Unfortunatley you seem to think Gobal=N America and Europe.
Ryan, let me ask you a question. In your opinion, who benefits most from the narrative that Islam is a force of evil and source of terror.
Yes, Islam’s image, in my opinion, has fallen almost as low as Christianity’s. Of course, Islam hasn’t been around as long, so it will get there soon enough.
I, too, am not convinced of that this “global” view exists.
In China (1/6th of the world), among Chinese, the view towards Uighers is pretty much the same as the view towards Tibetans. The problem is not seen as religion, but as them being insufficiently grateful for being brought in to the glorious Han civilization. The Hui, a Muslim minority that is ethnically pretty much Han, doesn’t have the same perception. China has had a large indigenous Muslim population for a heck of a long time, and they just have a completely different perspective.
In Africa (1/6th of the world) you are going to find massively different views depending on where exactly you are. But again, Islam has a loooooooong history in Africa and the perceptions of Islam as a whole reflects that.
You seem to be looking at the last 20 or so years, which is when Islam really came to the attention of the West in modern times. But much of the world has a thousand years at living with or having close contact with Islam.
Where does it seem I think this? Last time I checked, the Indians, Russians and Chinese weren’t Western.
It’s as if you didn’t even read my OP…
Which I stated…
Now for my good friend Ramira
‘You’ Anglophones?
This was Chinese speaking about Muslims, it wasn’t people speaking English I’m sorry to say.
I didn’t have to read Fox news or the Mail to see these comments, the reason for my topic was to highlight how this view of Muslims was seeping into the conciousness of ordinary public opinion, and was damaging the image of Islam globally.
But go ahead, just blame it on ‘narrow consumption’
What, like you avoided the very quote I responded back with?
The main reasons for Islam’s growth ultimately involve simple demographics.
It’s still small, and considering the image it has across large swathes of the world being synonymous with terrorism, it’s an unattractive religion to want to convert too (Not that any other is better)
Which is what my point was in the OP.
Africa doesn’t constitute ‘the rest of the world’ and you insinuate I’m ‘navel regarding?’
As even sven has pointed out this is your anglophone reading and misunderstanding of a discourse directed at you, where the Han Muslim Hui are not in that internal disocurse.
So yes, you anglophones and a narrow vision you extrapolate to be Global.
Avoided?
How is it I avoided this when I point out directly in my post
(1) The proper point of comparison is the relation of conversion, where unlike other major religions, there is still net positive
(2) the effect of the large numbers that of course the main growth should be from the demographics given the high(er) birthrates.
Your analytical confusion and inability to process these different issues I am sorry for.
It appears you do not have a good understanding of the mathematics and are confused by the challenge of comparing different effects.
The demographic effect says exactly nothing to the attractiveness… but your continued confusion and camping on it says very much about the quality of the analysis that is behind the proposition.
So what if they’re not? Again as I said in the OP, this is a recent phenomenon, as I said, and I’ll remind you, AGAIN Islam was considered a normal religion 20-25 years ago, and now it’s image has been distorted by terrorism, an example of which, was the persecution of Uighurs being labelled Islamic terrorists, encouraged by the Chinese government.
I don’t see any ‘anglophone’ influence in that, despite your racist overtones.
**Statistical data on conversion to and from Islam are scarce. **What little information is available suggests that there is no substantial net gain or loss in the number of Muslims through conversion globally; the number of people who become Muslims through conversion seems to be roughly equal to the number of Muslims who leave the faith. As a result, this report does not include any estimated future rate of conversions as a direct factor in the projections of Muslim population growth.
Thank you Ramira, but don’t waste your time on me, your arrogant posturing can be used for good, instead of evil.
So now you’re questioning the validity of the articles methods you used to disprove a point I made about the very portion of the article you used against me? You’re an amazing person Ramira, keep up the good work.
Regarding the Uighurs, if I’m remembering my central Asian history correctly, they have been fighting for their independence from Chinese rule since the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. Two or three times since the fall of the Qing they have succeeded for short periods of time. I would compare their culture to that of the Kurds, unluckily ending up without a modern nation state. The current program of oppression by China has nothing to do with jihad or Islam or Palestine or Global views about Islam, it’s just the Chinese making sure that the Uighur autonomous zone doesn’t secede from China or join some pan Turk central asian confederacy.
George Habash was a despicable person, from a Christian background, but at least he would not have had a problem with women riding bicycles. Notice again in this article the point that in legal systems based on sharia, fatwas have the strength of law. OTOH, notice attitude of the quoted Abdul Hussein. Bully for him.
Why must we view Islam’s perception only through the lens of terrorism/jihad when there is so much more to dislike about it?
Perhaps some of these factors are contributing to Islam’s bad image in the west:
- Its treatment of women.
- The fact that it does not desire a separation between church and state.
- Widespread support in Islamic states for barbaric practices like female genital mutilation, cutting of the hands of thieves, honor killings, etc.
- Widespread support among Muslims for severe punishments for apostates.
- Its demand for free speech to be restricted when it comes to heresy/blasphemy.
- It’s horrible attitude towards homosexuals.
I could go on. All of these horrible things not only have plenty of textual support in Muslim religious literature and the support of major Muslim leaders, but they are also approved of by large percentages of Muslims around the world. We’re not talking about a lunatic fringe here, but sizeable minorities or in many cases majorities.
Islam today is like fundamentalist Christianity taken to a completely different level. We can be outraged and demand ‘justice’ when a Christian couple refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple, but then turn a blind eye to the reality that in almost all Islamic societies that couple would have much bigger problems than worrying about a wedding cake. Being murdered, for example. Or being thrown in jail or executed by the state.
Aside from its tendency to create jihadists, there are many other horrible things Islam should have to answer for.
For some balance, here is a video of some fundamentalists right here in the good ol’ USA objecting to bicycles.
Exactly, where as two or three decades ago alot of sympathy would be generated, maybe even on the level we see in regards to Tibet, but because terrorism in the Islamic world and Islamic fundamentalism is so prevalent on the global stage, these people automatically lose alot of sympathy due to their religion.
I take a longer view of what I refer to as the ongoing Islamic debacle. It is the most troubling manifestation of religion’s decline - all religion - in general. Let’s hope it end’s up being the last gasp of the truly delusional religious lunatics from that strain of the disease.
One reason the image of Islam is suffering is that Muslims most often use this tactic to respond to the criticism that their religion drives terrorism.You are committing takfir on the takfiris when you brand their version of Islam an “evil distortion”. Of course you know that they do the same to your version. And anyone who is familiar with the Koran, hadith, Islamic traditions, and current Muslim public opinions and beliefs can see that you have no firmer ground to stand on than they do. Your declarations about their religious beliefs and actions are no more factual than their declarations about your’s. When you commit takfir against them you are reinforcing the dangerous notion that there is a true, pure, version of Islam that is discernible by examining Islamic source texts. This concept, along with the concepts of jihad and martyrdom, are the bedrock upon which the modern global Islamic insurgency is built.
Also, considering how incredibly strong and widespread Saudi Salafist influence has been, you can’t just hand wave away this strain of belief simply because you do not hold it.
Do you consider the Ikwan to be Salafist in nature? There are good arguments on both sides of this question. The thing is, if you do include them, then you have to admit that the Salafist influence is very broad and mainstream. And of you do not then you are narrowing your criticism to exclude a profoundly regressive force with vast influence, the most powerful entity in the religious-radical-right on the planet today, in fact.
You are certainly correct when you point out that the ulema regularly condemns the acts of individual Islamic terrorist groups.As has been pointed out to you before, however, they far less often condemn and disavow the jihadist rhetoric than underlies the violence.
MUSLIM SCHOLARS VS. ISIS (In response to A Letter to Baghdadi)
OK, I’m 42. From what I remember, Islam has been labelled as the religion of terror since I was about 5. We may have supported Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, but we certainly didn’t in Iran. In fact we used the Islamic Republic as justification for the use of chemical weapons by our ally Iraq. The Chinese are using Islam as part of their propaganda campaign, but we in the US have been doing that for quite some time. I think the time frame of 20-25 years as in the OP and your time frame of 20-30 ignore the fact that Islam as terror has been the dominate theme of US involvement in the region of the middle east as far back as I can remember. We never mention Islam when we discuss Indonesia, where women can vote and ride bicycles with their genitals largely intact.
But is it a decline? I don’t see any crisis of faith.
This is true, but it’s never been so intense as it has now.
I disagree. We always vilify those people that live where our foreign policy goals wish that they didn’t. As long as our foreign policy goals were to keep Turkey as a NATO base, we vilified the Kurds, when the Kurds could be used to further our goals in Iraq, we stopped vilifying them. We vilified the Japanese during WWII, and distributed racist caricatures showing the differences between those evil Japanese and the good Chinese. After the war, when Japan was under occupation and the Chinese had a communist revolution, we vilified the Chinese and people stopped going out for Chinese food for fear of, I don’t know, catching communism.
Any bad feels you might have about Islam are due to the fact that the people that live where we keep sending our military happen to be Muslim. I brought up Indonesia because it is the perfect counter example to all the stereotypes about Islam. More Muslims live in Indonesia than in any other country, but we never worry about Indonesia being a terrorist state. Islam has nothing to do with it. If every man woman and child in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon and Libya converted to Scientology tomorrow, chances are they’d still prefer not to be killed in drone strikes, they’d still have disagreements over who should be in charge of the government, and still find some justification for preventing women from riding bicycles and possessing unmutilated genitals.
Sure, add Malaysia to the list too.
Malaysia is a tiny country compared to Indonesia. I didn’t pick Indonesia because it’s a Muslim majority country, I picked it because it has 300 million people and more Muslims than any other Muslim majority country. Malaysia has like 10% of Indonesia’s population. Indonesia also doesn’t have Islam as it’s one and only official religion, Indonesia officially recognizes like ten religions and tolerates a bunch of regional belief systems. If Islam were hostile to other belief systems then Indonesia wouldn’t be so tolerant. My argument is that Islam is not responsible for the negative stereotypes that native English speakers (I think they’re called anglophones) attribute to it.