People know of the Dark and middle age in Europe: Christianity was forced upon the citizenry, the church was the center of everyday life, holy wars were declared. This occured roughly between 1100 and 1500, with the start of the renaissance. eventually Christians pulled out of it, and as it became less fundamentalist people began to see others as equals and depart on a quest for knowledge, however, it took about 400 more years to do and is still not quite done yet.
Is this what Islam is going through? I mean it is about the right age (±1400 years) to be going through this period, and it’s development has shown some similairities to Christianity.
During the early periods of Islam, after it was established, It was a religion of peace, the sciences, art, knowledge, and we owe much to that period. During the early stages of Christianity it too was a religion of the sciences and art, and many great architectual wonders were constructed in Europe.
Then Christainity entered the dark age, and it stagnated. standards were tightened, many lived in poverty, religious holy wars were fought, and the church was the center of life.
This sounds a bit like Islam. I assume Judaism did this as well, but I cannot be sure. Is this period of fundamentalism normal for a long-lasting religion? If so, when will the Islamic renaissance occur? How will that affect the balance of religions?
One Last question:
Is there a way i can abbreviate Christianity so I won’t piss most people off?
Adios, Aduí, and Adé
Jeez, where to start. Any real historians in the crowd please feel free to jump in and mark up my comments, but here’s some corrections:
The Middle Ages had nothing to do with Christian fundamentalism. The Middle ages are held to have begun with the fall of Rome around the mid fifth century C.E and extended to the Italian Rennaisance.
The ‘Dark Age’ (which as a term is no longer used by historians) would be the early middle ages in Europe, from around the 5th through 8th centuries, when regional goverments collapsed with Rome’s downfall and there was generally chaos. By the 10th or 11th century, regional government was reestablished in most places, so the Dark Ages were over.
Christianity was already widespread in Europe before the fall of Rome. Some feel Christianity contributed to Rome’s fall, others say that this is a silly notion. In any case the rise of Christianity had already happened long before a ‘Dark Age’.
“During the early periods of Islam, after it was established, It was a religion of peace, the sciences, art, knowledge, and we owe much to that period”. True. This would be from the 8th-10th centuries in the middle-east. Although I’m not sure that that this can be attributed to ‘islamic’ attitudes at the time more than that it was a time of peace and prosperity in the middle east, which encouraged and preserved knowledge.
“During the early stages of Christianity it too was a religion of the sciences and art, and many great architectual wonders were constructed in Europe”. Huh? I assume the architectural wonders you mention are cathedrals, which were built from about the 11th centuries onward, which wouldn’t be an early period in the Christian era by any standard. The Church had also been very hostile to science and (secular) art throughout the middle ages.
The concept of a Middle (Medieval) period is itself arbitrary (and again unrelated to religious fundamentalism). This was basically an attempt by historians to divide world (or more accurately European) history into three time periods, the ‘Classical’ period (Rome and before) the ‘Modern’ era (Rennaisance to now) and everything in-between (the ‘middle’ ages).
My academic advisor has an interesting theory on this-he said Christianity probably began to really grow ugly when Constantine adopted it and began showering riches on the church. Previously, Christianity WAS a religion of tolerance, peace, etc etc. Like it is SUPPOSED to be. But then it gathered a sense of elitism.
He said, that when church and state do mix, it’s not the STATE that suffers-that the church interfers with freedom so much. It does, but what’s worse-the STATE screws religion. The state then twists the religion to fit ITS needs. Think about that. Divine Right of Kings, emperor worship and caesaro-papism (god, I love that phrase!).
So perhaps it’s a result of religion being established and adopted by the state-it’s twisted to serve the state’s ends, and vice versa.
An interesting idea re:Christianity, but not really applicable to Islam where state and religion were entwined from the get-go.
I agree with squeegee - I don’t see the parallels. Even the ‘Dark Ages’ of Christianity is a bit of a misnomer, because while western Europe was wallowing in chaos, the east was thriving under the Eastern Roman/Byzantine state.
I also agree with squeegee’s corrections, with one caveat - Saying Islam was “peaceful” in the 8th - 10th century is stretching things a bit . Sophisticated and advanced, yes. Safe from out-and-out, large-scale invasion ( the Pax Islamica ), sure. But border warfare, expansionism outward ( India and Central Asia ), and internal strife were still common. More ‘settled’ and secure than later centuries, would probably be a better way to put it.
Of the world’s predominantly Islamic countries, two are democracies: Bangladesh and Turkey. The majority of the world’s military dictatorships are in Islamic countries, which also carry out some 80% of the world’s executions. Even relatively moderate Islamic countries have major faults: institutionalized discrimination against Coptic Christians in Egypt (in government employment and university admissions), besides of course acid attacks and “honor killings” (putting women to death for having sex with men not their husbands), which widely take place in Jordan, as well. Securing human rights for Palestinians, and an independent Palestine, will enhance the ability of the world’s liberal democracies — and the US in particular — to influence Islamic societies for the better, but we shouldn’t overestimate the benefits of a more enlightened Mid East policy. The real fanatics, such as the Taliban, and more importantly, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabis, have no tolerance for any other religion, or for any system of government not based on the most literal reading of the Koran. The Western-oriented House of Saud not only nurtures its own nemesis by succoring Wahhabi clerics, with their clerical regime and madrasas, in which they cultivate bin Ladenist hatred of liberal ideas, the West, and modernity, indeed, any variety of Islam or Islamic government not dedicated to jihad against all “infidels”; it lavishly funds the spread of Wahhabism throughout the world. The right thing to do would be to encourage the Saudis to get their fundies under control and help them do so, giving them intelligence aid and generous cooperation to ensure that the inevitable counterattack of radical Islamists both there and in other countries doesn’t lead to the overthrow of the House of Saud. But I fear it won’t happen. The history of the US is mostly that we turn a blind eye to what our allies do. I fear we’ll do the same as regards all Islamic countries that make even a pretense of backing US action in Afghanistan.
I really wish sloppy-assertions would get checked.
And Senegal, and Mali, one can make an argument that Indonesia is about as democratic as Turkey. I’m not sure how one would like to count Somaliland, however the neo-traditional shoura with balanced representation seems a reasonable approximation of democracy for a tribal society with not much of a modern economy to speak of. Of course, one can note the wrinkle that Somaliland is not internationally recognized but that’s a mistake in my mind. Then there is Lebanon. It isn’t a perfect democracy, but again no worse than say Turkey.
So, please take care with these points?
Majority of the world’s military dictatorships? Pray tell how are you counting? As for 80% of the world’s executions, you’ll forgive me for asking for something ressembling a statistic insofar as this smells like a bullshit assertion. Where do you get your data from, pray tell?
Well, yes, they do. As do most nations.
Government employment yes, university admissions? Not to my knowledge. In re government employment, there are two aspects to this (a) a defacto discrimination against Copts in a sense that there do seem to be glass cielings. Given other nations issues, including the USA, GB etc with equitable representation of minorities, a slack might be good (b) some reprehensible de jure restrictions re certain ministries. The detials escape me presently. However, on the other hand, Copts are over represented in the private sector. Much worse than government employment issues (which may in fact be an ironic benefit) is the utter absence of Coptic religion in public education, while Islamic themes are the default.
Yes, quite true. But that is not general.
Not only a literal reading of the Quran but their own spin on hadiths, when they so desire.
Encourage the ibna Saud to get their fundies under control? How? Leverage on the Saudis re their internal policies is bloody well near zero and their cleintelistic system is far too intertwined with the Wahhabist establishment to cut it off.
Further, it is rather unclear whether they need US intelligence, the question being rather whether their internal system can sustain its contradictions.
Turn a blind eye. Well, what does one do in reality? Explain to the Egyptians how to deal with the Gamaa? Lecture them? And the Algerians, what brilliant suggestions do we have to offer to the generals who are fighting the GIA? Democratize? Sounds nice. How? Short-term contradictions. Economic constraints are not going to go away and those are among the most important.
The OP seemed to argue that religious fundamentalism was the cause of poverty and general bad times during certain eras.
Doesn’t it seem more likely that the reverse is true, that economic hardship (e.g. the ‘dark age’ in Europe, or the current situation in many 2nd and third world countries) promotes a rise in religious fundamentalism? I think I’ve seen this point argued elsewhere, but haven’t found a cite.
I did find this paper on religious fundamentalism in modern times interesting, although it’s analysis of the causes of fundamentalism is rather abstract. It does go into a little depth on origins of the current Islamic revival, as well as current Christian fundamentalism in the U.S., among other things.
Alfie, don’t put up uncited ‘facts’ when Collunsbury is around.
I was told about W. Deen Muhammed, Elijah Muhammed’s son and head of his own ministry. He tells of a story that he was offered riches by rich Saudis, and in return he was to spread the gospel according to Wahab. He declined.
I am also sorry for any misinterpretation. What I meant was that people who were Christian or Jews were tolerated because they were “People of Book,” and while they were taxed higher, I was not aware that they were discriminated against in the level they are now. Actually, while I can not make a positive cite even though i recall seeing this on MSNBC, the Q’oran actually states that these people are not meant to be converted forcefully, but to be tolerated and respected. (someone help me on that statement)
Another topic to be considered:
The Q’oran states that women are to dress modestly, not cover themselves head to toe. It is more a cultural thing that a woman were a burka or other form of clothing. But remember, women’s clothes were not exactly reaveling in the European countries either. At times, most especially in the Victorian era I believe, (but definitly not limited to. I just can not provide dates) women had to wear dresses that came to the shoes, and long sleeves with only the head revealed, usually under a hat, and don’t get me started with corsets. In fact, It almost seems as if women were to appear to not have any legs at all. While a large part of it was simply fashion, women who showed their legs in public were thought of as less respectable, modest, and considered with low regard. It is only in the latter part of this century that women wore more revealing clothing and were culturally acceptable.
Until a short time ago, women in Christian parts, and indeed other parts of the world, had no rights at all. Women in many Islamic states have no rights now. connection? As i said before, the object of clothing is more cultural then religious. But religion was always used in some form in culture, and does shape many cultural values. Think what we would be like if the Puritans never came!
In reponse to squeegee:
<The OP seemed to argue that religious fundamentalism was the cause of poverty and general bad times during certain eras.
Doesn't it seem more likely that the reverse is true, that economic hardship (e.g. the 'dark age' in Europe, or the current situation in many 2nd and third world countries) promotes a rise in religious fundamentalism? I
think I've seen this point argued elsewhere, but haven't found a cite.>
Not exactly. While I believe that religious fundamentalism was a cause of poverty and general bad times during certain eras, It was not the only one. Combining Church and State played a large role in this. people afraid of change in thinking was another cause. It is very true that people turn to religion in time of need. Even now, people in the US are turning to God more and more in the aftermath of the 11th of September. These two things seem to go hand in hand.
Disclaimer: Anything i stated as factual and you think is wrong, please tell me. Anything you are misunderstanding about my posts, tell me. I know I left a crucial point or two out as usual, so just wait a while, and i’lle fill out my argument when i recover from the cold i contracted from the flu vaccine.
Hrrmmm…I’m not sure how I’d weigh the two periods in terms of relative tolerance. There were moments of great intolerance in the past. Further discrimination today is uneven and varies from country to country and region to region.
I suppose I might conditionally grant your point during times of peace and prosperity in the Muslim world ( The “Golden Age”, the height of the Ottoman age, etc. ), while noting the above caveats.
This is absolutely true and actual forced conversions have been relatively rare in Islamic history. However one should note that when one gets to non-Judeo-Christian religions, the picture becomes murkier and much more open to interpretation ( as experiences in India, both negative and positive, can attest ).
Agreed.
Also true, but I’m not sure how this relates to your thesis. The Victorian period was not significantly more fundamentalist in tone ( rather less in some respects ) than periods before it. Further the standards of dress were not universal to all classes in all Christian countries of Europe, anyway.
Oversimplified and overstated, but I’ll grant the point you are trying to make .
I’m gonna do my best to try pre-emptively save you from Collounsbury’s ire, here . This is REALLY overstated. You should be careful to throw in a few qualifiers. The lot of women in several Islamic states isn’t very good and if you subtract the hyperbole, I’ll again grant your point on this . But quite frankly the status of women throughout the entire Islamic world varies considerably and because Islam explicitly guarantees at least some rights to women, you’ll find few places where women have absolutely none. And in some ( most? ) regions they have a rather more rights than they did 100 years ago.
Further, I’ll note that outside of Europe, not all Christian countries today are necessarily known for their enlightenment when it comes to women’s issues.
Your point is actually still a little unclear to me. Again, I just don’t see the possible historical parallel you were trying to make in your earlier post being born out by this example. Concealing clothing in Islamic culture is, as you admitted, cultural ( and probably originally arose from climate, fed through the lens of a patriarchal culture, then grafted onto/merged into Islamic notions of modesty ) and never really did have an exact parallel in Europe in any period, fundamentalist or not. It was not, too the best of my knowledge, noticeably less common during Islam’s “Golden Age” and it is far from universal in the Muslim world now.
I think you can make a case for fundamentalism causing economic downturns under certain conditions - Persecution of certain faiths causing internal upheaval, for instance. Further one can find fundamentalism in reaction to ( or at least loosely associated with ) economic upturns, as in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in late-Renaissance Europe. But I also think squeegee is right that frequently, especially in this day and age, it is poverty that feeds extremeism.
By and large( exceptions can probably be found ), mass fundamentalism seems to be a reaction to societal stress, be it economic or otherwise. I think we’re in agreement on that.
But I still haven’t seen convincing evidence for your original hypothesis.
cough-choke-sputter
Um, the Victorian era and MODESTY in dress? Hardly!
Apparently, you’ve never seen some of their evening dresses-VERY low necks, tight waists and busts, bustles, etc etc.
Trust me, it wasn’t about any sense of “Christianity.” http://www.costumegallery.com
I for one am grateful people like Collounsbury are around to set such matters straight.
One thing I would like to add: Islam has boomed in popularity over the past 10-15 years. If its rapid spread is any indicator, Islam is not in a dark age at all - it is in an age of expansion. Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order” calls this “The Islamic Resurgence” and equals it in significance to the European Renaissance.
Guin, I must be missing something. Can you give a more specific example from one of those sites? These folk all seem covered head-to-toe and necklines are at the neck. This woman seems dressed pretty darned modestly (though maybe I’m not conversant in the ‘hat feather code’ and she’s actually being shockingly brazen. ).
Yes, daywear and most common folk dressed rather high necked. But that wasn’t always the case.
Court dress, for example, often demanded a low neckline. If you’ll notice, waists were tight and small, with large ballooning hips and breasts.
http://members.tripod.com/~kittymomca/fashion.html
Yes, things were covered up. But to say they were like burqas and chadas are is ridiculous, to say the least.
And if you go back a bit further into the Regency era, well, let’s just say dresses were even lower.
So you’ll see, it wasn’t always so black and white. Compared to today, maybe. IMHO, there certainly was a little bit of skin. It was just more subtle. The clothes were perhaps long, but rather tight in the bodice, with just a hint of cleavage, or off the shoulders.
Corsets were also not a torture device forced upon women by narrow-minded men. Please. A corset, when worn properly, should actually be comfortable-it supports your back and helps you stand up straight. However, many women laced them rather tight-much more than they should have. The whole idea was to EMPHASIZE one’s feminity. To push breasts up, slim the waist down, wide hips, etc etc.
If anyone wishes, I have a picture of Queen Alexandra when she was Princess of Wales in a very tight fitting, rather low-neck (by Victorian standards) dress with an elaborate bustle.
Look especially at the 1850s ball gowns-notice the off the shoulders, very short sleeves, etc etc.
(sorry for the hijack-if anyone wants, I could start another debate about this!)
Ah, I was missing your context here. Apologies. OK, bycomparison the Victorians weren’t all that reserved. Certainly those costumes you pointed out were quite feminine. Point taken, and thanks for the examples.
I’m not not historian, but I would disagree on this point. The empire didn’t collapse without letting anything behind it. I don’t think the life changed much before and after the collapse of Rome… The “federate” people (germanic tribes), who were already settled there (they have been “invinted” in to protect the empire from other tribes) just took over.
They were familiar with the roman institutions,seized the public lands and kept most of what was still functionning toward the end of the empire (hey…everybody needs tax collectors), including the civil servants, the bishops, etc…Most powerful romanized families just kept on doing what they were doing before the fall of Rome, except that they woild refer to a local king instead of some representant of Rome. They usually kept also their domains, and even laws and customs. With time, they would mix and unite with the germanic aristocracy.
Sure, there has been various struggles betweens the germanic kingdoms which succeded to the empire, but on the overall, it wasn’t a total chaos. With Charlemagne would come a kind of cultural renaissance and restauration of the authority of the state. And he reigned over more or less all what used to be the western roman empire except for the arab-occupied Spain and England. Only with his successors, the concept of state and central authority, of public domain, would decay and eventually dissapear, the formerly named high ranking civil servants becoming hereditary landlords actually ruling independantly their domain. It was the beginning of the feodality.
Contrarily to what you said, AFAIK, the situation has been at his worst during the XI° century when the kingdoms had splitted in numerous fiefdoms, which themselves had splitted in even tinier entity. The real feodal age, in other words, with all its imagery of warring local landlords fighting over the ownership of some fields while the king or the emperor was only a remote and theorical image of authority.
AFAIK, it has roughly been true for most of Western Europe (Spain until the arab conquest, France, Italy, Western Germany), with the exception of England which, from my limited knowledge actually entered in a period of chaos and successive waves of invasions after the fall of the western empire, not retaining much of the roman heritage. So perhaps it was to England that you refered, but this “chaos until the XI° century” certainly wasn’t true for the continental europe.
. Sophisticated and advanced, yes. Safe from out-and-out, large-scale invasion ( the Pax Islamica ), sure. But border warfare, expansionism outward ( India and Central Asia ), and internal strife were still common. More ‘settled’ and secure than later centuries, would probably be a better way to put it.
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