The New York Times describes the rise of sharia law in the West, especially in Britain, where it is branching out into areas outside of family relationships.
The conflict over British Shariah courts comes at a time when Islamic principles are being extended to other areas of daily life in Britain.
There are now five wholly Islamic banks in the country and a score more that comply with Shariah.
An insurance company last summer began British advertising for “car insurance that’s right for your faith” because it does not violate certain Islamic prohibitions, like the one against gambling.
Britain’s first Shariah-compliant prepaid MasterCard was begun in August.
Sharia law is at heart a desire to live outside the system and while its spread is probably a bad thing for the West, one wonders how much the paralyzing and expensive effect of excessive litigation and over regulation in Western society has driven the rise of parallel private institutions. Home schooling, private education, the cash economy — all are in their own way miniature expressions of revolt or dissatisifaction with the public system. Maybe one of ultimate ironies of a all-encompassing state is that, as was the case in the old Soviet Union — is that everyone will opt out of it at the very moment when it becomes omnipotent on paper.
Both my grandparents were Lutheran ministers, and they both (according to my father) believed that buying life insurance was a form of gambling and that it indicated a lack of trust in God’s promise to provide. Practically no Lutheran ministers share that belief now, but 50 years ago it was quite common.
I expect that Moslem interaction with modern society in Britain eventually will cause similar changes of belief.
I should have said: both my grandfathers.
And, of course, both believed that gambling was sinful. That’s still a good belief, which I share. But I don’t believe that buying insurance is a form of gambling.
Some of us have been talking about the possibility of an expanded “dropping out” phenomenon for quite some time. One branch of this discussion is the so-called “going John Galt” notion.
I have observed how entire communities of immigrants (legal and otherwise) have operated with virtual impunity, and even acquiescence from authorities and other powerful interests, so why not have some of the rest of us do the same?
Hey, just look at the Folsom and Dore St ‘Fairs’ in San Francisco, as documented by Zombie.
Complete impunity, certain acquiescence, and even support of local government, including the Mayor, Board of Supes, Police Dept, et al.
“I expect that Moslem interaction with modern society in Britain eventually will cause similar changes of belief.”
The Moslems have been interacting with modern society in Britain for quite some time now and the evidence is that they are getting more assertive about their beliefs, not less so.
So. I guess cancer, over time, will become more like the host body?
“I expect that Moslem interaction with modern society in Britain eventually will cause similar changes of belief.”
I think exactly the opposite will happen. Lutherans then, as Lutherans now, didn’t believe that they have a divine right and duty to “kill the infidel”, and don’t believe that all other religions are inherently evil, and are to be eliminated.
Muslims do. It’s in the Koran. And while the greengrocer will tell you it’s only the fundamentalists that think that, what he’s not telling you – in the spirit of taqiyya – is that there is only one kind of Muslim. A Fundamentalist. Keep in mind the definition of “fundamentalist”: one who believes that his sacred writings come directly from God – in our case, through the Prophets and through the Apostles; in Islam’s case, through Mohammed, and that they give us all the guidance we need on this earth, and that anyone who questions them is either bound for hellfire and damnation, or is an infidel. Christianity admits of degrees of belief, from Tennessee snake-handlers to Unitarians, who are reasonably certain that there may actually be a God. In Islam, you accept the whole 9 yards – outwardly if you live in the Middle East, not quite so vehemently if you live in England, or you keep it to yourself if you live in a free society like America.
The Arabs had a particularly apt saying: don’t let the camel’s nose in the tent.
Don’t let any kind of sharia law take root in this country. If we do, just ask a SouthEasterner about kudzu.
I really doubt that the pressure to adopt sharia finance – or any other part of sharia law – stems from a desire to avoid the excessive litigation and over-regulation of modern Western society! Really, Wretchard, can you be serious? If anything, sharia law, as the total and absolute authority over every single aspect of one’s life, would rather seem to defeat that purpose, wouldn’t it?
Sharia law isn’t spreading because it is a superior system. It spreads at the rate the Muslims increase – ~2.6% worldwide. Nobody except Muslims would accept a backward and regressive law like Sharia. My goodness, have we forgotten why the West vaulted ahead of Islam 800years ago?
The spread of shari’a, and the belief system underpinning it, is the most obvious symptom of the gradual breakdown of the nation-state model by the advent of globalization in all its forms. As the forces of law and order (the “state” half of the nation-state) fail to keep up with runaway financial systems, rapidly advancing technology and ever-more sophisticated criminals and guerillas; while traditional, coherent national cultures (the “nation” half) are slowly ground down by the Left and by the ability afforded by 21st century media to effectively choose – or even create – one’s own culture, it’s small wonder indeed that people are beginning to lose their attachment to that old order.
Sharia Law is an expression of Islamic supremacism. Nothing more. Don’t read into it any further than that, because Sharia Law’s spread is NOT a protest movement. It is an act of war and an act of jihad against the kafir.
So, I disagree with the suggested premises of Wretchard on this one.
When I read or hear someone using the term “globalization” I hear the real words that it represents: capitalism and the spread of capitalist economy. And typically those who use that word are trying to criticize capitalism without resorting to classical socialist concepts and words. Thus, no difference between those folks and the Muslims, who mask their supremacist ideology by resorting to taqiyya.
Deception.
Karen, I don’t think that Wretchard is arguing that an escape from burdensome legalism is driving sharia’s imposition on Britain.
I think this is more a matter of “the center cannot hold”; Westerners are searching desperately for a new universal to believe in… where Muslims do not need to. So, each group behaves differently to the same dilemma.
You’re right, the “total and absolute” nature of sharia would be anathema to an individualist, and so this cannot be an individualist’s remedy; but it is gladly accepted by a person ready to submerge their corrupt, inept self for a Personal Connection to the Divine.
It hit me just now that that has to be one of “multiculturalism’s” subtexts. Many of the West’s children have no connection to Christianity, which offered both universalism and personal meaning.
So, these same people, naturally, are looking for just such a personal connection to the universe, and the deprecation of their own tradition is just part of that mechanism. It almost seems a cargo-cult arrangement. Vicarious worship; all of the certainty of fundamentalism without its costs. Only exotic and intolerant foreigners need apply, thank you.
This may also explain why there’s so much “dropping out” a la homeschooling. The entropy of the larger civilization doesn’t look like it’ll do anything except accelerate.
Thus our contemporary Western enthusiasm for busting things down to the personal and the local; cf cohousing, “ecovillages,” homeschooling, renewable energy… perhaps like the Roman world at the beginning of the Christian era, we’re searching for a new Unity.
The difference being that we conservatives seek to reaffirm what is life-affirming in our shared tradition. That entropists have no problem with Islam coming to a no-go area near them is just another way of saying that nature abhors a vacuum.
I come from a family with generations of teachers and soldiers and farmers going back to the 18th century USA. Now none of my family sends their kids to public schools. They are all home schooled or schooled at their local churches. Culture as it is transferred through the public schools is considered to be too toxic.
But Islam has always thrived on societies that are imploding or in crisis. They have 1,400 years of practice at subverting these states caught up in entropy. The ones who successfully fended off the jihad conquest were those who believed very deeply in what they were defending.
Sharia Law is NOT an act of desperation or protest against a culture caught up in its own entropy: it is an aggressive and opportunistic virus.
Maybe one of ultimate ironies of a all-encompassing state is that, as was the case in the old Soviet Union — is that everyone will opt out of it at the very moment when it becomes omnipotent on paper.
You could be talking about the medieval papacy. Papal assertions of power increased progressively while the actual power of the papacy withered. The main difference between the Protestant Reformation and the earlier Hussites is that the revolutions of the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists were eventually successful.
The success of the Protestant Reformation was prefigured by the “purification” of Latin during the “Italian Renaissance”. This led to the rise of vernacular literature, as the national vernaculars were capable of expressing ideas that had hitherto been expressed in “corrupted” medieval Latin. This rise of vernacular languages amplified the power of Protestants, particularly Martin Luther.
It is noteworthy about the Arabic-speaking world that vernacular Arabic is only now making headway against classical Arabic on television. It is also interesting how no Islamists attempt to revive the Court Ottoman which was the official language of the last Caliphate. Think about it. Court Ottoman was once a lively language with elements of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. It is now dead. Classical Arabic, while still revered as the language of the Quran, is losing ground to regional Arabic vernaculars. Chances are that the court language of any future caliphate will be English, that is, if any future caliphate happens at all.
I think much of the fanatical push by Islamists comes from cultural desperation fostered by the quiet rejection by millions of Muslims of the old supremacy of classical Arabic. The power of the Quran, just like the power of the Vulgate in medieval Roman Catholicism, is buckling under the rising power of modern vernacular languages, particularly English, to express new ideas. Not only is the English language the most powerful force on the planet, but even the strongest opposition against the English-speaking powers that be is expressed in English.
In this context, the imposition of sharia in Britain should be seen as a means to use political correctness to enforce the primacy of the Arabic language over all others. Without sharia and Islamic nostalgia, what purpose would the Arabic language serve?
Fred:
Opportunism is at the heart of Islam because Mohammed was at heart an opportunist. There’s no getting around that fact that Mohammed changed his mind on key issues. There was a time when Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem. However, Mohammed changed his mind, and now all Muslims pray toward Mecca.
Even if Mohammed were a true prophet at one time (which I doubt), he is said to have kissed the Black Stone. In my mind, that idolatry alone tells me he was a false prophet, for no true prophet would endorse idolatry. For that matter, there is reason to think the present “shahada” of Islam was not the declaration of faith by Muslims during the seventh century — it was actually, “There is no God but Allah alone. He has no companion.” This phrase was widely inscribed during the rule of the Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik. So, the sight of so-called “salafis” calling out the modern “shahada” and not the historically accurate one from the era of Mohammed would be amusing if it weren’t so sad.
Fred:
It is interesting to note about Christianity not only which books made it into the canon and which books didn’t, but implicitly why certain books must have been left out. The Book of Enoch was left out. So was the Book of Jubilees. So were the Gnostic Gospels. There are reasons why this happened, and some of it is documented (such as a fierce disagreement with Marcion…).
In any case, there isn’t much history of the compilation of the Quran. We are all supposed to believe that the Quran is perfect, and yet it is hard to be believe that all of Mohammed’s recitations “ex cathedra” could have been written down. Some were probably missed. Others were probably garbled. Besides, even prophets say things like, “Excuse me, but I’ve got to relieve myself right now.” It’s hard to imagine that Mohammed’s praise of his wife’s baklava would likely make it into sacred texts.
Honest scholarship about the origins of Islam is as important as honest scholarship about the origins of any other religion. It is a pity that scholarly study of early Islamic history is stifled, even in the West.
Alexis,
We Christians understand that even the selection of which texts to be considered canonical is somehow guided by the Holy Spirit, even if the process seems obscure or even politically motivated, of which I have no doubt. However, I do not share the same hermeneutic that the Muslims adhere to about their Qur’an: that the Qur’an was a divine dictation. Now that would probably put me at odds with certain other Christians, but there it is. To me “divine inspiration” is not exactly congruous with divine dictation. That’s why THE hot contest within Christendom is all about how to interpret our texts. I stand clearly in the Catholic tradition that modern critical methods can shed some light on the original meaning in context. Not perfectly, mind you. Unfortunately, some people cannot stand the risk that this entails, but I’m comfortable with it. Method in theology is still the battleground. I’m more comfortable with the interpretations of Thomas Aquinas I’m reading about in the work of Bernard Lonergan, S.J.
I do not even consider Islam to rise to the relatively elevated level of heresy, since all heresy contains a kernel of truth wrapped around by defects and errors. I consider Islam to be a cult and an ideology, with “Allah” being Muhammad’s sock puppet.
Fred:
I’m curious that you call Islam an “ideology”. What exactly are its ideas?
So far as I can tell, Islam’s power is essentially cultic power. Its social power comes from ritual. The Quran prescribes certain customs, proscribes other customs, spells out how and when to make war on enemies, and tells followers to spread the power of Islam to make people obey.
Other than proclaiming a crude variety of unitarianism and an attitude of “do it because my deity told you to do it”, I don’t see much ideological content within Islam, given that ideology usually implies core ideas. In my thinking, there is a key difference between a religion existing principally as a carrier for social customs and a religion existing principally as a carrier of core ideas that form the heart of a conscious social ethic. A religion can theoretically exist as a set of customs rooted in tradition without any ideas underpinning them at all; rival theologians could disagree with each other on the essential meaning of the religion while participating in the same ceremonies. Hence, Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics could all participate in the Roman state religion even though their theologies would make them appear to be adhering to entirely different religions. In contrast, for a religion rooted in ideas, its ritual exists for the purpose of remembrance.
The parables of Jesus Christ are stories that convey ideas. For example, Jesus Christ is the first man I know of to explain the concept of marginal utility. (Matthew 20:1-6)
“This led to the rise of vernacular literature, as the national vernaculars were capable of expressing ideas that had hitherto been expressed in “corrupted” medieval Latin.”
i enjoyed your overview and commentary on
the varoius languages,Alexis.
McLuhan wrote in “The Gutenberg Galaxy”(links below),and mentions how Gutenberg’s printing press superseded the Scholastic’s’
laborious,jealousy guarded(and rare) manuscript culture, and lent itself to the building of national literatures and the national identities that followed.
_____________________
amazon.com – The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man by Marshall McLuhan (Paperback – 1967)
http://tinyurl.com/6fqb3e
_______________________
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man –
partial preview at here @ Google Book Search:
http://tinyurl.com/5fuvj7
wm: Karen, I don’t think that Wretchard is arguing that an escape from burdensome legalism is driving sharia’s imposition on Britain.
Agreed, Wretchard can’t possibly be arguing that. But bringing up the subject of sharia law along with home schooling, private education and the cash economy just seems to equate it as simply one more expression of the desire to live outside the system. It’s rather more than that, I think. This article from National Review covers some of the reasons why the establishment of sharia finance might be a tad more worrisome than other separate systems like homeschooling: “Sharia finance is jihad with money”
fred, I can certainly understand viewing Islam as a cult-like ideology. On the other hand, Hilaire Belloc considered Islam to be one of the Great Heresies.
For Belloc, the essential point was that it is a heresy, a perversion of Christian doctrine. Its only difference from most other Christian heresies was that it arose from outside Christendom, from the fringes of Christendom. Of Mohammed’s heresy, Belloc says:
“…he preached and insisted upon a whole group of ideas which were peculiar to the Catholic Church and distinguished it from the paganism which it had conquered in the Greek and Roman civilization. Thus the very foundation of his teaching was that prime Catholic doctrine, the unity and omnipotence of God. The attributes of God he also took over in the main from Catholic doctrine: the personal nature, the all-goodness, the timelessness, the providence of God. His creative power as the origin of all things, and His sustenance of all things by His power alone. The world of good spirits and angels and of evil spirits in rebellion against God was part of the teaching, with a chief evil spirit, such as Christendom had recognized. Mohammed preached with insistence that prime Catholic doctrine, on the human side – the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for actions in this life, coupled with the consequent doctrine of punishment and reward after death.”
Mohammed’s teaching never developed a detailed theology. He took Catholic doctrine and dramatically simplified it, throwing out the whole sacramental structure. Where the heresy part comes in is in the full denial of the Incarnation, as well as the Trinity. It’s almost as if Islam, with its creed of “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet,” exists solely to oppose the Nicene Creed, as Islam denies the divinity and the crucifixion of Christ. So crucial is this denial that, according to the ex-Muslim, Christian Walid Shoebat, the words, “Far be it from God that he should have a son!” encircle the inside of the Dome of the Rock Mosque itself in Jerusalem, the birthplace of Christianity and the very geographical spot on which Jesus is prophesied to return.
In 1938, Belloc wrote, “It [Islam] kept up the battle against Christendom actively for a thousand years, and the story is by no means over; the power of Islam may at any moment re-arise.” At the time he wrote that, it probably sounded unbelievably far-fetched, but these 70 years later it has re-arisen with a vengeance.
sorry in advance for teh long cut&paste…but have a look,i think you’ll find it worthwhile:
here’s a ‘Prologue’ excerpt
from the Google Book Search above:
______________________
“The Gutenberg Galaxy develops a mosaic or field approach to its problems. Such a mosaic
image of numerous data and quotations in evidence offers the only practical means of revealing causal operations in history.
The alternative procedure would be to offer a series of views of fixed relationships in a pictorial space.
Thus the galaxy or constellation of events upon which the present study concentrates is iteself a mosaic of perpetually interacting forms that have undergone kaleidoscopic transformation – particularly in our own time.
(Note that McLuhan is wrinting this in 1967.)
There might have been some advantage in substituting for the word”galaxy” the word “environment”. Any technology tends to create a new human environment. Script and papyrus created the social environment we think of in connection with the empires of the ancient world.The stirrup and the wheel created unique environments of enormous scope. Technological environments are not merely passive containers of people,but are active processes that reshape people and other technologies alike. In our time,the sudden shift from the mechanical technology of the wheel to the technology of electronic circuitry represents one of the major shifts of all historical time. Printing from moveable types created quite an unexpected new environment – it created the PUBLIC.
Manuscript technology did not have the intensity or power of extension necessary to create publics on a national scale.
What we have called “nations” in recent centuries did not, and could not,precede the advent of Gutenberg technology any more than they can survive the advent of electric circuitry with its power of totally involving all people in all other people.”
_______________________
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man -
partial preview at here @ Google Book Search:
http://tinyurl.com/5fuvj7
i remember it being a tough slog
the first time through.
not so much of a
“view from another planet” now.
this will make more sense of my post above at #22:
______________________________
21. gumshoe:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
“This led to the rise of vernacular literature, as the national vernaculars were capable of expressing ideas that had hitherto been expressed in “corrupted” medieval Latin.”
i enjoyed your overview and commentary on
the various languages,Alexis.
McLuhan wrote in “The Gutenberg Galaxy”(links below),and mentions how Gutenberg’s printing press superseded the Scholastics’
laborious,jealously guarded(and rare) manuscript culture, and lent itself to the building of national literatures and the national identities that followed.
_____________________
amazon.com – The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man by Marshall McLuhan (Paperback – 1967)
http://tinyurl.com/6fqb3e
_______________________
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man -
partial preview at here @ Google Book Search:
http://tinyurl.com/5fuvj7
Nov 20, 2008 – 12:46 am
Islam is toxic to Western culture. Islam is toxic to life.
Compare the foundational principles of Christianity (which includes Judaism) with the foundational principles of Islam and no other conclusion is justified. No theology involved.
The Christian worldview is a community organized around the principle “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Ten Commandments are a blueprint for how people can live together successfully as individuals within a community. The rules “work” for so long as they are accepted as immutable because the source is the Word – the ultimate wisdom. Community members don’t even have to believe in God – just acknowledge that the Rules are immutable.
Islam’s worldview is not toward a community of individuals but to a collective obedient to the whims of an arbitrary, all-powerful god. There is no blueprint for society other than what Allah ordains at the time.
There is no individualism in Islam. Human beings have no worth other than the contribution they make to the collective. When it was reported to Muhammad that Muslims were not going to the mosque for weekly prayers he ordered that “they be burned in their homes.”
Acceding political or economic power to Muslim institutions within a Western society is a really bad idea. There is no end result that is not destructive to individual values and liberty.
Alexis,
Peter Boston at #23 makes strong references to aspects of the ideological aspect of Islam. The organizing idea of Islam is jihad, conquest of the kafir, completely subjugating women, raping the enemy of his resources. It’s the justification for conquest. I consider it to be the world’s oldest surviving totalitarian ideology.
Karen at #21 seemingly corrects me in my view that Islam is not even a heresy. My defense: the core of Islamic belief has nothing to do with Christianity. The core of Islam is actually a pseudo imitation of aspects of Judaism. Christian beliefs are peripheral to Islam, and what Muhammad pulled in to put into the mouth of his sock puppet was the detritus of surrounding Christian heresies that were being harbored in Arabia outside of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Muhammad started a cult, and he dressed it up with whatever he could lay his hands on to give it the appearance of religious authority. Some of it, I think, was to engage in jive-talking with Christians and Jews in order to lure them in to his cult. But it’s a mishmash of nonsense.
Peter Boston has it exactly right: Islam is toxic to our civilization. To allow Sharia Law into our courts and our finance is madness. This is why the blood drains from my face as I contemplate the legal opinion of law scholar Noah Feldman (another self-hating Jew) who is trying to make the case that Sharia Law should be integrated into U.S. law.
Alexis, I am by no means a biblical scholar, and the breadth of my knowlegde pales in comparison to most posters here, which is why I usually just lurk, so take this with a grain of salt: A Muslim Martin Luther will be a long time in coming.
By the time Luther came along, the bible had been tranlated by, I think, St. Jerome, from Greek into Latin. Before Luther came along, scholastics, like St. Thomas Aquinas, took steps to try and rationalize biblical text with Aristolte, i.e, Summa Theologica. Was the Koran ever really subjected to that sort of scrutiny by its adherents – who were not then killed – besides Averroes (whose ideas were adapted by the Thomists)?
Morover, the concept of seperation between church and state, is acknowlegded in the Christian bible, i.e., St. Augustine’s the City of God vs. the City of Man, a distinction that the Koran, as far as I know, does not make. The Church is the State in the Koran.
Morover, since the Enlightment, Christainity, and the Bible, have been subject to attack, rational exegesis, marxist interpretation, being declared dead, and forced to find a way to adapt to an increasingly antagonist and secular world. Yet, it remains nimble, and robust; and, knock on wood, I have some faith that that the Vatican, in some form, will be around long after the last chapter of U.S. History is written.
I hope you are correct and that there will be an evolution – or reformation – in Islamic thought, although heretofore there has been little historic or theological groundwork laid for its emergence. Maybe prolonged and direct exposure to the English language, culture, and ideas, will force such a reformation of Islam – despite the fact the English speaking West, has, for the most part, given up on its culture and ideas. You never know, I guess. Hope does spring eternal.
Fred:
I would hardly call the custom of jihad to be an ideology. The instinct for conquest exists in ant colonies. The instinct for obedience exists in bees and dogs. That which makes humans different from bees, dogs, and ants is our capacity to comprehend abstract ideas and use them to organize our world.
Islam does have a mishmash of stories and assertions from contemporary Judaism, Chistian heresy, and Zoroastrianism. However, there is no ideological core to Islam’s existence beyond the instinct for conquest that could just as easily exist within an ant colony, a wolf pack, or a beehive. There is a key difference between monotheism as a belief in one root cause of the existence of the universe and “monotheism” as a desire of a polytheist to kill all deities other than his own.
We need to consider exactly what it is that makes Islam so “toxic”. I would argue that Islam’s principal flaws are its claim to perfection, its denial of history, its lack of a central narrative, its promotion of blind obedience, and its idolatrous ritual. To these flaws are added a strong cultural emphasis on opportunism and a strong desire to gain the infidel’s military technology. Mohammed could use trench warfare against the Meccans (a technology he learned from a Persian convert), while promoting a set of social customs that would stunt the development of new technologies in future centuries.
Perhaps Islam’s historic quest for practical technology combined with its hostility to the philosophical roots of technological innovation has led it to become the Dr Frank N Furter of religions. It seeks to get rid of the cause – but not the symptom.
GJFK:
I’m not so sure there will necessarily be an Islamic reformation. However, I do think the Quran’s hold on the Arab imagination is becoming weaker. Chances are that there will come a time when Muslims convert to Christianity en masse, not because of any love for the West, but rather because they reject any religion that has anything to do with al-Qaeda and prefer the message of Christian love.
One thing members of al-Qaeda fail to realize is that their organization is effectively creating social antibodies against Islam. It behooves Muslim leaders to fight against al-Qaeda with all of their hearts, because otherwise the vast majority of Muslims will probably reject Islam in its entirety.
The West cannot do anything to make this rejection of Islam happen other than (1) be ourselves, (2) set a good example, and (3) show our willingness to fight. In other words, we must be free. This victory, if it happens, will come not through conquest but through the power of our ideas.
GJFK: “I hope you are correct and that there will be a … reformation – in Islamic thought”
If an Islamic Luther came along, he’d be killed before he got the second nail in the door.
Karen: “Belloc considered Islam to be one of the Great Heresies.” I’m skeptical of the idea that Mohammed took ideas from Catholicism. (However, I just found “Great Heresies” on Amazon, and I’ll get it.)
From what I know so far, Islam sprung full-grown from the head of Mohammed (much like Athena from Zeus). And most of the histories tell us that he was illiterate.
Another 18th-century thinker had something to say about Islam: Montesquieu, in “Spirit of Laws”, wrote:
Book XXIV, CHAP. III.: That a moderate Government is most agreeable to the Christian Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahometan.
… Chap IV: FROM the characters of the Christian and Mahometan religions, we ought, without any further examination, to embrace the one, and reject the other: for it is much easier to prove, that religion ought to humanize the manners of men, than that any particular religion is true.
Chesterton (in his usual magnificent style):
“Now a man preaching what he thinks is a platitude is far more intolerant than a man preaching what he admits is a paradox. It was exactly because it seemed self-evident, to Moslems as to Bolshevists, that their simple creed was suited to everybody, that they wished in that particular sweeping fashion to impose it on everybody.
It was because Islam was broad that Moslems were narrow. And because it was not a hard religion it was a heavy rule. Because it was without a self-correcting complexity, it allowed of those simple and masculine but mostly rather dangerous appetites that show themselves in a chieftain or a lord.
As it had the simplest sort of religion, monotheism, so it had the simplest sort of government, monarchy. There was exactly the same direct spirit in its despotism as in its deism. The Code, the Common Law, the give and take of charters and chivalric vows, did not grow in that golden desert. The great sun was in the sky and the great Saladin was in his tent, and he must be obeyed unless he were assassinated.
Those who complain of our creeds as elaborate often forget that the elaborate Western creeds have produced the elaborate Western constitutions; and that they are elaborate because they are emancipated.” (“The Fall of Chivalry” The New Jerusalem)
Just a thought to interject…..
Whenever I read a commentary like the above, I often reflect that the exact nature of Islam is really irrelevant. The crux of the matter is always reduced to the fact that the traditional judeo-christian culture which has prevailed in the western world for the last 2000 years is dying. As described above, Islam is simply an opportunistic cultural infection. If it wasn’t Islam, it would be some other religion/ideology.
The current assualt by Islam is no different than any other clash of cultures. During the colonial period, modern western civilization clashed with cultures across the globe and won the contest in most cases. In contrast, today’s western culture is weak, divided, and even disparaged by small but significant numbers of its own members. It is no wonder that it is losing the latest cultural challenge.
Fred, sorry, I wasn’t trying to correct you; I always enjoy reading your posts. One can certainly disagree with Islam-as-heresy. Belloc also considered the Reformation a heresy and many would disagree with that too. Still, he was amazingly prescient about Islam’s enduring vitality and it’s interesting to discover why he thought it’s a mistake to discount Islam’s power to survive and gain ground.
Karen,
You raised some valid issues, and maybe it is worth revisiting Belloc about this. Honestly, I’ve never read his work and it now has me interested. It’s just that all of my reading about Muhammad and the Qur’an, up to this point, makes me think he made it up as he went along, casting about for symbols, stories, and disparate traditions in an attempt to pour old wine into a new wineskin. I must admit that a book by Ali Sina, which I recently had read, has made a lot of sense to me and confirmed some of my suspicions about how Islam took shape.
Maybe I am being a bit narrow in my understanding about what a heresy is, phenomenologically. I had always assumed that heresies do have a systematic quality about them. There tends to be a degree of organization to a heresy that I don’t see in Islam. In other words, a degree of sophistication and elegance, vs. the primitive nature of Islam.
I did not mean to be condescending in my initial rebuttal to your point. Truly, I did not. If it appeared that way, my apologies.
No apologies needed, Fred. I agree with your descriptions and I like the way you put it – a pseudo imitation and a mishmash of nonsense – and second your assertion that Peter Boston got it exactly right, so well and perfectly said. I wonder, will we be any better than Europe at stopping the creeping Islamization?
ws1835 wrote:
Just a thought to interject…..
Whenever I read a commentary like the above, I often reflect that the exact nature of Islam is really irrelevant. The crux of the matter is always reduced to the fact that the traditional judeo-christian culture which has prevailed in the western world for the last 2000 years is dying.
I disagree. The West isn’t dying – only Europe is. The West is spreading to Russia, China, India, etc. Islam isn’t spreading, it is relocating.
Fred, Alexis, et al: You folks are much better read on this than I, so I (for once) am rather hesitant to comment.
But my usual brashness now asserts itself after all.
What Fred said about “divine dictation” would seem to be the key element. That would require an anthromorphic god, would it not?
A transcendent god would simply not operate that way.
And if a deity is anthromorphic, then “sock puppet” seems to be an apt expression.
If and when the generality of MUslims start thinking in transcendent terms, then their
general behavior will probably change for the better. Then they will understand the difference between church and state. But not before.
Dave, I probably shouldn’t be trying to address the question you raise since I’m just floundering around myself but, oh well, here goes my shot at it anyway…
A dictating anthropomorphic deity that prevents Muslims from thinking in transcendent terms is the problem – is that it? have I got that or am I misinterpreting?… I have to say, that’s probably not it. After all, Christianity’s God took on human form – in order to reach us, to save us. Somebody further up the thread said something about conversion to Christianity being the best hope for changing the Muslim world. If only that could happen in great enough numbers, wow, the problem would be solved in no time, at least as far as jihad goes. Personally, I don’t think the general behavior of the Muslim world can change for the better as long as the overarching identity of their society is the Islamic one. If you reformed Islam to the extent necessary to render it forever content with peaceful co-existence, then it would no longer be recognizable as Islam. It would be, essentially, something else. The only way to deal with Islam-on-the-march is to defeat it, imo. And one way of contributing to that defeat is, as Peter Boston said, to refuse to cede any political or economic power at all to Muslim institutions.
Don’t know how to answer you Karen. The words “anthromorphic” and “transcendent” were the best I could do.
Remember Freds’ “divine dictation”. When Christians say that the scriptures are the “Word of God” they (with darned few exceptions) mean divinely inspired. However, the defining force, and maybe the dominant force, in Islamic belief is that the Quran was dictated verbatim to Mohammed who proceeded to transcribe it without error.
It seems to me that when that form of thinking is significantly reduced, behavior will improve. In short, a cultural transformation is required. Hopefully, the direct contact Iraquis have had with American soldiers will at least initiate such a transformation.
As to our Savior having been in human form, I recall Screwtape complaining to Wormwood about “the accursed advantage of the Enemy Above”. The divinity of Jesus is what will probably pull us through——in mysterious ways.
Now I have floundered enough for one evening. Will check back tomorrow. Thanks for sharpshooting my thesis.
Well, Dave, you may be on to something. I think I got your post backwards anyway, in regard to the “divine dictation” – anthropomorphism as ascribing to God a human persona. The Savior taking on human form is NOT that. So, sorry about that. I should pay more careful attention, I suppose. But, in any case, where you have something like “Slay the infidel wherever you may find them,” does it really make any difference if such commands issue from divine dictation as opposed to a divine inspiration that maintains the integrity of the inspiree’s individual personality? I don’t think it makes any difference. Unless one argues that divine inspiration is fallible whereas divine dictation is not.
About as close as we can come Karen.
Divine dictation puts people into a state of denial about the need for personal responsibility, humility and so forth and so on.
Divine inspiration at least opens the door
to ethical standards.
As to what to do about being the infidel in need of slaying, my friend, the late Jeff Cooper, summarized it in three words:
Front Sight. Press.
I hope this sums things up. Please delete or edit If I’ve mucked it up.
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