Muslim Reformers

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Closing-of-the-Muslim-Mind/Robert-R-Reilly/9781610170024

"Islam's Intellectual Suicide—and the Threat to Us All
People are shocked and frightened by the behavior coming out the Islamic world—not only because it is violent, but also because it is seemingly inexplicable. While there are many answers to the question of “what went wrong” in the Muslim world, no one has decisively answered why it went wrong. Until now.

In this eye-opening new book, foreign policy expert Robert R. Reilly uncovers the root of our contemporary crisis: a pivotal struggle waged within the Muslim world nearly a millennium ago. In a heated battle over the role of reason, the side of irrationality won. The deformed theology that resulted, Reilly reveals, produced the spiritual pathology of Islamism, and a deeply dysfunctional culture."
 
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This is something of a right-wing evangelical polemic against Islam, though ... not sure it should be posted here without balance, as his ideas are no doubt popular, but far from universally endorsed

I don't mean to pick on you, @Nicholas Weeks, but you do post from one end of the spectrum.
 
Nicholas Weeks said:
People are shocked and frightened by the behavior coming out the Islamic world—not only because it is violent,
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I am a ?British Catholic. I believe Muslims have suffered the most injustice in recent years.

9/11 was wrong, I cannot condone any violence. I believe the response of the American coalition, was also unjust. Instead of bringing those responsible to account, 176,000 Afghans died, including 46,000 civilian. Over a 100,000 civilians died as a result of the Iraq war. Millions of refugees, have lost their homes. Where will the victims families get justice and compensation?
 
EricPH said:
I am a ?British Catholic. I believe Muslims have suffered the most injustice in recent years.

9/11 was wrong, I cannot condone any violence. I believe the response of the American coalition, was also unjust. Instead of bringing those responsible to account, 176,000 Afghans died, including 46,000 civilian. Over a 100,000 civilians died as a result of the Iraq war. Millions of refugees, have lost their homes. Where will the victims families get justice and compensation?
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So you are content with Islamism warring against non-Muslims everywhere? No need to reform Islam's tendency to rule & conquer all non-Muslims? Justice is best practiced by God or Karma.
 
EricPH said:
Justice is only justice, when you take away the labels of race, religion nationality, and treat everyone the same. Justify bombing Iraq.
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I am confident that karma and/or God will judge all parties aright, now or in another life.
 
Dr Bassam Tibi's Islamism and Islam is splendid and a must read for those seeking understanding:

"Islamists speak of a united umma but in reality dig deep trenches and arouse strong and dangerous passions. Living in Germany and having survived attempts on my life by jihadists (as well as by neo-Nazis), I know these passions from up close. Yet as a devout Muslim, raised in Damascus as the son of an ashraf family (Muslim nobility), I declare myself immune to the charge of Islamophobia. Hating Islam would require me to renounce myself, my family, my faith, and my heritage. I write not to denigrate these things but in part to defend them.
I write also as a political scientist who has devoted his career to the study of Islam.

We should replace the vague and misleading notions of “radical Islam” and “Islamic revivalism” with new concepts of political Islam, Islamism, and religious fundamentalism. To flesh out these concepts I analyze six major features of Islamism: its deeply reactionary vision of the world political order, its embrace of genocidal antisemitism, its predicament with democracy, its use of violence, the shari’atization of law, and its search for authenticity within an Islamic tradition it has largely reinvented out of an obsessive desire for purity.
Finally, in an effort that leans heavily on the ideas of Hannah Arendt, I argue that Islamism is best understood as a totalitarian ideology."
 
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Nicholas Weeks said:
Islamism is best understood as a totalitarian ideology."
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There is no such thing as "Islamism".

The main problems in the world today re Muslim terrorists, as I see it, stem from the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. It is political in nature, and a reaction to oppression and poverty.
 
muhammad_isa said:
There is no such thing as "Islamism".

The main problems in the world today re Muslim terrorists, as I see it, stem from the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. It is political in nature, and a reaction to oppression and poverty.
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Do tell?

(I'm fairly ignorant on the subject.)
 
JustGeorge said:
Do tell?
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The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries.
Ottoman_Empire - Wikipedia

The Empire's defeat and the occupation of part of its territory by the Allied Powers in the aftermath of World War I resulted in its partitioning and the loss of its southern territories, which were divided between the United Kingdom and France.

..such as Iraq and Palestine, for example.
 
'Amir Alzzalam said:
Is there a difference between Islamist and Muslim?
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Good point to start.
There are many shades of opinions on Islam and politics. Although the shades are somehow continuous, one could divide it into several approaches:

Salafists aim to re-establish a society that is in all points similar to the Arab society in the time of Muhammad (p.b.u.h) and his companions. This approach is somehow consistent in itself because all prophecy and decrees of the prophet would then make sense to be applied. As most people of today don't want that, they suppress different opinions and wage war to impose their vision.

Salafiya reform Islam, similar to reform Christianity rejects cultural, theological and juristic traditions that don't go back on Muhammad or his companions. They claim that jurisdiction has to observe what is evident according to the Quran and Sahih hadith before man-made rules, but it must only be applied to Muslim. They are aware of the restrictions set for martial law, which makes the difference between Salafiya and Salafism.

Conservative Islam follows the rules of the schools of fiqh to establish an opinion on Sharia law. Ulema accept stately authority and exerce jurisprudence in the frame of what is accredited to them.


Modern reform Islam rejects the idea that the ruling according to traditional fiqh is appropriate for modern society; rather, rulings should be understood in the sense, the relative direction of the correction it made with respect to the society. Modern reform Islam supports freedom of religion.

Most Muslim live between conservative and modern reform Islam. They don't want to have rulings imposed to the believer but follow those rules they think to be appropriate for their lives.

What are Islamists?

The word is a western creation for people, movements or governments that link their actions to Islam. Certainly, Those include common robbers like Boko Haram, the Salafist Al Qaida, IS and Taliban, militias which are fighting against Israel in first place, declaring their fight as Jihad, namely Hamas and Hisbullah, as well as very moderate groups like the Tunesian Ennahta. Some groups counted under this label declare themselves Islamic but are mainly defending their own power, like the Iranian Clergy and Government. A typical character of such regimes and movements is to concentrate on a minor thing like wearing the hijab but leave impunity their thug squads if they rape and murder. This is very similar to the western autocratic extreme right wing like Putin, Orban, Trump and many others, who are speaking for protection of the unborn life, declaring it a central Christian value, but don't show any respect to life once someone is born...

You see, Islamism is a collective name for a large variety of groups, often not closely related to the different political concepts that can be derived from the roots of Islam, it comprises Salafi and Conservative Muslim as well as Kaffirs who only pretend to be Muslim, and all shades in between.
 
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Thomas said:
This is something of a right-wing evangelical polemic against Islam, though ... not sure it should be posted here without balance, as his ideas are no doubt popular, but far from universally endorsed

I don't mean to pick on you, @Nicholas Weeks, but you do post from one end of the spectrum.
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How did you make it to read that book within one day. I feel a bit lost in this discussion if there's just a link to a book and I should know what is written in there...
 
Nicholas Weeks said:
So you are content with Islamism warring against non-Muslims everywhere? No need to reform Islam's tendency to rule & conquer all non-Muslims? Justice is best practiced by God or Karma.
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Justice is important. Not the absolute justice, but the absence of evident injustice.

But if justice is maintained through an equilibrium of atrocities, it has no value. The Muslim warriors don't contribute to a better world. But it's difficult to contribute to a better world.

The western governments should better speak out tacheles and show the Israeli government and people (the government has been elected) the mirror, that they see that they have to change.
 
talib-al-kalim said:
Justice is important. Not the absolute justice, but the absence of evident injustice.
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Why should one side be required to box according to the rules, and the other be allowed by alleged victim status to hit below the belt?
 
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A question of scale? Who decides, while the (elected) enemy governnent locates its aggressive bases deliberately under hospitals and other vulnerable civilian locations, purposely putting its own people in harm's way as a civilian cushion.

It's just an internet game of virtue signaling -- being in the zone. -- imo -- nothing said here will make a difference on the ground ...
 
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talib-al-kalim said:
The western governments should better speak out tacheles and show the Israeli government and people (the government has been elected) the mirror, that they see that they have to change.
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It's a horror. But don't lay the blame on Israel, imo
 
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