# I Pit "Modern Islam" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 17, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710 "2014-09-17T04:10:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/161 "2014-09-21T18:35:37Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > I did go back and talk to a few folks and look at the survey again. (Though I can’t see the questions they asked in the Indonesian language, either because they are not on the site or because I didn’t try hard enough to find them.) > > Anyway…intellectual honesty compels me to note that the sample size, and the geographic spread, both seem fine. > > What bothered the people I talked to when this survey came out (some Indonesian, some foreigners living in Indonesia) was a bit subtle. They felt that asking people if they would want Shari’a law adopted was not a meaningful question on its own, because Indonesians don’t fully appreciate the implications. Most Muslims will be agreeable to the notion of Shari’a law, in the abstract. BUT. If you asked them, “So, would you like the laws of Indonesia to include a law that says ‘adulterers should be stoned to death’ and ‘thieves should have their hands chopped off’?” most people would NOT be happy with that. That PEW survey is generally trusted in academic circles, although its implications are naturally debated. The high favorability rates for Sharia law do not necessarily point to sympathy for specific punishments for specific crimes, and some high rates in favor of say, death for apostasy does not mean that every person will kill an apostate when they see them. However, the positive associations that the term ‘Sharia law’ creates among many people in Muslim countries is meaningful to note in itself, and there’s a lot to be said about it. Much of the criticism that we can make from it actually can be directed at modern governments in Islamic states, especially those that claim that their regimes are compatible with ‘Islam,’ and the international structures that support them. Other criticisms involve the assumed sacredness, goodness and authority of the primary sources and to an extent those recognized to expound on them; and of course there are also history-based critiques of the widely recognized theoretical legitimacy - if not the local applicability - of disagreeable practices, like stoning or slavery or the enforcement of patriarchal norms. In any case, these discussions should always be done with empathy shown to the people involved, and an awareness of intersectionality issues. Certainly, many Westerners - liberals and conservatives - do Muslims no favors when they define as peace-loving anyone who denounces the terrorist group of the day and turn a blind eye to violence - immediate, structural, cultural - toward or within Islamic communities. What most people in my experience fail to grasp is that Islam, like other religions, exerts influence **and** is influenced. Local customs gain local approval or local opposition within an Islamic framework. What this means is that you usually cannot say that Islam in one place says very much about Islam in another place. What it also means is that you usually cannot say that some local custom in an Islamic community is ‘unrelated’ to Islam. In most cases, the relationship is not “Islam as a whole says to do this” but rather “the community has, at this time, reconciled these practices with their religious identity in some form.” Mealy-mouthed, yes. But more accurate and helpful. For better or for worse, the only thing that really unites Muslims around the world is the issues and sources upon which they disagree. ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/162 "2014-09-21T19:30:43Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Oh, so the Ku Klux Klan? Sunni, you think, or Shia? The Ku Klux Klan does reflect on Christianity to a certain degree. Why wouldn’t it? I’ll note that the Ku Klux Klan, at various times in its history, had a lot more official support than ISIS has ever had. Still, it’s not like white Christians were coming to America from abroad to join the KKK in its struggle. So maybe it’s a wash. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Did I read that right? Does the _hadith_ actually preserve the tale of a drag queen dropping a “yo momma so fat” line on the Prophet? If so, that’s _awesome._ Well, he liked the fat woman, so not quite a yo momma so fat line. Hadith are still really fascinating. The collectors cared about the chain of narrators, not the content as much, so the topics are… varied. Abu Huraira ones are always eye-catching: [QUOTE=Abu Huraira] [The Prophet](http://sunnah.com/bukhari/5/30) (ﷺ) said, 'The (people of) Bani Israel used to take bath naked (all together) looking at each other. The Prophet (ﷺ) Moses used to take a bath alone. They said, ‘By Allah! Nothing prevents Moses from taking a bath with us except that he has a scrotal hernia.’ So once Moses went out to take a bath and put his clothes over a stone and then that stone ran away with his clothes. Moses followed that stone saying, “My clothes, O stone! My clothes, O stone! till the people of Bani Israel saw him and said, 'By Allah, Moses has got no defect in his body. Moses took his clothes and began to beat the stone.” Abu Huraira added, “By Allah! There are still six or seven marks present on the stone from that excessive beating.” [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Abu Huraira] [The Messenger of Allah](http://sunnah.com/muslim/1/256) (ﷺ) said to me: they (the people) till constantly ask you, Abu Huraira, (about different things pertaining to religion) the they would say: Well, there is Allah, but after all who created Allah? He (Abu Huraira) narrated: Once we were in the mosque that some of the Bedouins came there and said: Well, there is Allah, but who created Allah? He (the narrator) said: I took hold of the pebbles in my fist and flung at them and remarked: Stand up, stand up (go away) my friend (the Holy Prophet) told the truth. [/QUOTE] This second one, by the way, is part of a long and contentious elaboration on when it is and is not acceptable to throw pebbles. There are many hadith that are unbelievably nasty, and more than a few that are really moral, but debating them is tiresome. I prefer the unusual ones. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/163 "2014-09-21T21:04:23Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But it’s utterly meaningless to tally up the stats provided by the Pew survey for use as a context-free average. That’s bad statistical analysis and worse anthropology. > > On average, in 1940 up to 40% of the population of Europe was supporting and enacting the systematic dispossession and murder of Jews. OMG, that’s a \*lot \*more than a fringe minority ! There must be something about “being European” that causes antisemitism, and we’d probably be right to worry about Europeans in general is all I’m saying. > See how silly that sounds ? You’re obviously missing the point. To use your Nazi example, it would be more like if we were having a discussion about Nazism, and someone said only a fringe minority of Nazis are anti-Semitic, and I cited a survey showing that actually a whole lot of them are, and then you and a certain sanctimonious, moralizing sack of shit jumped down my throat for it. People upthread stated that only a fringe minority of Muslims believe in things like death for apostates. I cited evidence to the contrary because I think it’s relevant to the discussion that those claims are evidently false. That’s all the limited ground I’ve staked out here. If you want to impute all sorts of other claims to me and then argue against them with all your energy, knock yourself out. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/164 "2014-09-22T00:10:58Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > They’re agreeable to the law but not what the law states? These people aren’t morons. They know what Sharia says and the results speaks for themselves: they want it. > > You can’t ascribe misguided intention to what is a very clear question: do you support Sharia Law and do you support stoning to death for apostacy/adultery? > > When someone says yes to that, they know what they are saying. You can’t explain that away as being “lost in translation.” Nice effort to force me into a corner there: you want me to choose between calling the people I live with “morons” or accuse them of favoring stoning to death all adulterers. Sorry, that won’t work. As you, from your decades of living and working in Indonesia side by side with Indonesians, will know, people here often refer to themselves as “Islam statistik.” The government requires that you have one of six approved religions on your identity card; most people are nominally Muslim. If asked “are you Muslim” they will unhesitatingly say yes, because that’s just how it is done here. And they’ll go along with the idea that “I’m Muslim, Shari’a is Muslim, so yeah, that’s okay.” That doesn’t mean they have any particular knowledge of what Shari’a actually means. To be frank, the education system here is not that good; it promotes rote learning, not introspection. People aren’t big readers and studiers here. Aceh is the one region of Indonesia that does tend to knowledgeably favor Shari’a; for the rest of the country Aceh is a joke. Anyway - Indonesia is a democracy now, remember? And the nation just elected a new president. So if the people actually wanted Shari’a they could have elected a candidate for whom that was part of the platform. But guess what - they actually elected the progressive guy who the opposition attempted to smear by claiming he had Chinese (non-Muslim) roots. BTW you ignored my earlier point about Muslim dress. Were you too busy admiring the jilboobs? ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/165 "2014-09-22T16:07:05Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > You’re still wrong though :] Maybe if you had friends in Indonesia who said this your argument would be more compelling. ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/166 "2014-09-22T20:37:52Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > On average, in 1940 up to 40% of the population of Europe was supporting and enacting the systematic dispossession and murder of Jews. This is crazy. Are you saying the conquered European countries supported the murder of Jews? Even if your number is supposed to refer only to Germans, the SS was at pains to disguise the Holocaust. > [@Kobal2](#): > > See how silly that sounds ? ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/167 "2014-09-23T07:23:09Z")
> [@nani](#): > > What most people in my experience fail to grasp is that Islam, like other religions, exerts influence **and** is influenced. Local customs gain local approval or local opposition within an Islamic framework. What this means is that you usually cannot say that Islam in one place says very much about Islam in another place. Actually, for me, and I suspect a number of other people, a major driver of concern about Islam is an appreciation of this ability of Islam to be influenced, combined with the fact that most of this influence is travelling from more extreme regions and ideologies(Saudi Arabia in particular) to moderate regions. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/168 "2014-09-23T09:12:31Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Actually, for me, and I suspect a number of other people, a major driver of concern about Islam is an appreciation of this ability of Islam to be influenced, combined with the fact that most of this influence is travelling from more extreme regions and ideologies(Saudi Arabia in particular) to moderate regions. I think that’s simply a load of bollocks. Islam is different from what most westerners have grown up with and thus is easier for said westerners to peg as a supposed cause of whatever untoward thing a particular Muslim happens to be doing. But, oddly enough, when a particular Muslim is doing something amazing, those same westerners don’t credit the Muslim’s faith as being a driving force. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/169 "2014-09-23T09:45:32Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I think that’s simply a load of bollocks. Are you saying that hardline interpretations of Islam, funded through Saudi Arabia, are _not_ growing in influence? > [@](#): > > Islam is different from what most westerners have grown up with and thus is easier for said westerners to peg as a supposed cause of whatever untoward thing a particular Muslim happens to be doing. But, oddly enough, when a particular Muslim is doing something amazing, those same westerners don’t credit the Muslim’s faith as being a driving force. I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about, particularly since I’m not a westerner. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/170 "2014-09-23T13:30:34Z")
Wasn’t it just fairly recently that an anonymous Muslim cabdriver in New York went to the authorities with a tip about planned terrorism? Prompting locals to ask “Who was that mosqued man? I wanted to thank him.” ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/171 "2014-09-23T14:22:28Z")
**’luci** 1, Terrorism 0 ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/172 "2014-09-23T14:31:37Z")
Dunno, that was pretty terrible. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/173 "2014-09-23T14:51:57Z")
If he cannot make terrible puns, the terr’rists have already won. ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/174 "2014-09-23T18:12:53Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Actually, for me, and I suspect a number of other people, a major driver of concern about Islam is an appreciation of this ability of Islam to be influenced, combined with the fact that most of this influence is travelling from more extreme regions and ideologies(Saudi Arabia in particular) to moderate regions. Yeah. A couple of factors that go into this playing out in the way it does is that traditional Islamic authorities in many places are strongly associated with local governments, and that traditional methods of apportioning local authority have not adapted very well to the information age. Saudi Arabia (and a couple of the Gulf states) contribute an absolutely ridiculous amount of resources relatively into promoting their views. This really started after 1979, partly in response to the Iranian revolution and partly to quell conservative elements at home. The Muslim Brotherhood has also been tremendously influential both as an organization and as a source of inspiration. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/175 "2014-09-25T09:01:45Z")
Thomas Friedman’s recent column may shed some light. For example, > [@](#): > > The liberal Saudi analyst Turki al-Hamad responded in the London-based Al-Arab newspaper to King Abdullah’s call for Saudi religious leaders to confront ISIS ideology: How can they? al-Hamad asked. They all embrace the same anti-pluralistic, puritanical Wahhabi Sunni ideology that Saudi Arabia diffused, at home and abroad, to the mosques that nurtured ISIS. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/176 "2014-09-25T09:21:48Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Thomas Friedman’s recent column may shed some light. For example, Well, **Monty** thinks that’s a load of bollocks. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/177 "2014-09-25T12:49:30Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Well, **Monty** thinks that’s a load of bollocks. Actually, I now know you’re a troll. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/178 "2014-09-25T13:59:22Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > On average, in 1940 up to 40% of the population of Europe was supporting and enacting the systematic dispossession and murder of Jews. OMG, that’s a \*lot \*more than a fringe minority ! There must be something about “being European” that causes antisemitism, and we’d probably be right to worry about Europeans in general is all I’m saying. > See how silly that sounds ? Is it silly? Europeans are still pretty anti-semitic today. Though some people blame that on Muslim immigrants too. Win-win, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/179 "2014-09-25T15:27:12Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Actually, I now know you’re a troll. And you’re a fucking jack in the box who jumps around spouting reflexive apologia and is incapable of addressing any meaningful criticism on the topic, but hey what’re you gonna do, right? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710/180 "2014-09-25T16:03:31Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Is it silly? Europeans are still pretty anti-semitic today. Though some people blame that on Muslim immigrants too. Win-win, I guess. Well, sure. But it’s not because “they’re Europeans”, whatever one may mean by that. It’s not like they give us an instruction booklet :). European-ness is not a cause or source of antisemitism in and of itself, and it’s much too broad and vague a descriptor to be of any meaningful use, was my point. Same goes for “Muslim”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-modern-islam/698710.md?page=10)