Islam v. Islam

[keithprosser3]

To this outsider the Islamic world seems to be fighting at least two internal wars;
one is between Conservative Islamism and Secularist Modernism the other between Shia and Sunni. Islam is not targetting the west - we are just caught in the crossfire of their internal wars. We probably suffer less than one might expect given the level of our interference in the Islamic world.

The level of violence shows that Islamism has been driven to extremes to hang on against reformism. I don't think that hard-line Islamism has much future. It is simply not suited to the modern world - it cannot survive in a world where the internet and MTV connect people and inform and educate them. We see in Egypt that Muslims today certainly do not want to abandon Islam, but they do not want it in the extreme form represented by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

I wouldn't say the 'moderation' of Islam is imminent, nor even certain in the foreseeable future. I am saying that much of the violence we see is due to the conflict between conservatism and modernism in Islam.

The other conflict between Shia and Sunni I think can be viewed as a proxy war between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, each striving to dominate the Islamic world. It is hard to see how we can have any influence over that conflict - at least not for the better.

[marketandchurch]

To this outsider the Islamic world seems to be fighting at least two internal wars;
one is between Conservative Islamism and Secularist Modernism the other between Shia and Sunni. Islam is not targetting the west - we are just caught in the crossfire of their internal wars. We probably suffer less than one might expect given the level of our interference in the Islamic world.

The level of violence shows that Islamism has been driven to extremes to hang on against reformism. I don't think that hard-line Islamism has much future. It is simply not suited to the modern world - it cannot survive in a world where the internet and MTV connect people and inform and educate them. We see in Egypt that Muslims today certainly do not want to abandon Islam, but they do not want it in the extreme form represented by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

I wouldn't say the 'moderation' of Islam is imminent, nor even certain in the foreseeable future. I am saying that much of the violence we see is due to the conflict between conservatism and modernism in Islam.

The other conflict between Shia and Sunni I think can be viewed as a proxy war between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, each striving to dominate the Islamic world. It is hard to see how we can have any influence over that conflict - at least not for the better.

A preliminary note, or two
I would divide it between the Islamists, or those who wish to impose Sharia upon society, & those who don't. Moderation vs. Extremism is a simplistic deduction, applied largely by those who think that modernity, awareness, & education divides the extremists from the non-extremists.

The secularists are tyrannical blood-thirsty fascists, and the Islamists are tyrannical blood-thirsty fascists. The difference is that one tries to run your life, and the other doesn't. The only benefit to either model is that at least the killing is systematic, controlled, by the state against those who it is annoyed with. In the absence of a strong dictatorial presence, the instability creates the vacuum that Islamists, who are evangelical in their religious & political orientation, then fill to carry out their reason for being: The spread of Sharia. The United States not only presents an antithetical model for humanity, but it is the only force that can stop the Islamists, which makes us both an enemy & an immediate target, for both war, & evangelism.


Bedouin Ethics:
Bedouin ethics, however, gives us a clearer vision of why this part of the world is so cursed with cruelty and bloodshed, since the spread of Islam, up through the present. There's the famous adage: 'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.'

This ethos has governed the Arab outlook for several millennia. They don't die on behalf of each other, let alone the non-Muslim. Only nationalistic movements such as Islamism has lead to Arab dying on behalf of Arab. Other then the Sheik's who would look stupid for not donating, the Muslim world has never been a great source of aid, for non-muslims. When there is a landslide in Peru, flooding in Bangladesh, or an earthquake in Japan, you don't see the Arabs on the front lines, sending in hundreds of doctors & aid-relief workers, to help out the non-Arab.

It has to do with blood-based ethics, Ancestry-based clanism/politics, and the tribalism based around both. And this is the reason why they have not only been irrelevant to the human conversation since suleiman the great, it is also why they are the most tortured part of the world. That is a fact, not an insult. We should not act like the present is an aberration from history. We've seen following the collapse of the Ottoman rule of the region, and following the British exit, an attempt experiment with secularism, fascism, islamism, communism, pan-Arab nationalism, and the only constant through it all was Bedouin Ethics, & Islam.


Evangelical Islam
Now we have a solid Evangelical movement based on the religion of Islam, paired with Bedouin ethics, called Islamism. Followers of Islamism, known as Islamists, seek to fundamentally take over the world to extand the rule of Allah(via Sharia) upon all of humanity, by force if necessary. We are at war with them, directly, and with the whole of Islam, indirectly.

[DanieltheDragon]

"Bedouin Ethics:
Bedouin ethics, however, gives us a clearer vision of why this part of the world is so cursed with cruelty and bloodshed, since the spread of Islam, up through the present. There's the famous adage: 'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.'

This ethos has governed the Arab outlook for several millennia. They don't die on behalf of each other, let alone the non-Muslim. Only nationalistic movements such as Islamism has lead to Arab dying on behalf of Arab. Other then the Sheik's who would look stupid for not donating, the Muslim world has never been a great source of aid, for non-muslims. When there is a landslide in Peru, flooding in Bangladesh, or an earthquake in Japan, you don't see the Arabs on the front lines, sending in hundreds of doctors & aid-relief workers, to help out the non-Arab.

It has to do with blood-based ethics, Ancestry-based clanism/politics, and the tribalism based around both. And this is the reason why they have not only been irrelevant to the human conversation since suleiman the great, it is also why they are the most tortured part of the world. That is a fact, not an insult. We should not act like the present is an aberration from history. We've seen following the collapse of the Ottoman rule of the region, and following the British exit, an attempt experiment with secularism, fascism, islamism, communism, pan-Arab nationalism, and the only constant through it all was Bedouin Ethics, & Islam"

you hit the nail on the head it doesn't matter if you convert every last one of them this is engrained into the culture.

[East of Eden]

"Bedouin Ethics:
Bedouin ethics, however, gives us a clearer vision of why this part of the world is so cursed with cruelty and bloodshed, since the spread of Islam, up through the present. There's the famous adage: 'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.'

This ethos has governed the Arab outlook for several millennia. They don't die on behalf of each other, let alone the non-Muslim. Only nationalistic movements such as Islamism has lead to Arab dying on behalf of Arab. Other then the Sheik's who would look stupid for not donating, the Muslim world has never been a great source of aid, for non-muslims. When there is a landslide in Peru, flooding in Bangladesh, or an earthquake in Japan, you don't see the Arabs on the front lines, sending in hundreds of doctors & aid-relief workers, to help out the non-Arab.

It has to do with blood-based ethics, Ancestry-based clanism/politics, and the tribalism based around both. And this is the reason why they have not only been irrelevant to the human conversation since suleiman the great, it is also why they are the most tortured part of the world. That is a fact, not an insult. We should not act like the present is an aberration from history. We've seen following the collapse of the Ottoman rule of the region, and following the British exit, an attempt experiment with secularism, fascism, islamism, communism, pan-Arab nationalism, and the only constant through it all was Bedouin Ethics, & Islam"

you hit the nail on the head it doesn't matter if you convert every last one of them this is engrained into the culture.

Exactly, there is no concept in Islam of turning the other cheek or forgiving (let alone loving) your enemy. It is all about blood (clan) and honor, to the point where they murder their own family who 'dishonor' them. The god of Islam doesn't love 'infidels'. And they don't believe in a state church, they believe in a church state, that certainly doesn't treat equally those of another faith, or no faith.

[marketandchurch]

"Bedouin Ethics:
Bedouin ethics, however, gives us a clearer vision of why this part of the world is so cursed with cruelty and bloodshed, since the spread of Islam, up through the present. There's the famous adage: 'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.'

This ethos has governed the Arab outlook for several millennia. They don't die on behalf of each other, let alone the non-Muslim. Only nationalistic movements such as Islamism has lead to Arab dying on behalf of Arab. Other then the Sheik's who would look stupid for not donating, the Muslim world has never been a great source of aid, for non-muslims. When there is a landslide in Peru, flooding in Bangladesh, or an earthquake in Japan, you don't see the Arabs on the front lines, sending in hundreds of doctors & aid-relief workers, to help out the non-Arab.

It has to do with blood-based ethics, Ancestry-based clanism/politics, and the tribalism based around both. And this is the reason why they have not only been irrelevant to the human conversation since suleiman the great, it is also why they are the most tortured part of the world. That is a fact, not an insult. We should not act like the present is an aberration from history. We've seen following the collapse of the Ottoman rule of the region, and following the British exit, an attempt experiment with secularism, fascism, islamism, communism, pan-Arab nationalism, and the only constant through it all was Bedouin Ethics, & Islam"

you hit the nail on the head it doesn't matter if you convert every last one of them this is engrained into the culture.

Exactly, there is no concept in Islam of turning the other cheek or forgiving (let alone loving) your enemy. It is all about blood (clan) and honor, to the point where they murder their own family who 'dishonor' them. The god of Islam doesn't love 'infidels'. And they don't believe in a state church, they believe in a church state, that certainly doesn't treat equally those of another faith, or no faith.

that's what distresses me about White leftists in the West and naive libertarians.

It isn't a matter of fanaticism versus moderation wherein the solution is education to fight against misinformation. (their excuse to explain away every person who doesn't live out their values.) It's also not a matter of "We made them fanatics by our cultural and military "invasions" and "occupation."

It is an entirely different way of viewing the world. It is one based on blood, and maintaining the honor of the clan. Yemen did not want it's Yemenite Jews to leave for Israel, not because it had anything against the Jews, or Israel, but because it was worried about "losing Face." What I mean by this is that they would lose their honor by being perceived by the international community, as ungovernable and unstable, due to the fact that you can't even protect the minority groups in your country. So they took care of their Jews, better then any other Muslim country in the middle east.

A true map of the middle east would be thousands of tiny island, ruled by various tribes. They would be more peaceful, and stable, like Qatar, UAE, or Kuwait. Instead of what the British did, by making one tribe out of hundreds of tribes, forcing them to all get along in an artificial state, such as Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Libya, or Syria.

The best explanation of tribalism of the middle east that is not given by Bernard Lewis, was given by Dr./Professor Kedar.

[marketandchurch]

This is what a more peaceful, truer map of Iraq should have looked like.

Instead we forced all of those tribes to merge together, under one "country" called "Iraq." The "Clans" view the state as the enemy, and don't even follow the rules of the state unless Federal Agents from Baghdad are there to enforce it, which they can't, and they won't. Local police run in accordance to clan preferences.

If local power structures are undermined, then you'll even have factionalism growing within tribes to fill that power vacuum, especially in a weak state such as Iraq that doesn't have the resources to really keep track of what's going on on the local level. And say my family within the tribe is very powerful and influential, and your family is very powerful and influential, there is a likelihood that we'll clash. And say a few of my family members join the Iraqi police force to enforce our local neighborhoods... just to trust that justice is carried out, you'll have members of your own tribe join, just to make sure there is legal fairness... and what usually happens is that we end up arming families, who don't police anyone, because they look the other way when one of their own rapes the member of another family, and you see this primitive warfare going on, and if you span out over a greater time-scale, such as 20 years, the deaths that result from all of this factionalism is akin to a genocide.

• It's a cursed part of the world, because of their elevation of Blood, Ancestry, and Clan/Tribalism/Familism, over Love, Ethics, and Merit. Their Tribalism is Muhammad's mistake, in his attempt to arabize a Jewish narrative, and thus, imbuing his Bedouin tribal preferences into the religion that would change the orientation of the entire region, forever.

[Danmark]

There are perhaps a dozen major 'tribes' of Islam, with Sunni being the most numerous, followed by Shia. There are 70 some factions that have been recognized as distinct. This may have arisen due to the tribalism that still dominates this region, an area that has only recently [and in some cases still has not] emerged from a primitive tribal tradition.

In Syria alone there are at least five distinct warring factions. There is nothing about Islam that makes it unique in this regard. It is simply that Islam is a relative newcomer as a religion. Taken as a whole, it is still acting like a balky, petulant, and uncoordinated teenager.

It is simply going thru "a phase" as many mothers have said of their children.

But tribalism seems to be an almost innate human proclivity. It reminds me of the old joke when the visitor to Ireland is asked whether he is protestant or catholic and he replies he is an atheist.

His inquisitor does not hesitate. He asks:

"Yes, but are you a protestant atheist or a catholic atheist?"

[East of Eden]

There are perhaps a dozen major 'tribes' of Islam, with Sunni being the most numerous, followed by Shia. There are 70 some factions that have been recognized as distinct. This may have arisen due to the tribalism that still dominates this region, an area that has only recently [and in some cases still has not] emerged from a primitive tribal tradition.

In Syria alone there are at least five distinct warring factions. There is nothing about Islam that makes it unique in this regard.

There is something unique to Islam that almost all terror acts today are by its adherents.

It is simply that Islam is a relative newcomer as a religion. Taken as a whole, it is still acting like a balky, petulant, and uncoordinated teenager.

It is simply going thru "a phase" as many mothers have said of their children.

The difference is, the founder of Islam engaged is this violent tribalism, etc., unlike Jesus.

But tribalism seems to be an almost innate human proclivity. It reminds me of the old joke when the visitor to Ireland is asked whether he is protestant or catholic and he replies he is an atheist.

His inquisitor does not hesitate. He asks:

"Yes, but are you a protestant atheist or a catholic atheist?"

Some of the key figures on both sides actually were agnostic.

[DanieltheDragon]

There are perhaps a dozen major 'tribes' of Islam, with Sunni being the most numerous, followed by Shia. There are 70 some factions that have been recognized as distinct. This may have arisen due to the tribalism that still dominates this region, an area that has only recently [and in some cases still has not] emerged from a primitive tribal tradition.

In Syria alone there are at least five distinct warring factions. There is nothing about Islam that makes it unique in this regard.

There is something unique to Islam that almost all terror acts today are by its adherents.

nope that is flat out wrong I have posted numerous links to terror attack databases that have data on terrorist activities for the past 40 years. I suggest you consult one of many non partisan sources before making such erroneous claims

[nayrbsnilloc]

[Replying to post 58 by DanieltheDragon]

This is correct, Islam is not the only source of terrorism and it is unfortunate that it is viewed that way so commonly. Terrorism generally stems from instability/radicalism, the belief system that channels it becomes almost irrelevant at that point.

[East of Eden]

There are perhaps a dozen major 'tribes' of Islam, with Sunni being the most numerous, followed by Shia. There are 70 some factions that have been recognized as distinct. This may have arisen due to the tribalism that still dominates this region, an area that has only recently [and in some cases still has not] emerged from a primitive tribal tradition.

In Syria alone there are at least five distinct warring factions. There is nothing about Islam that makes it unique in this regard.

There is something unique to Islam that almost all terror acts today are by its adherents.

nope that is flat out wrong I have posted numerous links to terror attack databases that have data on terrorist activities for the past 40 years. I suggest you consult one of many non partisan sources before making such erroneous claims

Nonsense, you're seriously denying Islam is responsible for the majority of terror attacks today? Who just shot up a shopping mall in Kenya?