Third Letter from a Fearfully Concerned Muslim to an American-Jewish Friend
Dear Roger,
In the second half of your reply to my letter you, as you put it, get to the “uncomfortable part.” Your first question — “is there a moderate Islam?” — is the premise, the foundational question, of the questions that follow.
It is neither simple nor ahistorical. It is a question posed from the coordinates of your, and our, lifetime. It is also a loaded question. If I were to unpack the question, I could run to several thousands of words. To ask “is there a moderate Islam?” — a legitimate question — is also to imply that there is an immoderate Islam, or that Islam is mostly immoderate.
In questioning whether there is a moderate Islam, you add, in parenthesis, that Christianity at least doctrinally “renders unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” In this way of framing your question, you are indicating or implying that Christianity reformed so as to separate the respective worlds of Caesar and God, of the state/politics and the church/religion. This is in part the history of Europe from about the 4th century, when Christianity in effect became the state, or the official creed of the Roman Empire, to the struggles of Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Enlightenment, including Europe’s many dynastic and revolutionary wars. We are, therefore, referring to a history of much more than a millennium — one that witnessed upheavals of violence before Christianity was “tamed” along a doctrinal basis, as asserted in Jesus’s admonition, and reported in the Gospels of the New Testament.
The historical world of Jesus, the Jews, and the Romans is far removed and distant from the Western transition from pre-modern to modern. So it is distant from the contemporary West. Christians of all various denominations in our time will assert that an unbroken thread connects modern Christianity with the world in which the earliest historical Christianity took shape. But the distance is also real, and in the intervening centuries Christians and non-Christians together, in their complex relationship, brought about a mighty qualitative shift, in society, politics, and culture, from the ancient to the modern.
The late Marshall G.S. Hodgson of the University of Chicago, in his magisterial three-volume work The Venture of Islam, described this millennial shift in Europe as the “great Western transmutation.” Hodgson’s work, I believe, remains unsurpassed in scholarship, in erudition, and in the greatness of mind and vastness of heart with which he engaged in the comparative study of Islam and Muslim history. The point to note, as Hodgson indicated, is that a similar shift from the ancient to the modern has not occurred among Muslims — that the technical and ideational ground upon which Muslims as a people collectively labor remains epistemologically pre-modern or ancient.
To the question “is there a moderate Islam,” there is the verse from the Quran that I might cite as a response. The verse, variously translated, states “We made you a people of moderation,” or “We appointed you as a middle nation,” or “We made you a temperate people” (2:143). In other words, an individual Muslim or Muslims collectively should be ideally devoted to moderation, to eschew extremes, and to strive for just equilibrium between opposing schemes.
‘Your question about moderate Islam is a political question and not a religious one, if we keep in mind the distinction between politics and religion. The pre-modern or ancient world did not make allowance for this distinction, and the vast majority of Muslims has not made the shift from the pre-modern to the modern world.’
No _current_ form of Islam permits such a distinction indefinitely; all require the death penalty for heresy, which includes advocating that Islam remain permanently subject to laws of men, that the rights of free men exceed the power of religion.
‘…those who insist that Islam is immutable…’
You refer to the Quran. Keep that in mind while you read the rest of the paragraph.
‘I submit, however, that “immoderate Islam” and “immoderate Muslims” do not together represent all there is to be said of Islam and Muslims.’
You’re the only one arguing the point. No one else has said so.
The list of bald lies, equivocations, misstated positions, and strawmen in your piece would run to three pages. Oh. Never mind. QED.
Salim’s argument as I understand it is:
(1) In the past Christians closely blended religion and government, including war-making. The result was bloodshed by the West in the name of religion. But in the West religion and government are no longer closely blended and so religion can no longer be said to be responsible for bloodshed by the West.
(2) In the present Muslims closely blend religion and government, including war-making by governments, for example, see Iran. (It must be noted, though, that some Muslim individuals shed blood for religious reasons without the approval of their government. So do a very few individuals in the West, where such actions are dealt with as crimes.)
(3) Therefore we, the West, should be able to understand how Muslims, in a state of slowed evolution vs the West, are just like us as we used to be in a past now gone forever. Further, we have every reason to expect Muslims will evolve culturally to be like us, we who no longer shed blood for governmental+religious reasons.
Well, no, I can’t understand such a thing because I was raised in an environment where wars for strictly religious reasons were simply taboo, simply out of the question. Further, the evolution that reportedly produced man also produced apes and tigers. So I have no reason to think cultural evolution among humans will be sure to produce similar results on all occasions.
The question, “is there a moderate Islam” has just not been answered. I don’t see an answer in Salim’s articulate reply, do you? All I see are a plea for understanding and a plea for patience. But people are suffering and dying and we see no end to it.
Exceptional. I would only add that the question was evaded because the answer may be few or not many. But, then, how do Muslims define moderate?
The answer to Mr. Simon’s question as to whether there exists a ‘moderate’ Islam is a simple YES – but it only existed for about 12 years when Muhammed was first fabricating this bogus cult in Mecca by coopting fragments of Judaism, Christianity and the paganism of his own tribe into his ‘one true religion’.
See more at #30 below….
~ The Infidel Alliance
see here first;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TthhAmzr1S8
Intimidation. For what purpose? Those who intend to live together peacefully have no reason to intimidate. Most worrisome is the confidence displayed by the chanting group. Once the group is certain that there will be no effective reprisal, it will morph into a mob. With mob behavior. Surely, violence cannot be far behind. This is the typical European experience with mohamedan imperialism.
Um, I don’t have a thousand years to wait for the belated Islamic/Muslim enlightment. Very depressing observations, indeed.
Islam will not ever transend their beliefs or ideas. Jeremiah 48:11 speaks of the muslim ideals remaining the same. The only cure for Islam is apostasy on a large scale.
I think you may be daydreaming about the reality of Islam and it’s real objectives. But your dreams of a ‘changing’ Islam will never come true. We need more focus on the present reality instead of the far-fetched hopes of a moderate Islamic practice.
What is moderate about the daily prayers calling for the death of all non believers? What is moderate about teaching this to young children in all mosques and muslim schools?
You seem to be a man with one foot in Islam and one foot out. This will never do because you will never ‘belong’ to either. Or trusted by either. One has to make up their mind and stick with a decision. In other words, one must choose for themselves, or the choice goes by default.
The only cure for Islam is apostasy on a large scale.
Unfortunately, we in the west (particularly the secular humanists) – probably due to Nietzsche – have a very difficult time understanding any people who actually live according to their stated religious beliefs. That “apostasy on a large scale” is precisely what our politicians and other leaders are counting on, even if they themselves don’t fully realize it, calling it “embracing modernism” or some such. They they are mightily puzzled when it doesn’t happen.
Large scale apostasy and heresy is exactly what’s to be expected in a plunge from the ancient priest-king politics to a modern division of religion and politics. That’s what happened in Europe, after all. It didn’t take a thousand years, either. In 1513 there were a few heretics running around, by 1550 the whole continent was choosing sides. The religious wars lasted about 200 years, but current technology makes that impractical, if not impossible. Wars can be decided very quickly, and of course there are several states today besides the USA that could bring outside force to bear; the only mega state at that time (close to Europe anyway) was the Ottoman Empire, but after Lepanto it was no longer available as a giant boogeyman to frighten Christians into solidarity. I think all the humanitarian intervention has likely retarded the process, but it’s not likely to change even so. We in the west just don’t want to hang around and watch while millions are butchered over religion, though we have done often enough anyway.
The real problem (as I see it) is that there is very little in the Islamic tradition and scripture to promote the idea that politics and religion should separate. It may be plain to those who currently practice ijtihad in defiance of several Caliphs, but to those who read the Quran at its simplest it’ll seem non-existant. After all the Prophet was a political leader as well as a religious leader. It’ll take a massive heresy against current understanding, and especially against a lot of traditions that have no basis in scripture, to move many Muslims into the modern frame of thinking. And this they must do in defiance of western universities preaching solipsistic cosmic nihilism at them as well. It’s a hard row to hoe. Christendom already did it, and it cost thousands of lives, and none of the participants, with only tiny exceptions, were free from wicked deeds in the name of their sects. Hussites, Calvinists/Puritans, Lutherans, Anabaptists and Catholics all had at least a few vile leaders who did vile things. This despite the fact that they weren’t conquered by technologically superior foes and shown their own inadequacy and secular inferiority first. The worst thing, from the Islamist perspective, was the abolition of the Caliphate, and it’s not so hot from the moderate perspective either. A Caliph might be a rallying point and no more, true; but like so many things it depends on the man. If there were a Caliph now it would not heal the tribal hatreds and suspicions throughout the Muslim world, but he could possibly shepherd Islam into the modern world with a large body of scholars and elders to work with and through.
Strangely enough the best cause for hope is in the fractiousness of the Muslim world. If all Muslims accepted that religion and politics were inseparable there never would’ve been multiple Caliphates. The present Jihadists speak of Andalusia as the ideal of Islamic civilization, yet it was only one of two contemporary Caliphates. There were times when there were several.
What really needs to happen is for Muslims of every bent to realize the ultimate truth that still hasn’t been totally learned in the European world: religion mixed with politics is simply a means for the venal to take power. Socialism/Communism/Fascism/Nazism etc are all throwbacks to religious politics despite their rejection of God. Muslims simply need to realize the fact that the Jihadist leadership are in it for power alone. But that’s not so easy so long as many ‘moderate’ groups are willing to carry water for the Assassins.
as you did in pointing out the reply Jesus gave to his questioners of giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s as the clue to the basis of Christianity’s eventual reform, it is not hard to find in the Quran what points to moderate Islam
1) The problem is, this Islamic admonition towards moderation does not intrinsically contain the idea of separation of religion and government like the Christian notion does.
2) Who defines “moderation?” Who defines “peace” especially in a religion the name of which, Islam, means both “peace” and “submission?” Islamic tradition has already shown a tendency to unite concepts that in the Western liberal tradition are not intrinsically related, liked peace and submission. Why not intrinsically connect “moderation” and “Islamic benevolent political hegemony for dhimmis” as well? That certainly fits with Islamic history, going back to Muhammad and the Rashidun Caliphs. Mr. Mansur in his second letter called medieval Muslim empires moderate because they treated Jews better than Christian empires of the time did. “Moderation” is a very mutable term, and seems to authentically mean something different in the context of the Qur’an than it means today when talking about separation of religion and government.
It cannot be said that though the principle of evolution is universal, there are exceptions which do not affect its operative principle or meaning.
Mr. Mansur, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t assert in your earlier letters that Islamic empires were more benevolent towards Jews in medieval times (they were also more highly advanced than Christian societies in terms of economic and scientific development) and then claim in modern times that because Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity, it should come as no surprise that modern Muslim societies are behind Christians in realising the value of separation of religion and government. If the idea of moderation intrinsically requires separation of religion and government, then there should in fact be every reason to expect that Islamic societies that in medieval terms were objectively more “moderate” than the Christian societies of the time would still be at the cutting edge now and still ahead of Christian societies in their moderation.
If the idea of moderation intrinsically requires separation of religion and government, then there should in fact be every reason to expect that Islamic societies that in medieval terms were objectively more “moderate” than the Christian societies of the time would still be at the cutting edge now and still ahead of Christian societies in their moderation.
Huh? No Islamic society – moderate or not – ever tried to separate “church and state” until the Pan-Arab attempts in the early 20th century, which are failing even as we speak. The medieval Islam societies most definitely did NOT separate the two.
When speaking of medieval and ancient societies, it is very important to realize one critical difference between Islam and Christianity. While one may call a society such as the Byzantine Empire “Christian” because the emperor was (at least nominally) Christian, Church leaders felt themselves free to – if not obligated to – call the emperor to account if he transgressed. The best known example of this was when Saint Ambrose called Emperor Theodosius I to account for a massacre of 7000 people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose), but this is hardly unique. The great Reformation began when Martin Luther, and others, criticized the Pope and argued that in his exercise of political and military power he had strayed far from the original teachings of Christianity.
However, no such actions have ever been recorded – to my knowledge – for any Muslim ruler. The Koran excuses many things, so long as the forms are followed, and quite frankly, Mohammad demands harsh treatment of non-Muslims of his followers. Nor, to my knowledge, have any imams been called to account by other Muslims for teaching violence against non-believers.
There are a LOT of Muslims killing people. Lots of people. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and especially other Muslims. And at least every tenth picture I see of a Muslim crowd has faces contorted by rage, or by sheer joy that somebody they don’t like has been killed.
Do some quality control on your religion before you talk about moderation. I’m sick unto death of “Religion of Peace!” followed by a bullet or a bomb. YOU may be harmless. Nine out of ten of your co-relgionists may be harmless. But there are a billion and a half Muslims, and if even a tenth of you are — immoderate — that’s a hundred and fifty million murderous lunatics. Argue it down to one Muslim in a hundred (which I doubt you honestly can do) and there are fifteen million men yearning to kill.
Sir, I think that excessive.
All good Christian men had to do to show evil men murdering in the name of Christ how they were wrong, was point to Christ himself. One can not do that in Islam, because Muhammad murderd, and raped.
Islam is a religion, and political system. Therefore, writting about it one can not be a bigot.
Those who flew planes into the WTC were educated. How much more education does a Muslim need to become a so called Moderate?
When Christian Europe went on a murder rampage in the 1940′s it took other Christians ( for the most part ) willing to fight the forces of evil to put a stop to the murder machine.
The only answer to radical Islam is for ” moderate ” muslims to pick up a gun and end the tyranny of the radicals.
Sir,
Which Christians murdered Jews in 1940 Europe? If you are writing about Hitler, he was into the Occult, and drugs. That is not Christian.
Again, any Christian who murders in the name of Christ is not Christian. Killing to defend family, and friends from evil men is not murder.
Right, but most of those who did the actual killing were and remained Christians after the fact. To say ‘they are not Christian’ is to simply deny that human nature applies to Christians…which Christians frequently do by making the exact argument you make. And that is one difference between us – no Rabbi (that I know of) says that Jews stop being Jews once they do something immoral. Your POV reduces faith to an absurdity.
The apostle John put the dividing line between those who are followers of Jesus and those who say they are in the starkest of terms:
“We know that we have come to know him if we obey His commands. The man who says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”
So, any statements that the Nazis were “Christians” are patently false whether made by those individual Nazis or others. This also holds true for the legions of false Christians throughout history.
The problem with your argument is that Jews, for the most part, are born as Jews and then choose whether or not to practice their religion. A Christian is any human being who chooses to follow the teachings of Christ, himself a Jew,thus, if one claims to be a Christian but acts contrary to the teachings Jesus he is not a Christian.
Thank you whoever censored my answer to Larry’s comment. It did not violate any of the rules posted above and simply gave Biblical proof of who is a Christian and who is not according to the apostle John. It is too bad that even here, on Pajamas Media, there are those who can not abide by the free exchange of ideas.
Well, not entirely disagreeing, but I would argue that since “you shall know them by their fruit” when a person who calls himself a Christian acts so blatantly in a non-Christian manner one may legitimately call his membership in the Body of Christ into question and demand repentance. While a large number of the German military forces were simply Germans acting patriotically, the behavior of any Germans who participated in atrocities and still tried to call themselves “Christians” must be called to account.
You’re comparing apples and oranges when you compare Jews and Christians that way. An immoral Jew is still a Jew for ethnic reasons. Christians can be excommunicated. While not necessarily formally excommunicated by any church, the nominal Christians involved in the Holocaust have certainly been disowned by practically all Christians. And they don’t need a ruling from a priest or a minister to do that.
Right, but most of those who did the actual killing were and remained Christians after the fact.
Larry, to be a Christian — at the minimum — you have to believe in Christ. Nazi Germany was an anti-Christian state. They attempted to abolish Christmas, remove crucifixes & religious instruction in state schools etc.
One could be a Christian & advance in the party or hold an influential post in government — Wilhelm Canaris , who was very likely a British spy, would be an example — but it was a handicap.
Very likely most of the members of the SS were indisputably not Christian i.e. they did not believe that Jesus is the Christ who must be followed.
This is not the same as saying that people who believe that Jesus is the Christ can’t do vile things including murder. But I don’t think it unfair to question your claim that most of those who did the killing of Jews for the Nazis were Christians.
While Jews were not murdered in the name of Christ during the Shoah, it was many Christians who did the killing. Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Croats and Ukrainians were even more viciously anti-semitic than the Germans and were right there with the latter, up to their necks in Jewish blood. Yes, fascism, bolshevism and all leftist ideology is anti-religious, but they used an age-old hatred to gain and keep power.
One must remember that what happened between 1933 and 1945 was not an isolated incident, but essentially the culmination of a 2,000 year old hatred that started.
As far as grappling with the concept of Islam and moderation, yes Christianity was violent until the reformation (its hatred of Jews notwithstanding). But the difference to my way of thinking is that the teachings of Jesus do not call for violence against others. Sadly, it was the followers of Jesus who twisted his words to force others to convert or die. Mohammed is another story. His words clearly call for the death and/or conversion of “infidels” and the subjugation of all non-believers. To deny this is to deny fact. This is not to say that Salim believes this or would call for it. But I personally know at least one well-educated, seemingly worldly Muslim colleague who actually believes that Jews control the media and are historically responsible for all of the worlds wars and strife.
One can teach the ignorant, unwashed and unreconstructed. But when the intelligentsia believe the usual canards and tripe about the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” then we have got trouble in River City, people.
Let’s take that statement at face value for the sake of argument. It still illustrates the problem that the world is having with Islam as a political force. They may or may not be actually honor killing (for example) in the name of Islam, but that’s part of their justification. Until the Muslims themselves disconnect Islam and their other murderous or corrupt or barbaric urges and practices from Islam, Islam will remain part of the problem.
Anybody who tries to argue that Christianity was part of the actual rationale for the Holocaust doesn’t understand what went on and why. It wasn’t the fourth Crusade.
RE: Comment below –
I did not say Christianity was responsible for the Shoah. I said that the Nazis used a 2,000 year old, deeply ingrained, religious based hatred to gain power. By the way, the Nazi party was not the only party to have anti-semitism in its platform. Anti-semitism was at the TOP of its platform and they won a large majority of Reichstag seats in the 1933 elections. ALL German political parties featured anti-semitism in their platforms, whether prominently or otherwise.
I recommend reading “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen which goes into great detail the conditions of German society for at least 200 years prior to the rise of Hitler. You will see how Christian religious-based anti-semitism evolved into the secular ideology of a modern industrialized nation-state.
Leatherneck, I can add little to what Larry in the Silicon said however if, as your name implies, you were or are a US Marine you might find this bit of history regarding the Battle of Iwo Jima interesting -
http://ajhs.org/scholarship/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=276
Thank you so much for this link!
Being a bigot, and murdering in the name of Christ is not the same.
I am Honorably Discharged. We were all green during my active duty time, and did not hate each other over religion.
Your argument is not sound about Christians murdering Jews.
if there is no moderate islam how can there be moderate muslims.
stop the crap. I am tired of being lied to ! islam is the curse of all.
LOOK AT ALL THE KILLING AND UNREST TODAY …IT IS ALMOST ENTIRELY ISLAM INSPIRED.
There may be moderate Muslims, it is they who are the misunderstanders, but there is no moderate Islam. Nor is Islam capable of being reformed as both they and their Holy Book proclaim that it is the “actual and UNALTERABLE word of God”.If you want to really know Islam this is what you must do.
Islam is the doctrine found in the Koran, Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and the Hadith (his traditions). The Koran does not have enough information in it to be a Muslim. The bulk of Islamic doctrine is taken from the Sunna of Mohammed (found in the Sira and the Hadith). All of the Sharia is based on Koran, Sira and Hadith, the Trilogy.
The odd fact about the Islamic doctrine is that most of it is not about how to be a Muslim, but instead, the majority of it is about the non-Muslim, the Kafir. For instance, 64% of the Koran deals with Kafirs, which is not religious in nature, since none of the Kafir doctrine can be about religion, since the Kafir is strictly excluded from any aspect of the religion of Islam. The Islamic doctrine about Kafirs is purely political, hence it is Political Islam. The long and short of it is: forget about the religion of Islam unless you are a Muslim. Keep your eye on Political Islam if you are a Kafir.
One of the ways Political Islam manifests is jihad. To show how extensive jihad is in the Trilogy, consider that 31% of the Trilogy deals with jihad. Jihad is not just a verse or two; it is a major part of the Islamic political doctrine.
But our media shows us that they do not have any access to any expertise about Islam. There are no facts, just opinions. Fact-based reasoning does not deal with personal denigration of the opponent. Anyone who does not agree with the doctrine of ignorance as found in the media, the classroom and the pulpit is a bigot. Fact-based reasoning deals with the facts of the doctrine. However, our media “pundits” and apologists are not able to even define Islam, much less hold a fact-based discussion.
Here is the rule: if there is no mention about the Trilogy of Koran, Sira and Hadith, then it is just another opinion and is not factual. Shouldn’t we demand that our reasoning be based on facts?
yes I am aware that persons calling themselves muslims can be moderate.
that isn’t my point. they would like it both ways and I am tired of hearing that sh!t.
I don’t think that one can differentiate between a religious Islam and a political Islam, but that we are dealing with a political ideology enforced religiously. A theocracy.
Agreed, but just as a note, the Nazi’s for the most part were not Christians, they were pagans and humanists. Hitler was just as hard on Lutherans and Catholics as he was on the Jews (see, for instance, the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoffer). It was only the “tame” Christians in the state-approved churches that were left alone, after they supported his actions.
Paul, Your comments and those of several others are deeply disturbing.The Nazi machine could not have murdered so many if it did not have help from other European countries that were hugely Christian.
To say that any wrongdoing immediately renders one un-Christian is to deny both historical fact and human nature. Christian theology is replete with the work of anti-semites.
The very charge of deicide is a Christian invention. Perhaps you have never read Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Agobard, Amulo, Innocent III, Capistrano, Paul IV, etc.
I could go on and on. The point is that unless the Christian world faces its wrongs honestly and repents whole heartedly, unless is accepts responsibility and expunges hate from its doctrines, it will do little to make the world a better place.
If you want to be forgiven by The Almighty you must first acknowledge your wrongdoing.
Perhaps , ” He was a murder from the beinning. ” ( John :44) , ” The synagogue of Satan ” ( Rev.2:9 ) ring a bell?
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
I was wondering whether you really wanted to make yourself look ridiculous, and can see you have just succeeded. Providing a link to nobeliefs.com is, simply, unbelievable.
High time that you got off your high Jewish horse and remove the blinders. As for quotes, it is easy to throw some back at you: Matthew 27:25; Acts 18:6. Deicide a Christian invention? Mind boggles.
Sir,
What evil men have done in the name of Christ, does not make them Christian! The Universal Church has mislead millions, and included just about every pagan religion into it’s so called Christianty.
There is only one Christianty, and it is following the teachings of Christ. All other so called Christianty is filled with paganism.
In the book of Revelation, there is only one Chruch that followed Christ correctly.
Nazis singled out the Jews for genocide but they were quick to kill anyone who was not part of the master race. Everyone lived in a climate of fear. Hitler killed 6 million Jews and nearly as many non-Jews in the concentration camps. In total, more than 50 million died during WWII. In Europe, that means the large majority who fought and died were Christian. Were they all fighting and dying in the name of Christianity? I think the Nazis compartmentalized people by race and nationality. If you were French, you were fighting and dying because you were French. Dutch, Polish, English, etc. died because of their nationality. Gypsies, cripples and gays were killed for being who they were. I think thousands of priests were also sent to concentration camps. That doesn’t fit the narrative does it? Meanwhile in the US, Jews were discriminated against but not killed and able to practice their religion and provide well for their families. What motivated Christians here to make freedom of religion part of the Bill of Rights? Religious persecution of Christians by Christians in Europe.
Yep, islam/moslems are the scorpion in the parable about the scorpion and the frog.
There is no moderate moslem. Only apostates to moohamhead.
It would be one thing if the trajectory of Islam showed a scintilla of evidence that it is heading in a positive direction, that it was trending towards modernization, or if Islam hinted at a reformation that pointed away from the likes of al Qaida, MB, Hezballah, Jumaat Islamiya, Hamas, etc. etc.
But It is another trajectory we all see with the eyes in our head.
Who but a fool or a liar would deny that Islam today is more radical, bloody, and genocidal than it was a mere four decades ago when it slumbered from centuries of decline? I can already imagine Mansur responding that the trajectory of Christianity towards modernism wasn’t a straight path, and that it took centuries of convolutions and revolutions and blood before we arrived at the complex secular systems of today. But primitive man in his day was held back by natural boundaries, and delimits on his ability to procreate. He also lacked weapons of mass destruction, and spent most of his time in subsistence conditions. This is not true of the Muslims, except to the extent that their primitivism shuns the mechanisms of modernity.
So are we to patiently wait while 1.3 billion rapidly breeding Muslims, held back by few natural boundaries, rich with looted wealth from the West, and in possession of WMDs, seethe and breed and plot our extermination? Are we to wait while they catch up with us, even though they show no sign of wishing to do so? Are we to continue watching the Muslim world pervert our wealth and our freedoms and our aid and food and technology into weapons to annihilate us?
It’s also important to add that Christianity was wayward when it employed violence and intolerance. But for Muslims, the model for human perfection is Muhammad – a raider, a murderer, and a child rapist. There is not another founder of a world religion I can think of who personally chopped heads off, paid for assassinations, married a 6 year old and raped her at 9, or who called for the genocide of an entire people as Muhammad did against the Jews. I make allowances for his ancient times, and in many of these ways he was not alone in the world. But he is the only founder of a world religion with such a hideous track record.
And the Muslims proudly exhort his actions during life as their ideal. The extent to which Christians committed violence in the name of their faith is the extent to which they betrayed their faith, but the extent to which Muslims maim and murder, lie cheat, and terrorize is the extent to which they adhere to Islam.
Finally, reformation in Christianity meant getting back to the simple and mild teachings of Christ. Getting back to basics in Islam looks very much like al Qaida, Hezbollah, MB, the Taliban. Or are we to understand that every one of these Nazi-like Islamic organizations, including the top clerical experts in places like Saudi Arabia, al Azar University, and Qom in Iran are fundamentally mis-understanding of their religion? It is an insane suggestion.
Mr. Mansur suggests we await the coming of a unicorn ridden by an elf.
“And the Muslims proudly exhort his actions during life as their ideal. The extent to which Christians committed violence in the name of their faith is the extent to which they betrayed their faith, but the extent to which Muslims maim and murder, lie cheat, and terrorize is the extent to which they adhere to Islam.”
Well said, and I say this as someone who is not a member of either faith.
Hello Salim,
Thank you for the thought provoking and (somewhat) encouraging post.
However, it is discouraging that during Hodgson’s ‘great western transmutation’,
‘that witnessed upheavals of violence before Christianity was tamed’,
the westerners looked out and saw nothing but the different versions of themselves fighting the battle for enlightenment. In that vacuum they were inventing, or perhaps, re-inventing their new selves.
The contemporary Muslims see themselves, however, reflected against enlightened modern westerners, and wholly reject the west’s modern sensibilities.
It is not a perfect analogy, but do Muslims have to spend 110 years, that is, start at the beginning, developing a Muslim car, because they don’t like the colour of Christian cars.
Keep the letters coming,
RHJ King
Sorry, but what “West” are you referring to? The “West” that no longer exists, because it committed suicide by harakiri with liberalism/progressivism/marxism ?
You keep “writing to Simon,” but in reality you write to us, readers of PJM. Yet, you haven’t answered a single question of the many directed at you.
Answer me this: how could a paedophile be the founder of a religion?
How could a murderer be the founder of a religion?
Maybe the notion of an “anti-religion” is “religion” to you and the rest of the muslims?
I’m still waiting for an answer, Salim Mansur, to my simple questions.
The idea that modern religious agitation, bigotry and violence should be excused in Islam because Europe was less advanced in human rights than it is today is not a persuasive one to me to say the least.
Living too much in the past also has its risks as note the many black Americans who live, move and breathe a past that no longer exists. One look at Rev. Wright, Eric Holder, President Obama and Al Sharpton demonstrates the danger.
Islam itself lives partially in a past that, devoid of context, puts forth 2 widely separated centuries of ephemeral attempts at colonization by the West as being worse than the permanent conquest of Western lands over centuries. You want context and proportion you have to give it in return and fantasy versions of history wherein the West is depicted as Crusaders has not a lick of historical context, proportion or truth. It was an age of national competitions and I do not fault Islam for coming out on top as the intent of both arenas was the same.
However, let’s not fool ourselves by turning it around and proclaiming the empire building of Islam was somehow less than the West. Another urban myth in the middle east is the idea of America as having imperial ambitions in the middle east. In a recent interview Bernard Lewis pointed out that true imperialism is devoid of exit strategies and I might also add that real imperialism is a use of naked and direct force that cannot be confused with whining boogie men that posit the U.S. and Israel taking over swaths of the middle east by not taking it over since that is the naked reality.
All I see in these letters is just more Said and Qutuubian parsing.
As to the idea of a moderate or immorderate Islam, as PM Erdogen has said” There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam. And that’s it.”
I hate al-taqyiya games. To intellectualize al-taqyiya is twice as annoying.
islam is the problem. there is no moderate islam.
stop being an apologist …it is a waste of electrons to me.
if I told you I talked to god and you are to do everything I say …would you ??
yet you believe that a barbarian and vile thief spoke to god and that you must emulate his life and teachings. WAKE THE F@#k UP.
Selim
There is an important difference between transition in the West and in the muslim world. During the 30 Years War, which was extremely bloody nonetheless, there were no nuclear bombs as there are now in two and perhaps later more, muslim states. The muslim world (or the rest of the world for that matter) may not survive for them to undergo an Enlightenment.
I think you ment the Roman Empire in which Christianity became the state religion rather than the Holy Roman Empire (part of which was ruled by the Pope but was otherwise a very loose political structure).
The West stills struggles with religious conflicts such as in Northern Ireland and the Catholic religion remains somewhat the state religion in southern Europe and the Reformed and Lutheran churches are still state supported churches in northern Europe. There are still remnants of the ancien regeime.
regards,
anon
to excuse islam from perpetrating evil because of other past religious evils is a dishonest argument.
Modern Christianity (real actual Christians) accept the separation of church and state and completely eschew force or even pushy proselytizing because they went BACK to the words of Christ and forsook the horrendous mistakes of the Roman state church.
What we see with modern muslims is a great reawakening. A vast revival. As they go back to the actual words of their prophet.
You are deluded Salim. Chances are your own son may one day spit in your face and call you infidel.
It is so convenient for Salim to claim that given a thousand years that Islam will be in the same place as Christianity is now. He will surely die without ever knowing whether he was right or wrong. In the meantime, the world will burn.
I think that he draws a false equivalence between the two faiths. If Islam was starting from scratch it might fly. But civilization progressed a 600 years from the founding of Christianity to Islam. In the meantime, Islam took over several high civilizations (and sucked the life out of them until they died, btw) In the meantime there was no excuse for Islam to fall so far behind and not to join the progress of civilization, the Enlightenment etc. Islam had all, ALL of the advantages, perhaps more, of the best of civilization in the collected knowledge of Rome, Greece, Byzantium, Persia, India etc. While the West was cut off. Yet Islam did not keep up. It actually fell behind.
The equivalence argument is pure B.S. A religion that was supposedely dictated by God and supposededly superior from the start, should not with all of these advantages ended up in the gutter today, needing to do about a thousand years of catching up.
Finally, we don’t have the time for Islam to grow up. Our world is too connected. It becomes easier and easier to really f it up somehow and with a quickness. Its timing is completely wrong. It came into the world too late to have the luxury of a thousand more years to grow up. More evidence if any more was needed that it is superfluous and not in any way sent from God. God would do a much better job.
Christianity was sent into the world at the right time to be grown up (as much as any faith depending on humans can ever be) at the right time, when the world needs it most.
Hitler was a Catholic as were the majority of his SS henchmen.
Here at home, the Christian terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s was every bit as evil as Al-Qaeda of today.
The excuse you make for Christian terrorism is the same one you deny Muslims.
That should indicate to you that the problem is not with a particular religion but with the evil men who twist religion.
Your knowledge of history leaves a lot to be desired.
Hitler a Catholic? Have you seen any nazi reels showing him going to Church on Sundays?
Have you read “Mein Kampf” where he attacks the Church and Catholicism?
The KKK was a DemocRAT terrorist, racist organization NOT a Christian one.
You’re right though on the fact that evil men carry out evil acts. Evil men like Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc, all of them ATHEISTS.
Some people here asked a question about islam and his “prophet”: how could a paedophile, a killer, a thief, an invador of other people’s lands be the founder of a “religion” – just answer this question, since “Salim” won’t.
Islam has proven for fourteen centuries now that it’s evil.
The so-called “Historian”,
Would you care to state what specifically what I wrote that is historically inaccurate?
On your question as to Hitler’s religion, you are obviously ignorant of history yourself. So let me educate you. Hitler’s mother was Catholic, he was Baptized (which is a Catholic rite), he was Confirmed (which is another Catholic rite), and he attended a Catholic school for his early education.
Your “understanding” of Mein Kampf also leaves a lot to be desired. Hitler criticizes the leadership of the Catholic Church not Catholicism as an institution.
While the ranks of the KKK were primarily Democrats during the 1920’s, you do not seem to understand that the Democratic Party was the conservative party of the time. If the “Radical Republicans” hadn’t been the progressives of the time, they probably would have been the majority of the membership of that Christian terrorist organization. Additionally, although they were a minority of the KKK, outside of the south, Republicans were a major part of the KKK’s membership. Additionally, when the KKK was at the height of it’s power, roughly 15% of the entire U.S. population were members of that terrorist organization. And they identified their organization as a Christian one. What’s left of the Klan still does to this day.
On the “question” as to how someone (I assume you specifically mean a Muslim) who has been credited with committing horrible acts of violence, could be a prophet/founder for a religion? The answer is simple; in the same way prophets of the bible do. If you’re unfamiliar with ‘pedophilia, killing, theft, and invasion’ been committed in the bible, then you obviously haven’t read it.
Over the course of the past fourteen centuries all of the Abrahamic religions have had massive acts of violence done in their name. That is not a failing of any particular religion but of evil men twisting religion.
And as fate would have it, current events are proving right now that Islam is in fact a religion of peace. The protesters in the ME are demanding capitalism and democracy through peaceful protest not violence. So much for the narrative that’s been espoused by Republican clowns on talk radio and Fox “News”.
Bull. Every time the people of the Middle East express their desire for freedom and democracy, they put a murdering theocrat in charge.
Ellen,
I’m sorry but you don’t know what you’re writing about. Here are some facts that you are obviously unaware:
Bahrain – is a monarchy
Egypt – is up in the air but was a dictatorship
Iran – is a theocracy
Iraq – is an emerging democracy *
Israel – is the only functioning democracy in the ME *
Jordan – is a monarchy
Kuwait – is a monarchy
Lebanon – is a banana republic
Libya – is a dictatorship
Oman – is a monarchy
Qatar – is a monarchy
Saudi Arabia – is a monarchy
Tunisia – is up in the air but was a dictatorship
Turkey – is an emerging democracy *
UAE – is a oligarchy
Yemen – is a dictatorship
Contrary to what you wrote, the people of the ME have not (until now) expressed a desire for freedom. They haven’t (in my opinion) been able to do so because as subjects of the above regimes (minus the ones with a *) they have basically been slaves. In only one instance (Iran) did a popular uprising in the ME lead to a theocracy. The protests currently in Iran prove that a theocracy was not the desire of the Iranian people.
Look you appear to be a talk radio and Fox “News” fan; I’m sorry that you have to find out here that they and you are wrong about Muslims. But look at the bright side, capitalism and democracy are coming to the ME; and that’s a good thing for the world and for our country.
” The protesters in the ME are demanding capitalism and democracy through peaceful protest not violence. ”
Really? Ask Lara Logan.
Menachem Ben Yakov,
Actually, according to various media outlets (including Fox “News”), the people who assaulted LL were supporters of the Libyan regime not the protestors. And LL was saved by those protestors.
This isn’t the proper forum to debate History; this is the proper forum though to call you what you obviously are: an ignorant tool and a “usuful idiot.”
The so-called “Historian”,
This is actually an excellent place to debate history. I suspect you do not want to because you have no understanding of history.
Setting you’re childish insults aside, you didn’t refute any of my comments. May I take that to mean that you are unable to do so?
@ the Conservative Liberal (!)
No, it’s because you ain’t worth it. It’s futile to debate individuals with a mentally sick or superficial view of the social systems, social issues and their histories. Only a fool would do that.
The so-called “Historian”,
Your last comment doesn’t make sense. If it’s not worth your effort to debate, then why respond at all?
The most likely answer is that you do not understand the issues. You can prove so otherwise. Demonstrate to me and the other readers how specifically my comments are false. If you do not do this or respond in any other fashion you are simply showing everyone on PJM that you are a coward.
You’re right Historian, don’t feed the trolls.
My question is though: why is PJM publishing these “letters”? What is Simon up to, by stirring the pot?
“Conservative liberal” – is this like being a “Christian muslim” or a “schizoid”?
BTW, muslims like to refer to the “Abrahamic” religions, thinking that by doing so they gain any credence. They seek legitimacy by associating their vile phony empty cult with Judaism and Christianity. You’re delusional.
In so far as your crap is concerned, you can take your distorted view of religion and history and peddle your propaganda elsewhere.
Actually, the only people I’ve ever hear use the term “Abrahamic religions” have been non-Jews, non-Christians, and non-Muslims. My understanding of those three faiths lead me to believe that the term is appropriate. All three religions trace their origins to the prophet Abraham. They may (and do disagree) with the acceptance of certain prophets but they all worship the same God.
And anybody who understands Catholicism understands that a criticism of the former IS a criticism of the latter. The church is one with the religion. The idea of church and religion being separable is a Protestant idea, which is completely foreign to the Catholic mind.
This aside from the fact that Hitler did, in fact, criticize all of Christianity (not Catholicism specifically).
snork,
I disagree. Criticizing the leadership of any organization is not the same as criticizing the whole of that organization. The leadership of the Catholic Church is very much different for the faith itself. And I think most Catholics would agree. Otherwise, how do you explain the attitude the public (both Catholics and non-Catholics alike) has displayed towards the Church in the aftermath of the pedophilia scandal? With very few exceptions, I have never head of anyone blaming the Church as a whole for the actions of a few priests and their leaders. Am I mistaken? If I am not, doesn’t that indicate that your premise in wrong?
snork, it’s of no use responding to the pakistani high schooler. He can’t even spell.
that and more …good response
No, not so much.
There may have been Christians in the SS and the KKK, but you’re being disingenuous. Hitler was an atheist, and neither the SS nor KKK were fallowing Christian teachings, nor the teachings of Jesus.
If you are an islamic terrorist you are following muhammad’s teachings and the teachings of the koran/ islam.
Re: comments here about Hitler, it’s worth remembering that Hitler, for all his bizarre beliefs, was a nominal Catholic who never renounced the Church per se and who was never excommunicated. There were overtly Catholic fascist governments (and individuals) allied with the Nazis who murdered Jews, and in is indisputable that the Holocaust occurred in a milieu of 1500 years of Euro-Christian antisemitism and anti-Jewish persecution. Yes Christianity today is different, the focus of anti-Semitism today is in the Muslim world, and American Chritianity, for the vast most part, is a different (and philo-Semitic) kettle of fish altogether. But let’s not distort history.
Hitler was not a nominal Christian. Hitler was an anti-Christian.
PDFs from the DONOVAN NUREMBERG TRIAL COLLECTION at the Cornell Law Library.
The Nazi conspirators sought to subvert the influence of the churches over the people of Germany.
SR & A 3114.4 / The Nazi Master Plan / Annex 4: The Persecution of the Christian Churches
There were overtly Catholic fascist governments (and individuals) allied with the Nazis who murdered Jews,
And that’s another thing. Italy was a relatively safe place for Jews and Franco in Spain actually gave them refugee.
The residents of Vichy France, OTOH, were secular and not very devout.
gray man,
Actually it is you who are being disingenuous. Virtually all the members of the KKK were Christians. They identified themselves as a Christian organization. Hitler was in fact a Catholic Christian. The KKK may not have been following the tenets of Christianity as you understand it but they (apparently) thought they were.
On your final comment, I could point out that the same could said of Christian terrorists following the examples of violence in the Bible. That is in fact what the Christian terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan did.
The problem isn’t religion but evil men.
If a Christian enslaves,robs,rapes and kills and molests children he is going AGAINST all the teachings of Christ if a Muslim does same he is just emulating Mohammad as he is exhorted to do in Islamic “Holy” books and teachings. And if you cant see the difference there is no hope for you.
pragmatist,
You obviously haven’t read the Quran or the Bible. I would suggest you try doing that first, before you try debating on this topic. You’re making yourself look very ignorant and childish.
UR the “ignorant” and the “childish” and since you have resorted in name calling, get this too: followers of paedophiles, killers and thieves aren’t welcome in the US or any place still with Western Judeo-Christian values.
BobC,
They were during the reign of the Christian terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan. Specifically, during the 1920’s. But also before and after.
Conservative Liberal, frankly you need professional help.
Bob C,
No I’m simply informed, while you appear not to be.
You are exposing yourself as what you are which is at the very least an Islamophile or a Mohammedan practicing taqqiya. I have read the Koran and was actually married to a Muslim for a time and have lived in Muslim countries both in Asia and the Middle East experience that I doubt very much that YOU have . Yoy deceitfully try to introduce the BIBLE when what you should be talking about is the New Testament and you know it. BTW the Bible was written by MEN and is lagely HISTORICAL in nature whereas the Koran claims itself to be the ‘ACTUAL and UNALTERABLE’ word of its satanic God. So all the violence, misogyny, antisemitism, nonsense,contradiction, Arab supremacism and repetitive turgidness it contains is directly attributable to allah (see I have read it)
Conservative Liberal ( however I suspect you are neither but a Mohammedan instead) The odd fact about the Islamic doctrine is that most of it is not about how to be a Muslim, but instead, the majority of it is about the non-Muslim, the Kafir. For instance, 64% of the Koran deals with Kafirs, which is not religious in nature, since none of the Kafir doctrine can be about religion, since the Kafir is strictly excluded from any aspect of the religion of Islam. The Islamic doctrine about Kafirs is purely political, hence it is Political Islam. The long and short of it is: forget about the religion of Islam unless you are a Muslim. Keep your eye on Political Islam if you are a Kafir. The rest of it is calls for violence, antisemitism, misogyny, repetitive nonsense, Arab supremacism and contradiction (which Muslims try to excuse by the deceitful ploy of Abrogation how can your God make so many MISTAKES)
Hi ‘Conservative Liberal’ or should I use your real name ‘Mohammedan Taqqiya Artist’ How about the Mohammedan allah who claims not only to create you but also to preordain your whole life including if you will believe in HIM or not . But then this self same allah says he will punish unbelievers that HE himself created in eternal hellfire periodically renewing their skin so he can burn it off again. Tis is most unChristlike being imaginable. allah is illogical, vindictive,sadistic and satanic and they are just his good points.
Salim, With all due respect your letter is nothing but a rambling piece of hogwash. I just don’t see how you can expect to be taken seriously by repeatedly comparing today’s Islam with Christianity of several hundred or even a thousand or more years ago. Maybe next time you can compare how Christianity was spread by Paul to the way Islam was spread by Mohamed.
These irrelevant comparisons a transparent attemptto excuse Islam and it just wont work. Over and over it has been pointed out that Christians behaving badly were and are acting against the teaching of Jesus while Muslims doing the most atrocious things are following the example of Mohamed, yet you can’t bring yourself to address Mohamed’s total lack of character, you would rather make the childish, worn out excuse that Christians were just as bad sometime. All the violence and hate committed by Muslims, which you claim to disapprove, would be praised by your hero Mohamed. You should try to live in the present; the rest of us have to.
All of your references to other scholars do not lend credibility to what you are saying, but rather make you, sadly, appear as nothing more than a learned fool. “C.S. Lewis said “A moderately bad man knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is just fine.”
I’m waiting for the Revised Standard Version of The Quran”, you know the one with all the exhortations to violence removed, aka The Moderate Muslim’s Handbook, you know, the one that the vast majority of Muslim’s really follow. Actually a gullible world seems to be waiting for this very, very short book. They’ll wait a long time.
I agree with no. 3. waterwillows: The only cure for Islam is large scale apostasy.
It can’t be said better than it is said in Matthew 7:15,16: “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from briers or figs from thorn bushes?
The fruits of Islam have been apparent for fourteen centuries. How many innocent people must be slaughtered, Mr. Mansur, before you stop trying to gather figs from thornbushes?
The above comment was intended for Leatherneck’s #6 comment.
What are you saying pakistani boy?
Islam is an extremist religion though not every muslim is an extremist. It seems to me that the less a muslim practices Islam, the more moderate that muslim probably is.
In your second letter, you stated:
“ I speak with you entirely as an individual Muslim, one who belongs to no party or organization run by Muslims for Muslims. Since 9/11 I have not stepped inside the mosques in the city in which I reside. Those who run them have publicly condemned me for not being a “good” Muslim, just short of calling me an apostate.”
You have thereby identified yourself as having left (or been excommunicated from) the religious community of Islam, to selectively honor only those doctrines with which you agree, and only those qualities of Allah that meet your needs. Muhammad regarded Allah as “the great Deceiver”. One who chooses to edit the personality of a god, to exclude the malignant and hateful qualities so clearly described in his own words, in the Qu’ran, has certainly fallen victim to the “great Deceiver” in his own mind.
As you stated also:
“….the technical and ideational ground upon which Muslims as a people collectively labor remains epistemologically pre-modern or ancient.”
The key word here is ‘collectively’, referring to the community of Islam. Unfortunately, the epistemology of Islam is a closed circle, logically imprisoned by the supposed immutability of the Qu’ran, and the enveloping jurisprudence of Islam, that permits no independent thought or disagreement, at least while retaining one’s head.
You argument by analogizing doctrinal change with evolution, unfortunately littered with dis-conjugated double negatives, fails to acknowledge that, according to evolution, the consequence of a failure to adapt to a change in environment ultimately leads to extinction. For over 1300 years, until the fall of the caliphate in 1923, Islam stagnated in an environment of its own making, that no longer exists. The Islam of today may represent a mutation, an attempt at evolutionary adaptation to the modern world. There is now a serious question of whether this mutation will succeed, or whether it will kill its host – mankind.
I believe you are a man of good will, one who relies upon a spiritual lead for his understanding of human existence. I wish you comfort with that. You are indeed a moderate, and there is no moderate Islam.
All a question of definition:
A man who beats his wife with a stick every day would consider a man who only beats his wife 3 times a week a ‘moderate’.
He would also call anyone claiming that he ‘has NO right to beat his wife at all’ a revolutionary.
Of course, he would never bother to ask the wife’s opinion.
There can be no ‘moderation’ only desistance.
I would differ, very strongly, with Selim’s assertion that in Europe “the Church became the State” otr that they were effectively one. It reveals a victim of Narrative, I believe; and not just modern Frankfurt School narrative but also the work of English historians from Tudor times through Macauley and beyond: that before the wondrous Reformation all Europe was in thrall to the vile and conniving priests of Rome.
I would point out that this is, well, complete tosh- as certainly anyone should have an inkling if they so much as remember Thomas Becket and Henry II. In fact, the tipoff is that it’s possible to talk of Church and State: two parallel institutions and power structures, rivals and often enemies. The fact that at various times kings and bishops, Pope and Emperor made common cause doesn’t alter that essential fact: Constantine elevated a pre-existing ecclesiastical institution to official state status, but it was never the same thing as the Roman state.
In Islam, by contrast, there isn’t even the notion, not even so much as the vocabulary. We can only come up, limply, with “separation of mosque and state” by back-formation from Jefferson, and even there it’s off-mark, since mosque = a building is not equivalent to Church = global institution. As Muhammed created it, and as Shariah maintains it, there are no parallel structures, at all: religious and secular leadership are one and the same, not in parallel but identical. The Caliph is “commander of the Faithful;” Pope and Emperor rolled into one.
Well said. Indeed, most of the problems in Europe seem to stem from times when either the church or the state overstepped its bounds and tried to take authority from the other. Whether the political and military actions of the medieval popes or the church leadership of Henry VIII, no good ever comes of mixing the two.
I am a trained Arabist, who was taught at the Foreign Service Institute in DC & Beirut and attained a 3+ level speaking- and 4-level reading proficiency. I worked in three embassies in the Middle East in Arab countries and consider myself reasonably knowledgeable concerning the history of the Arab and Muslim peoples over the last 1400 years. Indeed, I read one of Marshall Hodgson’s books, The Gunpowder Empires, one of the three that Mr. Mansur so heartily recommends. And I did this at the recommendation of Rashid Khalidi, then a professor at the U. of Chicago where he became a confidante of our present President, and whom I count as a personal friend despite profound differences on many issues. In point of fact, Rashid got me faculty privileges at the U.of Chicago’s library, which has the most impressive collection of Islamic literature and manuscripts in the western hemisphere.
However, the atrocity of 9/11 and subsequent attempts by Muslims at special pleading and ridiculous arguments that the US somehow brought this absolute act of war and massive crime on itself was argued by persons who now have excluded themselves from the circle of civilized dialogue. To blame the atrocity on Israel or even the CIA demonstrates how demented [Charlie Sheen is a so-called 'truther' & this fits the pattern] that the insane America-haters have become. There are simply boundaries beyond which no civil dialogue can take place.
Mr. Mansur seems to be honest on the face of his arguments, but the basic and key premise of Islam is that Muhammed is the last prophet and the dialogue between God and Man cannot be further extended now that the revelation accorded to this prophet has closed the books, so to speak, on any religious development outside the extremely narrow purview of this 1400-year old “revelation.”
I’m afraid that he will be repudiated by his own kith and kin and more importantly, that he speaks only for himself when he wishes for a dialogue among Christians, Jews and Muslims, for starters.
The problem that all highly-educated Arabs will admit to in macro-historical terms lies in the simple fact that Islam has not experienced, in any real sense, the huge “transmutational experience” of the Renaissance that Hodgson refers to in his works. In a very real sense, this eliminates the basis for any true dialogue—as a real mature discussion of essential and existential conundrums facing both the West and the fractured body of Islam lack a common language. As Bernard Lewis mentions several times in his works, the inexorable rise of Salafi Islam through its Wahhabi traits has been dragging Islam back into medieval and Dark Age mindsets ever since the middle of the 18th century, when the Enlightenment was topping off many of the interesting avenues opened by the rise of science and advanced mathematics which in turn has led us to the Atomic Age.
E.M. Forster has an absorbing monograph “Alexandria” written during his World War II sojourn in that Egyptian city . Forster’s probing mind traversed the history of the city since its eponymous founder and had an interesting metaphor for the 7th c. conquest of the great city by Ibn al-Walid and his desert warriors. To paraphrase Forster: “The zealous warriors of Islam found the great library and all the other appurtenances left of what had been the highest level any city had attained in the civilized history of mankind, and like a child with a watch who knows nothing of the strange mechanics of the piece, broke it and left it broken as a child would leave a broken watch, without even knowing what he had done….”
Of course, Bernard Lewis is eloquent later on in tracing the history of science under Islam, but that historical development started in the Abbasid Dynasty and lasted until the Greek and Syriac and Persian classics on math and physics and medicine and literature had been absorbed and in some cases improved upon [logorithms & such], but then by the fall of Baghdad in 1258 with Helagu’s conquest and destruction of the first city of Islam, the poem Ozymandias became later on a symbolic objective correlative of everything lost in translation.
An interesting comment. Got me thinking about the protesters in Egypt and Libya. Who are they and what do they want? I look at photos from these events and I see protesters dressed more or less like me, and then I see protesters wearing robes and turbans and waving little curved daggers. Where’s the struggle between ancient a modern, and who’s winning?
I’ve read every comment on all of these letters of Salim. I think I’ll copy them as they represent an excellent and exhaustive refutation of this disgusting ‘religion’ of islam.
Dollars to donuts Salim doesn’t even read these comments.
In questioning whether there is a moderate Islam, you add, in parenthesis, that Christianity at least doctrinally “renders unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” In this way of framing your question, you are indicating or implying that Christianity reformed so as to separate the respective worlds of Caesar and God, of the state/politics and the church/religion.
Actually, that has always been Christian teaching. It was the political/temporal power of the medieval popes that was the aberration. Christianity has always taught that while it is desirable for our leaders to be Christian and for our laws to conform to Christian teaching, it is a rarity when they do. We are “in the world, not of it.”
I would also add that the Catholic Church has always been very up front with the idea that while it certianly is nice to live as a Christian in a liberal secular state, the Church has always been its strongest when under persecution. The Church does not necessarily want to see persecution, but does not fear it and does not consider it an abnormality. On one thing Christians and Muslims agree. Christians living in Muslim lands should obey and endure Musilm law. Islam does not support the converse.
The point to note, as Hodgson indicated, is that a similar shift from the ancient to the modern has not occurred among Muslims — that the technical and ideational ground upon which Muslims as a people collectively labor remains epistemologically pre-modern or ancient.
This is very important, especially in light of modern happenings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and the rest of the Middle East. On the John Batchelor show (http://www.wmal.com/showdj.asp?DJID=9992) the other night, he interviewed a guest knowledgeable on the area who pointed out that nations in revolution against tyrants tend to revert to old modes, and that in the nations current in upheaval the people are reverting to tribal organizations.
See also “The Arab Mind” by Raphael Patai
I read the same text, the Quran, just as I read the text which is the world itself in historical time, and I share nothing, or not much, in my reading of both with the men who flew aircraft into the World Trade Center. Nor do my reading of the Quran and my belief as a Muslim have anything in common with Islamism, the ideology that motivates Muslim or Islamist terrorists, their ideological masters, and their apologists run amok in our world.
Now this is interesting. How, I wonder, would he respond to people such as Robert Spencer (http://www.jihadwatch.org/) or http://www.islam-watch.org/ who maintain that fundamentally, it is the Islamists who arguably are the orthodox and historical expression of Islam and people like the writer Salim who are the heterodox?
Dear Mr. Mansur,
Your ‘Third Letter’ is just a pile of putrid tripe and confirms everything I have been saying about you in my previous comments – you are a dissimulating, obfuscating, equivocating Islamic apologist, an intellectual fraud and a coward who won’t answer the hard questions we have asked about you and your religion.
The answer to Mr. Simon’s question as to whether there exists a ‘moderate’ Islam is a simple YES – but it only existed for about 12 years when Muhammed was first fabricating this bogus cult in Mecca by coopting fragments of Judaism, Christianity and the paganism of his own tribe into his ‘one true religion’.
In the 12 years he ‘preached’ Islam in Mecca, he was an absolute failure, seducing only a handful of losers, just as any megalomaniacal cultist leader might. And, like most transparent megalomaniacal cultists he was rightfully derided and rejected.
The nominally peaceful suras of the Koran occurred mostly during the Meccan period, but as you know they were voided and replaced with the later violent, intolerant, supremecist verses of the Medina period which started in 622ad. This is the Islamic doctrine of abrogation. YOU KNOW THIS!
Year 1 in the Islamic calendar doesn’t start with Muhammeds first ‘peaceful’ revelation in his creepy cave in Mecca, but rather with his first victorious slaughter and looting of innocents in Medina, which in his twisted sense of Islamic morality was a victorious gift from Allah. YOU KNOW THIS!
It was this singular event – the terrorist mass murder, looting, enslaving and raping of non-Muslims – that set the ‘moral’ compass for Islam irreversibly toward the direction of evil, and established Jihad theology as the single most important canon of Islam. YOU KNOW THIS!
How do you defend the evil of your ‘holy prophet’ Muhammed as the example of the ultimate human morality?
How do you explain the 180 degree change in Muhammeds later Medina preachings compared to his earlier Mecca preachings?
How do you defend jihad and the savagery of sharia?
Islam is an evil fraud and you know it. Muhammed is an evil fraud and you know it.
You are a fraud because you dance your silly dance around the truth, claiming to be some sort of concerned western intellectual, yet you don’t have the intellectual integrity and honesty to confront the truth directly.
You must reject Muhammed, Islam, Jihad and Sharia, or you support Muhammed, Islam, Jihad and Sharia. Objectively, rationally, intellectually, morally and spiritually there can be no middle ground – it has to be one or the other and you know it.
~ The Infidel Alliance
P.S. – PJ Media, please don’t waste our time with this fraud any more unless he mans up and answers these hard questions. Otherwise, let him spin his hocus pocus on Al-Jazeera.
I think Salim’s letters would be loved and published by our clueless MSM, the likes of NYTimes, LATimes, WaPo, etc.
Your sentence >”Islam is an evil fraud and you know it. Muhammed is an evil fraud and you know it.”<, says it all about Islam!!!
well stated.
….Islam and its teachings are hateful but I don’t care is Salim’s position.
Exactly!! #10, Poli Sci, you won’t get any answer to your simple questions!!
Salim’s “letters to Roger” once again prove, there is no moderate Islam or moderate Muslim. Instead of dumping this religion founded by a pedophile, murderer, rapist, genocidal maniac,sociopath, woman hater, etc, etc, all we get is al taqqiya.
I would suggest just ignore these meaningless gestures by the likes of Salim as they are meant to evoke sympathy for the so called mythical “moderate” Muslims who just carry out their stealth jihad against us in support of their violent jihadi brethren!!
Thank you J. I know, no answer will be offerred because there isn’t one available.
But I have another one, this one about the myth of “muslim” scholarship:
Why did the arabs burn the Great Library of Alexandria in the seventh century AD?
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm#omar
Not sure about the details, but I do agree with Mr. Salim’s basic premise that Islam is undergoing a long, difficult struggle between ancient and modern ways of thinking, believing, and living. The disturbing aspect is, we don’t know what the results of the struggle will be.
I don’t think we should assume that we’re watching the “evolution” of Islam “toward” modernity – as if modernity (as we understand it) is the pinnacle toward which everything naturally tends. Modernity is one outcome. It doesn’t have to be THE outcome.
We would prefer that Muslims end up “just like us” one day – or at least closer in worldview. But there’s no rule of history that says the the struggle won’t end in victory for the “ancient” Muslims. They might also succeed in combining ancient and modern ways, which seems to have actually happened in some Islamic states already.
It will never be all one or all the other. Western civilization started advancing when more people realized that favored middle eastern mythology of the west (Christianity) made for a good philosophy but wasn’t to be taken literally (despite the fact many still do), and wasn’t to be a form of government (despite the fact many even on this website would really like it to be).
With luck eastern civilization will have a similar awakening about it’s favored middle eastern mythology. The trouble is that the technology of the middle ages and renaissance allowed for time to adjust whereas the weapons of today could bring things to a premature, and very catastrophic head at any moment.
If humanity doesn’t outgrow it’s childhood fairy tales and take up living in reality full time reality may soon cease to exist.
To stop living in fairyland, people will have to face two painful conclusions:
1. Nobody knows what’s going on.
2. Nobody’s in charge.
All non-magical thinking is based on these two facts.
+1
Something from the European Middle Ages that might help understand “radical Islam’s war” against us. When William of Normandy wanted to claim the crown of England, he didn’t just go over and grab it. He first got the current Pope to approve his cause and and present him with a consecrated banner to fly in battle. This gave William’s purely political war the character of a crusade – a just war to punish reclaim the throne from the “oath-breaking, illegitimate” Harold Godwinson. Anyone who wanted a piece of the action (and possibly a piece of English real estate as a reward) could volunteer, claiming it was his Christian duty to help Wililam.
The point is, in the Middle Ages NOTHING bit happened without some reference to Christianity. Even a war like Wiliam’s, based purely on the desire for conquest and riches, had a religious basis. If you had asked a Norman soldier what he was going to England for, he probably would have replied that he was going because God wanted Harold killed and the “true” king, William, placed on the throne. He could point to the Papal banner as proof that this was indeed God’s mission. He may have been truly interested only in acquiring land and treasure. Having God’s blessing made it ok to want those things, because God rewards those who carry out his will on Earth.
Similarly, I think a lot of jihadis have political, economic, and social issues to fight for, but because they’re medieval thinkers they typically describe their cause in religious terms. It’s possible that they cannot even understand an issue without reference to Islam, that they cannot imagine desiring something or striving to achieve it unless they can claim God wants them to. They are so used to religion NOT being separate from ANYTHING that EVERYTHING they say sounds like a sermon.
On the other hand, you have guys like Bin Laden. They preach sermons calling for jihad against the West, but if you push them a bit (or if they’re speaking to a more “sophisticated” audience) they’ll tell you what’s REALLY bugging them. That usually has nothing to do with Islam vs. the Infidels and more to do with European and American interference with Middle Eastern political and economic affairs – especially support for Israel.
But to medieval thinkers, the sermon and the geopolitical lecture are synonymous and interchangeable. I don’t think we understand that very well. When we hear someone talking about religion, we think they’re talking about their reliationship with God. A medieval thinker could be talking about his relationship with God, about post-colonial political conflicts, and/or both at the same time. It’s all one with them.
I’m wondering how much of the “war with radical Islam” is based on this kind of confusion.
The basis issue that I have with Dr. Mansur is his refusal to deal with the concepts of “naskh” or abrogation. Since the Quran is not written in sequential time, Muslim scholars have determined that the “sword” verses of destruction of non-Muslims is later in time than the “peace verses”. Therefore the “sword” rules by virtue of “naskh”. Dr. Mansur further fails to address the doctrine of “taqiyya” that commands lies in discussing Islam if the truth would put Islam in a poor position, or of “kitman that means having a mental reservation or holding back information if by so doing Islam is advanced. No real agreements can be made with people who believe lying is virtue.
Apparently, he relies on ignorance of these matters on the part of non-Muslims so he can present the possibilities for a reasonable Islam which in no way corresponds to any extant Muslim society or an of the major schools of sharia law.
So long as he, and other Muslims remain good Muslims they will actually support jihad instead of opposing it.
Jew-Bashing Re-Visited
It seems that, even as I came across as a Jew-hater to some, others interpreted my sentiments in “What’s With All the Jew-Bashing?” (http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3756) as evidence I am an Israel-apologist.
In truth, I am neither.
Rather, I am an American Firster revivified, someone who believes to his core in the United States, in all it is, in all it stands for, and in all I hope it will be. I also subscribe to the antiquated notion that those who are not with us are against us. If we include “those against us” as any nation or people who have disparate aims from ours and would be more than willing to sacrifice the United States to their ultimate goals then I would have to say they are against us.
If that profile fits Israel, so be it.
That said, the following angry yet comical diatribe was posted as a comment on the Jew-bashing article. It’s too preciously inane, vitriolic, and wrong to be incorporated as a mere addendum to previous postings and deserves some extra attention if only to illustrate the inanity, the vitriol, and the wrong-ness out there in blogland.
As before, the comment is verbatim and bracketed editorial commentary is provided.
From niungramodeclase@yahoo.com:
“See, what you get, Berlet98, for sucking ass? [Good grief!]
You try to ingratiate yourself by pantingly defending the Jew cause at the expense of browbeating and condemning other people’s right to dislike the ‘sacred cows’ but they still don’t approve you and validate you.
That is their nature, Sir.
You just don’t take it on your own and start defending their ass without any license lest you cause their lucrative industry of victimhood to be downplayed by your honest and objective view of history. [That seems just a tad confused, "Naiungramodeclase."]
Wait ‘til they soon enact laws to enforce ‘their version of history’ as they’ve done in Europe and in Canada. . .”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3772
Muslims will conform to the law of the land.
This is the key truth for law abiding muslims. In non-Muslim countries (ruled not by Sharia Law) Islam is a peaceful religion since the penalties for breaking the law (of the land) will be harsh. Those same offenses under Sharia Law often face much different penalties if they are even penalties to begin with. Where the law of the land is Sharia and Islam rules there is no hope of change, no likelihood of a transformation in 10 or 1000 years time. Good muslims in countries ruled by Sharia Law are exhorted to attack the infidel.
What the West thinks of as fanatics are really good muslims transplanted to a non-Sharia Law countries while retaining their religion=government beliefs and ignoring the law of the land. There will be aberrations, but, Islam as both religion and government is not an aberration.
Salim takes a tortured path, like many a progressive to ask us to ‘look to the future’ where in a thousand years or so, Islam will have undergone a transformation into a peaceful culture.
I don’t think so.
There are plenty of peaceful muslims around the world, but, it isn’t a mistake to notice that the most peaceful muslims live in areas not ruled by Sharia Law. Under Sharia Law a good muslim follows the law of the land and Sharia Law makes clear the treatment of the infidel and is endorsed by their religion as well. [Both religion AND law]
The answer to the question “is there a moderate Islam?” is yes, but, it only exists in countries were the law of the land is something other than Sharia Law. This allows Islam to function as only a religion and not as a government. Without the force of law (Sharia / Government) Islam can be a religion of peace, but, embedded at its core is violence towards infidels and non-believers. Remove the force of law from Islam and it can be a religion of Peace.
The answer to the question “is there a moderate Islam?” is no, because Islam as both government and religion is effectively inseparable. You cannot create moderate Islam you can only destroy it. The harsh truth is moderate Islam cannot arise while Islam exists as both religion and government. So long as Islam is anywhere in the world both religion and government, moderate Islam is technically an oxymoron. This is because Islam if given the chance assumes the force of Law unless it is itself subjugated. I am not sure that even if government could be separated from Islam in every country with muslims if a moderate Islam would arise. So long as muslims remember (and know of Sharia Law) there will be those extremists seeking to establish it (Caliphate).
The answers of the most progressive of muslims (like Salim) living under a different Law of the Land than Sharia Law indicate to me just how huge an obstacle Islam itself is to the creation of a ‘moderate Islam’. That’s why the most liberal of muslims question the implication of ‘immoderate’ Islam – to them it simply IS Islam and that is the second truth.
I see my original comment has finally appeared. My apologies to the moderator.
If I understood this correctly Christian dominated society was once as violent, cruel and ignorant as that of the Islam dominated world but the former evolved into the relatively peaceful, tolerant world characterized by the separation of church and state, the rule of man made law and all the benefits of the advancement of science and the Industrial Revolution that ensued while the Muslim world remains mired in a turbulent, sectarian past ruled by the immutable laws established by Allah which, strictly enforced and obeyed, mire Islamic society firmly in evolutionary stagnation.
Then I believe Professor Mansur implies that the West should consider this when they ask, “where are the moderate Muslims?” Okay, understood but while the West anticipates the eagerly desired reformation and transformation that will presumably eventually result and the bloodshed and atrocities that follow in its wake the West would do well if it contained the Muslim community in geographical isolation as it patiently and anxiously waits.
Most would prefer the prone to violence in their midst to, at least, live on the other side of town until they become more civilized and most would not hold their breath until that highly unlikely transformation took place. The West has a highly vocal Muslim minority within the Muslim community in its midst, a minority working diligently and purposefully at cultural dominance, not assimilation, while those supposed “moderates” remain disturbingly silent. Patience, understanding, compassion, political correctness and diversity are the Western ideals being effectively used against us. “Where are the moderate Muslims?” It’s a question that we can not wait patiently to be answered amidst no sign of the genesis of the much desired reformation. The only reformation that remains painfully obvious is that determined to result in a global Caliphate in which the subject question becomes moot.
If every single American suddenly decided that all religion was foolishness and became atheists, it would not change the culture and history that shapes our unconscious assumptions. If every Muslim rejected Islam today, it similarly would not change the history and culture that now exists.
We cannot separate ourselves from concepts, such as Western individualism, that are as intrinsic as breathing to us, but are not shared by other cultures. We can only see others from the perspective we have, and while we like to feel it is honest and unbiased, it is simply not humanly possible to have no assumptions.
I’m not impressed with Islam. But I have tried to understand the feelings and perspectives of people in the Middle East, and just when I feel I’m coming close, I realize that some of the basic assumptions there are so alien to me that once again I just don’t get it.
The letter is helpful there, in pointing out that at this time, Islam is intertwined with every aspect of life, in a way we are unaccustomed to, and offering a historical comparison we can relate to.
As a Tea Partier, one of my assumptions is that the gov. taking my $, without my consent, for purposes I disapprove of, is very wrong. Charity should be my choice, not involuntary via the govt. This is so basic that I can’t imagine feeling any other way, no matter what people in other places think. I suspect asking peoples in the ME to rethink Islam might compare to that, Islam may be too basic and foundational to rethink.
While I agree with many critiques of Islam, I suspect that to ME people, it may seem that, rather than disapproving of Islam, we disapprove of THEM as people. We are accustomed to separation of church and state (and culture and business), they are not. It puts them on the defensive about things intrinsic to who they are.
During the 2006 Regensburg Lactures, the Pope reminded us all about the statement that the Christian Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos made in 1391 AD:
“ Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_II_Palaiologos
The evil of islam has been known and expressed quite strongly even prior to that year, by the Christians of the West. It’s high time to move one step further, recognizing that the West and islam CAN’T co-exist, see for example the excellent article by C. Black:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/249704/islam-and-west-conrad-black?page=2
It’s time for the muslims to leave the West, or declare that are willing to ASSIMILATE into Western values and REJECT the values of the koran.
Thw 10 commandments are the word of God by Jewish and Christian theology . The only direct revelations those religions provide. Mohammed ignored them , they arent in the Koran at all . So yes indeed if you rape, murder or bear false witness you have violated the fundamental precepts of Christianity and Judiasm . But Mohammed did all these things and is the most perfect of men (to be emulated by all muslems) .
Hitler was born and raised a Catholic, but he was not a practicing christian. He despised religion .
Given that its accepted that Islam NEEDS reformation to become peaceful I am still waiting after many times of asking for a Mohammedan or an Islamophile moonbat to tell me how you reform a book which Muslims and ITSELF proclaims to be the “ACTUAL and UNALTERABLE’ word of their satanic God. A copy of a ACTUAL book that allah has in heaven and was dictated to Mohammad in a cave by Gabriel over a period of time and repeated to various writers by Mohammad (he was ILLITERATE dont forget but what a lot of HEARSAY) and only collated in NON sequential order, it is ordered by length of Sura, at a much later date. Does not seem as though there is any room for reformation there.
I did not say Christianity was responsible for the Shoah. I said that the Nazis used a 2,000 year old, deeply ingrained, religious based hatred to gain power. By the way, the Nazi party was not the only party to have anti-semitism in its platform. Anti-semitism was at the TOP of its platform and they won a large majority of Reichstag seats in the 1933 elections.
I recommend reading “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen which goes into great detail the conditions of German society for at least 200 years prior to the rise of Hitler. You will see how Christian religious-based anti-semitism evolved into the secular ideology of a modern industrialized nation-state.
I would agree that it is important to view Islam historically and also to place its potential transformation into the historical context of our own transformation in the West. We went through a great struggle to allow individuals to think for themselves, facilitated by the huge empowerment of being able to read for themselves. That struggle continues to this day. It’s important to remember that the vision of most of the leaders of that transformation was that each individual would relate to God in his or her own way. There was no prediction or anticipation that this individual freedom would lead to the wholesale rejection of God that in fact transpired. The Muslim world today cannot so blithely make that same transition because it sees what happened to the Christian world and it understands the dangers inherent in individual freedom, and the primary danger of abandoning God. It sees materialism and selfishness and a world with no moral direction. We in the West never foresaw such an outcome. Islam is indeed very very sick but I’m not so sure that we are so much healthier or setting such a good example.
ok. I have not read the previous two letters from this “concerned muslim.” But finally, i succumbed to the temptation and read this third letter. From that alone, i conclude a few things: the author of the letter is attempts to be appear ‘an objective student of history’—and offers same old untestable proposals regarding the waywardness of ‘islamism’ which, he insists is different than ‘islam’. That evolutionary principles may also apply to any given religion (one of many) is a tautology. The real question is — does it indeed apply to Islam? Evolutionary principle applies to most species but not some species, because they have constituted themselves in ways which would require total breakdown if they decided to ‘evolove’ i.e. change in any fundamental way. (ask a biologist, he will list at least a 100,000 such species). More importantly, the author does not even attempt to establish the validity of such inane analogy (let alone its extensions in ‘logically’ arguing something about islam, using the allegedly analogous situations in other religions and/or other segments of history). Same goes with the politics/religion whitewash. Although religions and politics have always partnered in human history, there usually has been the difference between the tribal chief and the witch-doctor. That has been true for almost ALL such partenership, with a handful of exceptions, such as some egyptian pharaohs or such. Islam, by contrast was born, reared and matured as a miltary/political/theological system springing from a single guy whose teachings explicitly forbid ‘the seperation of churg and state’. Also, of the major extant religions, Islam is singular in that it explicitly preaches (from mohammed down the ages) VIOLENCE and BLOODSHED (i, too, can cite Suras from Koran, and Ahaadees from Saheeh Bukhari), and makes the first duty of the follower to SPREAD islam by any means necessary — mass murder if necessary. In the ‘evolutionary’ analogy, Islam is not only not your generic religious species, it is actually an opposite of a species—something like the catastrophe that incinerated all species around the time of dynasaurs. It would take much more than mere calm-sounding pseudo-scholarly ‘discourse’ to actually establish Islam as a peer of other religions in this sense. If anything, and if you are an HONEST student of history, you would instead classify Islam as anti-religion, anti-life and anti-humanity. (multiple contradictory suras from Koran notwithstanding). One of the first indication that islam can not evolve into sonmething human is, guess what, history. 1400 years it has given not a single sign that it might be evolving. And past 150 years or so, it has given every single indication that not only it is not evolving, but also it is devolving back to the strict 7th century barbarism. Maybe some individual muslims may evolve. ( I personally know some such). However, by the very definition of islam (and the canons), more evolved a muslim becomes, less of a muslim he is. Can a muslim go against koranic and Prohet-ic injunctions without loosing his ‘muslimhood’ ?
Cut the long story short—not a single religion currently on the face of earth teaches violence, murder, bloodshed and wholesale subjugation of humanity under its flag. None but islam, that is. Not a single religious leader of mohammed’s caliber and influence has ever preached anything but love and understanding and charity. Bring me a single quote by Christ which even commands someone to slap someone—let alone murder millions. Bring me single quote of Buddha which says go and subjugate the whole humanity under my flag—or else. Like the muslims like to claim, ‘There is no comparing any other religion with islam’—there is hardly any common platform.
If this ‘student of history’ who is also a ‘concerend muslim’ really want to make a positive contribution to the humanity and history at large, i suggest he come out in open (and bring, say, 1000 other muslims like himself, not a billion), who will go on record condemning the worst teachings of both the Koran and of Mohammed, and then not budge from their positions. It is very easy to appeal to some yet un-unfolded historical ‘evolution’ and wring hands, that’s what apologists do: It is virtually impossible to go against a beast such as Islam without actually going against it.
“Nor do my reading of the Quran and my belief as a Muslim have anything in common with Islamism, the ideology that motivates Muslim or Islamist terrorists, their ideological masters, and their apologists run amok in our world. Your question about moderate Islam is a political question and not a religious one, if we keep in mind the distinction between politics and religion. The pre-modern or ancient world did not make allowance for this distinction, and the vast majority of Muslims has not made the shift from the pre-modern to the modern world.”
Fine. By Salim’s lights, let’s keep the topic on the religious, not the political, thereby keeping a blanket of protection over Islam as it’s manifestations apply to us and the Constitution would apply to IT. As well, we have seen (primarily post 9/11) a great increase in the desire of large populations of muslims in the U.S. to cut themselves off from the offensiveness of the broader population, i.e. Dearborn, which continues the pattern of pre-modern belief and its applications.
On one point however there is clarity in his words when he says, essentially, that the majority of muslims worldwide are not persons with whom the West can have a dialogue.
Sorry to be late for the discussion; I had a flat tire!
“Moderate Islam” is like being ‘moderately pregnant’. All they do is refine their dialog, and make it more esoteric.