoughts on Islam were?

Scholar Hugh Fitzgerald writes of the particular translation Jefferson possessed:

And that version of the Qur’an that Jefferson possessed, and that Ellison presumes to appropriate for his own religio-political purposes? Its author, George Sales, translated the Qur'an in 1734 so that his Protestant readership, in learning more about its contents, could "attack the Koran with success" and Sales maintained that it would be Protestants to whom, within Christianity, would fall the task of checking Islam: "for them [the Protestants]...Providence has reserved the glory of its overthrow."
Oh, and among the books in Jefferson’s library was another -- Humphrey Prideaux's 1697 work on Muhammad, "The True Nature of the Imposture Displayed."

Jefferson had a stake in understanding Islam; while US Ambassador to Britain it was his job to negotiate release of a captured ship and crew held hostage by Morocco. The Moslem countries on the North Coast of Africa were sponsors of rampant piracy in the Mediterranean, and were seizing ships and demanding tribute of the US for safe passage. Through his study of Islam, Jefferson realized that negotiation was useless, and during his presidency was unwilling to pay the demanded tribute. This lead to the Barbary Wars of 1801-1805 (and gives the Marine Corps. Hymn the reference 'to the shores of Tripoli').

For more on the Barbary War: http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/01/america-where-are-you-now.html

Besides being a devout cultist wanting to advertise, I doubt Ellison could have any use for Jefferson's personal copy of the Qur'an other than to confer what he feels is an air of legitimacy upon the doctrine of Islamic hegemony contained therein.

What's up with Islam?

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