Governmental Prayer

[BarakzaiAbdali]

What are people's thoughts on Quranic passages, prayers from hadith, and various Sunni Islamic prayers being said in governmental body meetings at the beginning?

As an example, should officials in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries/democracies where there are minority members be permitted to do so?

Thoughts?

[tor_khan]

As Muslims, a prayer is a natural way to begin. People look towards the spiritual for guidance, protection and blessing before major transactions or policies etc. Perfectly normal. Even in secular India, their movies/media constantly go back to images of worship.

What we must understand is that shows of piety can sometimes be used to mislead. Governments (Pakistan illustrates this very well) are masters of deception and therefore a show of religion doesn't necessarily lead to the wellbeing of others.

[کیش]

No. Not until it's a one ummah. Currently, there's no point for divided Muslim country to recite Quranic verses and laws. They should be working on uniting.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

No. Not until it's a one ummah. Currently, there's no point for divided Muslim country to recite Quranic verses and laws. They should be working on uniting.

Sure. However, do you think, say for instance, if in Kandahar at a shura or in a Kabul loya jirga, if someone objects for minority religious reasons to the Kalima or to Quranic verses being read before the event, or various sunni prayers that the government should step in and ban/stop such rituals?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

As Muslims, a prayer is a natural way to begin. People look towards the spiritual for guidance, protection and blessing before major transactions or policies etc. Perfectly normal. Even in secular India, their movies/media constantly go back to images of worship.

What we must understand is that shows of piety can sometimes be used to mislead. Governments (Pakistan illustrates this very well) are masters of deception and therefore a show of religion doesn't necessarily lead to the wellbeing of others.

Excellent point Tor Khan. The inward and outward patterns of behavior should reconcile.

Same question as I posed to our other colleague above though... lets say at the loya jirga, just as an intellectual exercise, the minority hindu or sikh MPs raised an objection so as not to insult Islam but to feel that it was proselytizing to have such incantations before jirgas (local, city, and national) and governmental meetings.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Excellent point Tor Khan. The inward and outward patterns of behavior should reconcile.

Same question as I posed to our other colleague above though... lets say at the loya jirga, just as an intellectual exercise, the minority hindu or sikh MPs raised an objection so as not to insult Islam but to feel that it was proselytizing to have such incantations before jirgas (local, city, and national) and governmental meetings.

Any thoughts on above? I was curious about the views of others here regarding what you would try to accomplish in this scenario.

To reiterate: let us propose a common situation. At the loya jirga and other smaller governmental meetings Bismillah and some other occasional prayers from Islamic tradition are recited.

If a Sikh or Hindu member of the delegation becomes annoyed or upset at this tradition, should a law be passed to respect their feelings and either demand their traditions be included or that no religious tradition be utilized?

[torkham]

The very Same objectors cited in your example, the Hindu or Sikh, are using the national and or official language, Pashto or Dari, when at jirga or sazman meetings, and it doesn't proselytize; similarly, kalima shada talawat, bismillah ur rahman ur Rahim doesn't change them, unless their eyes open.
Same objectors go back to the korwalis and speak Hindu or punjabi and do their puja.

[Badlun]

Good points. I am for total separation of religion from politics or society. Religion is for your soul not for offices, ceremonies or meetings. Religion is an individual matter not a political or social matter.

Reciting verses from holy books before commencement of such meetings should never be allowed not only in Afghanistan but in USA and anywhere else also. I read somewhere that in USA there was or is a regulation that some official meetings may precede with prayer words from Bible etc. This is making the spirituality too cheap.

One individual may invoke God or recite prayers words silently but not compel others to also do so or listen to his prayers. Otherwise everybody will start doing so openly according to his/her own religion and instead of focusing on the official business hours will be spent on such prayers and recitations.

[tor_khan]

Societies are shaped by the majority character.

Much as we try to protect minority rights, let's face it, Muslims in a minority must accept that they cannot be seen to impose their will on the majority. That many European Muslims appear not to be as savvy about this in the first place must be a key part of the discrimination they feel as a consequence.

Flip that over. Minorities in a Muslim society, must repsect that Muslims should not be compelled to compromise. If you are in the minority, accept that and behave accordingly.

I can't see the reason why in Afghanistan this should be different all of a sudden.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

The very Same objectors cited in your example, the Hindu or Sikh, are using the national and or official language, Pashto or Dari, when at jirga or sazman meetings, and it doesn't proselytize; similarly, kalima shada talawat, bismillah ur rahman ur Rahim doesn't change them, unless their eyes open.
Same objectors go back to the korwalis and speak Hindu or punjabi and do their puja.

I agree wror. You will see my purpose in posing this rhetorical question below.

"Oh step into my parlor" said the spider to the fly

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Societies are shaped by the majority character.

Much as we try to protect minority rights, let's face it, Muslims in a minority must accept that they cannot be seen to impose their will on the majority. That many European Muslims appear not to be as savvy about this in the first place must be a key part of the discrimination they feel as a consequence.

Flip that over. Minorities in a Muslim society, must repsect that Muslims should not be compelled to compromise. If you are in the minority, accept that and behave accordingly.

I can't see the reason why in Afghanistan this should be different all of a sudden.

Very moderate, reasonable, informed response.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Good points. I am for total separation of religion from politics or society. Religion is for your soul not for offices, ceremonies or meetings. Religion is an individual matter not a political or social matter.

Reciting verses from holy books before commencement of such meetings should never be allowed not only in Afghanistan but in USA and anywhere else also. I read somewhere that in USA there was or is a regulation that some official meetings may precede with prayer words from Bible etc. This is making the spirituality too cheap.

One individual may invoke God or recite prayers words silently but not compel others to also do so or listen to his prayers. Otherwise everybody will start doing so openly according to his/her own religion and instead of focusing on the official business hours will be spent on such prayers and recitations.

Thank you Badlun, you provided a key piece of evidence for the argument I plan on making.

That argument is namely that militant secularism is a potent destabilizing threat based on ideological and impractical theories. There is a famous hadith where the Prophet held up the fingers of his hand with little space between then indicating that the space between them was the length of time between his mission and the end of time. One might say that a similar small ideological space exists between the militant religionist (the respondent) and the militant secularist (the instigator).

We have a fascinating case study here to allow the intellectual dissection of the militant secularist mind.

I will also provide another piece of evidence from the writings of Toramana:
http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthr...ght=minorities

Here is the key statement made by Toramana:

He starts of an essay with a good but deceptive title:
Winning Liberty for the Colored World

Ethnic and religious minorities and other native people should be shown special generosity and should be given privileges more than their demographic strength.

So when we take the writings of these two in tandem we see two unsubstantiated, unrealistic, and invalid set of prescriptions for the ailments of the occupied realms of the world and an equal set of unsubstantiated potential consequences (i.e. they make absurd predictions that have no basis in reality - sort of like when the Arab Sheikh predicted that women would get gynecological disease from driving).

Here are the prescriptions the militant secularist offers when we distill the above writings:

1. Ban public displays of religion even if they are not proselytizing and even if it is an obligation of the religionist (e.g. ash on the forehead of a Catholic on Ash Wednesday or Hijaab or praying in a public park in the corner on a jaam nimaaz).

2. Ban public discourse on religion.

3. Diminish the religious character of a society by force of law and fiat edict

The more insidious prescriptions from their writings also follow with prescription number 4

4. Muslim societies must augment and guarantee minority privilege (not merely rights mind you) whereas the same obligations need not fall on the West where Muslim minorities in the West deserve to be silenced or jailed or worse if they also ask for "special privileges" or speak up with their narrative.

How can we prove that condition 4 is insidious and implicit in their argument and goals?

I refer you to their prior work:
http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthr...hlight=panacea

Title?
USA is the Blessing. Savior, Friend, Helper and a Messiah for Muslims and Pashtuns by one Badlun

There is a nice quote in that fallacy ridden article:

"I wish the world may follow USA as a great model for success, happiness and great life. USA and its system may be followed as an ideology, as a code of life. Scholars should construct theoretical background for it , a philosophy and then a working plan as how the American ideals can be propagated in other parts of the world specially in Muslim countries, third world poor countries and in our case for Pashtunland."

The is another key quote that gives us a unique view into the psychopathology of the secular militant. He stands on one leg and loses the other when he mocks the religionists for adhering to disprovable or faith based concepts. Yet here, we see in all its glory the faith based or at least evidence-detached nearly religious zealotry of the militant secularist mindset.

One of their favorite canards is to point to the West of the modern era (forgetting that empires rise and fall all across history) and indicate that such models offer perfection of thought, practice, and governance. This preaching is often directed at indigenous rejecters of their imperial panhandling in the most contemptuous preaching and proselytizing tone.

He is on to the something when he presents the USA as the exemplar. Perhaps a better tack would have been to offer up the unique history of the USA as an autonomous super power that developed across 400 to 500 years in the New World. One might surmise that examining its developmental history would offer up examples of stable development when a people are permitted to come to their own conclusions and fight their own civil wars devoid of the interventionalism of outside imperium armies at least overtly occupying their lands.

So now, the kicker... let us repeat the key points we have learned about the militant secularist mantra:

1. Ban public displays of religion even if they are not proselytizing and even if it is an obligation of the religionist (e.g. ash on the forehead of a Catholic on Ash Wednesday or Hijaab or praying in a public park in the corner on a jaam nimaaz).

2. Ban public discourse on religion.

3. Diminish the religious character of a society by force of law and fiat edict

4. Muslim societies must augment and guarantee minority privilege (not merely rights mind you) whereas the same obligations need not fall on the West where Muslim minorities in the West deserve to be silenced or jailed or worse if they also ask for "special privileges" or speak up with their narrative.

This is despite the fact that the US and other countries do not provide "minority privilege" except in the sense of affirmative action and other education related measures as well as hiring quotas. All of these are under fire and are the subject of current supreme court debates.

and now prescription 5 based on the essay and recommendations above

5. Emulate and imitate the West (the USA being the paragon)

Yet what of the contradiction of this approach? We have an essay by Badlun entitled:

USA is the Blessing. Savior, Friend, Helper and a Messiah for Muslims and Pashtuns

With the recommendation that:

"USA and its system may be followed as an ideology, as a code of life"

but what if there is a contradiction or a chink in the armor? We do after all see pages and pages that they devote to supposed contradictions in sacred texts in their attempts to commit to atheist proselytizing here... but what about this most recent important SUPREME COURT DECISION in the US?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...1f4_story.html

Title?

Supreme Court Upholds Legislative Prayer at Council Meetings

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that legislative bodies such as city councils can begin their meetings with prayer, even if it plainly favors a specific religion. The court ruled 5 to 4 that Christian prayers said before meetings of an Upstate New York town council did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion; the justices cited history and tradition.

So now there is a clear conundrum... the militant secularist mantra has recommended the US as the panacea and the model stating specifically that its system should be followed as a near religious equivalent ideology. Yet that ideology has upheld the opposite of what he wants to enforce on the Muslim world... creating a contradiction in his practice model, theories, and thought processes.
Notice also that the green bolded statement Badlun makes, hypothesizes some sort of irrational infighting and problem that will arise if his world view is not upheld. He predicted that official business will be subverted and that time will stop and the apocalypse will happen and religious war will occur etc etc etc. Instead what we see is that the Supreme Court handled the matter and the city goes on doing its business as it always has.
So to reiterate what we have proven today... we have proven that the militant secularist is an ideologically driven creature... adhering to a zealous faith equivalent model of how the world works and how it ought to work. Just as the bad mullah picks and chooses when it is convenient to him and just as the mullah lacks the scholarly credentials of a seminary educated PhD theologian, so too does the militant secularist lack the real world panache and understanding of his ideal "gods" and their systems of culture, thought, and governance.
Tor Khan was closest to the truth of the matter, and we can see the difference. He was born and raised (or it appears at least raised the majority of his years) in the West. He understands the development, application, and ideological constraints of the actual Western system post enlightenment. This is why he does not demonstrate a zealous near faith like religious admiration or faux understanding of implementation of such governance systems that one develops by simply admiring from afar.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

For those that want to understand more about the US Supreme Court Ruling that once again permits prayer, specifically Christian prayer in the Christian majority nation they can read the ruling and dissent here:

The case name is: Town of Greece v. Galloway,

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_ca...=1&oi=scholarr

And to reiterate, let us turn the tables on the militant secularist.... lol... if the US is the panacea and its system is to be followed as a model of success then inshallah, every Afghan Jirga, and every meeting and every daily affair ought to legitimately initiate with its sunni majority Quranic and hadithic prayers. Inshallah!

[Herat]

This is a rather inaccurate comparison, don't you think? I mean, is America ruled by an authoritarian Christian priest (yes I know secular dictators exist too)? Tell me, does America structure its economic policies based on Christianity? Do you see American Christians giving other groups ultimatums like convert, pay a special tax, leave your own lands, or die?

Your contention that "One of their favorite canards is to point to the West of the modern era (forgetting that empires rise and fall all across history)" is just vacuous. I don't know about you but when I read historical texts (especially economic history) these days, historians make genuine attempts at causal -in economic and scientific terms- explanations for the flows of history: history, at least in retrospect, is not as arbitrary as you want it to be to prop up this non-argument, Im afraid, especially modern history.
For example, the Turkish-American professor of Economics at Duke University, Timur Kuran, has made a case that one large causal factor in the stagnation of the Islamic world has indeed been Islam in that its legal system has retarded and continues to retard the development of modern economic structures (he himself insists that Islam in and of itself is not a problem but the problem is what he calls problems are in fact orthodox interpretations).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Divergence-Islamic-Middle/dp/0691156417/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407597017&sr=8-1&keywords=timur+kuran

http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Mammon-Economic-Predicaments-Islamism/dp/0691126291/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407606426&sr=8-1&keywords=islamism+economics

I can't make an attempt to summarize all of this book (have a read of the reviews tough) in part because it was pretty complex material (and alas, easily forgotten) and one that I read some time ago but the basic over-arching theme is that "Islamic Economics", like communism, is not based fundamentally on economic problem-solving but a moral and cultural ideology. To give you the most obvious example: it is trivial to demonstrate that the use of interest leads to greater productive and allocative efficiency (and the latter does mean that the argument that it does more harm than good is false in an economic sense) in an economy. Moreover, virtually all methods of combating recessions and inflation via government (fiscal policy) and central bank (monetary policy) intervention as used everywhere except I think in some parts of the Islamic fundamentalist and communist world involves some form of the manipulation of interest rates or interest loaning like government bonds (see chapter 27: The Basic Tools of Finance, chapter 30: Money, Growth and Inflation and chapter 34: The Influence of Monetary and Fiscal Policy on Aggregate Demand in "Principles of Economics" by Mankiw, a very popular undergrad Economics text). This is why the rest of the market economy world, whether it is the West, East Asia, India, South-East Asia, Africa or the American continent use interest. In fact, as Timur Kuran explains, "Islamic Banks" are often just a ruse: most of them typically invent ridiculous meandering ways to use interest without calling it interest (unsurprisingly, it turns out that it is absurdly difficult for banks to break-even much less make a profit without using interest). Even the bloody Salafis have picked up on this.

http://islamqa.info/en/47651

So BarakzaiAbdali, the rest of the world "imitates" much of the west because western forms and structures, with the main exception of foreign policy unfortunately, is driven by scientific and economic problem solving and not ideology like Islam and communism. You can peddle this completely vacuous argument that empires rise and fall all you want but there is a burden of proof that you have to abide by, which means you must make an evidence-based case for why your ideology in the form of social, economic and political policy leads to say better social and political freedoms, economic growth etc just as the "secular militants" have to. There was a time when perhaps most human beings believed in flat-earth, tell me, did that make it any more factual than it is now? What if I were to suggest that rudimentary forms of social organization come and go and that it is feasible for hunter-gathering (believe it or not, this is still practiced by some peoples in South America and Africa) to make a come-back as a significant form of human social organization? Does that sound sensible to you? Well that is what the idea that a 7th century form of social organization, and yes the Salafis for example explicitly seem to aim for that goal, will return as a dominant one sounds like to me. Is that what you are suggesting here? Please clarify.

Nevertheless, I don't dispute that majority rule is the only long-run stable form of political arrangement and totalitarian rule is never going to work if it does not align with the interests of the population, be it secular or religious, as we witness right now in Iraq and Syria. This is why I also believe balkanization will be the best thing for the Muslim world: you see the more the Muslim world becomes inter-dependent, the greater the risk of inter-dependent stagnation. Instead, let the Muslim world break into more and more pieces, preferably ethnic pieces, let each nation develop its own political culture however its population desires, and let the most "fit" nations in the environment of the modern world rise in that Darwinian game. At least then there would be some winners, I think. But Im 99.9% certain that a 7th century jihadist caliphate will make losers of all its participants. Oh well, it will be the Arab worlds loss if it happens.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

This is a rather inaccurate comparison, don't you think? I mean, is America ruled by an authoritarian Christian priest (yes I know secular dictators exist too)? Tell me, does America structure its economic policies based on Christianity? Do you see American Christians giving other groups ultimatums like convert, pay a special tax, leave your own lands, or die?

The nidus government that would eventually pave the way for the settlement of America was exactly that - a Christian theocracy that was permitted to evolve on its own.

Nathaniel Hawthorne would spend most of his career "apologizing" for the actions of the Mullah Omar equivalent of the day, his grandfather, John Hawthorne. Hawthorne ran the Massachussetts Bay Colony, the precursor to what would establish the foundations of the City Boston, with an iron theocratic fist:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...tts-Bay-Colony

The Puritans established a theocratic government with the franchise limited to church members.

Hawthorne would preside over the Biblical implementation of the punishment for witches, burning hundreds of women alive.

Puritan rule would go on to enforce things that many might feel ring a familiar bell to the edicts of mullahs of recent Afghan lore.

For instance, Jon Stewart cited this article and noted that "Mullah" Increase Mathers banned Christmas by law and penalties were in place for celebrating it. Stewart, on his Daily Show cited a capital punishment, whereas this article cites the fine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/op...s.html?hp&_r=1&

This same colony would be left alone without outside or crown interventionalism to kill their women, whip their men, kill the surrounding natives etc and so on and so forth. Eventually in a generation or two these folks realized what they were doing was not conducive to productive living and advancement of society.

In fact, why Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter and other books was as an apology for the harsh and radical actions of his puritan supreme mullah ancestor.

The issue here is that no time was permitted for an Afghan Hawthorne to rise even though we know from our own personal experiences, all of us, of family members that went against convention when it didn't involve occupying troops or a fair skinned man with an M16 trying to enforce change through the barrel of a gun.

In essence, US/NATO and their Afghan collaborators have stalled the coming of our own Hawthornes and instead turned the clock back and radicalized even the Taliban beyond belief. We see the same phenomena with the existence of ISIS which even other insurgents find to be far too right wing.

This is how America was allowed to develop... on its own time (400 or so years from first colonials) with its own civil wars and its own subsequent development of minority men rights first ---> and then early last century finally the right of women to vote ---> and then just 30 years ago the enforcement of the right to vote. It was a gradual evolution that its own people catalyzed... not some secular militant bootlicker beholden to the French or some outside power.

Your contention that "One of their favorite canards is to point to the West of the modern era (forgetting that empires rise and fall all across history)" is just vacuous. I don't know about you but when I read historical texts (especially economic history) these days, historians make genuine attempts at causal -in economic and scientific terms- explanations for the flows of history: history, at least in retrospect, is not as arbitrary as you want it to be to prop up this non-argument, Im afraid, especially modern history.

I would beg to differ. Crucial moments in history and even simple tactics (e.g. Alexander's father's phalanx) or major events (European empires colliding in WWI and WWII permitting a new power across the Atlantic to rise in the background -USA) are clearly temporal events. Heck, even Wilsonian interventionalism and doctrines would be what would spark the ire of a young German who would go on to rebuild the broken German empire and lead to the aforementioned events. In my own study of Zeitgeist, that particular socialist party was as essential to German rising prowess as that scientific prowess was to their warlike advances.

Or for that matter the examples of Heracles and Khosraw colliding and smashing each others empires such that the way would open up for a desert empire to take both down in short time. Or even before that, Alexander's own TEMPORAL death leading to his inability to conclude or even begin an Arabia Felix expedition that would probably have altered histories arc in massive ways.

For example, the Turkish-American professor of Economics at Duke University, Timur Kuran, has made a case that one large causal factor in the stagnation of the Islamic world has indeed been Islam in that its legal system has retarded and continues to retard the development of modern economic structures (he himself insists that Islam in and of itself is not a problem but the problem is what he calls problems are in fact orthodox interpretations).
http://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Diver...ds=timur+kuran
http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Mammon-E...mism+economics

I can't make an attempt to summarize all of this book (have a read of the reviews tough) in part because it was pretty complex material (and alas, easily forgotten) and one that I read some time ago but the basic over-arching theme is that "Islamic Economics", like communism, is not based fundamentally on economic problem-solving but a moral and cultural ideology.

Islamic sales and interactions are far removed from communism. There is certainly no demand that the wealthy liquidate their businesses or that competition be inhibited. There are good faith hadithic measures that are promoted that we even see in action in Western nations today... for instance the concept of a buyer being able to return goods not up to the par though frowned upon in Afghanistan and Pakistan is actually a documented business recommendation of the Prophet.

Additionally, the tithe concept is really not all too different from what Catholic centric nations practice.

To give you the most obvious example: it is trivial to demonstrate that the use of interest leads to greater productive and allocative efficiency (and the latter does mean that the argument that it does more harm than good is false in an economic sense) in an economy. Moreover, virtually all methods of combating recessions and inflation via government (fiscal policy) and central bank (monetary policy) intervention as used everywhere except I think in some parts of the Islamic fundamentalist and communist world involves some form of the manipulation of interest rates or interest loaning like government bonds (see chapter 27: The Basic Tools of Finance, chapter 30: Money, Growth and Inflation and chapter 34: The Influence of Monetary and Fiscal Policy on Aggregate Demand in "Principles of Economics" by Mankiw, a very popular undergrad Economics text).

Ron Paul and Austrian economic theory would whole heartedly disagree with you and say that this very concept is the root cause of the rapid rise and fall empire process that the USA is undergoing. Inflating and deflating the value of a paper currency not anchored in a tangible and rare commodity is basically a "faith based" economy ironically. In fact, were it such a guaranteed path to economic sustainability and victory, I would venture to say two Presidents would not have had to coerce the Congress on our side of the Pond into passing TARP funds off the back of the hard working American people to bail out the very institutions that abide by such prescriptions.

So rather, I would say Islam is more harmonious with stability and not the boom and bust cycle that pretty much guarantees a people are in perpetual imposed debt and servitude to a government (once again refer to TARP).

This is why the rest of the market economy world, whether it is the West, East Asia, India, South-East Asia, Africa or the American continent use interest. In fact, as Timur Kuran explains, "Islamic Banks" are often just a ruse: most of them typically invent ridiculous meandering ways to use interest without calling it interest (unsurprisingly, it turns out that it is absurdly difficult for banks to break-even much less make a profit without using interest). Even the bloody Salafis have picked up on this.
http://islamqa.info/en/47651

I agree with you on this issue regarding "Islamic" Banking.

So BarakzaiAbdali, the rest of the world "imitates" much of the west because western forms and structures, with the main exception of foreign policy unfortunately, is driven by scientific and economic problem solving and not ideology like Islam and communism.

I would say Glass-Stiegel and its repeal show its far more complex than just that my friend.

You can peddle this completely vacuous argument that empires rise and fall all you want but there is a burden of proof that you have to abide by, which means you must make an evidence-based case for why your ideology in the form of social, economic and political policy leads to say better social and political freedoms, economic growth etc just as the "secular militants" have to.

You misunderstood me. This was not my argument. Rather, kudos to you by standing by and understanding your very own set of arguments and at least being consistent. That is my issue with secular militants, a group which you do not appear to belong to. Why I called secular militancy a phenomena is that they have a supposed set of ideals and morals that they are willing to break with when it comes to their personal views on what to expunge and what to ban. So for instance, Badlun indicates his childhood and experiences with Islam have been what radicalized him to pull Najibullah style maneuvers and actually implement unrealistic and perhaps detrimental bans on the mores and practices of Afghans instead of permitting cultural and social evolution to occur.

So on the one hand he refers to the West and America as the ideal... something I am not against him doing. Yet on the other hand, when American practice diverges from what he "feels" is right or wrong he is willing to ignore the action of that very same paragon of governance that is showing him that you cannot expunge a people's mores, ideologies, and traditions by force.

There was a time when perhaps most human beings believed in flat-earth, tell me, did that make it any more factual than it is now? What if I were to suggest that rudimentary forms of social organization come and go and that it is feasible for hunter-gathering (believe it or not, this is still practiced by some peoples in South America and Africa) to make a come-back as a significant form of human social organization? Does that sound sensible to you? Well that is what the idea that a 7th century form of social organization, and yes the Salafis for example explicitly seem to aim for that goal, will return as a dominant one sounds like to me. Is that what you are suggesting here? Please clarify.

No, I think you will make out per above that I think self governance in accordance with the mores, ideologies, and practices of the masses is preferable to permit social evolution. Take for instance the example of Iran. With outside interventionalism (removing Mossadegh the democratically elected leader in the 1950s) Iran radicalized under the brutal Shah and Khomenei ruled in the 1980s. The USA triggering Iraq to attack Iran further radicalized and galvanized the populace. Once left alone, the Iranians started to veer leftward and elected Khatami (far more moderate) but when Bush started poking the beehive again the Iranians elected hardliners yet again. Outside interventionalism is not merely the presence of boots on the ground of a foreign power but also their mercenary former natives (e.g. Karzai) who think that they are "advancing their little brown brothers"

Nevertheless, I don't dispute that majority rule is the only long-run stable form of political arrangement and totalitarian rule is never going to work if it does not align with the interests of the population, be it secular or religious, as we witness right now in Iraq and Syria. This is why I also believe balkanization will be the best thing for the Muslim world: you see the more the Muslim world becomes inter-dependent, the greater the risk of inter-dependent stagnation. Instead, let the Muslim world break into more and more pieces, preferably ethnic pieces, let each nation develop its own political culture however its population desires, and let the most "fit" nations in the environment of the modern world rise in that Darwinian game. At least then there would be some winners, I think. But Im 99.9% certain that a 7th century jihadist caliphate will make losers of all its participants. Oh well, it will be the Arab worlds loss if it happens.

I will address this at some future point. At this juncture, I think the concept of Caliphate is equivalent to the Christian concept of "Kingdom come." In fact the ISIS caliphate proves that - not earning the wide recognition that everyone claimed would automatically happen should some armed group declare a caliphate.

Interesting discussion, I will read the Turkish author you recommend above.