The Salem witch trials took place in 1692 – almost the end of the 1600’s. Although there were several historians who thought that the trials were the result of ministers trying to retain slipping control of their paeisioners in the face of rising enlightenment (The Rev. Samuel Wentworth Upham was one of the most influential of these), more recent scholarship has seen social stress at the root of it (Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed), or other things (see Chadwick W. Hansen’s excellent Witchcraft in Salem, which also gives a history of competing theories).
I seriously doubt if any religion has ever reacted in the way you say because “science has poked holes in its tenets”. They generally react by attacking science, or by rationalizing.
I’ve noted before, I am not a fan of Bernard’s current analyses. He is an excellent historical scholar (although he draws inferences that in my mind are not always supportable) with a broad knowledge of classical Islamic history (that is of the Islamic world’s core) - his writing on non-core groups / regions suffers from stereotyping and his writing on current issues I think is a bit weak for its dependence on classically oriented sources.
In a review of the book, Publishers Weekly says:
Yes, also the Political Language of Islam, which I think is useful and available, although as noted I do not agree with some of his characterizations nor his current oriented commentary. Lapidus is good, but perhaps not easily located. There are some French cites I owe Eva Luna but my fever induced delerium has made me lazy.
In the end, to the OP, it is not about a PhD dissert (and you really have no idea if you think the critiques so far require that level of learning) but getting better informed and linking more coherently and cogently (and logically) your arguments.
Frankly, they really don’t follow or make much sense in the context of actual Islamic history.
(An aside, I think the characterization of Xian world vs Islamic world or other worlds is utterly empty. the writer of that phrase is apparently thinking of W. Europe, but that is hardly the Xian world in gross.)
I agree in as far as states are concerned.
Problem here is that we have small groups of people inside states that don’t want to be good global citizens.
They are just small cells within a greater community that is happy to embrace a lot of western culture.
The question is ‘Why are these cells playing up?’
One obvious answer is that they are growing.
The movement growing is the reason they are becoming bolder and more oragnised.
O.K. so how come they are growing?
Well, they have been growing for some time already and I think the origin are Islamic schools. At first there were just a handful of ‘bad’ ones. But it is there that students of Islam get ‘indoctrinated’ and fan out to mosks and other schools. Enrlarging the pool yet again.
So how do you stop the growth?
Indeed, again, not by direct force against the centres. Witness Algeria.
Even if the majority of the population wants to become westernised, they can’t just ignore their mullahs.
But somehow we need to safeguard the ‘normal’ populace from the words of bad Mullahs. And prevent bad teaching in Islamic schools.
How we are to do that is the main problem here, as we cannot interfere in the sovereign nations where these schools are.
Obvious but false in its premises. It is actually unclear that the movement - however defined - is in fact growing, in comparison with the late 1980s and early 1990s when Islamist / Salafist thought was far more popular.
Again, false in its premises.
The Salafist movement dates to the late 19th century and has fluctuated in influence and cohesion over time.
Islamic schools is too broad a category. There are plenty of “Islamic schools” here and there – nothing that different from Bible study by and large.
The catch is in the appeal of the critique of the system and the counter-model offered.
Wants to become Westernized is a far too simple way of looking at this. Westernization covers far too much ground and leads outside observers astray. Much of the Arab world admires Europe on economic grounds, feels ambiguous on other grounds (socio-religious). There is a degree of cognitive dissonance, desire to preserve identity versus desire to emulate what appears to be a more successful model. And of course there are the rejectionists.
Insofar as Islam is w/o formal clergy, ex-Iran, ignoring the Imams/ulema is highly possible. One just shops around for someone one likes more. However, the range of choice is a question.
False proposition. (a) Interference in religion will simply further politicize religion, e.g. secular governments attempts to control religion from the 1950s to date have helped (in combo with other factors) give cred. to the wildcat Islamist preachers and put pressure on moderates who may be seen as caving into the State (b) I do not believe there is any coherent way to effect theology per se, except to help address those issues that make radical theology more attractive. This is a process, which will involve both carrot and stick. Directly attempting to interfere is 100% likely to backfire (although say in the French context, encouraging moderate Islamic schools to set up is a good idea, so long as they remain free of too much state interference.)
Isn’t the increase in people wanting to blow themselves up an indication that they are still growing?
In the 1980s/1990s a lot of schools started opening up in Europe as well. An indication that it was a growing movement then, I agree. But some of the bad apples erected back then are having their influence now.
Would you agree that there is a radicalisation going on amongst
Muslim immigrants in Europe?
Along with admiration comes copycat behavior, of wearing western clothes, listening to western music, going to disco’s etc.
It is that which most rejectionists find repulsive, I think. The destruction of their culture.
That and direct political interference, of course.
Exactly. More and more radicals become available. Plus, for European Muslims, the choice is not that big, depends on who your local Mullah is.
That is basically what I was saying, I think.
I was thinking along the same lines.
Sponsoring of schools that are of the right kind.
P issue is seperable from general Arab world. Further, willingness to engage in bombing is only indicative of growing radicalization among core membership, not indicative either way of popularity.
Other evidence suggests receding of popularity until perhaps recently.
That I would agree to provisionally. The real issue I see there is the integration issues. Europeans, for all the posturing, are rather less psychologically prepared for integrating immigrants. Further to that, Muslim immigrants, largely North African, have come from the least well-off segments of their home societies, in general making them harder to digest, so to speak. It strikes me that the real problem lies in the integration of the 2nd generation, the Massaouies and not the 1st generation. I have encountered a goodly number of 2nd and 3rd generation North Africans who expressed high degrees of alienation.
There needs to be some reciprocal dialogue. (And not the namby pamby multi-culti, nor the crypto racist variety either.)
Well here, in the case of Europe, there is a different problem: lack of training of religious scholars adept in a Euro environment, plus a back to the roots among the 2nd generation (esp). Complex. I would like to go into this, but must run to a meeting soon.
flabbygirlyman, welcome to your baptism of fire Great Debates. As you can see, the Dopers in this forum won’t let anyone get away with just throwing out an opinion and give a free ride. Uh-uh. Anyone who comes here to debate had better be well prepared for a tough intellectual brawl and muster their arguments thoroughly in advance.
I believe the OP, however clumsily worded, was trying to express a thesis proposed by the noted French scholar on radical Islamic movements, Gilles Kepel, in his most recent book Jihad : expansion et déclin de l’islamisme (2000), English translation titled Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (most recently revised edition, 2002, to comment on the September 11 terror).
Kepel posits that the September 11, 2001, attacks, rather than demonstrating “strength and irrepressible might,” highlighted the isolation" and “fragmentation” of a “faltering” and probably doomed extremist ideology. “Muslims no longer view Islamism as the source of utopia, and this more pragmatic vision augurs well for the future,” he writes. Despite some outpourings of support, he believes, Osama bin Laden and his followers squandered much of the movement’s political capital with its attacks on American institutions, most notably the World Trade Center.
Now this is something debaters can sink their teeth into.
Uh-uh. Anyone who comes here to debate had better be well prepared for a tough intellectual brawl and muster their arguments thoroughly in advance.
Thanks ,Mojo, for giving me the straight dope on this board. Too bad I can’t receive post-graduate credit for preparing my thoroughly researched, intellectually rigorous defense of my statements ! Maybe I should have gone to the " In My Humble Opinion" board instead . That sounds a little easier.
But how often does this actually happen? For instance, in the US there is a large number of various Christian churches, and so, in theory, one could just shop around for the version you liked the most. This doesn’t happen, however, as people tend to stick to the religion they were born into and as there is a certain social pressure in some regions to belong to a particular brand of Xianity.
Wouldn’t the same thing happen in the Mid East? If I’m not mistaken, various regions have a tradition in a certain school of Islamic thought. Wouldn’t that mean that there would be a social and cultural pressure to conform to that school of thought and make the whole shopping around theory just a theory for the most part?
And as a semi-hijack, how much emphasis does the 'ulama still play in solidifying the support of a various regime in a country, as I know they were quite important at least until the time of colonization.
Most of my info is coming from Hourani’s A History of the Arab Peoples, by the by, which I am about halfway through.
Yes but those schools of thought are often just a little looser ( or maybe “looser” isn’t the right word - but different anyway ) than most equivalent Christian sects, in the sense that there is no central council or any other formal body running the show. That’s a big generalization of course - States like Saudi Arabia retain a much tighter handle on the “clergy” than the norm and certainly certain influential schools/mosques are lent greater than usual credence when it comes to religious proclamations. But lacking a formal hiearchy, or indeed even a formal qualification program, individual interpretation becomes more important and the influence of any given point of view more fluid. It all gets quite complicated and like Collounsbury alluded to, the range of debate might be pretty constricted in certain places and times - There is internal religious debate in Saudi Arabia, but it is not exactly open-ended.
But just as an example - In regards to the suicide-bombings in Israel, one can find Muslim “clerics” who think:
A) Suicide bombing is just jim-dandy as an instrument of war against an overwhelmingly powerful oppressor and any target is justified.
B) Suicide bombing is morally troubling, but is justified against “settlers” who are ( it is argued ) driving Muslims from their homes and against the military that supports them, but not against non-settler civilian targets.
C)Suicide-bombing is justified as an act of martyrdom, but only against legitimate military targets. Blowing up civilians, settlers or not, is verboten.
D)Suicide, bombing or otherwise, is forbidden period. Do it and you’re going to hell.
Go to a big city like Cairo and I’ll bet you will find all of the above opinions expressed by different “clerics”, all ostensibly from the same sect, following the same school of jurisprudence. It is even remotely possible ( though not very likely, as ideological like tends to search out ideological like ), you could find them all in a single large mosque/religious school. Though of course the frequency and authority with which they are expressed does vary ( option A, for example, seems pretty much confined to the lunatic fringe ).
No single answer. It varies widely from country to country. Generally speaking I would say the ulama as a body tends to be of limited formal influence in the modern age. Where it has an impact it is more often in the form of Muslim activists influencing opinion on the street, which then triggers a response from government. But you have a pretty wide range - From Iran where the ulama ( or at least a tiny segment of it ) wields absolute control, to Saudi Arabia where the ulama is patronized, semi-regulated by the state and used regularly as a tool of government, to Morocco where the ruling dynasty used to ( may still ) leverage their supposed lineage and lean on traditional religious conservatism as a counter to the left, labor, et al. Then there is Iraq, a thoroughly secular country that panders with religious rhetoric while absolutely keeping the ulama ( and everyone else ) under their heel. Or Syria, where the autocratic, secular elite ruling the country is from a religious minority quite uninterested in the mainstream ulama’s opinion about anything. Lot of variation really.
Decent enough book, if a bit sparse ( understandably so, really ) here and there. I’d recommend the somewhat more extensive A History of Islamic Societies by Ira Lapidus that Coll referenced above, if you can find a copy.
Jomo Mojo - Excellent. Someone else is pimping that book now - I no longer feel alone :D.