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Subject: the West Vs. Islam
Muslim    8/25/2002 11:40:30 AM
A topic came up in the Israel board that I thought was more suited to be on this board, so I'm moving the discussion about over here.

To Homplate Umpire:

There is something about Islam that you should probably know, even in it's most perfect form, Islam CANNOT coexist in a western based world; meaning, Islam and the West do not and cannot mix, they can exist seperately, but one can't properly exist within the other.

The reson for this is because Islam is a comprehensive idealogy, it is a complete way of life, it has answer for every question, from God to politics, from the privacy of one's home to public laws and regulations. What America wants is for muslims to forget about the political portion, to forget about the public laws, and to forget that Islam is a muslim's way of life. When America wants muslims to "moderate" Islam, it means that america want muslims to "loosen up" and forget some rules and aspects of Islam.

Now as much Islam treats everyone equally (which it does), it does not leave any room for any alternatives in the political, economic, or any other field of life, a muslim must lead his life according to Islam and only Islam.

I agree that many muslims in the world today aren't providing a good image of Islam, and all muslim leaders are providing an even worse image. I don't agree that America doesn't want to eradicate Islam and Muslims, the only problem is that it can't. The west sees Islam as a threat to their way of life, and they try to portray Islam as this barbaric, backwards, heartless, and Nazi-like religion, but none of that is true. Islam is a threat to the west, but not because of those reasons, Islam is a threat to the west because if the western population say a real sincere and accurate implimentaion of Islam, people will flock to it. This has been seen clearly in history of Islam, for 13 years in Mecca, the prophet only managed to gather around 100 muslims, after only ten years in medinah, the prophet - with his Islamic state - managed to gather an army (not counting the muslims who weren't in that army) of 10,000 muslims. The difference between the first 13 years and the last 10 was that in the last ten years, Islam was being fully implemented, it was no longer just a bunch of words, it was now a reality. And today is no exception, if a true and accurate implementaion of Islam was to exist today, I gurantee you will see the same results, people flocking in masses to either live under the authority of Islam, or become muslims.

That is the real reason Islam is a threat to the west, it will take away their power, their glory. Islam was made to be a more than just a religion one practices on Fridays, or one month a year in Ramadan, Islam was made to be a way of life, in essence, Islam is the perfect design to how a civiliation should be, and the best part of it, anyone can join. It is this aspect of Islam that makes the west attack it and not other religions such as christianity, judaism, buddism, or any other religion.

I am not asking you to become sypathetic, I am asking you to uderstand the nature of Islam, that it isn't as bad the west and the muslims make it seem. Islam is a blessing to mankind. Islam also has a rock solid foundation, one that is not built on any can of faith, it is built on Iman (best translation: Conclusive acknowledgement). I want it to be clear that I'm not talking about something great that you have to just believe in, I'm talking about something great that can be proven to be great and true.

That is why the west (political not social) will always be at war with Islam, the west fears Islam, they know what it can become and will do anything in their power to stop it from happening. I can prove this to you, but I will need some time, until then I leave you all to think about all this and leave this topic open for discussions.
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/26/2002 9:55:28 AM
Muslim, Somehow I doubt your objectivity on this issue, considering that at the current time, the "flocking" you refer to appears to be going in quite the opposite direction; moderate Muslims of any resources are fleeing the region for the West. It's becoming quite a social debate in xenophobic Europe, for example, and there is nearly as much anti-Muslim sentiment there as there is anti-Semitism, largely based on the fact that increasing numbers of immigrants are Muslims from North Africa (and elsewhere) fleeing corruption, persecution, and extremism in their homelands. We agree that Islam and the West, in their current states of philosophical, social, economic, and technological development cannot coexist. At the moment, Islam is a totalitarian ideology, as you imply when you say "... it has answer for every question, from God to politics, from the privacy of one's home to public laws and regulations." However, this need not be an eternal truth. In 700 A.D. when Islam was starting to emerge, and until 1600 A.D. or so, Christianity was ALSO largely a totalitarian ideology. However, even though religions may remain even as empires rise and fall, they are not immutable. Islam--as preached and practiced--can and must be changed as well. The people currently speaking for Islam ... those people that claim to know the will of Allah and therefore "have the answer to every question" ... care for nothing save power and control, and use Islam as a legitimating force to claim absolute power because of its tenets that claim to provide an answer for everything. Your argument that "the West will flock to Islam once it a true version of it is seen" is circular, based on your contention that a true version of Islam will be one that attracts those Westerners. I.e., a successful religion will be successful, and you'll know it when you see it by its success. Well, that's true, but it doesn't bring it any closer to actually existing. We had this discussion about religions changing a while ago. You claimed that Islam cannot be "reinterpreted" the way that Christianity has been at major places in history over the last 2,000 years. And yet, if you look at the Muslim world today, you see that it HAS been. If your definition of Islam is the correct one, and it was practiced by your Prophet successfully during his time in Medina, then I would say that that vision has definitely gotten lost ... "reinterpreted," if you will ... sometime in the last 1400 years. If the message has been changed, then it can be changed again, either back to its original intent, or, preferably, back to something that reflects the spirit of the original intent but in the context of the modern world. If the message has not been changed, then you're saying that the current clergy and rulers in the Muslim world actually do have the message correctly preserved and implemented--which I've heard you deny on any number of occasions. Ergo, I think, when it comes down to it, you actually support a change in the Islamic faith--a change from its current preachings and practices, at any rate. What you may not know about the Christian Reformation and the associated movements was that they, too, were seen in that light; the Church had become something that it was never supposed to be, becoming abusive, intrusive, and power-hungry, and thus needed to be purified and returned to something that reflected its original intent. Therefore, the leaders of the Reformation did not see themselves as changing Christianity, but of restoring it. However, it cannot be denied that they caused sweeping changes to the way Christianity was institutionalized throughout the Western world, and caused social changes of a level unseen since the fall of the Roman Empire and unparalleled until the Industrial Revolution. If you have your way, by my definitions, you will indeed be changing Islam. You will not be changing the core texts, but you will be changing the accepted interpretation of those texts. You will be changing what is taught regarding what message followers are supposed to draw from them. You will be changing the politics of the region in which Islam is a political blueprint. You will be changing the economics of the region in which Islam is an economic system. You will be changing the social organization of the region in which Islam is a social code. You will do it all in the name of "returning" the original beliefs of Islam, which you claim are being practiced incorrectly now, but you nonetheless want to bring about a great deal of change in the Islamic world in the name of Islam. From where I stand, that certainly looks like changing the religion to me. You don't need to change EVERYTHING about it for the religion to be said to have changed. You claimed that "America wants Muslims to forget about the political portion." There is some truth to that, and not too many of us would weep for the change if it happened, but that is not entirely correct. We would probably settle for the political teachings of the religion to be altered to be--admittedly--more in line with Western political philosophy. If teachings similar to (not necessarily identical to) those of Plato, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Hugo Grotius, and so on can be derived from the Koran, then the West will probably have no problem with it. You're probably seeing this as even more Western-biased cultural imperialism, but you yourself have made statements that indicate that this is not as impossible as it seems. Haven't you said that the ruler must have some accountability to the people? That they are to be his responsibility, not his victims? That they have some rights that the sovereign cannot abolish? If you abstract the messages of most of those men I named, you'll probably find ideas that are quite compatible with your ideal vision of Islam. They just don't appear to have been practiced in the Islamic world in centuries. Be careful when you say things like "I don't agree that America doesn't want to eradicate Islam and Muslims, the only problem is that it can't." We can't, but it's not because we lack the immediate capability. If the Islamic world were the same size it is now, but effectively as far away as the moon, we could eradicate it in 26 minutes (the time it takes for a parabolic ICBM to cross the Pacific and Indian Oceans). The physical and political fallout would be unacceptable, and the physical fallout alone might make the entire world unlivable, so in that sense, we can't. On the other hand, don't think the one-hand-behind-our-back approach we took to Afghanistan is the limit of our capabilities. You said, "Islam was made to be a more than just a religion one practices on Fridays, or one month a year in Ramadan, Islam was made to be a way of life, in essence, Islam is the perfect design to how a civiliation should be, and the best part of it, anyone can join." Maybe, but change a few words, and you have the definition of Marxism. The "perfect society." As with all visions of "perfection," it looks good on paper, but that statement in itself is proof enough to me of the sheer impossibility of the task. I long ago reconciled myself to the fact that humans are, well, human, and perfection is something we not only cannot achieve but cannot even properly envision. I'm certainly not above founding entire countries and civilizations on visions and dreams--America was, after all--but to claim to have found the "perfect and final solution" raises echoes of the very Nazism you claim that Islam is not. America was founded on a much more humanistic vision, despite the strong religious convictions of the Founding Fathers. The idea was to create a society that rejected the "divine right" of kingship that was the established norm in the Western world of those days (yes, our rulers, too, claimed that they had the ear of God and that therefore they were the only ones fit to m
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/26/2002 9:56:27 AM
The idea was to create a society that rejected the "divine right" of kingship that was the established norm in the Western world of those days (yes, our rulers, too, claimed that they had the ear of God and that therefore they were the only ones fit to make decisions for all of society ... decisions which, of course, generally benefitted themselves at the expense of the disenfranchised). This was the true vision expressed in their dream of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Government by "the will of God" as interpreted by a few rich and powerful men with a lot of brute force to throw around had been a dismal failure in the West, even as now it is a dismal failure in the Middle East. The problem is that we were able to learn from our mistakes; Islam, by its fundamental and odurate resistance to change and its status as the dominant political philosophy in its region of the world, is currently impeding that learning. Whether that is because of the actual message or simply the ways that message is institutionalized, you would know better than I. I've never been to the Muslim world. Nonetheless, one doesn't have to have climbed Mt. Everest to know it when one sees it. No ideology that purports to have the "true" answer to every question of politics, economics, and society has ever succeeded in world history. They are generally characterized by fundamentally flawed visions of human nature and idealistic estimates of how far that nature can be suppressed or altered. They generally do not have a healthy fear of centralized power, or an appreciation for just how depraved and irreversible abuses of power by dominant central authorities can become. Painting a paradise is easy. Building one is tougher. Unfortunately, civilizations rest on their builders, not their painters. --Phoenix Rising
 
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Ben    Flocking where?   8/26/2002 10:57:11 AM
"Your argument that "the West will flock to Islam once it a true version of it is seen" is circular," True, and it also runs afoul of fact- the muslims, like many others from around the world, are flocking here, not there, so, if flocking indicates a successful system, and success is the will of god, obviously god is with us, and those places the flockers are currently flocking from, well, they must be pretty flocked up.
 
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Ben    The west vs religion   8/26/2002 11:04:20 AM
"It is this aspect of Islam that makes the west attack it and not other religions such as christianity, judaism, buddism, or any other religion." hey, you guys are not in any exclusive club. The west did a darn near 100% job in eliminating the pre-christian religions of western Europe, and they did this with such great success that 2000 years later, despite the best efforts of Elizabeth Montgomery, "witches" (priestesses of the pre-christian european Goddess worshipping sectts) are still stereotyped FAR worse than Muslims are. You guys, on the other hand, did a fairly good job at eliminating Zoroastrianism.
 
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Max    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/26/2002 11:06:27 AM
If that is true why are so many people fleeing from muslim states and emigrating to the west. They are voting with their feet and rejecting muslim society for the west. Maybe it's because they see "perfect" muslim countries doing exactly what Imperial Japan did centeries ago when they shut the rest of the world out and were subsequently left behind by progress.
 
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Jeff from Michigan    Think about what you are saying   8/26/2002 7:32:58 PM
"There is something about Islam that you should probably know, even in it's most perfect form, Islam CANNOT coexist in a western based world; meaning, Islam and the West do not and cannot mix, they can exist seperately, but one can't properly exist within the other." Muslim, I have read your posts with interest as you have debated with others. Your answers are generally not angry ones but one that try to clarify Islam. I am disturbed about your post above. What you are saying confirms what the others have been saying. That Islam is a totalitarian doctrine that cannot exist with other religions/social systems. That indeed this is a "clash of civilization" that leads to the destruction of one or the other. Before Pim Fortyn was killed in the Netherlands his party was capturing large support because one of his points was that Muslim immigrants were refusing to integrate into Dutch society but instead trying to set up a separate society. Is this what you are truly saying that muslims must do? Examples abound that gives the lie to this. First off I am thinking of Muslim Spain as Veritas spoke of. I will read the book "The Ornament of the World" this winter after budget season. I am thinking of India. Do you say that the Muslims should not integrate into Indian society? How about Singapore? Do the Israelis have to expell all the Arab citizens because they cannot integrate? Bosnia was another example of peaceful co-existance until Slobodan used the religion card against the Muslims. Think about this and let me know if you stand behind your statement. Sometimes we write things before thinking things through. Jeff
 
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Muslim    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 3:26:15 AM
first of all I would like to say thank you for being clear and leaving no room for me to misuderstand anything you said. "Islam--as preached and practiced--can and must be changed as well. The people currently speaking for Islam ... those people that claim to know the will of Allah and therefore "have the answer to every question" ... care for nothing save power and control, and use Islam as a legitimating force to claim absolute power because of its tenets that claim to provide an answer for everything." I wouldn't say Islam must be changed, I would say the way people understand and "preach" Islam must be changed. You see, Islam will never change, the Quran will always stay the same, and the Hadith will always stay the same. What will change is the way people interpret those two. So in those terms, yes, the way the majority of muslims today interpret the Quran must be changed in order for Islam to be implemented correctly (not perfectly, I realize that is not possible) there will always be a few misapplication, it is the job of the people, scholars, and -when Islam is implemented correctly- the judges to keep the misapplications as small and limited as possible; seeing that if all three of those stop doing so will give the Caliph too much power as has happened in our history. "Your argument that "the West will flock to Islam once it a true version of it is seen" is circular, based on your contention that a true version of Islam will be one that attracts those Westerners." Again, I agree with in a way; I wouldn't say the argument is circular, but it is a theory that can only be proven once it is seen. Because believing that without seeing it would require one to be muslim, until then, I can only show you how that was once true. "From where I stand, that certainly looks like changing the religion to me. You don't need to change EVERYTHING about it for the religion to be said to have changed." you said it yourself, this change won't involve changing the texts. Those texts are Islam. Therefore since this change won't involve changing the texts, it doesn't Involve changing the religion, just changing the followers follow it. There is a big difference, because if something is conclusively from the quran and sunnah, we as muslims can't change it or remove because logic or the modern world says we should. You should understand that none of the stuff you are saying is new, Islam went through all this before, and it survived without change and became prosperous; in fact, what really brought Islam down was change. when people started trying to modernize Islam, make it more "appealing" and "identical" to the west, that's when Islam really took a plunge. I realize that this sounds a bit extreme, but somethings in Islam cannot be changed. That doesn't mean that Islam is not compatable with the modern world, that it can't survive in today's world; just because something is not open for drastic changes doesn't mean it can't be "modern". Islam may not be open for change, but there can be different interpretations to some rules, making it very flexable and can be applied in ANY situation. "If teachings similar to (not necessarily identical to) those of Plato, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Hugo Grotius, and so on can be derived from the Koran, then the West will probably have no problem with it." Well, that's great for you guys, but I must be blunt. Rules will not be derived just so that Islam will be more "similar" to western philosophies, that doesn't mean that they can't have similar ideas. I'm not much of an economist, but I know there quite a few similarities between capitalism and Islam, and there are a few similarities between comunism and Islam, heck there are also a few similarities between christianity and Islam; but none of that means that people went out and searched the quran for any rules that can be similar to any of those three. Researching the quran must be done objectively, you gather all verses and hadiths that deal with the same subject (not neccesarily providing the same rule) and from those evidences an opinion is derived, if there is any similarity to other opinions or religions, that would be entirely coincidental. "We can't, but it's not because we lack the immediate capability." I agree 100%, but in different terms. I said that because I feel that if America makes it clear that it wants to eradicate Islam, the whole world (muslims and some non-muslims) will rise up against it, even within America itself. I know America is not naive, and it is not weak, It can do it, but at the same time it can't because of political reasons. I'm sure that as soon as America finds a way (who knows, they might be looking) to eradicate Islam and Muslims without ANY bad consequences, it would without any hesitation. Regarding Islam's perfection, I have no doubt about it, and I would argue for a million years to show that to you. but I know that you made your statement because you misunderstood what I said. Just because Islam is perfect doesn't mean at all that muslims are, muslims (as the you can see) are able to make mistakes and commit sins, Islam doesn't keep them from doing that. Also, Islam doesn't force anyone to convert and doesn't treat non-muslims as lower or imperfect. That is one of it's perfections. I don't know exactly what you understood from my statement that Islam is perfect, but your statement is not true "but to claim to have found the "perfect and final solution" raises echoes of the very Nazism you claim that Islam is not." You are making an assumption here that this perfect solution will be forced on to people, and that anyone who doesn't follow this solution is automaticaly considered lower. Islam made it clear that it shouldn't be forced on anyone, it made it clear that no one can be killed without valid reasons (it also told us what those reasons are). So just because I claim Islam is the truth and the only truth, doesn't mean that it will be anything similar to Nazism, just because someone found the right answer doesn't mean that they will go around killing everyone who hasn't. It is possible for muslims not to do that, it is possibe (in fact mandatory) that muslims teach Islam and not force it. Again, I don't see how you made that connection between the perfection of Islam (not muslims) and Nazism. "No ideology that purports to have the "true" answer to every question of politics, economics, and society has ever succeeded in world history" Islam has. But just like all other previous societies and ideologies, Islam is now in a low point, every society has/will gone/go through this stage, but not all of them will come out of it, Islam will (again requires one to believe in Islam to really see this). "Painting a paradise is easy. Building one is tougher. Unfortunately, civilizations rest on their builders, not their painters." My response to this is simple, Islam has the best painter and the best builder, God painted it, and Mohammed built it. I would like to just end this post with a statement. Just because someone believes Islam is the truth doesn't mean they have to be muslims. Many enemies of the prophet knew Islam was true, but fought him nonetheless, it is those people who will fight Islam the hardest.
 
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Muslim    RE:Flocking where?   8/28/2002 3:31:44 AM
"True, and it also runs afoul of fact- the muslims, like many others from around the world, are flocking here, not there, so, if flocking indicates a successful system, and success is the will of god, obviously god is with us, and those places the flockers are currently flocking from, well, they must be pretty flocked up." Your statement is one huge giagantic enormous fallacy. First of all, the reason muslims are flocking to the west is because there is no true application of Islam in the world today, no matter what Iran and Saudi Arabia might claim. Second, just becuase people are flocking to America doesn't mean that God is with you. In fact, it has nothing to do with which side God is on. Islam doesn't say that Allah will make people flock to Islam, Allah says that when the victory comes, you will see people flocking to Islam. That doesn't just apply to Islam, that applies to any victorious and prosporous state.
 
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Muslim to ben    RE:The west vs religion   8/28/2002 3:39:32 AM
"You guys, on the other hand, did a fairly good job at eliminating Zoroastrianism." I find it amusing that you are defending fire worshipers. I really don't know what happened to them, but I'm sure they're in a better place (or worse if they're going to hell). "are still stereotyped FAR worse than Muslims are." BTW, stereotyping isn't the worst thing you can do to a nation. The west has done to us things they didn't even do to Germany or Russia. They divided us and turned us against each other. don't worry, I don't place the blame on them, I place the blame on muslims for letting them do that.
 
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Muslim to max    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 3:45:02 AM
"If that is true why are so many people fleeing from muslim states and emigrating to the west. They are voting with their feet and rejecting muslim society for the west. Maybe it's because they see "perfect" muslim countries doing exactly what Imperial Japan did centeries ago when they shut the rest of the world out and were subsequently left behind by progress. " How many times do I have to say this????? I'll say it again. THERE ISN'T A SINGLE STATE IN THE WORLD TODAY THAT APPLIES ISLAM THE WAY IT SHOULD BE APPLIED(not an angry tone, just loud and slow :-) Seriously, look at all their systems, everyone applies just a little bit of Islam, just enough to make people hate it. Iran and saudi arabia are the ones that claim they represent muslims, they make muslims hate Islam more than anyone else does.
 
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Muslim to jeff    RE:Think about what you are saying   8/28/2002 3:56:23 AM
I think you misuderstood me. I didn't say that muslims can't live peacefully with others. what I meant was that Islam as a complete system incompassing but not limited to politics, economics, social life, spirtuality.... cannot be implemented alongside any other system. It can exist as a seperate and independent system, but must be free from all outside influence. This doesn't just apply to Islam, this applies to any system that is meant to remain pure. Again, Islam can, and has existed as a political application in it's own region, not far away from other empires and civilization, but not influenced by them, in fact, it was the other civiliations that were influenced by Islam. I thought I made my statement clear to be restricted to the application of the system, but I guess people read things differently. Let me know If I am clear enough. I must be blunt, yes, I don't think that muslims should integrate into any society that is not implementing Islam, including the so-called Islamic countries (pakistan, Iran, Saudi-arabia etc.) But at the same time, they shouldn't rebel everywhere they live. They shouldn't seek to establish their own state in America, for example. Muslims can live in peace with people from other religions and nations without integrating into the society's way of life.
 
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Ben    Fire worshippers? Muslim, you don't know them!   8/28/2002 8:38:53 AM
Muslim, you should learn more about the religions your kind destroyed. You left a few Zoroastrians alive, though. I know one. To say they are "fire worshippers" would be like saying you worship a crescent moon, or Christians a cross. That line, "I'm sure they are in a better place" is pretty scary. Is that the place for those who follow religions muslims don't like? Or is that better place a neighborhood in New York?
 
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Ben    Don't blame the west for Islamic intramural events.   8/28/2002 8:42:55 AM
The West did nothing to turn the muslims against each other. That goes way back. There was no western infuence behind Karbala. Clue: In any system which says there should be one powerful non-elected leader, you will get at least two people thinking "And that leader should be me".
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 10:08:50 AM
Hmmm ... some things you said apparently contradict what you said earlier, but I may simply have been reading you wrongly. Specifically, I'm talking about your statements regarding Islam's "changeability" and its potential for integration with the West. What you're saying about how "Islam cannot change" but simply the "way people understand it" needs to be changed rings as essentially two sides of the same coin to me. Religions are defined by how people understand them; the text of the Bible is the most religiously (excuse the pun) preserved text of the last 2,000 years. It hasn't changed. There were apocryphal works that were omitted, but that is something that I cannot parallel with Islam because the Bible had several mortal authors, even though Christians believe that the ultimate source of all of it was God (simply working through many messengers instead of one). The point is that Christianity has "changed" in the exact same way that you talk about changing Islam. The texts have not changed at all; it is our understanding of them that has, along with the system of values and principles for living one's life that we derive from that understanding. The texts themselves have not changed. Regarding the "theory that can only be proven once it is seen," I think you're not only asking me to accept a lot on faith, but you're asking a lot of your potential believers in the Muslim world to accept a lot on faith. They've heard the "trust me, I know what I'm doing, this will all work out in the end" lines before--endlessly, in fact--from their own governments. If the current state of unrest in just about every Muslim country means anything, those people are getting fed up with that kind of line, and are able to see through the lie. Even if that is what you truly believe, it would be better if you could find a way to ground it in the current reality of the Muslim world and present something with a little more meat--something that doesn't ask so many people to take so much on faith. Perfect or otherwise, Islam has lost a lot of its credibility as a legitimating force for a country, and making the distinction between your "perfect" Islam and their "imperfect" Islam is not going to impress a lot of people if they have to wait until your "perfect" system is implemented to see that it works. What changes are you talking about that attempted to make Islam more 'appealing' to the West? Have you considered that those changes might have been implemented as imperfectly as you claim Islam itself is? Have you considered that the sincerity of the leaders 'embracing' the change might not have been all they made out in public? I'm not familiar with what or when this happened. Nonetheless, I look at Islam today and in 700 A.D. and I don't see too many changes toward Westernization over the last 1300+ years, when all is said and done. You said: "Well, that's great for you guys, but I must be blunt. Rules will not be derived just so that Islam will be more "similar" to western philosophies, [but] that doesn't mean that they can't have similar ideas ... but none of that means that people went out and searched the quran for any rules that can be similar to [Western philosophies]." Fair enough. The important point that you acknowledge, however, is that the similarities are THERE. No one needs to go "digging through the Koran" to find them; they're already there. This gets back to your earlier point about "the way people understand and 'preach' Islam" needs to be changed. I'll go out on a limb and guess that those similarities you mentioned are NOT emphasized (probably not even taught) in most Islamic schools, nor do most Muslim parents teach their children about our similarities and the values of trying to understand the culture of others, even if you disagree with them. Thus, those similarities you mentioned are not getting the kind of analysis they deserve. Actually, sight unseen and unstudied, based solely on reading you through your words, I believe that the attempted alteration of Islam to Western standards failed simply because of the framework implicit in your statements. The framework you suggest was that the Islamic world attempted to change ITSELF to match Western ideas. That won't work, and most of the Westerners who advocate such things have probably not thought through the meaning of their words. The West is a conglomeration of ideas from dozens of different cultures (many of which don't exist any more in a "pure" form ... Greece, Rome, ancient Babylon (Code of Hammurabi), and so on. However, we did not change OURSELVES to adapt to those cultures, much less adopt them. We allowed ourselves to be exposed to those cultures, and then basically took whatever we thought were the best or most interesting ideas about those cultures and discarded the rest. The Islamic world can do the exact same thing regarding "the West," whatever you take that to be (I wouldn't call it all one culture, but most people seem to lump all Western cultures together as "the West" and leave it at that). However, I think that it would be appropriate to go over Western culture with an even more fine-toothed comb than we have been in deciding what would work well in the Islamic world and what would not. It isn't enough to say, "our economic systems wouldn't mesh ..." or "our social systems wouldn't mesh ...;" you need to (I'm going to shoot myself for using this word, I've done too much grad coursework) deconstruct those systems down to the smallest kernels possible before you say what is completely incompatible. I'm betting that on many levels, Islam and the West are more compatible than you think, and could be even more so based on emphasizing different interpretations of your religious texts that already exist; there would not and should not be any "Western brand" of Islam. It should be up to the Islamic world to choose which parts of Western culture to integrate into itself, and how. However, know that the world doesn't exist in a vacuum and that we will respond to each of these developments. If you say that "they are completely incompatible" and "Islam must remain pure" and "the Islamic world must break off all ties with the West," you're seriously asking for a war ... the veiled assumption in there is that "Islam is diametrically opposed to the West and everything it represents." There are many Islamic clerics who preach exactly that; you, however, have yourself called those clerics un-Islamic, and made this conversation possible in doing so. If you break all other channels of communication and interaction between Mideast and West, then the only form of interaction that both sides are left with is the business end of an invasion force ... or a hijacked airliner. That will always be the lowest common denominator; the world isn't like it was during America's isolation in the 1700's and 1800's, when the world was a much bigger place: transportation was slower, populations smaller and less intermingled, communications far from instantaneous, and the "culturally aware" classes substantially smaller. I think your statement that "I'm sure that as soon as America finds a way (who knows, they might be looking) to eradicate Islam and Muslims without ANY bad consequences, it would without any hesitation" is, sorry, seriously paranoid. There were years when America was the only nuclear power on the planet, and even after Russia went nuclear, they were hardly interested in defending the Islamic world. Had we wanted to, we could have scorched all the lands from Morocco to Indonesia (omitting India and Southeast Asia) while Europe was still so devastated that they couldn't withstand an attack by so much as an American football team, much less have actually lifted a finger to stop us. We didn't, and never considered doing so, never have, and hopefully never will. Fifty years of American political history wer
 
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American Kafir    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 11:00:16 AM
Sorry to keep everyone waiting. My promised essay on the historical and theological development and evolution of this eternal war between sun worshippers and moon worshippers is around 25% complete, and has grown from a simple argument for the actual identity of Muhammad's Allah to a full blown criticism of both sides from my agnostic non-theistic viewpoint. I'll post a URL for it when I'm ready for the tomatoes ;-)
 
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