Persian Nationalist Forgery

[RevolutionThroughReason]

[MENTION=1034]Badlun[/MENTION]

I would say they have less of an agenda because they were merely stating a story rather than had a specific Political Aim. The Orientalists had an EXPLICIT aim regarding how to retrain their colonial subjects. The Muslim historians didn't have that because for example Al-Tabari just stated narrations of what he acquired he did not write specifically to flatter one group or defame another. William Muir had a defacto intention for villifying Islam, he wanted to subdue potential rebellion against the British empire.

Nope Ibn Haytham is Arab, Al Kindi is from the Al-KInda tribe, Al Geber is hard to discern but it seems he is from Al-Azd tribe. So either you did not actually check or you're speaking blindly.

Also I said your original argument was how Muslims in general benefitted. Muslims are not from specific nationality or ethnic group only, you mentioned Arabs, Persians and Pashtuns. So Both can be included. You cannot just change your criterion half-way in a debate. That is a Logical Fallacy called "Changing Goal Posts".

however I made 3 notable arabic examples. I don't have to give you every name, I gave you 3 NOTABLE ones, it doesn't mean there are not others. There's plenty of others but I gave you the sample. Also distillation and development of compounds through using experimental apparatus is not looking for gold, That's chemistry. Either you don't know what chemistry is or you're just so distressed by your erroneous statements that you're looking for a diversion. I mean maybe they had a certain goal, but in that goal they made modern Chemistry. That's a fact you cannot deny.

Also if you say these Persian Muslims worked for Arab MUslims, that means it was not an Arab Movement. Once you admit to something that isn't Arab being apart of it, it fails to be an Arab movement. Also These Persians commanded over Arab Muslims too, so this claim becomes falsified. The only constant here is they were all Muslims so these Persian Muslims worked for Muslims, some of them were Arab some were not. So your argument is proven false once again.

I agree we should not be content with the past; but look to the past as example of where we went wrong. So that's why Islam needs to be revived as the central social organizing and structuralizing aspect to revive our past prosperity and glory as a cultural, social and global force.

IN short your argument is proven wrong ....but I know you will calm down for a few days and then later when everything settles down you'll just begin repeating it and pretend I didn't defeat your claim just as you always do. lol

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Let us discuss it objectively forgetting for a while that we are Muslims.

What Islam/Islamism has given to Pashtuns? If Pashtuns were not Muslims then what they would have missed? If there was no Islam or Islamism would there be still Taliban, Al Qaeda and the religious bigot-ism amongst Pashtuns?

Islam had given Arabs their global rule. But Persians and Pashtuns have got nothing substantially from Islam. Islam has otherwise increased their problems. Today Pashtuns are facing Taliban and its consequences while Iranians are ruled by Mullahs.

Nationalism without Islamism can carry Pashtuns to the heights of development where other secular nations have reached today.

I do recognize the spiritual and moral or religious role of Islam at individual or family's levels.

You and another poster here are conflating a few concepts.

Its a very ahistorical, illogical, and immature way to assess systems and progress.

Your view has to widen, to become more panoramic in a historical sense, and then to gain a bit of depth in wisdom.

The addled and trite nationalist refrain of the same old swan song can be distilled into this simple world view (propaganda? mistruth?)

"Hey everyone, look at who has more wealth and nicer buildings - ergo whatever system is in place with a center that generates such wealth must have led to said wealth. Or more simply, the kid with the nicest clothes on must be the best, brightest, smartest, more honorable, etc. "

Its a very childish set of associations.

It would be akin to assigning all nationalism across the world the role of secular militancy. Yet we could agree that would be an uneducated way to observe these movements.

Case in point, we can refer to the recent nationalist movements in the news: Russian and Ukranian nationalism. We see that Putin has coupled Russian Orthodox Christianity into the new brand of Russian nationalism, and long ago Bandera was not irreligious in any real sense. So simple associations between words (secular and nationalist) is nonsense at best.

The other issue is that Islam never in and of itself has a sticker tag with return receipt that gaurantees that if the whole nation observes it, that said nation will rise above the laws of physics or the impact of other factors around said nation. Quiet the contrary, Islamic thought processes make it clear that "winning" and "losing" and "material gain" are solely in the hands of God and he doles it out to whomever and takes it away from whomever he decides to. Nations and individuals are told to adhere to Quranic Law and order to achieve justice by a divine standard - not to accumulate gold. It was the very same Prophet who said to his people something to the effect of "work for the affairs of this world as if you were to live forever, and for the affairs of the hereafter as if you were to expire tomorrow."

The other issue stems from confounders, and which system might be better than another.

Take an old example: Alexander versus the Persians.

Alexander "beat" the Persians and accumulated the world. To attribute Persia and other people's losses to Alexander's "superior" way of life, his assignment as the Son of Jupiter, or his satrapy system is illogical. There could have been a host of reasons for Alexander's ascendency: 1) New technology in the form of the phalanx maneuver he happened to inherit from his father 2) Incorporation of peoples into the Persian Army that were not as loyal to the concept of a greater Persia 3) Chance occurrences, etc.

In this same vein, its rather negligent to claim with certainty that any system (pharoahism, capitalism, secularism, puritanism, etc) will succeed in one set of affairs or a particular place if it succeeds in another. The US has its own unique history (e.g. Civil War Period), modification, and chance events (WWII collapse of various imperial powers and the vacuum that resulted) of which we see the cumulative sum.

To show you how foolish these sorts of childish requests are, and how easy they are to answer, we take your question of what the mullahocracy in Iran has done for her people:

On NPR today, there was a detailed discussion regarding Kidney Transplantation. This older article details these advances Iran has made to allow for access to organ transplants:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/01/iran_leads_in_innovation_on_or.html

The program today referred to the text written by the American BioEthicist Dr. Sigrid Frye-Revere. Here is an interview with her regarding her assessments of how the organ shortage in the US is a medical quandry that has been solved in Iran:

http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/kidney-sellers-iran

The basis for this system was in the Iran-Iraq war. The large scale deaths of many Iranians, on a religious phenomena level, for their nation resulted in the foundation for this system.

So there is a single example of an advance on an existing system. Does this mean that mullahcracy is automatically going to whiz-bang! produce the best organ transplant programs in the world if say Germany adopts this? No.. there are the aforementioned confounders.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

An untenable subterfuge it is but actually this age old polemic (and throat slitting) over the best brand of myth is pointless in the first place; so the Arabs produced a monotheistic variety of religion and we didn't, that's wonderful, good for them. The irony is that some of these platitude of posts in this very thread (most notably by RevolutionThroughReason) are the Muslim equivalent of your typical nationalist exaggerations and feel good delusions. Heres another example of this variety of the no true scotsman to add to your Islamic Golden Age caricature: the "communism has never been tried" idiocy: Bolshevik/Stalinist Russia was not "true" communism, and neither was Maoist China nor Khmer Rouge Cambodia. A "true", perfect and infallible brand of communism is just waiting to be "correctly" implemented that will usher in the original Marxist utopia. So too the theocratic nature of todays Saudi Arabia or Iran (each with their own sectarian brand)) has nothing to do with Islam but "true" Islam is waiting to be followed "properly" and implemented "correctly" that will no doubt usher in an age akin to this seemingly legendary "Golden Age"! The practice and persistence of social, economic and political policies and patterns formulated and rooted in the 7-10th century etc has absolutely nothing to do with Islam yet that modest (intellectual/scientific) achievement of the populations of the Islamic world in the middle ages had no doubt its first and final cause inextricably rooted in Islam. Why? Because.

RevolutionThroughReason, the scientific elite of today overwhelmingly do not subscribe to any organized religion, why don't you follow through your reasoning in this case (not that I am arguing this, just pointing out your special pleading). Whatever the Islamic world achieved in the past, it is now nevertheless undeniably clear that the west, in the past 400 years or so, has produced something far superior to anything that has come before. When a theocratic Islamic world produces something with the worth of virtually the entirety of modern Science and its derivatives then you may insinuate this fallacious argument that religion has any causal role in progress but until then this will remain nothing more than a meaningless platitude, not even a fallacious argument. And this debate over secularism is a red herring, first deal with the fact that your Islamic utopia as you seem to imagine it -never existed-, manifests "properly" indeed, socially and economically (take away the oil) if not politically, in the likes of Saudi Arabia / Iran and that Islamic theocracies clearly are not conducive to modern technological society. What alternative would work best and how that would be feasibly achieved is another issue entirely (although the supposed western for the west secularism is working quite well in the successful parts of the orient, i.e. Japan, South Korea and Singapore).
[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION]

A series of errors here:
Refer to the prior discussion regarding confounding. As history marches forward, rising civilizations will build on prior foundations and likely outdo their predecessors. For instance, modern China is likely to build a technologically superior civilization versus imperial China. The temporal nature of success and failure of a people is a weak argument at best.

As I stated before, this a simplified reading of Islam, or an incorrect reading to say that Islamic orthodox thought says: Buy into Islam - you get a gold house and an ipad. To the contrary Islamic theology discusses rises and falls, ebbs and flows, gains and setbacks that will inherently occur to its adherents.

You also do your sense of the modern world and its scale of geographic autonomy a huge disservice with sweeping generalizations ala who is succeeding and why and who is failing and why. Its a disingenuous argument where important confounding factors (e.g. Trade deals versus embargoes, level of prior infrastructure, colonial contribution, importance level to dueling civilizations e.g. Ukraine being the pivot according to Brzenzski of the US yet being so very important to Putin) are swept aside.

For instance, was Iraq, within the Islamic domain under Saddam when it had the middle east's leading medical systems in the 1980s when his power was rising? Its a nice case study because what we see is that the very same Saddam was on the takhth when Iraq became an international pariah years later. The point is that multiple factors played a role in Iraq's rise and its fall under the very same leader/dictator.

In one way it is very true that the Islamist is in error if he promises unlimited wealth access and unlimited victory coupled to eternally sustained preeminence. The divine scripture never promises this in perpetuity - so such a claim has no basis. The comparison to communism is a trite mistake often made in nationalist circles, i.e. the idea that systems that seek to perfect man are ill equipped to deal with ground level realities and are doomed to suffer from failed expectations. Marx very well may have promised the proletariot world wide brotherhood/revolution-evolution that would occur once brothers in class united. As stated previously, Islamic thought makes no such promise. It does make promises regarding just behavior. We know from the concept of altruism that just behavior is no promise of worldly gain.

On the other hand, it is very fair to claim that Islam by the letter of its law has not been observed since the Rashidun period. The 20 years under the Prophetic guidance would be by definition Islamic governance, none need even argue this point. In this vein, its very correct for say, Iraqis, to point out that though their land is Muslim by its population statistics, it is not Muslim in the sense of its governing laws. It would be equally correct for those that say the Taliban were not Islamic governance par excellence - a particular case in point was the death of Najib without any jury trial. This is no different a discussion than what Ron Paul has when noting indiscretions regarding the American constitution and its observation or interpretation.

To extend the argument, as we see in the case of Cuba, Russia, and Iran - the success of these nations cannot simply be chalked up to their various systems. Confounding and particulars play important role.

1) Cuba suffers under a massive embargo and is sustained by interaction with Latin America, but who is to say what its potential would be and have been if this were not a factor. Some might say that this is where moralism comes into play. Would it be fair to call a cuban stupid and archaic if he suffered under that stooge Batista and decided all the money in the world was not worth that?

2) Russia: A single strong leader in the right place at the right time turned around the setbacks of a weak and corrupt leader (Yeltsin) and appears to have enough political savvy to have understood when to rise against oligarchs in an exact moment. Now we will have to observe how the confounding and outside interference of the Victoria Nulands of the world plays into that success being continued or not... While one may lay the blame at the feet of Russian Nationalism made manifest, this is blatantly unfair and not impartial.

3) Iran: Facing some of the same issues.

I will add Egypt as a fourth example where the notion of Islamic governance was subverted by outside power thereby showing that Egypts successes and setbacks cannot be attributed to "Islamic governance."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/2013710113522489801.html

Regarding the adoption of seculo-Western values by South Korea/Japan, there again you take a complex historical development and do what most nationalists do - propagandize and simplify it.

In the case of Japan, Japan went from being an imperial and technological power to a redesigned colonialized successor state without even the ability to decide whether Okinawa can remove a foreign country's military base or not. One might say that a 1930s Japanese might have viewed the post WWII era Japan as a cultural shell of its former self and that what it lost in terms of its autonomy and culture was priceless. In the case of Korea, we might say that Koreans are rendered in a permanent state of military readiness on a piece of land that is divided where half of the former Korean nation is confined to a flailing sanctioned dictatorship (i.e. the right hand looks great but the left hand is gangrenous because of a bacterial infection).

[Herat]

BarakzaiAbdali, I concede that I have been overly simplistic here and in retrospect unnecessarily confrontational -for which I apologize- alas, this is what happens when you argue with ideologues for so long, you become more tendentious than you would like yourself. I do not intent offense but you have an unusually sophisticated worldview for a Muslim who seems to think (correct me if I am wrong) Islam, in its primordial/literal form, has comprehensive and overriding utility beyond general and fluid metaphysical/ethical principles. I have been much more used to arguing with what I call "scriptural Muslims": individuals to whom the first and last answer to all questions of life, whether that of the individual or the state (whether social, economic or political), begins and ends in literal interpretations of Islam. With this group, there is no attempt to understand history, economics, science or politics (which are often dismissed as the "ideas of the kuffar" as they call it) except through the lens of dogma/doctrine, and the important issue is not what we may learn from these things but whether it is consistent with a predetermined set of categorical rules(mostly formulated by Islamic theologians in the 7-11th century). To them, all the ills that plague the Muslim world must automatically be ascribed to a departure from the correct following of scripture (tough why this is so is never explained in any rational manner but seems to be an expression of faith which leads me to believe it is little more than a self deceptive platitude). Now this might seem fine to an orthodox Muslim but as someone who would like to see the Middle East and Central/Southern Asia flourish but who does not share this black and white worldview of these type of Muslims, this is very frustrating and I ended up giving up playing the game with them on their terms -on the terms of scripture/religion.

Of course you are right that history and the rise/fall of civilizations isn't so simple but would not, by this very same view, this platitude about the fall of the Muslim world being caused by a departure from "correct" following of Islam fall under that same mistake of oversimplification? Now BarakzaiAbdali sir, let me ask you a question so that I may determine whether you are guilty of wanting to have and eat your cake at the same time: on the one hand, you urge me to take a more nuanced view of the world and yet I am not sure whether you approve of this simplistic dogmatic approach to the world that many committed orthodox Muslims have. What would your advice be to these "scriptural Muslims"?

I also acknowledge the inherent problem with trying to institute western models in the Muslim world where we have no parallel historical developments that are conducive to these models; the west as it is today is indeed the culmination of centuries of social evolution and I have no delusions whatsoever about the possibility of sending this in a package to the Islamic world or even worse, at the barrel of the gun (through war). In fact, I also do not think the social development in the past century or so throughout much of the west has been desirable: the unrestricted hedonism and individualism and the erosion of the institution of family and marriage, for example, that have recently developed (and continue to do so) are tragedies that I would not want for the Muslim world (East Asia for this reason has done a better job in modern times). I have no delusions about the Muslim world turning into Scandinavia tomorrow, but I do very much support and hope for a gradual, organic development away from Islam (in the same way the west grew out of medieval Christianity) and I spend my time arguing against Islam for this very reason (it can only be people from the Muslim world itself that can help bring about the necessary change in zeitgeist, although I don't see myself as very talented/effective, I try to do my part). I apologize again if in my tendentious debate with RevolutionThroughReason, I may have appeared to be arguing that no good whatsoever comes from the Muslim world but in my view, Islam is at least as harmful (e.g. these "scriptural Muslims" who have much clout in the Muslim world) as it is good (I do admit, for example, that the religion does a remarkable job in keeping together the institution of the family etc).

[Badlun]

I second Herat in his approach that the role of religion(Islam) should be recognized at the levels individual(morality) and family(not beyond that).

For other spheres like politics, economy, culture , education, science etc we may seek guidance from other sources like democracy, capitalism, socialism, cultural relativity, objectivity, rationality etc not revelation which serves only ethics and spirituality and preparation for Hereafter not the mundane affairs.

It will take time as Herat said, but on theoretical or discussion level at least we must define the parameters that what serves what. Arabs and some Christians used religion for politics but the results were disastrous. At that time the zeal of religion gave an impetus to Arabs to conquer the world but today we can see that those were barbarities not humanity.

We should learn from the mistakes of the past and today our foundation of the modern Muslim state should be on separation of the institutions of Mullah and the President. Today's Egypt can be an example where a Mullah president could not deliver and was thrown away. Iran and Afghanistan have problems because of mixing religious sentiment with politics.

I some times think how th claimers of Reason base their approach on Revelation. How people of the stature of Dr. Abdali wants to push us into the lap of a Mullah and not a modern educated politician or economist.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

What's missing here is if an as one puts it "Mullah President" was "thrown away" not by the people he ruled over but by external forces who have a vested interest in ousting such a person. What this demonstrates a distinction of failing to deliver but not being permitted to deliver.

The case for the separation of Islam from all social/cultural and worldly affairs has still not been established. It is merely reafffirming the premise of your hypothesis which is more or less faulty on grounds of circular reasoning.

As for Herat, one did not simply "oversimplify" but outrightly misrepresented the contrary argument by both Straw Men Fallacies and Red Herrings.

While I definitely accept the success and failure of a society is complex and has many lattice points which tip in a certain balance to arouse a certain outcome. I also believe a GENERAL Hypothesis can be established and that it can be shown that downfalls in society are Linearly DEPENDENT and not mutually exclusive. With that said it is NOT an over simplification to stress that the straying from the Islamic Model was both the central cause of success and prosperity of Muslims and its lacking the central cause of its downfall. Everything from the Usurping by European Colonialists What is an oversimplification and an errant strawman is claiming Correct/Accurate implementation of Islam equates to Utopia or that a Utopian order is what Islam sets to establish.

Islam must rule on all affairs from politics, to culture, to ethics, to economics to education. It would make no sense that Religious ideas which deal with how Manage Human Decisions Would somehow NOT be involved in Economics , Politics, Ethics ....and other facet which are Applications of Managing Human Decisions. Those who make such claims that Islam is simply for spirituality are either Completely delusional, in denial or deliberately deceitful. Islam is a COMPETING Socio-Political Order, not merely an aspect of human culture. It IS the Culture. Spirituality is ONE aspect of Islam. Not the other way around.

Repeating Fabricated European Orientalist claims such as Arabs using Islam for world conquest. Is merely an Anachronism and Fraudulent Narrative. The Only devastating consequence of Islam was that it became a powerful world force to reckon with and managed to create the framework for Prosperity and Providence and made a few Weak minded Pashtun, Persian,Arab, Turkish Nationalists have inferiority complexes due to the indoctrination of European Colonialists who set up their cultural conditioning institutions in their locales.

We need not some grassroots culturally organic Version of Secularism to take suit. This is only a subliminal cry of Angst by Nationalists who suffer from an inferiority complex, to revive imaginary mythologized glory. For example the garbage mythology that exists amongst Pashtun Secularist intellectuals of 5000 year old Pashtun history which has BARELY ANY evidence in support of it. Now whether that is the model that people here advocate is something else but regardless Islam is an active model, activity of it already exists it just needs to be better organized. There is plenty of evidence which crystallizes and explains it in fine details

Individuals who prop up slogans of Nationalism and Secularism are merely seditionists whose ideas only benefit the European/POst Colonial Model of the world. They do not want to benefit Muslims but rather their former colonial masters that these Nationalists take support from. No matter how much they try to "pre-emptively" make themselves seem otherwise. It's just like when U.S. send CENTCOM Agents who act as if they're native Pashtuns (and perhaps they are) but that false appearance of "indigenious" character is simply a trojan horse.

[Herat]

In retrospect, I do regret posting in this thread, the original post on Persian Nationalism caught my eye but this was merely a precursory point in BarakzaiAbdalis original point. I have no business nor interest in talking about Islam/religion to Pashtuns, Ive joined this forum primarily to talk about the political situation in Afghanistan, our common point of interest. As an outsider, I certainly have no right to tell you anything about such a sensitive/personal issue as religion, unfortunately I failed to hold back after seeing RevolutionThroughReasons very typical Islamic pontifications and I regret it, apologies once again to the Pashtuns here if Ive caused any offense. I will not post in religious threads in the future.

[Admin Khan]

In retrospect, I do regret posting in this thread, the original post on Persian Nationalism caught my eye but this was merely a precursory point in BarakzaiAbdalis original point. I have no business nor interest in talking about Islam/religion to Pashtuns, Ive joined this forum primarily to talk about the political situation in Afghanistan, our common point of interest. As an outsider, I certainly have no right to tell you anything about such a sensitive/personal issue as religion, unfortunately I failed to hold back after seeing RevolutionThroughReasons very typical Islamic pontifications and I regret it, apologies once again to the Pashtuns here if Ive caused any offense. I will not post in religious threads in the future.

No need to get emotional. You provided your opinion, and received a decent rebuttal. Overall, I enjoyed the discourse. So if anything, it was a fun and decent read. While you're at it, perhaps you can introduce yourself in our new members section?

Best,

[Herat]

No need to get emotional. You provided your opinion, and received a decent rebuttal. Overall, I enjoyed the discourse. So if anything, it was a fun and decent read. While you're at it, perhaps you can introduce yourself in our new members section?

Best,

Hey I didn't get emotional Admin Khan (well ok perhaps with RevolutionThroughReason), just not trying to misuse your hospitality thats all and ok, will do.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

I some times think how th claimers of Reason base their approach on Revelation. How people of the stature of Dr. Abdali wants to push us into the lap of a Mullah and not a modern educated politician or economist.

It''s pretty simple really. The economist or politician proposes their ideas of what they think is good. The Islamic Scholars says whether what those people claim would be permissible or forbidden in the framework of Islam ...and then we work from there.

I'm surprised you're so easily baffled by questions with such obvious answers.

[Badlun]

It''s pretty simple really. The economist or politician proposes their ideas of what they think is good. The Islamic Scholars says whether what those people claim would be permissible or forbidden in the framework of Islam ...and then we work from there.

I'm surprised you're so easily baffled by questions with such obvious answers.

How an Islamic scholar or Mullah can be expert at the same time on every thing from politics, culture, education, science, technology, philosophy to economics. He is not a PhD in any of these subjects then how can one generalist decide the fate of so many specialized areas? And where on the surface of the earth took place in this manner or taking place now? Any model?

Do you think Umayyads and Abbasids were Islamic scholars? They had Qadis who would decide cases in courts but they themselves were not scholars or Mullahs. You can have a consultant or advisor or a judge on religious affairs but a Mullah himslef cannot become the ruler or the one who calls shots.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

Easy, same way politicians and leaders have always done legisation. They have a hearing and the experts explain everything and then after hearing it the Mullah decides if it is permissible or forbidden. Most politicians don't have PhD's and they do the same thing for legislation. Except in Islam our standard for judging is by Islam. If there is no place on Earth that has it, THEN we establish a Political System where this is the process.

These questions have been answered for centuries, actually. read the book Al Ahkam Al-Sultaniyyah. If people are Muslims, this is the process they have to be ruled under, no exceptions.

[torkham]

I think human lineage has bifurcated many times that now each branch is distinct (within confines of language and cultural practices) making us sufficiently isolated to assert the pashtun identity without resorting to the labels such as "iranic people/iranic language".

No doubt various anthropologists and linguists identify similarities, such as the structure of language to label swedish and hindi as indo-european/indo-germanish languages, (incidently based on SVO order and a handful of numbers and perhaps a few hundred words with similar roots), however ............ what swedish and hindi languages encompass now are languages so far apart.

Turkmen and turkish, tajik and farsi, urdu and hindi may have better chance under turckic, persic and indic labels than farsi and pashto.

I feel many academics such as the ones exposed by BA are indeed unwittingly or otherwise propagating (and misleading) their not wholly correct assumptions about arabs and persians, assumptions they have taken for facts.

Look at the singular Michael Sheuyer vs CIA machine, the singular and critical Noam Chomsky vs western governments esp uncle sam, the singular Galloway vs Israel, US and UK, the late Tony Benn vs UK govt, these are few beacons of views from the other side that is selectively ignored by Murdoch-Fox media machine, in a world that is a cacophony of so called truths and facts.

So, they try to steal, lie, manipulate us, but the saddest part is when a minority starts buying their crap.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

BarakzaiAbdali, I concede that I have been overly simplistic here and in retrospect unnecessarily confrontational -for which I apologize- alas, this is what happens when you argue with ideologues for so long, you become more tendentious than you would like yourself.

No problem.

I do not intent offense but you have an unusually sophisticated worldview for a Muslim who seems to think (correct me if I am wrong) Islam, in its primordial/literal form, has comprehensive and overriding utility beyond general and fluid metaphysical/ethical principles.

We can talk more, but I think life and its progression, traveling and meeting people - deciding whether one understands gradual evolution versus enforced revolution in the light of history - such factors redefine my worldview and will redefine yours with the passage of time.

I have been much more used to arguing with what I call "scriptural Muslims": individuals to whom the first and last answer to all questions of life, whether that of the individual or the state (whether social, economic or political), begins and ends in literal interpretations of Islam.

Consider each of these people on a personal level - are they reactionary without any instigation or are they forged by their times? Then recall where they agree or disagree with their compatriots abroad or whether each of these groups has nuanced views. Look at their opinions in a detached way and determine what made them who they are.

With this group, there is no attempt to understand history, economics, science or politics (which are often dismissed as the "ideas of the kuffar" as they call it) except through the lens of dogma/doctrine, and the important issue is not what we may learn from these things but whether it is consistent with a predetermined set of categorical rules(mostly formulated by Islamic theologians in the 7-11th century).

Rather, I find the opposite - in my experience there are some informed literalists, but then there are those that amongst both Christians and Muslims, have a set of social ideologies and goals and they use religion as a garb in which to selectively push forward their own personal ideologies.

As examples - there are reactionary republicans in the states... if you talk to them about abortion they resort to biblical ideologies. When however stem cell therapies or preemptive war is discussed these same people throw away the "turn the other check" precept and rationalize away this conflict of "all life is sacred" and taking life (abortion) to save life is out of the question, but preemptive war (taking life to potentially prophylactically save life) is perfectly OK. On thinking about this what we see is that this biological behavior or preferring one's memes and dominance, not true altruistic imitation of the Christ.

In Muslim societies, there is resorting to a corpus of literature without equally weighting other existing literature when it comes to enforcing certain social mores. For instance the Prophetic edict to his companions "if I were to talk to you of religion all the time you would become tired of it" is glossed over or dismissed. The example of Zul Qarnain and how he treated the naked natives of a land he came across is swept away as "not sunnah or an example to be adhered to." etc.

To them, all the ills that plague the Muslim world must automatically be ascribed to a departure from the correct following of scripture (tough why this is so is never explained in any rational manner but seems to be an expression of faith which leads me to believe it is little more than a self deceptive platitude). Now this might seem fine to an orthodox Muslim but as someone who would like to see the Middle East and Central/Southern Asia flourish but who does not share this black and white worldview of these type of Muslims, this is very frustrating and I ended up giving up playing the game with them on their terms -on the terms of scripture/religion.

Whether you ascribe to Islam or not, or to democracy or communism or capitalism or not, I think its worth still engaging others (not in an excessive time wasting way) to learn from them. You might forge strong friendships and see a common humanity beyond ideologies.

Of course you are right that history and the rise/fall of civilizations isn't so simple but would not, by this very same view, this platitude about the fall of the Muslim world being caused by a departure from "correct" following of Islam fall under that same mistake of oversimplification?

Yes, it is a simplification, though some might say that the excesses that are sometimes present alongside coincident events during the fall of empires (e.g. the degeneration of values that keep the family and hence society stable, wealth concentration via unsavory means, injustice or lack of equivalent justice for the wealthy and the poor, the elites and the average folk) are under the umbrella or what some of these literalists mean.

Perhaps there is a proper balance or ratio between concern for the individual self and then concern for society and a decay occurs when the individual self is regarded as far more important than the community of the society. So what a literalist calls departure for the concern of the ummah may be the same political language a Briton or a an American would use when accusing others of not being patriotic etc.

Now BarakzaiAbdali sir, let me ask you a question so that I may determine whether you are guilty of wanting to have and eat your cake at the same time: on the one hand, you urge me to take a more nuanced view of the world and yet I am not sure whether you approve of this simplistic dogmatic approach to the world that many committed orthodox Muslims have. What would your advice be to these "scriptural Muslims"?

I would say that the example of Ali son of Abu Talib is a great example (I am a sunni by the way). There is a tradition where he is fighting as a warrior and as he is about to deliver a deadly blow his adversary spits on him. He immediately gets up and sheathes his sword. The adversary says to him why he didn't deliver the blow. His response is that had he done so it would have been to satisfy his own passion and anger and not for the higher initial selfless cause he was trying to fight for.

In this same vein, every person secularist, communist, Islamist needs to be able to weigh whether his morals are self satisfying and guarantee personal advantage or whether these same points he is trying to make are truly in line with his ideology. That is, when he reads his scripture and history is he cherry picking the traditions that support his class, family traditions, and culture at the expense of the true sense, or is he in earnest trying to discover that which is just?

As an example, I have heard some here call the white man the pink baboon etc etc. While there is a basis for this and some hearken back to the colonial injustices and neocolonial injustices, is this language not against the example Ali set above?

I also acknowledge the inherent problem with trying to institute western models in the Muslim world where we have no parallel historical developments that are conducive to these models; the west as it is today is indeed the culmination of centuries of social evolution and I have no delusions whatsoever about the possibility of sending this in a package to the Islamic world or even worse, at the barrel of the gun (through war).

I applaud your realpolitik here. It is an example an admission of someone who at least tries an evidence based approach.

In fact, I also do not think the social development in the past century or so throughout much of the west has been desirable: the unrestricted hedonism and individualism and the erosion of the institution of family and marriage, for example, that have recently developed (and continue to do so) are tragedies that I would not want for the Muslim world (East Asia for this reason has done a better job in modern times). I have no delusions about the Muslim world turning into Scandinavia tomorrow, but I do very much support and hope for a gradual, organic development away from Islam (in the same way the west grew out of medieval Christianity) and I spend my time arguing against Islam for this very reason (it can only be people from the Muslim world itself that can help bring about the necessary change in zeitgeist, although I don't see myself as very talented/effective, I try to do my part).

Forget even social development, let us concern ourselves with just economic development or even local cooperation. When King John signed the magna carta and set the path for representative democracy as we know it in the modern world, or when enlightenment battles took place between the church and the European world many of these nations were free people. They fought some internecine wars, but for the most part they were not subject to the confounder of an outside power with its own goals and values regulating their development.

I apologize again if in my tendentious debate with RevolutionThroughReason, I may have appeared to be arguing that no good whatsoever comes from the Muslim world but in my view, Islam is at least as harmful (e.g. these "scriptural Muslims" who have much clout in the Muslim world) as it is good (I do admit, for example, that the religion does a remarkable job in keeping together the institution of the family etc).

Look into the work of Dhalia Mogahed/Jon Esposito and Robert Pape's lecture "cutting the fuse." There is a running theory or propaganda that Political Islam is an externally developed phenomena imposed by the West and local clergy to subvert progress. Ironically, this is a theory pushed by the Marxist influenced- previously Russocentric folks embedded within the Muslim world and now also adopted by the ruling families or elite of some regions. It conflicts with the historical fact that while some clergy were rubber stamping British laws and rules, there were equal and opposing movements by Taurangzi, Abdullah Achakzai, Faqir or Ipi et al also using the Islamic garb. What this amounts to is that Islam provides an existing and galvanizing momentum and banner in the Muslim world.

To provide an example, the socialist ideologies of Guevara, Castro, Chavez et al might be viewed as the sole adversarial movement available for a Latin American wide insurrection against imperialism, i.e. that was their own way to galvanize resistance.

That is, it is not Islam that is the causal agent, but rather the responsive agent. Were Islam not in the mix of things, there would be some other ism or ideology that they would adopt to deal with threats to autonomy.


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Now, regarding harm versus good, I would say any system offers advantages and disadvantages, but we have to consider what those advantages and disadvantages are and whether dignity and freedom are considered commodities are par with advanced technological systems.

That is, one might say that even a prostitute can accumulate massive wealth in the modern era- and she may have her own sort of dignity, but no man wishes his daughter to be that thing.

So we have to think about practical real world limitations. For instance, it is exceedingly unlikely that any of the modern states in the former Muslim world can on its own become an advanced competitor against the existing world powers. Look at the example of Putin for instance - he has some cards to play but the dominant powers are going to use economic means to try and isolate modern Russia after using intrigues to break apart the former land empire held by the Russians. The same for Iran, despite its best attempts, the trade embargoes are not going to miraculously have no impact.

The Brits and other imperials were thinking 100 to 200 years ahead and they made sure that these small inheritor states were locked into the rest of the world economically as well.

As an outside example, when Guevara tried to extricate Cuba's economy what happened is self evidence, because he rightly saw that economic warfare is as devastating as real invasion, and supposed that he could set the stage for a truly independent nation. He appeared to understand that Cuba could not survive on its own with his actions and was trying to widen his revolution to a Pan Latin American movement such that the resources of the whole continent would be at their disposal. Because he was killed, there would be no such effective way to redesign the economic gradients of the world.

I would say that we have to define what you mean by harmful and what is advantageous. For instance, you have already defined some social aspects of Islam as prudent and positive - let us all talk of an economic example that a modern thinker might find less conducive to becoming a "plugged in" world power:

an interest driven paper moneyed economy.

There is a reason why Cromwell's England (a non Islamic state) and Islam viewed interest and usury as problematic. We have to look into the history of why this is. Usury and interest were used in that time to instigate perpetual slavery under the disguise of dealing with money devaluation.

So we ask ourselves does this still occur today? Take the quote of Thomas Sankara of Africa:

In one of his most famous speeches [above], delivered at the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in Addis Ababa in 1987, Sankara issued a passionate call for a United Front Against Debt. “We think that debt has to be seen from the standpoint of its origins. Debt’s origins come from colonialism’s origins. Those who lend us money are those who had colonized us before,” he declared. “Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave…”

At the time of his speech it was clear, just a couple of decades into independence, that African countries were quickly becoming financial slaves. Interest rates rose sharply in the 1980s, but governments continued to borrow more and more. Between 1982 and 1990, African debt doubled from US0 billion to US0 billion. Sankara rightly predicted that this would cripple African development for generations to come. Despite debt relief programs, which have resulted in increased spending on health and education in African countries, Jubilee Debt Campaign estimates that in 2008, low income countries paid over US million a day to rich countries.

And what of the advanced nations? Is their advancement in isolation or in a vacuum? Or does it occur at the expense of others in the world?

And what of the people of these advanced nations in dealing with these economic principles that are banned by Islam which modernists view as harmful ban by the religion in not allowing Muslim nations to develop on par and at the pace of the rest of the world?

Why is it that Ron Paul and others advocate the same economic principle that Islam does regarding anchoring the paper system into real palpable "you can touch and feel it" Gold? What is the very reason for attacking the federal reserve so vigorously?

Are the negatives of Islam injustice because they truly are in your eyes or are you conditioned to view it as injustice?

In my spare time I read about overzealous prosecution here in the US. After all, the notion here with elected prosecuters is that they have to produce convictions and not just pursue justice.

Interestingly enough, in the last set of weeks CNN has been posting a series of articles regarding improper convictions that led to death row:

Here is the case of Cameron Todd Willingham:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...7fa_fact_grann
wrongfully executed

Here is the story of Gloria Killian who was saved from death row by Sally Ride's mother:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/us/dea...ories-killian/

Here is the case of Michael Morton convicted wrongfully and lost his son in the process after decades in jail:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/justic...ichael-morton/

Here is the case of the innocent Norfolk navy men:
http://www.norfolkfour.com/

Now, I would venture to say that these people would argue that a hand being cut off (after the proper legal procedures) is no less barbaric then the things described above - but it is selective coverage where a hand cutting in Mali is broadcast by BBC around the world but the wrongful murder by the state of Cameron Todd Willingham is not.

So once again, I would say that confounders influence your and my thinking on these subjects as well. Super powers and technologically advanced cultures exist for multiple reasons other than simply what religion they adopt or whether the use interest banking or not.

x

[Toramana]

And what about Arab forgery, Mr. Barakzai Al-Arabi?