Islamic Challenges or What an Islamic Luther has to contend with

The concerns that humanity have with Islamists include the following:
1 The mixing of religion with politics and all that this implies.
2 Woman’s inferior position to men and all that implies.
3 The question of riba and all that implies.
4 The attitude to other religions and all that implies.
5 Islamic morals and all that implies.

As will be discussed further latter these are legitimate concerns for Non Islamists as they are totally against what are current humanity standards that are essential for man kinds survival.

1 Revealed religion has NO place in politics unless it is more than lightening carving out pieces of rock, hearing voices at night or writing down what they THINK god wants.
2 Woman and Man are different but equal and need to respect each other and act together as equals. Their only difference is that little Y chromosome. Focus on that!
3 Riba is riba not interest. Riba is subjugation of one person by another. Interest is the payment involved in a mutual benefit.
4 All human beliefs are equal as long as they support mankind and harm no other human
Mankind will only survives if I do unto others as I wish they do unto me (as long as its not an Islamist world view)

All of these except the question of riba are interwoven together. It is these concerns that the so call Islamic Luther will have to contend with for Islam to have its reformation if this is at all possible.
Islamist position on these are based upon
1 The politics of power
2 Local historical and current customs and politics
3 The Sunna
4 The Koran
In that order. In fact it is most likely that, with all regions, that 3 and 4 were the product of 1 and 2 so you had a vicious circle of re enforcing paradigms

As the Islamist society is very hierarchical and tribal this also has tremendous influence on the way Islamists understand the Koran and Sunna and how these go up to understanding the Sharia. These influences on the Islamist world view started right at the time of Mohammad and the period he was born and within which he acted and fairly likely effected the revelation itself (the Koran) and the way he acted (the Sunna).

My thesis is that the Islamist world view is an extreme example of the interplay of human emotions and interactions with a god over a fifteen hundred year time frame. Other religions and civilizations can be seen in the same light. They end up with the extinction of that religion (e.g. Pharaohs, Greek, Roman, Myra etc, Nazism, communism), their maturation (Christianity?) into a form of Humanism?, Liberalism? in the frame work of “The End of History” and “Clash of Civilization” thesis’s.

Teasing each of these influences out has rarely if ever occurred in Muslim society to the extent it has in Western Society. Islam has an internal self correcting mechanism that is alluded to in my first essay. This thesis involves saying Islam potentially has an extreme range of interpretations which allow it to adapt to current situations and mature with the times from the time of Mohamardist period (dominance, militaristic, expansionist imperialist, totalitarianism). How ever because it lacks a central authority (due to Arabs tribal nature) to set standards and progress from that point, powerful groups can co-opt parts of the extreme range of interpretations to bring Islam back to its Mohamardist period. This has happened through out the history of the Moslems in most countries especially if Arab Islamists have access to that society.

The concept of Islam itself and Moslems attitude to Islam has inhibited this internal naval gazing (as has happened with Catholicism) and has acted in concert with the Arab/Moslem social characteristic mentioned above. So the inhibitors of the Moslem Luther’s efforts to unwoven the four twin knotted ball, that is current Islam alluded to in the humanity concerns, to get to the real Islam are in summary
1 Islam itself (submission)
2 Moslems attitude to Islam (submission)
3 Arab/Moslem social attitudes (submission).

It is highly likely that an Islamist is intellectually incapable of doing a Luther on Islam. In fact that it is unlikely that a secularist Moslem could do it as such a person would only have a hopeful western audience and a Moslem Islamist audience of none. How will it come about.

I believe, if it ever occurs before the destruction of humanity (I truly believe that Islamist's world view and the rest of the world can not co exist together in peace and in an Islamist world there still will not be peace as the human nature is such that someone some where will always want to do it “my way”. Islam has to change irrespective of what the left says of Bush), it will be a combination of:

1 Non Muslim intellectual analysis of Islam in its totality and the transmission of this to mankind in general and Muslims in particular
· E.g. scholarly journals such as Middle East Journal, Middle east Quarterly, Muslim World , J of Islamic and Middle east Studies etc
· English translation of Arabic publications e.g. MIRE and Arabic translation of other language articles (difficult as education and income levels are low to commercially warrant it hence the subsidizing of these activities)
· Newspaper articles/investigative journalism on Islamists. Difficult because of Journal lists/MSM biases against conservative thinking and west in general, and the killing/closing down of such people/papers by Islamists in particular e.g. Channel 4 /Australian Newspaper expo of what Islamist Imams say in the Mosque.
· Blogs such as Jihad Watch, Dhimmi etc and their Islamist anti blogs such as lgfWatch and Watching Jihad Watch. These latter ones are good because it is only these that Islamists watch and so at least Islamist are exposed to main stream thinking.
· Fully exposing the anti intellectualism and hypocrisy of Islamists like with the Rushdie, the cartoons and the Pope’s talk.

2 Publicity for and protection of liberal/secularist Moslems.
E.g. identification of such people e.g. Abdolkarim Soroush in Iran and Ibn Warraq who writes under a pseudonym and translation of liberal Moslem intellectual work into English and Arabic and other relevant Moslem languages. So called Intellectuals such as Tariq Ramadan started off in a blaze of glory until people read the fine print and are now discountered as being the Moslem Luther.

3 Active criticism (irrespective of the so call label of Islamphobia) of Islamists and surveillance to ensure religious practices do not become state, employer, neighborhood obligations e.g. hiab wearing, position and selling of alcohol, provision of religious resources, etc and

4 Where required prosecution of Islamists where these conflict with humanists values. Prosecution can and should be undertaken in cases of polygamy, genetic mutilation of young girls by their families, Honour killings, and wife beating and in marriage rape and non legal binding of all religious laws.

5 Increase the social welfare of Moslems to integrate as member of the human society not as Moslems e.g. Education to conform to minimum standards, registration of schools and teachers to minimum standards, support for learning the local language, set up of community groups to assist this, provision of loans for small businesses.

6 Take advantage of Islam’s internal mechanism for change however weak these currently are e.g. Ijtihad, fatwa, AlMaslaka, and permissibility, lawful and unlawful and silence in the sources. Tariq goes into some detail about these but his history prevents him from going to their logical conclusions

It is through these mechanisms that Moslems (like as has happened with members of other religious groups e.g. Catholics and birth control, Christianity and euthanasia etc) as individuals will change into religious secularists at peace with their fellow man irrespective of the dogma of their religion. That is Moslems as individuals will under go an epiphany and out grows their inhibiting human contrived “revealed” religion and enter into a new relationship with their God and do what He wants and not what humans think he wants.

Dave the Brave

Islamic Science

It has always amazed me that Islamists point to the greatness of “Islamic Sciences” during the early and middle period of Islamic expansionism and dominance and how it saved and caused western culture by preserving the greatness and uniqueness of Greek Culture and contributing to true science. Some Islamists point out Sura in the Koran that predicts momentous western scientific discoveries and modern understanding.

I am amazed about these Islamist assertions as the practice of science is the antithesis to human motivated “revealed” religions such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism (especially Islam where the whole of the Koran is thought to be god’s words that Islamist follows to the letter)

One also have to realize that when Islamist refers to “Islamic Science” it is not science as we know it but rather refers to the whole intellectual effort by a multitude, of what normal would be considered as intelligent people but for their Islamist world view, studying every word of the Koran and every alleged action of Mohammad to make sense of them and how to incorporate them into every day life.

Physical and biological science and history was only studied in terms of what it might contribute to the study of Mohammad’s words, thoughts and actions and not what it might contribute to man kind and general knowledge. The education of Islamic Moslems was (and still is) only orientated around these Islamic Sciences and excellence is when one can recite the Koran off by heart in Arabic!!. Nearly as bad as saying the mass in Latin.

Because of the essential nature of the Islamic Sciences to the political elite and to the ordinary Moslem to practice Islam, centers of learning of the Islamic Sciences had a very high priority and were a symbol of leaders of their Islamic credentials. Hence large resources were allocated to them. During periods of Islamic expansionism, Islam had the resources to maintain and expand such institutions. This is similar to other civilizations/religious groups which become dominant and had the resources to pursue practices and build facilities that have minimal short term productivity and material outcome and may bleed the civilization to extinction (alone the line of the thesis of the “Collapse of Civilizations”). Current civilizations who devote large sums to science are Western, Japanese and Confucius. Thus it is understandable that all human endeavors, including learning, under Islamic rule (which tended to produce periods of peace after the initial Islamic conquest) would progress. It would be strange if it didn’t.

The political system was such that only those intellectuals that stood out in the Islamic Sciences and were enthusiastical about it progressed to positions of power and influence (e.g. the various Sunni schools of learning). Other intellectuals whose enthusiasm was for the sciences languished in the backwaters of these institutions but were still able to exist (as long as they didn’t rock the Islamic Science boat) and keep alive science while the institutions of the western world were racked and razed during that civilization’s dark ages. We must thank those few Moslem Scientist who kept alive the practice of free thinking so essential to science in such a stifling Islamist intellectual atmosphere. Just think about not being able to visualizing the planets revolving around the sun and the glories of evolution with out having your head chopped off!.

Science progressed in spite the intellectual inhibition of the Islamic “Sciences”. Islamic “Sciences” are not science as it is incapable of accepting such things as
1 The science and truth of evolution.
2 Cosmological science as it involves the evolution of the cosmos.
3 Intellectual, archeological, historical, literary, physiological and sociological criticism of Islam, Koran, Sunna in general and Moslem society in particular (similar to Said’s thesis that orientalists can not comment upon Islam and Moslems).
4 Negative attitude to woman’s intellectual prowess.

One still finds the current (and I would suggest the historical) standing of science in Arab countries in particular and Moslem majority countries in general is very poor irrespective of their advances in the destructive use of nuclear energy (see Nature’s recent review article on science in the Arab countries). My thesis is that this intellectual attitude to science is due to the Islamists concept of Islam and not to any colonization or Moslem conspiracy theory involving the west and Zionism against Moslems. My thesis is that Islamists are incapable of understanding/undertaking science and only use the outcomes of western science, just as Sayyid urged, to help Islamists to achieve the dominance of Islam over the world.
As they say “Imitation is the best form of flattery”

My thesis is that
1 It is mostly these non Islamist Moslems scholars that kept alive the ancient Greek sciences.
2 It is mostly these non Islamist scientists that developed scientific progress in the fields of algebra, mathematics etc.
3 Those Islamist scholars who did contribute to science did it in terms of their effect on/support of Islam e.g. the magnetic compass to assist Moslems in facing Mecca.
4 It is no wonder that the dominance of one culture over another and their incorporation into conquerors culture would produce periods of peace and stability that would allow medium term non productive activities such as learning, irrespective of what this is, to take place.

In summary. There is no Islamic wonder in science. Islamists did what they did and it just happened that some advances were made in science during a period where Islamic dominance bought some peace for some period of time. The same would have occurred if any other civilization was dominant. I am sure that given the basic secular nature of western culture, this culture would have made up for the lost time any way. So thanks for nothing.

Dave the Brave