dagblog - Comments for "Islam and Intolerance"

No, he means Al Qaeda vs.

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:33:27 +0000

No, he means Al Qaeda vs. anyone else. Elsewhere it could be Muslim Brotherhood looking for a leg up, or Hezbollah who's now calling new strikes, or someone else jostling for position. Has little to do with ancient schisms. Think of it as competing car brands, but they don't do manufacturing.

Okay, just re-read your

AnonymousPS — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:43:26 +0000

In reply to I'm suggesting that the

Okay, just re-read your comment.

Are you saying that the attacks on the embassies and the US is an acting out of the internal struggles between Sunni and Shiites? The Sunnis are the majority (worldwide) and AQ is Sunni...so all of this is just an attempt by the Sunnis to bully the Shiites?

Iraq, I believe, is majority Shiite and is home to the most holy Shiite sites--but the Sunnis ruled under Saddam. So when we overthrew Saddam, we were, in effect, siding with the Shiites against the Sunnis. Is this your thesis?

If so, it doesn't really explain 9/11 which came before the invasion, as did the first attack on the Towers. Or does it?

I'm not sure that I follow

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 04:10:39 +0000

In reply to And I recommend this, which

I'm not sure that I follow your point. I certainly acknowledge that Islamists are cynically exploiting intolerant tendencies within their communities. But for them to exploit it, those intolerant tendencies have to exist. So I don't really see my hypothesis as incompatible with Ramadan's position.

And I recommend this, which

artappraiser — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 03:31:34 +0000

In reply to Issandr @ The Arabist

And I recommend this, which relates to Ramadan's points, a reminder that political Islamism is involved, not just Islam and not just tolerance of different religions:

Islamist Déjà Vu: The Lessons of 1979
By Christian Caryl, New York Review of Books Blog, September 13, 2012

The year 1979—when Iranian student revolutionaries stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took dozens of American diplomats hostage, and Muslim radicals in Saudi Arabia, a staunch US ally, brazenly laid siege to the Grand Mosque in Mecca—marked the debut of a new political phenomenon known as “Islamism.” To be sure, the theorists and advocates of political Islam had been around for a while, and there was an extraordinary explosion of Islamic activism around the Muslim world in the 1970s; in some countries there was even talk of a sahwa, an “awakening” of Islamic political consciousness. But few people outside of the ummah, the global community of Muslim believers, were paying any attention, and the US was caught flatfooted as Ayatollah Khomeini proceeded to transform his theory of “Islamic government” into reality. “Political Islam” was no longer a theory. It had become an active, practical force in global politics.

Perhaps it’s helpful to recall the events of helpful to 1979 [....]

Islamists are simply of a different world view than the one that colors your post. With them, you have to visualize how they do, that Muslims will be a majority under a Muslim government, and tolerance of other religions, minorities in their vision, will mean something different than what you are talking about.

Saudi Arabia, for one example of the type of thing I am talking about, has been known to be quite tolerant of different cultures/religions being practiced within their borders if they build a little ghetto to live in and do that, like the ARAMCO compound, and don't let anyone in, or anything cultural out. Where there is no persecution within the ghetto, but if you want to go into the main society, you don't just not interfere, you follow their rules.

Issandr @ The Arabist

artappraiser — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 03:09:23 +0000

In reply to Islam and Intolerance

Issandr @ The Arabist recommends a Tariq Ramadan interview from Thursday at Democracy Now "on the Growing Mideast Protests and 'Islam & the Arab Awakening'"; there is a video and a transcript:

"Everywhere the Salafis are pushing"

Good comments by Tarek Ramadan on the struggle for who's going to be the biggest defender of Islam:

And the second thing that we have to say—and this is important because you were talking about Mohamed Morsi and people, the Islamists in Muslim-majority countries—there is something which is going to be one of the main challenges in the Muslim world today, in the Muslim-majority countries in the Arab world, is the religious credibility. How are you going to react to what is said about Islam? So, by touching the prophet of Islam, the reaction should be, who is going to be the guardian? And you can see today that the Muslim Brotherhood are in a situation where the Salafis, then the literalists, are pushing. And they were in Libya, they were in Egypt, they are now in Yemen. So, everywhere the Salafi are pushing by saying, "We are the guardian, and we are resisting any kind of relationship to the West or provocation coming from the West."

The Arabist, September 16, 2012 at 8:31 AM Permalink

We could probably get to the

AnonymousPS — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:31:19 +0000

In reply to I'm suggesting that the

We could probably get to the bottom of this in five minutes, face to face. And maybe I'm just dense...

But let me ask this: In the terrorism on the embassies or in the acts perpetrated by AQ against the West, WHO is the bully and who is being bullied?

My sense is your comment is

AnonymousPS — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:06:07 +0000

In reply to I discussed Francis Bacon and

My sense is your comment is based on a lack of knowledge about Islam and its history. No snark here, really. Just that ALL of us know precious little about the religion.

They have had mystics, scientists, and mathematicians galore, especially during the Golden Age. We just don't study them. And I'm sure there's a lot of material that remains untranslated.

These days, yes. But Islam's

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:58:37 +0000

In reply to I discussed Francis Bacon and

These days, yes. But Islam's Golden Age under the Abbassid Dynasty featured plenty of "serious enquiry" and "heady stuff" while the Europeans were focusing their energies on burning heretics, witches, and Jews.

What has happened in Lebanon

moat — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:52:15 +0000

In reply to I see. I think it's an

What has happened in Lebanon could be an example of that dynamic.

What has been going on in Central Asia between Wahhabi and Sufi groups over the last thirty years could be added to the list. I would provide a link but the struggle is not reflected well by looking at this or that event or any single report about it.

The only way in is to listen to the protagonists speaking for themselves over a period of time.

It is a ghost war as far as the U.S. is concerned.

I discussed Francis Bacon and

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:16:20 +0000

In reply to Do Christians are Jews do

I discussed Francis Bacon and the mystic artists under Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Serious enquiry, heady stuff that I can't imagine happening under what little's approved to question in Islam these days. Try this out.