Where are the Muslims on SDMB?

Great Debates
1

Let me say right off that since I am not a daily reader of SDMB I stand to be corrected on this point. But why are there few if any Muslims posting in the Islam-related debates on this site?

The threads are too numerous to enurmerate, but, by way of example, here is a thread I started on Jan. 6 that is still running today. It has been viewed over 3,400 times and contains more than 140 postings.

People argue using extensive quotes from Hadiths and the Koran, but I have yet to see a posting from someone who self-identifies as a Muslim.

I have a theory as to why this may be. I believe our western concepts of freedom and democracy, so clearly illustrated by the free-wheeling and passionate debates on this SDMB, are simply weird to a person raised in Islamic culture.

Take the famous epithet “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” For people in western democracies, this is almost a secular prayer, one of the noblest expressions of the democratic spirit.

But if you read a book like the Koran, you experience a whole new ethos. There are many online English translations of the Koran, including this one.

Apart from the fact that it is unbelievably boring (at least the Bible has a few good myths like Noah’s Ark) it also manages to be unbelievably violent. Every other page seems to contain a warning about how Allah will fry the ass of the unbelievers and how good Muslims must fight against them.

In other words, you are commanded by Allah to submit (“Islam” means submit) not debate. Right is what Allah says through his prophet.

My guess is that the average Muslim would probably look at a statement like “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” and be completely confused by this contradiction. It would seem completely illogical. If what the other says is true, then agree with him. If it is not true, then why would you defend his lies?

I recently read a magazine article about the serious backwardness of the Muslim world in science and industry. A devout Muslim educator in Egypt said to the interviewer, “We know there is a theory of Evolution but we cannot just let people say that the story of Adam and Eve is a lie when we have proof that it is true.”

“You do???” asked the interviewer, astounded. “Where?”

“Why, in the Koran” replied the educator incredulously, holding up the book and looking at the westerner as if he had just said he had never heard of Newtonian Physics.

I believe that the scracity of Muslim participants on these boards may have something to do with their inability to understand the values that underlie debate in the West.

2

Well, we used to have Aldebaran, but he was banned.

3

Was he a Muslim? And do you know why he was banned?

4

The SDMB takes place in the future.

5

It had nothing to do with being Muslim. It had everything to do with being a jerk.

6

Alternatively, we have (had) fewer Muslims simply because the SDMB includes a significant number of posters who are actively hostile to Islam. Seven years ago, we had a small but recognizable number of Fundamentalist Christians and a tiny number of Muslims posting here. The number of openly Fundamentalist Christian posters has shrunk to fewer than a handful and the (already smaller number of) Muslims has shrunk accordingly.
Heck, the percentage of Liberal Christians on the SDMB is proportionately much smaller, today, than it was in 1999. Given that Muslims make up a tiny fraction of the U.S. population–and the vast majority of Dopers still reside in the U.S.–the significant loss of Christian posters strongly suggests that the number of Muslims will be vanishingly small. We also have only miniscule representation among Buddhists and Hindus (although there are a few posters who have indicated that they follow a “Buddhist-like” philosophy).

I think demographics work better without pop psychology, but YMMV.

7

John Mace almost just killed me with a piece of half-chewed beef jerky.

8

Go to the Skeptic’s Annotated Koran and click on “Cruelty in the Quran”. There are over 512 examples given. Since most of them are multi-verse references, there are easily over 1500 Koranic verses in which Allah, (through his Prophet of course, nobody ever sees Allah) threatens anyone who “unbelieves” with one form of violence, cruelty and torture after another. Check it out.

So what about the person whose conscience tells him not to believe in Allah and Mohammed? I leave it to your imagination.

9

What’s this have to do with your point again? And what was your point, again?

10

We’ve had a bunch of Muslims on the boards. In fact, one of them, the appropriately named Muslim Guy, started the really popular Ask the Muslim Guy.

Still on the boards is Angua, who started the equally informative (but more specific, Ask the Shi’a Nizari Ismaili Muslim Woman

There was also martin_ibn_martin who started Ask a Muslim, and recurriman who started Ask a muslim man, as well as Bibliovore, who, not talking specifically about religion, started Ask the Arab Guy.

There have also been a bunch of Muslims on the boards who have never started an “Ask the…” thread.

11

If I am not mistaken there are several million Muslims in the US, Canada, Britain and in Muslim countries who can write Engish very effectively. At a guess I would say 10-30 million, but that is just a guess. I believe that there are an estimated 6 million in the US alone? And the ones who speak English tend to be the ones who can afford computers.

(Although it IS possible that SD is banned in many Muslim countries. In which case it says something about their understanding of freedom of expression.)
So if people like me are actively hostile to Islam (I know you did not specifically point the finger at me ;)) what better place to jump in and tell me what an ass I am?

Or alternatively, why not send you, Tomndebb, a note of thanks for insisting that every outrage, every agression, every stoning, has to be seen through the concept of “context” and “culture”?

12

The other thing to keep in mind is that not everybody participates in every thread, and that people will be hesitant to participate in threads that seem hostile. For instance, if you’ve seen some of my posts in the past, you’ll see I’m generally pro-Israeli. I don’t generally participate in threads about Israel anymore, though, because most of the threads about Israel on the board tend to be really contentious and really critical of Israel, and I really don’t want to get in arguments that will just leave me frustrated.

I’m sure that linked thread is going to be kind of similar. If I were Muslim, I’d probably be really hesitant to post in a thread where the OP suggests that Muslims “cannot grasp our concepts of freedom” or, for that matter, this thread, which says that Muslims can’t “understand the values that underlie debate in the West”. It just doesn’t lend itself to a friendly exchange of ideas.

13

A reading of the level of violence and threat in the Koran directed to unbelievers makes it clear that the religion whose name is “submission” does not get along well with the concept of free expression of ideas, debate and dissent.

14

I note that the “Ask the. . . . .” format is one in which you question another who dispenses the “truth”. I am talking about active debate.

15

I could be wrong, but I rather doubt most Islamic countries’ governments are efficient enough to censor the Internet the way China does.

16

I’m still here. But in my old(er) age I just don’t feel like expending energy on endless debates. And not just about religion, but about a lot of subjects. Life is too short to spend it arguing with people I’ll never meet. Plus, I only post twice a month, so I have to make every post count.

17

Another factor that may make debates like this unattractive to Muslims may be the fact that the heretics and blaspheming unbelievers cannot be identified and “dealt with”.

Islam began long before the electronic age, of course. As you read the Koran, you realize that while Allah is the one who promises to fry the ass of unbelievers and reserves a “terrible doom” for them, it is in fact his followers who do all the intimidation.

Theo van Gogh and Salman Rushdie’s translators were not killed by Allah, but by Muslims acting on behalf of Allah.

Until recently, Islam society could identify and punish anyone who denied the “truth” revealed to Allah, since they knew immediately who had made the offending remark.

Faced with something like the Internet and its anonymity, I can just imagine the rage of Muslim fundamentalists who cannot tell if the blasphemer and infidel is the guy in the next apartment or half a world away.

That may do a lot to explain the near-absence of Muslims in debates about Islam.

18

Valteron, you seem to want to see some Muslims posting here so you can bash them face-to-virtual-face. This is not what I would call inviting.

19

True, but not everyone interprets the Koran literally. There are not that many Muslims in the U.S., which is where the vast majority of this board’s membership comes from - I think the figure is around 3 million.

You make it sound as if Islam prohibits somebody from getting an account here. But how many Muslims are reading the Chicago Reader? I think this is more likely to be a demographic issue.

20

So, what better opportunity do Muslims have to prove me wrong and show that they DO understand the concept of participating in a freewheeling, democratic debate than to come right into the discussion? :slight_smile: