To reach the map to which Tamerlane tried to link, earlier, go to http://indiainfocentre.tripod.com/maps.html and select the Maratha Empire link.
Actually, I have not seen any accurate presentation that there has been any “Islamic extremism so far in history.” A review of the historical record would indicate that there have been minor outbreaks of extremism in scattered locations throughout history (just as there have been for Christianity and other religions–even including Buddhism) with the current Islamic extremism being a fairly recent event that has only more recently expanded out from a small region in the Middle East. I can think of no historical trend that can be legitimately identified as “Islamic extremism” that has extended across any significant part of the previous 1300 years.
Whether or not the Crusades caused Islam to regress as a religion I will not comment upon until I see what is meant by that claim. However, most commentaries that I have read indicate that the Crusades (1095 - 1291) were launched because the Muslim nations of the region were already perceived by the Europeans to be in decline, and so ripe for a war of conquest.
I will point out that there has never been a Muslim “domination” of Europe. The conquest of the Iberian peninsula by Muslims never presented a serious threat to the rest of Europe (the victory at Tours being little more than a sign to an overextended force that they had no hope of conquering France in any event). Similarly, the one serious threat to Europe from a nation that happened to be Muslim occurred (1453) 162 years after the Crusaders had been expelled from the Levant as theTurks took the Bosporous and then worked their way up the Balkans, finally threatening (hardly dominating) Vienna for the last time in 1683.
Again, your attempt to equate the Barbary pirates with a conflict between the U.S. and Islam fails on the point that the Barbary pirates were recognized as pirates even by other Muslim nations. The U.S. never had a conflict with the Ottoman Empire or any number of smaller Muslim nations until the latter half of the twentieth century.
Your comments regarding the “Dark Ages” of Europe are also the result of unconsidered acceptance of propaganda. The name “Dark Ages” was coined by Protestants in the eighteenth century to deplore the fall of the Roman Empire while ascribing that fall to their enemy, the “Church of Rome.” And while (Western) Europe clearly suffered a loss in the fifth century, that loss was due to the dissolution of civil authority as the Western Empire broke up, not to any actions by religious groups–who actually held together what little remained of an infrastructure.
Minor nitpick (something I very rarely get to do to tom) :
WWI was not the latter half of the 20th Century.
Your point would be better taken if al Queda were not from “outside” Iraq. I thought they were based primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I grant you there were some contacts between Iraq and terrorists before the invasion, but bin Laden is Saudi, and (as gets mentioned repeatedly) none of the 9/11 terrorists were Iraqi. The mass of Islamic terrorists seem to me to be united, not against foreign invaders as you suggest, but only against the West.
The muhajadeen fighting the Soviet invaders is one thing. al Queda making common cause with the Ba’athist insurgents against the US and her allies is something different.
Regards,
Shodan
However, Iraq is a Western construct (although one that has begun to be embraced by many of its inhabitants) and the outsiders, in this case, are perceived to be outside the Arab world, not the nation of Iraq. I am not claiming that al Qaida has a right to be there, only noting that from their perspective there is no contradiction.
Point taken.
Did the U.S. ever actually have a conflict with Turks in the brief period we participated in WWI? Or was that conflict limited to Britian, its ANZAC allies, and an occasional French and Italian?
I was lumping “the Allies” into one big category rather than going battle-by-battle, so the answer is probably no…the US wasn’t directly in conflict with the Ottomans.
And I withdraw my objection if that’s the case.
Now we see why I rarely get to pick nits with you. 
Well, don’t give up so soon. I’m sure that the U.S. and Ottomans broke off diplomatic relations and there might have been a conflict some time in the next 20 months. (I’m not omniscient.)
You are correct to point out that Europe was not under Islamic rule. I should have said Eastern Europe or South Eastern Europe. The Slavic states were the area of conquest I meant to refer to.
I disagree with your summation of Islamic history in the context of extremism. Extremism as exhibited in terrorism today is based on the same religious philosophy used to justify the acquisition of American and European slaves in the 18th century by Berber Pirates. It still holds true today with the practice of slavery in Africa by Muslims. The words used to justify today’s terrorism are the same words used by 18th century rulers to justify slavery. It is irrelevant what Islamic leaders have said in the past (or present) regarding slavery or terrorism. Words only mean things if they are supported by action. Islamic action, as defined by Sharia law, allows for slavery. The same can be said for terrorist acts. The only thing that has changed is a shrinking planet that forces the inevitable clash of cultures.
Your supposition that the “Dark Ages” is Protestant propaganda may be accurate but misplaced. It is universally understood to mean the period in history resulting in Christian persecution of none-believers. It produced the Inquisition and the Crusades. It suppressed every piece of art or intellectual thought that was contradictory to Christian philosophy. The parallel between Christian life during the Dark Ages and Islam after the Crusades is a broad-brush concept but the similarities cannot be denied. Islam went from a social structure that supported the arts and sciences to one of suppression. The feudal system survives today in the Mid East culture as does Sharia law. Icons like the great Buddha statues of Afghanistan have been destroyed and writers like Rushdi are attacked because they represent a contradiction to Islam (as it is interpreted).
The intent of my original post was to point out that the philosophical nature of Islam has not changed appreciably throughout history. The only thing that has changed is the ability to act on that philosophy. The concept of “extremism” extends beyond the act of suicidal bomber. It is a mindset of “Religionism” where someone believes their religion is superior to that of life itself.
I do not mean to imply that the Islamic religion is evil or dedicated to evil. I think it lacks the historic reform needed to weed out the people bent on using it as such. I believe the parallel to Christianity during the Dark Ages exists when viewed as a broad concept.
You are mistaken. The Dark Ages “universally” refers to either the period from 476 to around 800 (the crowning of Charlemagne as emperor) or more broadly from 500 to 1000, a period that ended nearly 100 years prior to the First Crusade and 180 years prior to the first Inquisition (and almost 250 years prior to the formal establishment of an office of the Inquistion).
You then stumble on your claims for Islam: What evidence have you that Islam changed from supporting the arts and sciences to one of oppression? Citing either the Taliban or the Fatwa against Rushdie simply fails to make your point. The Buddha statues survived without harm from Muslims for over 1,350 years until a new anti-intellectual movement arose in Islam to impose a cultural (not religious) condemnation of the statues. (The Taliban destruction of the statues was widely condemned in Muslim countries.) Similarly, Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was not condemned in Muslim countries (actually receiving favorable reviews even in Iran), until the Ayatollah Khomeini decided to make a political statement about The West by condemning the book and Rushdie.
So you have attributed anachronistic evils to Christianity and then attempted to link those evils to a continuous pattern of activity in Islam that has actually arisen only in the last few years, anachronistically trying to assign them to the whole sweep of Muslim history.
What happened to the book reviewer in Iran who had the incredibly unlucky timing to publish a favorable review of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses just before the fatwa?
Was he ever heard from again?
There was probably no action taken against him.
When the book was first published, it was reviewed as fiction throughout the Muslim world, being treated as serious fiction by many reviewers, but as insulting and provocative by many people who would never read it. A Muslim Indian legislator called for the government to ban the book as insulting to Islam and once that was achieved, the calls for censorship swept across much of the more Fundaentalist Mulim world. Rushdie, who is Anglo-Indian, became the focus of a number of demonstrations in India with Hindus and Muslims using his “freedom of speech” or his “insults” as rallying points for their attacks on their opponents. Meanwhile, the Iran-Iraq war had finally ground to its conclusion about a month prior to the publication of The Satanic Verses and Khomeini needed something to distract his people from conditions in Iran with no war to keep them focused. His attention was drawn to the riots in India and he decided that Rushdie, who had already been identified by one group of Muslims as evil and who holds a British passport, would be a good symbol of the decadence of the “West” and so four months after its publication, he issued his fatwa.
I doubt that he or his henchmen went back looking for earlier reviews in literary journals to punish people–at least I have never heard that that happened. (Not that putting a favorable review on one’s resume is probably a good idea in Iran.)
I am not mistaken. The Dark Ages is not a geological time stamp. when discussing Europe (which I was) it extends up to, and is succeeded by, the Renaissance Period.
This is what I was taught in school. It is a broad definition that is loosely describes what I’ve already talked about regarding Christianity, feudal power structures, and the suppression of “blasphemous material”. It is as much a concept as it is a reference to specific dates.
Agrarian Age
4000 B.C. to 1700 A.D.
City and Regional social organization (city states - ie. Sumer, Babylon, Sparta, Athens, Carthage, Rome, Constantinople, and Baghdad, etc…). Agrarian Revolution: food gained through planting large crops using the plow and breeding livestock. Small scale manufactured goods. Parchment is first used, making writing common: used for keeping records, business transactions, religious documents, etc.; Machines are invented. Transportation through animal, water, and/or wind-powered means. For a more detailed history click here. Greek Dark Age (1100 to 750 B.C.). Major religions emerge: Sabaeanism, Judaism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism (modern Parsee in India), Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism, Shintoism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism. Roman Empire established (27 BC). Gunpowder invented. [COLOR=Red]European Dark Age (400 to 1500 AD). Mercenary Armies and Navies established. Organized Warfare becomes common. Era of European Discovery and Colonization (1500 AD to 1900 AD). [/COLOR]
If you want to continue dissecting the word “Dark Ages” then you can enjoy having the last word. I’ve already defined my parameters for debate. If you want to discuss what I said then I look forward to reading your considered response.
The premise that the Crusades interfered with the natural progression of Islam and it’s influence on Mid East society is not my own and was put forth before 9/11 occurred. Islamic culture was steeped in science and art prior to Europe’s Renaissance Period. That role was reversed after the Crusades. Whether it was specifically caused by the Crusades I can’t say.
Your argument that fanatic behavior in Islam is a recent event is a different argument than what I’ve stated. “Suicidal bombers” are new but the philosophy that drives them is as old as the religion itself. It is the philosophy that drives the act. It is the mindset of Christianity in the Dark Ages. If you look at Saudi Arabia today in relation to women’s issues you will understand that this is also a relatively new event in their cultural history but it is based on an old philosophy. Frontline’s “Death of a Princess” showed how a fuedal King could change social laws at a whim. The more oppressive laws regarding women (such as requiring an escort for travel) were the result of a Saudi Princess’s adulterous affair.
IMO there are only 2 things that will change this mentality and that is religious reform and/or Democracy. I don’t see religious reform happening in the near future because it is a death sentence to speak out against current practices. Democracy is a self-realizing event that everyone can aspire too. Al Zarqawi has openly stated he is fighting against Democracy in the region. The reason is implied, it will supercede Islam as the governing force in the region if people expect a voice in their own destiny.
Nah. You can use “dark ages” however you want. I merely pointed out that your usage was not “universal”–a point you confirmed when you had to cherry-pick your definition out of answers.com by ignoring the first two definition that matched mine.
Similarly, your claim for Muslim “fanaticism” is nothing more than an unsubstantiated claim that does not acquire accuracy with repetition. Where is the evidence for such fanaticism over the length of 1300 years? Pointing to the fact that a super-tribal leader in one backward section of Arabia has the power to bend laws (much as Stalin or Hitler or Mao wielded such power in the non-Islamic world or as Louis XIV wielded in thoroughly Christian and certainly post “dark age” Europe) says nothing about how the Muslim world has been governed in Persia, Egypt, Moorish Spain, Mughal India, the Ottoman Empire, Indonesia, or any of a number or places where Islam has held sway over the last hundreds of years.
In contrast, in many Muslim nations over that period, women had more rights than women in Europe had. Muslims treated Christians (and certainly Jews) more civilly than Jews or Muslims were treated in Europe.
If you were not holding that the Crusades stunted development in Islam, your post originally put forth that premise:
The similarities can be denied. While the Golden Age in Persian-dominated Islam came to a close about 80 - 120 years prior to the first Crusade (partially through “old age” and pressured by the Mongols of the East), there was no sudden surge of oppressive behavior that developed within Islam with the advent of the Christian invasions. (Contrast the behavior of Saladin in recapturing Jerusalem in 1187 with the behavior of the Crusaders in their initial conquest in 1099.)
Does Islam permit slavery? Yes. As did Christianity until very recent times. One of the most horrible examples of chattel slavery was carried out by Arabs seeking workers for mines. The other, of course, was the trans-Atlantic trade carried out by Christians to supply workers for their plantations. Both of those epochs of slavery died out at about the same time and the slavery that preceded them and continued after them tended to be more of the “bonded” slavery that has existed in all cultures (including Christianity) throughout history. (This is not an acceptable practice, of course, but it continues in both “Muslim” and “Christian” countries in Africa.)
Now, the Crusades may have interfered with the development of some aspects of Muslim culture, but they hardly prevented science or technology from advancing. (The Ottomans and the Mughals each had highly developed technology.) It also did not turn Islam into a savage culture of oppression: compare Moorish Spain with the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella amd Torquemada; note that when the Turks subjugated the Balkans, Catholics and Orthodox continued to live and worship in the region–where are the Muslims (or Jews) in Spain and Portugal?
I suspect that you have accepted various facile declarations about Muslim “suppression” without taking the time to discover how true or false such declarations might be. As Tamerlane noted, above, the truly fanatical Muslims are a fairly recent phenomenon in the Islamic world, they have been opposed by other Muslims (although Western interference in Muslim countries has tended to push recruits to the more fanatical elements), and Islam is not monolithic. In fact, your observations tend to contradict themselves. On the one hand, you correctly note that there is no central authority in Islam, and then claim that Islam is monolithic in its philosophy. In fact, it is the very lack of a central authority that has led to a very wide range of different Muslim philosophies whch embrace both oppressive and freedom loving attitudes across the globe.
I think you are completely missing my point. The philosophic binder in the religion of Islam is Sharia law. Slavery exists today because Sharia law allows for it. Terrorist activity exists for the same reason. It is the lack of monolithic structure which makes it easy to use for political gain or a weapon of war.
You continue to argue as if something has changed philosophically in the last 50 years of Islamic rule. It started out as a fundamentalist feudal infrastructure and it remains so today in the Mid East. It doesn’t take much of a nudge to push it into a more repressive form as has been seen in my lifetime.
Hmmm…Not sure where you are getting that. Why would all sharia offer a blanket authorization of terrorism? Or slavery? The fact is there are many versions of sharia, some of which contradict each other. Just part and parcel of that non-monolithic thing ;).
As it happens far as I can determine most Islamic jurists unreservedly condemn terrorism at least, as the Qur’an pretty clearly indicates that civilians aren’t to be warred on. Slavery is a more complex subject ( the Qur’an seems to simultaneously accept and condemn it, making it a virtuous act to free slaves ), but where it is widely accepted seem to correlate strongly with regions where a dominant tribal group has long lived by practicing it, as with Muslim pastoralists in the western Sudan - in such cases I strongly suspect that appeals to religious sanction are mostly post hoc justification that wouldn’t fly well in more civilized areas.As has been pointed out many times ( in unrelated threads even ) it wasn’t that long ago that the Bible was used as a convenient post hoc justification for slavery in the U.S…
There might be something to that. A figure like the Catholic Pope does have considerable ( if not absolute ) power to drag a large body of the faithful in a particular direction, something lacking in the Muslim world.
But that still doesn’t stop rebel schismatics ( I have some step-family history relating to schismatic Catholics engaging in sniping duels with rifles over control of a schismatic “Catholic” sect in Idaho some years back ). I do think it is relatively easier to hijack Islam to violence than some other faiths, especially as it seems to specifically authorize at least defensive violence, but that doesn’t mean it is hard in absolute terms to hijack those other faiths. Fact is that most ( all? ) religions seem surprisingly malleable in that with enough creative effort they can be used to justify most anything. In terms of violence Islam might arguably be more flexible than most, but the difference doesn’t appear to be that profound ( to me ).
Actually something has ( maybe last 100 years to be more inclusive, but the last half of the 20th century in particular ). I could recommend books :). Try some of the French authors like Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel.
It started out, if anything, as tribal, not feudal ( there wasn’t even real feudalism in Europe at that point ). And tribal issues and thinking do continue to plague the ME/NA, that I wouldn’t argue much with.
- Tamerlane
By the way, I hope the above didn’t come off as snotty. I didn’t intend it that way, though re-reading I can see where somebody might jump to that conclusion.
But there really has been a newish philosophical school of thought that emerged in the waning days of the Ottoman state in reaction to ‘Islamic modernism’ that took particular shape with the writing of thinkers like Sayyid Qutb in the middle of the 20th century. The authors above have written books that cover this phenomena in some detail.
- Tamerlane
I didn’t take it as snotty given the rest of your post. I liked reading what you had to say because it gave me something to ponder over (which is the reason for debate).
It’s interesting that you mentioned Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood because I was going to bring up Nasser as a major influence in the region over the last 100 years. 2 philosophical cats in a clothes dryer.
When I talk about Sharia Law as a binder I’m not saying it holds the religion together but rather it is the conduit that personal interpretation moves through. It is the codification of the word of God. Just as the Bible was used as justification for thought and action in the Middle Ages so is the Qur’an today. I realize it sounds like I’m applying it to a large percentage of Muslims but I’m not.
When you talk about feudalism and tribalism I have always looked at them as a succession of social evolution. To me (and I’m going to get pummeled for this) feudalism is just a more codified version of tribalism (in the broadest sense). Either way you slice it, if it wasn’t for oil in the Mid East I imagine the schisms of Islam would be significantly larger today. It’s hard to say if the power structures of the Mid East would have survived if not for the financial interactions of the last century. The revenues from oil have propelled an underdeveloped region forward. Maybe at a pace that was too fast for the people of that area. Sayyid certainly saw Islam as the cure to all the woes of the World in a time of great change.