. We are interested in peace...world peace... I just wonder about that: do we give women little credit?! do we like chatting with males? or.what?!!..I dont know?! just wondering...hhhh@ DIB
Some people need optimism to keep themselves from drifting into the abyss of despair.... ...I dont think I am one of those people. So I guess... even though I do not believe any "revival" is going to happen (I am sure of it), I will still keep doing what I have to do... thnx for trying to cheer me up though
I think societies change. But wouldn't the way the way the social change unfolds be influenced by circumstance?
In the UK religion has not disappeared: rather it has morphed from traditional church-going variety into something more naturalistic. I would not expect anything like that in Muslim populations, though.
have you ever come across the term "karaite"? we had a near-schism in the C9th-11th over an equivalent jewish sect. eventually their beliefs were defeated and fell into decline, there are only about 1000 of them around these days. the point at issue in the end became that because they rejected the Oral Law, as presumably these "qur'an aloners" reject the sunnah and hadith, they ended up filling in the gaps in the text with their own sort of oral law. for example, there's no procedure in the Written Torah about how to get married, so either that comes from the Oral Torah, or you get it from somewhere else. this will be their vulnerability.c0de said:
you mean because of their monolithic approach? i don't think so. i think they're making it easier because they have spread the idea of literalism and a black-and-white approach to theology and practice. that has made islam brittle, hard and ossified. if it cannot become more flexible, it will crack, as judaism and christianity cracked in various ways at various points.
actually, DIB, japan did precisely that, during the meiji period. however, she did do it in a sustainable way, planning for the future and preserving the essential features of language, culture and the like. there was not the idea that japan was "culturally backward", as has happened in the middle east since the decline of the ottoman empire. i'd recommend you read bernard lewis' "the crisis of islam" for an insight into this. the rot set in when the ottomans refused to adopt the printing press.DIB said:
whilst at the same time bitching about how inferior the "winner" really is and maintaining that they're actually not really the winner. it's a bit sad. the problem is not imitation per se; rather, it is ignorance of cultural factors. otherwise, modernity is experienced as brutal, invasive and foreign. you should really read karen armstrong's "the battle for G!D" - this is where fundamentalism really came from; it's an essentially modern phenomenon. look at nasser - "pan-arab socialism" was a damfool idea because it ignored some important things about both the arab world and socialism and addressed the challenges and weaknesses in neither, papering over the cracks with ideology and shouting. and that is *still* going on.
not "would be" - it already *is*.
china maintained well into the mid C20th that it needed to learn nothing from the west, because of its superior culture and its linguistic unity - and collapsed several times over as a result, leading to the deaths of millions and arguably some of the largest human catastrophes in modern human history. china didn't go tits-up when the communists took over, you know. ever heard of the taiping rebellion? the opium wars? the boxer rebellion? sun yat-sen? the manchurian campaigns? china is *not* a good example of this.
there are more solutions than this!!!
sorry to disappoint you, DIB, but that is just nonsense. japan is an incredibly racist society in some ways and so are many other societies which are, in the main, desperate to get everythings from running water to the internet. if what you say was correct, why the arse is everyone so keen to move to the "west"? are you seriously telling me that if you were offered a green card and a house in the US, you wouldn't go for it? because you are in the minority if you say so. millions say otherwise. there are boatloads of people trying to get into spain from north africa. why is that? look, i'm not saying that western society has all the answers and is inherently better; it doesn't and it isn't and it has caused as many ills as it has cured. BUT there is another way. religion, if you ask me, is part of that, so is cultural uniqueness. that's something i always thought moroccans really *got*. don't be suckered into this "it's all the west's fault" discourse; everyone has responsibility for their own betterment at some level.
DIB - islam *has* changed, frequently. are you telling me that moroccan islam is the same as taliban islam? is moroccan islam even the same as it was under the almohades and almoravids when they were running andalusia?
well, i beg your pardon, but that is BOLLOCKS. i've addressed it here:
NONSENSE. we have free-will and personal responsibility. G!D doesn't want us to be a bunch of spineless whingers; stand up and take control of your life. that is what i did and my religion helped me to do so. so can yours. but - and this is important - this CANNOT be done if you hand over your brain, rationality and responsibility to some beardy nutcase.c0de said:
Yes, sister
What can I say, my sister. It is the distance between theory and practice. Muslims arent real Muslims. Muslims now are suffering from shizophrenia...
The prophet Muhammed said: ""People are as equal as the teeth of the comb."
PS: by the way, nativeastral, you assumed I am a male, and I did. Why?
that is only because you confuse being a clear and rational thinker with being an atheist. contrary to what you believe, religious people can actually be quite sensible, anti-bigotry and open-minded without sacrificing their religious authenticity.I do like a BB post, you would make a rather fine atheist and sometimes I feel you are only but a small step away
Religion today is a part of culture. For example, church attendance is very high in the U.S, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of faith. Just because Muslims take their culture very seriously, also does not mean there is more faith in Islamic societies. As for the UK... i think its safe to say that all those centuries of carrying the "white man's burden" in the form of the great Colonial endeavor weren't exactly based on the most "Christian" of morals, eh?
They have a need to preserve their identity, just like everyone else. That's the problem. (consider the sunni/shia divide.)
My prediction is not based on demographics. Its based primarily on the geopolitical future of the world. I am planning on starting a thread in the Politics section. The coming Iranian Crises is not the real problem, but as the former head of the Mossad said, it will be the next 100 years that will be the real crises.
You are right technically; however, I don't see things in this way. The Quran states that the primary factor which determines circumstance is dependent on a person's/society's/civilizations metaphoric "heart". And because there is a clear degeneration of "faith" in the Muslim world, the predicted circumstances to follow fit into a pattern for me. Refer to the thread that will be created in the Politics section. I would like to have your thoughts on the issue.
This is a different breed altogether BB. Forget about oral law, these people, like the Mutazillites (their predecessors) do not even take the Quran as the eternal word of God. For them, everything is metaphorical and therefore mutable. There are in fact some Quran aloners who are not as extreme as this, but their core "leadership" (they claim they have none) is indeed that extreme.
What you have outlined is indeed part of it. However, I am talking more from a international relations and domestic politics perspective. The actions of the Taliban and extremists are causing the majority to drift towards the left.
This isn't about whinning BB. It might seem like it, but its not.
WoW sis... ... you mean, that wasn't relaxing enuff for you??
ok, try this instead: Tool - Disposition
Thank you, brother, for sharing... God bless you
...Your visits to the forums becomes very rare, right? Hope the cause is good.....but why won't what worked on the mutazili work again on these guys, then?c0de said:
what an interesting opinion and one with which i have much sympathy - but one could say the same about the west, as well. i like the way you think.DIB said:
that's interesting, too, albeit it's what people who like edward said always say about bernard lewis. maybe i don't entirely understand the argument itself, but it doesn't seem that the "orientalist" point of view differs very much from your own! could you expand on this point? in fact, "orientalism" deserves its own thread in the "comparative religion" forum. i do know that readings of history and geopolitics can never be impartial - and it seems to me that most of the criticism of edward said (which is, i believe, substantial) focuses on the idea that he's trying to use what is effectively an accusation of racism to nullify the argument - but again, as i say, i'm not entirely sure i understand the argument, so perhaps we could go into it in more detail. anyone?
i think you and i seem to be agreeing, i just don't think we agree on why!
you seem to be assuming, however, that there is such a thing as "the west" that has "an agenda" and that would appear to me to be far too simplistic. the west is not monolithic, it is made up of thousands of squabbling factions who agree on very little; the perception i get from many middle easterners and people in the developing world is that there is a group of rich countries that get around the table and divide everything up between them. now, that i would concede was true in the age of empires, the treaty of tordesillas, the sykes-picot agreement and the "scramble for africa", but global capitalism itself has destroyed the possibility for such things to happen. it's not like they can even agree anything at the WTO, davos, or G7/8 summits.
now there i agree again, BUT with the important caveat that it will never come from saying "whatever is within is pure and good and whatever is outside is corrupt and evil", as is said by the saudis, the taliban, the iranians and indeed some factions in the US and within all religions including judaism. i reject this point of view.
the western intelligentsia is too scared of being thought racist nowadays to seriously engage in critical thinking.
i have an odd, but amazing little book by a chap called mohamed charfi who used to be a minister in tunisia i think it was, called "islam and liberty". in this book he basically argues what you're saying and gives some of the sources and structures which would allow islam to develop out of its current mediaeval sclerosis - basically, not a reformation or enlightenment, but a return to the values of islam interpreted in such a way as to allow liberty rather than tyranny as has happened in most of the places where they are kidding themselves that they have "islamic" government; in this, i believe the maghrebis have an amazing opportunity to show the way for the entire muslim world.
i get what you're saying, DIB, but we'd say the same thing about polish judaism, russian judaism, american judaism as opposed to moroccan, iraqi or indeed ethiopian judaism. i think, however, that saying that "judaism remains the same" is a little too idealistic rather than realistic.
it is not my concern what jesus may or may not have said, or is reported to have said in the christian scriptures. the book of matthew is an evangelist document aimed at getting jews to convert to christianity and has to be read as such. it is not a sacred text for jews, just as jesus is neither a prophet nor a sacred figure for jews and the quote you give is therefore irrelevant; our position remains that the jews are not "lost sheep", we still have the Torah of G!D and we read it, study it and keep its laws to this day. to suggest otherwise is in fact rather insulting, but i'm sure you didn't intend that, you are always very polite.
