And the problem with your argument is that you have spent an inordinate amount of effort showing Islamic connections–generally by working backward from a phenomenon to show that it is “Islamic” rather than showing Islamic traditions that created the phenomenon.
Further, your assertions regarding Christian influences on similar practices do not actually seem to be based on Christianity so much as (again) looking backward at events and putting a “Christian” label on them.
I suspect that we are just going to disagree on this point. I have no problem recognizing that religion and culture are intertwined. Nothing you have posted persuades me that they cannot be distinguished. And, as I pointed out, initially, I see no point in labeling phenomena such as honor killings as “Muslim” when they are much more closely correlated to geography than to religious belief. Similar cultures in close proximity are more likely to behave in similar ways, while more remote examples of the same religions do not share the same cultures and behave differently.
It’s not really an inordinate amount of effort for me. Both of my degrees are in religious studies, and during my Master’s I focused on religion and politics with special emphasis on contemporary Islam.
I certainly never claimed that Islamic traditions “created” any of the discussed phenomena - In fact I said the opposite - and in general I dispute your idea that some practice only has a valid connection with a religious tradition if that religious tradition can be shown to be wholly responsible for it. Religious identities always adapt to new places and times, bringing things with them and developing further in conversation with many factors.
I will admit though, that proving that specific connections are real, and not just-so stories, often requires inordinate (to use your word) effort. Hard to do in academia, even more so on the internet. Using these understandings productively is even harder. I don’t think it is a useless effort, though, especially when the local actors involved really care about their religious identities as well as their tribal/national/ethnic identities. This is something I’ve worked in a lot and I really believe in the good it can do.
My point all along was just to say religion matters, and its roles can be understood. It can contribute to problems, and it can contribute to solutions.
As I mentioned, American segregationists at the time often justified their positions with Christian language. The fact that the early Church would have almost certainly rejected them does not mean that they weren’t being sincere. And even when they didn’t explicitly reference religion, understanding Christianity (and other factors) still helps us to understand them better.
When I have time I’ll start a thread on the distinction between religion and culture. I’d appreciate your thoughts. It’s true that even in my own writing, I use “religion” and “culture” assuming that everyone will know what I mean.
As to your point on labeling, I already posted earlier that I thought referring to honor killing as an “Islamic Problem” was not useful and mentioned why. In general, I find labeling practices as “Christian” or “Muslim” or “cultural” or “religious” to be more about giving or denying legitimacy and distributing social authority than describing something. People get invested in these labels and start using them arbitrarily.
My response to your last sentence is that there are many valid ways to express a religious identity. These ways often incorporate a wide range of local factors, but not in a Frankenstein’s monster way, more holistically. The local “cultural” traditions that pre-date Christianity or Islam or Buddhism were not themselves devoid of religious content and meaning. Often they were accepted/modified and given some legitimacy by arriving traditions. There are many things in Catholic areas of Mexico that Catholics in Lithuania would not recognize, but they still interacted with Catholicism and were affected by it.
It suddenly occurs to me that the disconnect here is that tom is concerned about understanding why a practice occurs in some places but not in others, while I have been more focused on what factors go into how a practice is dealt with in places where it does occur.