Mambo: Well to be sure the Copts were ( and are ) oppressed. Again, calling medieval Muslims egalitarians would be a stretch of ludicrous proportions. And the Copts of today face the same sort of damning discrimination that minorities endure the world over. Minimizing that oppression would just be wrong.
But it is a long stretch from that unfortunate history/reality to Kalt’s hypothesis #2 above - That Islam attracts violent people.
As for Islam being a violent faith ( in a negative sense ) - I really think that is too black and white. There seem to be many intelligent people today who study the Koran assiduously ( not just the ignorant ) who seem to believe otherwise. Are they ALL misguided? Perhaps - But I think it is a point worth thinking long and hard on.
And just to be on the safe side , I think I will pre-emptively bow out of any debate on the historical situation in Egypt, for fear of inadvertently giving offense. I have no wish to tread on any toes on such a potentially sensitive topic. Besides, you may well know a lot more than me and I hate to look foolish .
Actually, I have no axe to grind whatsoever. I’m just trying to get to the truth (this is the Straight Dope, after all).
And, I’ve had the sense that all is not as it seems. I keep hearing how peaceful Islam is (“why, the very word itself means peace!”), yet when I look around the world I can’t see a whole lot of Islamic countries that are living in peace. I keep hearing that it’s only a very tiny band of extremists who are causing all the trouble, but then the government turns around and says that the Middle East is precarious because so many people are ready to follow the Taliban. Apparently, Pakistan itself is in danger of being toppled by extremists. And there are what, 170 million people there? It sure sounds like these ideas are little more mainstream than that.
Then I try to look for a source from the other side of the aisle, and come across an ‘Islam Q&A’ on the Discovery Channel web page, in which readers wrote in asking questions, which were answered by Jean AbiNader, the Managing Director of the Arab American Institute, and goes on and on about how peaceful and brotherly Islam is. But then he answers THIS question:
…Which seems to sanction the killing of anyone supporting Israel, by strict interpretation of the religion. But it’s not clear whether he’s talking about a perverted version of Islam, or just that Bin Laden is radical in that he is applying something that is written in the Koran in a literal fashion.
And if you go back before Sept 11 and look for speeches from the same Arab Leaders who are talking about how peaceful Islam is, you don’t hear a whole lot of peaceful talk.
So I’m trying to sort it all out. Is the ‘Peaceful’ Islam just spin? Is it the new Political Correctness? Or is it the truth? I honestly don’t know at this point.
Mambo: I will note that the jiziya is not supposed to be levied on the indigent. But I’m sure that was ignored often enough. And I agree it’s a despicable, alienating practice, codified by the second Caliph Umar.
It is said that the Mughal Padishah Akbar ( r.1556-1605 ) won more support from his non-Muslim subjects with the single stroke of abolishing it in India, than all of the rest of his dynasty won in all of their conquests.
Sam Stone: My understanding is that Osama bin Laden originally didn’t call for attacks on civilians, just military targets. But he changed his tune soon enough, using a rationale something along the lines of ( and this is just one justification, he has others apparently ) - “The Israelis drive Muslims from their homes, the American government supports the Israelis, the American taxpayers support the American government - Therefore all Americans are legitimate targets.” It’s a pretty long stretch, especially since it seems to contravene Muslim prohibitions on the killing of non-combatants. It appears he is trying to reclassify all Americans as de facto combatants, which would appear on the face of things to be in violation of both the spirit and the letter of some facets of Islamic law.
I think I’m still going to maintain that classifying Islam as either entirely “peaceful” or entirely “violent” is an oversimplification. There is just too much amiguity in how it is practiced, which is ultimately what counts, to make a clean call. Given the fact that there are millions of ( peaceful ) American Muslims and many more millions of non-hostile Muslims in the world, it just seems that the most sensible position to take is to regard our enemies as individuals, rather than as representatives of a monolithic, lockstep religion. Declaring war on the “Muslim World” essentially declares war on some of our own citizens as well and I see no compelling reason to do that.
Frankly I think the current administrations actions on this front have been prudent and appropriate ( so far ).
I don’t think anyone wants to declare war on the Muslim world. Buckley’s point was that the extremists are the beneficiaries of ‘benign neglect’ amongst mainstream Muslims, largely because the mainstream Muslims in the Middle-East largely agree with the goals of Bin Laden, if not his methods. So they look the other way, allow terrorists to flourish, give them implicit support while explicitly denouncing them, etc.
Basically, he says it’s time they chose sides, announced that terrorism is a hijacking of Islam, and got on the side of goodness and right. They are abdicating morality by claiming to be impartial, while opening the back door so the terrorists can sneak around and do the dirty work that benefits the states that support them.
Buckley is saying that the Taliban’s form of Islam is either a perversion of Islam, or it is ‘true’ Islam taken to its logical conclusion. If it is a perversion, then it is the responsibility of other Muslims to denounce it as such AND to stand up and fight against it. And if they won’t do that, they are giving it their tacit approval and at that point become the enemy.
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I don’t disagree with that, but I think that one of my 2 model viewpoints has to be the right one (making the other one the wrong one). You can of course add/delete reasons why Islam is inherently violent to #1, and likewise add/delete reasons why Islam is not inherently violent to #2. I don’t see a gray area here.
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I’m not quite sure if militancy necessarily means violence. It probably does to a certain extent.
One could say there are two reasons why a particular religion may tend towards violence: 1) Historical reasons; and 2) religious text (maybe there are more than two, but off the top of my head I can’t think of any others).
I don’t think one reason is “better” than the other, except for the fact that historical reasons can potentially be corrected/abated, whereas textual reasons will never change by definition (the immutable word of god).
Do you think textual aspects of the Koran perpetuate the historical militancy? I guess that is my immediate question in response to what you so eloquently just stated.
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You’re probably right about this. I’ve surely never seen any statistics supporting the notion that violent people are attracted to Islam. This may just be a charicature of prison life in america which has become somewhat of a stereotype. I could not imagine a prison without some big, mean, convicted murderers talking about Allah.
It seems to me that their violence is turned inward, versus Islamic violence which seems to be turned both outward and inward.
I’m back, with the promised quotation from Huntington’s book, at pp 257-8:
To be fair, Huntington’s analysis is based on data from a very small period of time - the early 90s. The analysis of force ratio also possibly overlooks the fact that many Western countries have large numbers of reservists.
Reading what many of you have posted above, I wonder if this tendency towards violence is caused by a lack of tolerance inherent in the Islamic faith.
Some people have made reference to the Crusades as an example of Christian religious intolerance in the past. This is a bit too “flavour of the month” for me - Islamic rhetoric against anti-Western policies have long referred to this (Qaddafi immediately springs to mind, with his speech urging China and Islam to unite against the West) and this theme is now being pursued by bin Laden so no doubt it is fresh in people’s minds. More to the point, you are looking at a series of events which occurred prior to the evolution of Christendom into a modern culture. A more appropriate reference is the Holocaust, which showed not so much Christian but facist (but still Western)intolerance of Judaism.
I tend to think that Western society nowadays, evidenced by multiculturalism in most Western countries, and respect of freedom of religion, is broadly more tolerant than Islamic countries. Huntington’s collation of analyses seems to back that up.
Yeah, but when that kernel of truth is buried deep inside an inflammatory piece of ignorance, it still needs to be set straight (ideally by separating the wheat from the chaff, as you have done). Still, would have been easier if there was a “Cecil slapping some loser” smiley on this board, eh?
During the Albegensian Crusade, (which is distinct from the Crusades. The Albigensians were a group of heretics in Southern France, around the town of Albi, who believed that the material world was evil. A full description of Cathar belief is probably beyond the scope of this post, but it’s enough to say that the Church was disturbed by it, and called a crusade against them) the crusaders had beseiged the town of Beziers. When they took the town, Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, according to one chronical, said “Neca ecos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet.”, which basically translates to “Kill all of them. G-d will know who are his.”
And which religious faith is tolerant? If you’re comparing Islam to agnosticism, I’ll admit that Islam is less tolerant in comparison. Otherwise, I simply can’t see what you’re talking about.
Well, I believe that Islam has not evolved into a modern culture yet. American Muslims are living in a modern culture and are pretty peaceful, or so it seems to me. Take some illiterate farmer from a village in Pakistan and you are talking about someone who is living the same way as his ancestors did a hundred years ago.
I agree with you, it is unfair to attribute the Holocaust to Christianity, however if we are talking about “Islamic nations” versus “Christian nations” it is a fair comparison.
I would be willing to concede that the Quran is more militant than the Bible, if this could somehow be proven. I also appreciate the discussion of the early beginnings of both religions. But this talk of “Islamic nations” versus “Christian nations” does not seem to me to be a fair comparison of the two religions. Firstly, all Islamic nations are not like Afghanistan. There are some Islamic nations in which people enjoy exactly the same kind of freedom as they would in a “Christian nation”. And speaking of “Christian nations”, many people around the world think of Americans as extremely militant, conservative and intolerant people. Here in France, for example, America is often grouped with Iraq and Afghanistan due to its capital punishment laws. Frankly, I don’t think of America as a particularly militant nation. But why not? Because Americans are all God-fearing Christians?
I am not trying to claim that Islam is the most peaceful of religions. I believe that all religions are essentially peaceful but in general it seems that the more avidly a person adheres to any of them, the more intolerant and narrow-minded that person somehow becomes. I studied Islam at school for many years and I was never taught anything remotely violent. However I have since then become aware of concepts in Islam, such as the permissible use of force when under attack, which seem “violent” to me. I have also heard a lot of Christian rhetoric which seems extremely violent and intolerant. There have been horrible atrocities committed by members of all religions. If you see more of them in certain regions or periods than in others, it could be due to factors other than religion.
In “The autobiography of Malcolm X” as told to Alex Haley, Malcolm X made it clear that Elijah Muhhamad made it a practice to recruit many new members from prison. Having been a prisoner himself, he could definitely relate to their plight, and he found them to often be willing converts to his religion. Malcolm X also emphasized that the “Nation of Islam” imposed a very strict moral code of conduct on its membership, which prohibited violence of any kind, unless in self-defense. Thus, it was recruiting practices and not violent tendencies that resulted in many prisoners becoming members of the “Nation of Islam”.
Here’s the link to an interesting article by Andrew Sullivan of the New York Times.
One take of the article Sullivan puts forth is the possiblity that monotheism (rather than Islam itself) lends itself to be interpreted by certain factions in a violent/non-tolerent way. I especially liked his use of Dostoevsky’s “Inquisitor” to further his argument.
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