Arab World vs Western World from their POV

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Please look at this website Naqshbandi Sufi Order's Refutations against the Salafists For a perspective on the reality of the heresy of the Salafis and the Wahhabis. What you posted was outright Wahhabi propaganda.

[Bob McDob]

Please look at this website Naqshbandi Sufi Order's Refutations against the Salafists For a perspective on the reality of the heresy of the Salafis and the Wahhabis. What you posted was outright Wahhabi propaganda.

Somebody better tell Google then

[Coyote]

Bob, those are good links and quotes, but bear in mind-- Google does not filter out the real from the unreal, or the dependable from the propaganda. It just measures how many links there are to any given subject and puts that on the top of the dogpile.

Now your quotes would be good against someone who said that all Muslim dogma was bent towards evil, but I did not say that. I have studied Islam and Arab history for quite awhile and I have seen a lot of whitewashing and spin control. I have heard man times, and repeated myself to others, that "True Islam does not suport that" or "a true Muslim would never..."

But the sad fact remains that Muslims are doing this and that. Not all of them, indeed a minority of them; but they are a very vocal minority that does not get smacked down regularly by mainstream Muslims. That abscence of hard-core response or discipline within their own ranks speaks volumes.

Take for example the recent Palestinian cease-fire in Israel. The Osraelis know who they are in the sandbox with, they have leared the nuances of the language and history. The current "cease-fire" is not an indefinite cease-fire to sort things out and lead to a permanant cessation of hostilities, like we accomplished with the Cold War and hope yet to accomplish with the two Koreas.

The word frequently used is the Arabic word "hudna", a cease fire that traditionally lasts for three months. Why? Well, devout Muslims try to copy Mohommed and the era of the Rashidun, or the original righteous caliphs, religious leaders of Islam in the time of Mohommed and immediately after his death, when the Sunni-Shia'a split happened and th elast Righteous Caliph, Ali, split away from the body of mainstream Muslim thought.

In Mohommed's return to Mecca from Medina, he had amassed a following that was quite respectable in numbers. He had hoped to storm Mecca, his old home town, where the city elders had tossed him out years earlier as a political threat. But the defenders were too strong, and Mohommed had to wait for reinforcements. He drew up a cease-fire, called a "hudna" in the Arabic language.

He waited long enough to rally his followers to amass, about three months, and then he made plans to attack. His lieutenants asked hom if it was right to attack someone with whom one has made a pact. Mohommed replied that "a treaty with an infidel is a treaty written on air" or some such thing.

Now, everything Mohommed did was seen as righteous and worthy of copying. His sayings and actions were called 'Hadith' and taken as Holy as the Qur'An itself. In fact for a devout Muslim, if you cannot find an answer in the Qur'An, you look to the Hadith to see if Mohommed did something insightful, and follow that example.

The 'Salafiyyah' movment, discussed with you and Marina, is a reflection of that. Hasan al-Bana's teachings (try the Google search for Muslim Brotherhood; Muslim Brothers, or Takfir al-Hijrah and see if you can find more info) is a movement to get back to the pure form of Islam, the time of the Rashidun, before the distrctions of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties, and the fragmentation thereafter....

It is this pure form of Islam which intends to strictly and literally interpret the Sharia law, where one has ones hands cut off for theft and so on. If that was what they did in the Qur'An, then that is what must be done now. This is the "reform" that they talk about-- the re-affirmation of Purity as they see it, not as it is compatible with Western ideas of religious reform. They use these words because they are comfortable, soothing to the Western ear.

Remember, a handful of zealots spoils it for all. Not all Arabs are an evil enemy, but be careful accepting the first thing that comes up.

Try: "A History of the Arab Peoples" by Alfred Hourani, also look up the writings of Taha Husayn, a more moderate reformer in the Western mold who sought a bit more of a reconciliation stance. Once you find info on the Muslim Brotherhood backtrack to Hasan al-Bana and 'Signposts'. Or follow history in the time of Egyptian leader Gemal abd'al-Nasser, since it was in one of his conentration camps for political prisoners that al-Bana died.

Happy hunting.

[Coyote]

"History of the Arab Peoples" is by Albert Hourani, not Alfred. My apologies.

[Coyote]

Another interesting Islamic modernist thinker is Jamal al-din al-Afghani, wh o believed that Islam was too steeped in medieval superstition and was doomed to stay that way if it did not face modern reality. However his reasons for beliving this was to get the Islamic world to respond to Western imperialism in a manner that allowed for the embracing of modern technology and some adapting of modernist thought.

Some contemplations:

In The Refutation of the Materialists, Afghani gives a scathing criticism of the naturalist/materialist position from the scientific, philosophical, ethical, and social points of view. He identifies the materialists as the epitome of evil intent on destroying human civilization. He traces the history of modern materialism to the Greek materialists, among whom he mentions Democritus, Epicurus, and Diogenes the Cynic.

This short historical survey is followed by a scientific and philosophical criticism of Darwin and his evolutionary theory. Afghani rejects the idea of chance in nature and accuses the materialists of attributing “perception and intelligence” to atoms (i.e., matter) in and of themselves. He rejects totally the idea of universe as a self-regulating structure without a higher intelligence operating on it. This is without doubt the most philosophical section of the treatise.

And another thought, which reflects on what I posted earlier:

Through these six pillars, Afghani establishes religion as the foundation of civilization and denounces materialism as the enemy of religion and human society. To stress this central point, Afghani mentions the Batinis and the Babis as followers of naturalism/materialism in the Islamic world.

He also mentions Rousseau and Voltaire as modern materialists and uses a very strong language in condemning their “sensualism” and anti-moralism. He even goes so far as to classify socialists, communists and nihilists as nothing other than mere variations of materialism in the ethical sense of the term. He holds the materialists responsible for the destruction of such great nations in history as the Persian, Roman, and Ottoman Empires.

Since the materialist does not recognize any reality other than gross matter and ‘sensuality’, he paves the way for the reign of passions and desires. In this sense, the materialist is immersed in the worst kind of metaphysical and ethical mistake and cannot be trusted even on a purely human level.

In the last part of the treatise, Afghani turns to religion and, among religions, to Islam as the only way to salvation for humanity. He compares Islam to other world religions and asserts its superiority, implying that Islam is the only religion to cope with the challenges of the modern world. It is worth noting that Afghani concludes his treatise with a short statement that has become the hallmark of Islamic modernism:

If someone says: If the Islamic world is as you say, then why are the Muslims in such a sad condition? I will answer: When they were [truly] Muslims, they were what they were and the world bears witness to their excellence. As for the present, I will content myself with this holy text: “Verily, God does not change the state of a people until they change themselves inwardly”. (Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism, p. 173)

Emphasis added by me. Rememeber the earlier post I made where I pointed out that the modern Islamicists felt that the very philosophy of modern thought, what we consider philosophical progress in throwing off the chains of superstition and religion from thinkiers such as Voltaire, was nothing more than a doorway into immorality, and pre-occupation with materialism? al-Afghani figures into a lot of this. But he wants ot embrace modernity and turn it into a tool to further Islam; he would disagree with the Talban-- a Television is a good thing, so long as the programs it shows are all good and Islamic...

Two different types of Fundamentalist thinkers, but Fundies nonetheless.
Check out more at:

http://www.cis-ca.org/voices/a/afghni.htm

And another thing to look for in the Hasan al-Bana hunt: Al-Ikhwan, which is the Anglicized form of "The Brotherthood". I failed to mention that.

Later.