An Ideal Islamic World

Is it all right if I cut and paste a paragraph from the Secret of Divine Civilization?

"In the early ages of Islám the peoples of Europe acquired the sciences and arts of civilization from Islám as practiced by the inhabitants of Andalusia. A careful and thorough investigation of the historical record will establish the fact that the major part of the civilization of Europe is derived from Islám; for all the writings of Muslim scholars and divines and philosophers were gradually collected in Europe and were with the most painstaking care weighed and debated at academic gatherings and in the centers of learning, after which their valued contents would be put to use. Today, numerous copies of the works of Muslim scholars which are not to be found in Islamic countries, are available in the libraries of Europe. Furthermore, the laws and principles current in all European countries are derived to a considerable degree and indeed virtually in their entirety from the works on jurisprudence and the legal decision of Muslim theologians. Were it not for the fear of unduly lengthening the present text, We would cite these borrowings one by one." -'Abdu'l-Baha
 
Dawud said:
Is it all right if I cut and paste a paragraph from the Secret of Divine Civilization?

"In the early ages of Islám the peoples of Europe acquired the sciences and arts of civilization from Islám as practiced by the inhabitants of Andalusia. A careful and thorough investigation of the historical record will establish the fact that the major part of the civilization of Europe is derived from Islám; for all the writings of Muslim scholars and divines and philosophers were gradually collected in Europe and were with the most painstaking care weighed and debated at academic gatherings and in the centers of learning, after which their valued contents would be put to use. Today, numerous copies of the works of Muslim scholars which are not to be found in Islamic countries, are available in the libraries of Europe. Furthermore, the laws and principles current in all European countries are derived to a considerable degree and indeed virtually in their entirety from the works on jurisprudence and the legal decision of Muslim theologians. Were it not for the fear of unduly lengthening the present text, We would cite these borrowings one by one." -'Abdu'l-Baha
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Hi Dawud.
It’s very difficult to find a balanced view on this pivotal era. One tends to be celebratory of one side or the other, and to overstate the case. The above quote is certainly celebratory of the Muslim side.


While it’s true that during the period of its cultural ascendancy, especially from the 9th to the 11th centuries, Islam did much to rediscover and translate the classical texts, add important commentaries and produce some original works, and its true that Christian scholars, even the famous Aquinas, drew on Arab commentators, but it’s also true that the Christian world moved rather rapidly from Arab commentary to the original sources, that the Greek originals remained the seminal texts, and in the Christian world were to lead to far more innovation than they had in Islam.


I think we should keep in mind as well, the unique place of Andalusia. At its height it was not necessarily typical of Islam as a whole, which tended already during that period to be less open and to more resemble the backward looking Islam we’ve long grown accustomed to in countries like Saudi Arabia. I think Andalusia was a kind of paradise lost in the context of the times, but it may have had as much to do with geography and history of place as with Islam.


All this is offered simply in balance. But for me rather than celebrate either the past glories of Islam or the triumphs of Christianity, it makes more sense to celebrate one of those occasions in history where Muslims, Jews and Christians managed to combine for common benefit.


Shanti.
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
Let's say that pragmatism is no obstacle. Imagine an ideal pan national Islamic unity... What does it look like? What does Islam look like in a modern golden age? What would you like it to be?

Chris
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Hi Senor Cat.

Just to add one small point, on the subject of ideal Islam, which always gravitates toward evocation of the "golden age": what Westerners value about that great Muslim era and what Muslims value are not necessarily the same; in fact, they're often at variance. We often are interested in the heyday of Muslim philosophy; Muslims often enough in the hope of returning to some ideal state of the law.

Shanti.
 
Devadatta said:
Hey, Cat!

I noticed Brian strayed somewhat from your “no pragmatism” rule by setting the question in the golden age of Islam (9th to 11th centuries), and pointing out that in that historical context Islam does relatively well. Of course, by implication to remove this particular stage of Islam to another context considerably changes the picture. It could be said that the attempt to do so is a recurring tragedy in Muslim history.

But to stick to Islam in the ideal sense, as construct, as basic doctrine, I hope it doesn’t sound too pragmatic to say that it turns on one’s sensibility. The idea of millions around the world bowing at the same instant toward the same geographical point seems to some an inspiring vision of unity, of a world of men transformed into one of white-robed angels. My sensibility is opposite and similar to what Tao has expressed. To me this is a vision of hideous uniformity that has sub-zero appeal, to put it mildly. Frankly, it gives me the creeps. That’s my limitation, and no doubt culturally conditioned one, at least in part.

But my sensibility in this is also conditioned by my basically pantheist/monist/non-dual mindset. Call it that familiar sense of “oneness”. Now for me the phenomenal correlate for this noumenal oneness is pluralism. The universe is one inconceivable process, forming and reforming as creative pulse, looking at itself, playing an eternal game of hide and seek, and overall doing a helluva job/Job, thank you very much.

Now it seems to me that Islam’s monotheist God is also a species of “oneness”; after all, he alone and his will are what is ultimately real; but the phenomenal correlate of this noumenal oneness is ideological conformity. God is not at play, but very hard at work policing and surveilling his creations, putting his inscrutable plan into play, treading the heavy path of his Will.

So my “impersonal”, pantheist view of sacred reality, while indulgent of angels, is filled with persons, while the Muslim “personal”, monotheist view of sacred reality would empty the world of people in favor of angels – which at the least seems a dull prospect.

So the gap here would seem unbridgeable. Luckily ideology breaks down constantly in the face of actuality, and authoritarian structures never really work the way they’re supposed to.

Shanti.
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Deva, Deva, Deva. You’re back to your old bad behavior. Don’t you think this a rather biased way of putting things?


Be cool.
 
Vimalakirti said:
Deva, Deva, Deva. You’re back to your old bad behavior. Don’t you think this a rather biased way of putting things?


Be cool.
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Well, hello the greatest Buddhist layperson of all time! It's compassionate of you to intervene.

And I'm sure you're right. Let me try to amend this a little.

While I’m within my rights to honestly express how I feel, I shouldn’t suggest, as I seem to be doing here that the Muslim version of the monotheistic God with its emphasis on authority and obedience is somehow illegitimate in itself. In fact, it can be defended in two ways.

First of all, there is a legitimate need for structure and authority, just as there is a legitimate need for freedom and the challenge to authority, and so there is good reason why Islam and other traditions put so much emphasis on it. Secondly, and most importantly, many people feel in their gut that this is indeed the shape the divine takes. To deny that gut feeling for the God of authority would be pointless; it would only give them indigestion, just as for me to deny my gut feeling for the anti-authoritarian “god” of pantheism would give me indigestion.

So how do we negotiate these competing gut feelings?

Well, I tend to see this issue in terms of pluralism, but obviously that doesn’t work for Muslims, at least if they’re orthoprax, so offering the pluralist option is a non-starter and would likely be interpreted as disingenuous.

Instead, I think it’s just a matter of living with a certain level of dissonance, the strange presence of the other.

But that just sounds like tired old tolerance, doesn’t it, and again tolerance is a warm and fuzzy feeling only for those besotted pluralists, for Muslims it’s basically negative, only an unfortunate necessity; at best, tolerance is to be only tolerated. So perhaps for Muslims – and for Christians who also subscribe to the “one way” of their theology – patience might be the better word, until God in the end proves them right.

Tolerance, patience, fill-in-the-blank – as John Lennon said, whatever gets you though the night.

AUM BHOOR BHUWAH SWAHA,
TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM
BHARGO DEVASAYA DHEEMAHI
DHIYO YO NAHA PRACHODAYAT
 
I'm trying to imagine a modern world where Islamic culture and values evolved as the predominate socio-political milieu instead of "western" values and mores. Maybe a United States of Arabia is the super power. How do geopolitics, global commerce, arts and entertainment, politics, civics and etc. work in such a world? What does all of that look like from, say, a novelists point of view from within the literary culture of that world?

This is an invitation to speculate, dream, and just have fun imagining such a thing. If anyone wants to...or not.

Chris
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
I'm trying to imagine a modern world where Islamic culture and values evolved as the predominate socio-political milieu instead of "western" values and mores. Maybe a United States of Arabia is the super power. How do geopolitics, global commerce, arts and entertainment, politics, civics and etc. work in such a world? What does all of that look like from, say, a novelists point of view from within the literary culture of that world?

This is an invitation to speculate, dream, and just have fun imagining such a thing. If anyone wants to...or not.

Chris
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Now that’s a totally different question. Now you’re asking: what kind of Islam would have won its competition with the West?
Well, in my view, it would have been an Islam:
- that did not cut off the spirit of inquiry and banish its best minds
- that did not evolve a fetishistic cult of personality around Muhammad, generating thousands of spurious “traditions” regulating every detail of life
- that did not take on the regressive tribal customs of the lands it conquered, especially with regard to the status of women
- that did not adopt the habits and despotism of the old Mesopotamian empires, strangling the development of a more modern, democratic rule
- that did not repeatedly revert, atavistically, to the moral world of 7th century Arabia
- but that did take the Koran and the example of Muhammad as a starting, not an ending point
- that did see Greek learning as a starting not an ending point
- that did use its simplified theology to develop a truly universal not a totalitarian world view
- that did use the comparatively freer view of women in the Koran as the beginning to yet greater freedom, instead of as means of freezing further progress, and then finally rolling all progress back
etc.
One could go on, I suppose, but I guess you get the point. The kind of Islam that would have succeeded would have been nothing like any Islam we have now. It would have been more akin to the West than anything any current Muslim would recognize.

On the other hand, to the extent it remained “Muslim” it would have avoided the parallel shortcomings and absurdities of our Christian tradition, so in that sense it would be a civilization we wouldn’t recognize either.

This is hardly a thunderbolt, but every civilization is a heap of error and absurdities as well as achievements. Too bad we couldn’t build one online, picking our preferred features, the way we do now with computer systems or cars. But such a calm and orderly world would no doubt bore us to tears.

(Of course I realize this isn't the imaginative vision you were asking for; that would take some reflection. Call this preliminary spadework for someone woh really would like to imagine this dreadful possibility!)

Shanti.
 
Hello/peace,

Well, I would like/imagine it to be time or moment in human history where Muslims coexist with other people, as the Holy Qur'an teaches us we should. In one ayat, it says that God Almighty created humans so diverse (even in religions) to see who would behave the best on this Earth. The coexistance I imagine/would love to see, is the kind where people (everyone) is secure to believe what they wish to believe, so long as they do not attack each other because of it, or so that they do not harm others through their behaviors.

For instance, if a person wants to drink alcohol. NO problem, but let him/her keep in mind public safety in general as well as his/her own. If a woman wants to wear a bikini on the beach, fine, but those people who find it offensive, they could invent another kind of beach where they would get more comfortable. If a woman is raped, a Muslim, then let the Muslim community bring the perpetrator to the justice, and not punish the poor woman.
If a people want their own laws in their community, then let them practice it so long as it is not imposed on others who do not wish to abide by it, but let the law be within the common laws that generally rule the land if the populations are diverse. For instance, Sharia law cannot be a law imposed on people who do not practice Islaam, because it then becomes opression (this idea actually comes from a book called "Islamic Declaration," by the late Bosnian President Izetbegovic; he was jailed because of the book for many years in the communist Yugoslavia).

I guess what I am trying to say is that it would be a world of peaceful compromises :)
 
A time when we re-open the gates and begin to question, to develop new ideas, share knowledge and experience. A community that cares for the sick and elderly. A global state where no one man is better than another, he may be richer or more educated but does not see himself as better. Skin colour is simply not an issue. Men and women live in harmony, each following thier natural role ... if that means a woman is a doctor or scholar then great stuff (was not the wife of the Prophet a great scholar and even led a battle). A time when we stop arguing about the insignificant and start living Islam, peace between mankind. Every man woman and child clothed, fed and sheltered.

Of course it could never happen, human nature means that there will always be greed, lust for power and finger pointing. I also like that we are different, it makes for more interesting discussion. :D
 
Namaste MW,

So good to see you around.

I can't help but think how much the perception of Islam and Muslims has changed in the US in the past 30-40 years.

When the likes of Cat Stevens, Muhamed Ali, Lou Alcinder converted it was a conversion based on a peaceful religion, one which cared for the individual and worshipped G!d.

The discussions were about unity, tolerance, peace, antiwar, personal enlightenment.

Sure many saw it as folks trying to avoid the draft, or avoid going to Vietnam, but the impetus was peace.

We learned in school about the art, science and math where that portion of the world was excelling where the rest of the world was in the dark ages.

And now, (this is my perception of the general perception) folks over here look at the Islam nations as stuck in the 1400's in regards to attitudes towards women, slavery, technology and war.

Have I grown old and cynical?
 
The Sufis would then take over and tell pepople to stop being so religious.
 
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