Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>So you want a world a little more like "Monty Python's Holy Grail"?<

I think Europe's experience with Christianity through history has
psychologically scarred people in the west and a lot of people need
counselling because they can't think beyond this traumatic history. 
  

    
> I think Europe's experience with Christianity through history has
> psychologically scarred people in the west and a lot of people need
> counselling because they can't think beyond this traumatic history. 

I initially found that quite funny, until I reflected that many of the 
most scurrilous bits of anti-semitism, now pretty much gone from common 
belief in the west, have been resurrected in the Muslim world: everything 
from blood libels to the silliest garbage about Jewish bankers and the 
Protocols and the rest. You can pick a month and find articles reflecting 
that sickness somewhere.

So, while I agree with your assessement of Europe's experience with 
Christianity, it does give one pause to see the worst of it picked up 
today and regarded as canonical truth in the Muslim world.
  

    
>now pretty much gone from common  belief in the west<

I disagree with you I think anti-semtism is rife and is evidenced in
the emergence of the far right in Europe, and the US for that matter.

>from blood libels to the silliest garbage about Jewish bankers and
the Protocols and the rest<

I agree with you. 
  

    
Farooq, ol' bean, it ain't Europe's experience with Christianity. It's
humanity's experience with theocracy. Doesn't make any difference if
it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism or Falung Gong.

The basic construct is, if you think some supernatural being has
prescribed your form of government and that this invests you with
divine sanction for your political descisions, you're crackers.
  

    

Given the history of the twentieth century, #154, is not accurate.  The
worst abuses were from various secular groups such as communists.
Absolute and unremovable leaders are the problem no matter what their
formal beliefs are.
  

    
Well, the belief that good ideology means good government. Ptui.
  

    
At the beginning of this conversation, Sajjad wrote, as part of a
justification for your magazine: "Muslims in the last 150 years have
failed to present a coherent message to people who don't share their
faith, preferring to argue relatively minuscule things between
themselves."

This seems to me a clear indication that you want to reach non-Muslim
audiences.  However, much of this conversation here seems to be about
what an ideal Islamic state would be like, should one ever come to
pass.  Is this what the magazine is about as well?   Do you think it's
important for non-Muslims to know about such things?  Why should we be
interested?  It seems far removed from practical politics.
  

    
(jax) makes a good point. Is this all about tapping into some Cosmic
Mind or can you see a way that all this makes sense if we just accept
that 'here we are' and it's up to us? I think there can be a middle
ground that allows for both possibilities. 

If you take the later view, you are not necessarily giving up the
former. It makes more sense to me to start there, on the common ground
of 'hear and now' and work out from there.

My sensors go off the moment anyone starts in with trying to bring
their notions of hierarchies and metaphysics from some other dimension.
Truth will ring true, up, down and all around from any starting point.
  

    
>it ain't Europe's experience with Christianity. It's
humanity's experience with theocracy<

Actually it isn't. Secularism originated and arose in Europe because
Christianity could not withstand the rational and scientific onslaught
which was largley influenced by Muslim scholarship. Secularism did not
arise in the Muslim world because Islam is built upon a rational basis,
rather secularism has been imposed by the west particularly after the
destruction of the Uthmani Caliphate in 1924.

>you with divine sanction for your political descisions, you're
crackers<

This requires a whole different discussion which is beyond this topic.
  

    
>However, much of this conversation here seems to be about
what an ideal Islamic state would be like, should one ever come to
pass.  Is this what the magazine is about as well?<

Well these are the questions people are asking so we're answering
them.

>Do you think it's important for non-Muslims to know about such
things?<

We need to hear from people such as yourself. What they would like to
learn more about, which aspects of Islam interest people as well as
discussing the political problems facing the world.

>Why should we be interested?<

I think its obvious why people are interested already. So its not a
matter of 'should' rather its a matter that people are already
interested. An explanantion of why is not necessary - its obvious why.
  

    
> I think Europe's experience with Christianity through history has
> psychologically scarred people in the west and a lot of people need
> counselling because they can't think beyond this traumatic history. 

>Christianity could not withstand the rational and scientific nslaught
>which was largley influenced by Muslim scholarship. 

Farooq, I find it rather ironic that you seem to be insisting upon
respect for the traditions and beliefs of Islam, and yet you are so
dismissive- actually, edging over into bigoted- on the topic of one of
the other religious traditions. 

Europe's "experience with Christianity"- or at least the events I
think you're referring to- was with the Roman Catholic church,
actually. That is by no means an institution that represents all
Christians, and the distinction is critical.

What you are saying seems to be a version of those fundamentalist faux
Christians who maintain that "them Moslems are crazy". 
  

    
>I don't see it. The Ottoman empire left behind many of the most
intractable ethnic hatreds in the world: Lebanon and the Balkans are
striking in the sheer manysidedness<

I would disagree with you. We need to analyse the history and present
situation much more deeply because we find that social cohesion was
largely disrupted by western colonialism and imperialism. We also find
that the Uthmani Caliphate failed to build harmony and the correct
thoughts in society which is a human failing rather than a ideological
failing. People could point out examples from history where non-Muslims
have not been treated well just as Muslims can point out multitudes of
examples of how Islam looked after the affairs of all people. Hence we
need to examine the history in its totality and the Islamic ideology
to make an accurate judgement. 
 
>Isn't a main problem the lack of real interaction among communities
under Islam?<

I disagree because without real intercation people wouldn't have
become Muslim. 

>There seems to be no way for serious disscussion or
criticism of any religion, particularly Islam, to take place under
Islamic rule: blasphemy, missionary efforts (isn't leaving Islam a
capital offense?), scientific criticism--it's all pretty much
outlawed<

There is a difference between criticism built upon thought and
criticism built upon hate. Intellectual debate was and is encouraged,
indeed this is one factor which enabled the Caliphate to reach the
heights in science, medicine, philosophy etc. However if people insult
Islam by slandering any prophet then there will be consequences, which
will be determined in an Islamic court. Islam does not make false
promises such as freedom of speech which is an illusion, a lie. 

As for missionaries coming to the Islamic state I could never envision
a situation where missionaries are allowed to come and propagate their
ideas especially since they brought nationalism to the Muslim world
and divided the people. We have learned the hard way, never again.

>Isn't Islamism just an ideology dedicated to the self-protection of
Islam?<

Capitalism is no different and neither is commuism. When the Soviet
Union existed, the system sought to protect communism through coercion
and state terror. The west also protects its secular-capitalist
ideology through legislation which prohibits the hijab or law
enforcement as evidenced in the curtailment of civil liberties in the
US and Britain or through education policy as evidenced in the debate
about Islamic schools in Europe.
  

    
>I find it rather ironic that you seem to be insisting upon
respect for the traditions and beliefs of Islam, and yet you are so
dismissive- actually, edging over into bigoted- on the topic of one of
the other religious traditions<

There is nothing disrespectul in what I said. Muslims believe in
Jesus, Moses and so on. Muslims demontsrate with Christians when Jesus
is insulted. Its a fact of history that Christain theocracy could not
withstand the intellectual and scientific challenge whether it was
Galilleo or Voltaire.
  

    
Once again, I think you're confusing Catholic with Christian, Farooq.
The liberal Protestant tradition did not, in fact, and does not reject
scientific inquiry or intellectual debate. 

Luther's (appropriate to his time) disagreement with Copernicus
notwithstanding, the general (and admittedly oversimplified) Protestant
view of science, except for the extreme minority fundamentalists, is
that it supports our understanding of God to understand the universe.

I will also note, for the record, that my own denomination has drawn
considerable public flack for its decision to divest itself of
investments in Israel that profit from the occupied territories and the
exploitation of the Palestinian people.  It is critical that, for the
purposes of this discussion at least, we separate our Christians into
the appropriate and distinct categories.
  

    
I take your point.
  

    
>Its a fact of history that Christain theocracy could not
withstand the intellectual and scientific challenge whether it was
Galilleo or Voltaire.<

As much as I'd *like* that to be true, I don't believe it is the case.

I can't think of *any* time, past or present, in which "the truth" was
primarily a matter of carefully reasoned discourse and checking claims
against empirical evidence.  The word "dominant" is in the phrase
"dominant narrative" for a very good reason; much of their prominence
is established through the political power of the institution(s)
promoting them rather than from their own "merit" (merit itself being
something determined by whose priorities are on top of the pile at a
given moment).

Day-to-day reality is much much messier; at any given moment there are
factions and populations and subpopulations within a large group with
all manner of competing superstitions.  The same folks who brought us
"the" Enlightenment were chalk full of folks who believed openly, if
not evangelically, in a host of bigotries, superstitions, and
rationalizations, from white supremacism to de facto belief in rich
people as a separate and better species to convoluted attempts to
reconcile the cutting edge science (of their time) with the dogma of
various religious traditions.  And in each of these cases, the
political context was a pivotal and constant reminder that empirical
evidence and logical support do *not* simply overwhelm politically
powerful dogmas and institutions; such battles must be waged on their
inherently political terms.

For each political prisoner (which is exactly what people tried for
heresy in this or any time are) whose appeals to reason and fact make
it through to the light of day (let alone result in their literal or
scientific/artistic freedom), there are far more voices who are
successfully locked away.

I'm not a pessimist, I just think we need to be sober when it comes to
attributing too much power to reason.  Bigotry and fascism still
consistently and comfortably trump careful consideration and appeals to
reason, and typically with a very efficient ratio of effort to result.
  

    

<farooq>
> Islam does not make false
> promises such as freedom of speech which is an illusion, a lie. 
> ...
> As for missionaries coming to the Islamic state I could never envision
> a situation where missionaries are allowed to come and propagate their
> ideas especially since they brought nationalism to the Muslim world
> and divided the people. We have learned the hard way, never again.

If we in the west were to follow that statement and the one before about
free speech, we would suppress all attempts to promote Islam and outlaw
Hizb ut Tahrir.

It is a significant strength of democracy to allow people to propogate
their ideas into a marketplace where they can be debated. Your fear about
the consequences of free and open debate is a de facto admission that your
ideas are weaker than those of others.
  

    
re: "However if people insult Islam by slandering any prophet then
there will be consequences, which will be determined in an Islamic
court.  Islam does not make false promises such as freedom of speech
which is an illusion, a lie."

That's a strange thing to say in a conversation on the Well.  How is
freedom of speech an illusion?  It's happening all around you. 
Anything can be insulted.  Feelings are hurt.  Sometimes conversations
stop, or degenerate into bickering.  But the sky hasn't fallen.  There
are other conversations.
  

    
It's just a way of summing up his position cogently. Farooq's Islam
apparently is opposed to freedom of thought, speech, and inquiry. All
the important answers are Already Revealed.

Exactly Christianity's position in the Middle Ages. Farooq, Western
Civilization suffered from this before and recovered. When will
Eastern civilization emerge from darkness?
  

    
The railing against the illusion of free speech is reminiscent of
Lenin's call to beware of bourgeois constituTionalism. Should have been
a (you should pardon the xpression) red flag for any lovers of freedom
in the socialist entourage. Free speech an illusion, eh? Ahem.

Farooq, what you call for is an absolutist tyranny foredestined to
grossly abuse human rights in pursuit of an abstract ideal; a bed of
Procrustes for all mankind, whereon they are racked and lopped to fit
the specifications a myth.

Your caliphate, should it ever be established, would have millions
looking back in tearful nostalgia upon the corrupt and rotten
dictatorships of the present era!
  

    
Come to think of it, Farooq, the particular sect you belong to is
persecuted everywhere in the Moslem world. The only reason you can
harangue us about the beauty of your idealistic and absolutist
caliphate is because of the British traditions of free speech and
freedom of religion which shelter you from other Moslems, traditions
which you deplore.

As Don Martin used to say, "Eeyadhoot!"
  

    
I didn't ask you.
  

    
>enabled the Caliphate to reach the heights in
>science, medicine, philosophy

Can you detail a little bit about when that was and where?
  

    
>>
Islam is built upon a rational basis
<<

Clearly wrong on its face.  There is nothing rational about
"revelation."
  

    
>So the system would privilege those steeped in the Quran.
Non->muslims would be at a disadvantage and rarely would be recognized
>as having sufficient authority to address the Caliphate.

There is nothing stopping Non Muslims from acquiring this knowledge,
being a Muslim is not a precondition of being an expert in Islamic law.
This was actually the case historically. It is like saying you have to
be American to be an expert on the US constitution. Knowledge and
beliefs are two separate things.