Skeptical And Counter-Skeptical Trends In Medieval Islam

[ #92 by hamidm2 on December 3, 2002 9:14am PT

.........see what happens when you don`t allow muslims to think for themselves and force them to follow the rules established for bra-less seventh century bedouins ? ....... ]

Are you suggesting modern bedouins should wear bras so that they can advise saudi women better on bra size?

-ew

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re hamidm #92:

I hate to do this to you but this one doesn`t fly. I don`t how they figure these things out (specially in Saudi Arabia) but here`s the rejoinder.

http://www.teenhealthfx.com/answers/sexuality/sex-77.htm

later
-sac

not all clerics are nuts.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/14_11_02_d.htm

Muslim cleric Mohammed Hassan al-Amin, a distinguished scholar with a string of advanced and progressive studies, caused an uproar by calling for a revolution in both secular and religious thinking. In fact, Amin called for the entire Arab mentality to be overhauled.
He called for strict criticism of all Arab renaissance movements that took place in the 20th century. Only through such a process could a new modernist movement be created, he argued.
Amin attacked the current Arab intellectual mindset that “plays an immensely crucial role in creating political and social conditions built on tyranny and oppression.” He said that despite the presence of the vision and will for progress, development, and liberty among Arab intellectuals, they failed to achieve their goals because of their failure to build democracy.
The Muslim scholar also called for cleansing Arab thought of ideology. Ideology, Amin said, acts as a barrier against freedom, stifling creativity and preventing Arabs from expressing their individuality. He singled out Islamic, nationalist and Marxist ideologies in particular as being responsible for forcing the Arab mind into taking an “enforced vacation.”
More importantly, this Muslim cleric called for “narrowing the gap of sanctity” as a means of liberating the Arab mind, or, as he put it, “as a condition for liberating the Arab mind set from dictatorship and tyranny.”

85 percent of saudi women are wearing the wrong size bra .......

.........see what happens when you don`t allow muslims to think for themselves and force them to follow the rules established for bra-less seventh century bedouins ? .......

.....this is simply horrible.........i wonder what ghazali and gabriel had to say about this ?

http://nytimes.com/2002/12/03/international/middleeast/03JIDD.html

nasahji

A good article on US-Arab relations
http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002120300451000.htm

The U.S. and Muslim nations

By Hamid Ansari

He talks of how at one time throughout the region Arab nationalism in its various forms was seen as a threat to US interests and treated as such. Now that the US has `changed` its viewpoint, those movements no longer exist and there are now left only varieties of Islamist movements, moderate to radical.

Dear Contemplative:
You have definitely put in a great effort to put this subject back on the track. Mr. Gill deserves at least that much courtesy.

please allow me to make an attempt to review here a new book `Skepticism for (muslim) dummies.....Pakistan edition`` written by Shaheen Iqbal.

Some Excerpts:

Their demands are very simple and innocuous.

1. Someone , with authority & title, must issue a fatwa in favour of drinking. They are yearning for the glorious day when muslims are also charged with drunk driving. When such a day comes:

..........a) Discoveries & Inventions would blossom & bloom and muslim would be among the first-worlders. Pakistan would be ACCEPTED IN THE EUROPEAN UNION.

2. In a country where a commie poet was caught crooning lamentably albeit contentedly, that he was not allowed to walk around with his head held high, his admirers have upped the ante and added to the list of demands. They must be allowed to expose their asses and front and back, put their private-wares on full display and keep a keen eye on such developments in the first worlders. Such LOCs(line-of-control) in fashion vs modesty must cede or recede according to the NY-time.When such a day comes:

.........a) Discoveries & Inventions would blossom & bloom and muslim would be among the first-worlders. Pakistan would be ACCEPTED IN THE EUROPEAN UNION.

The readers can get some idea what the author means. He continues along these lines and has come to the conclusion that Dummy muslims can suddenly become very firstworlders by doing drugs, tolerate the promisuity of their sons & daughters, even encourage & partake in it with spouses, do away with lotaa & bidet and insist only on paper, never ever mention being a muslim in public, If they grow a beard it must be shrink-style, Adopt smoking rules as & when the fatwas are issued by firstworld.

In short something has to be done so that dummy muslims can convince their former masters that they are indeed advanced, modern, and unabashedly just-like-them. They must be saved the embrrasment that they suffer when they have to say that they do not drink because of chronic dysentry (mucous & blood swirl---whopper!) instead of admitting they are muslims ( a greater embarassment).

There are many interesting instances in the book. The author is a bit shy about admitting that Imam Razi (or rushd, or Sina) could not be role model from amongst muslims because he still subscribed to the Shariat laws and was a ritualistically practising muslim.

There is a very interesting story about Hakim Bu Ali Sina. One of his disciples was so devoted to him that he mentioned many a times to Ibn Sina that he must announce his prophethood, given the popularity & respect he commanded among one & all. Ibn Sina always smiled away at such suggestions.

It so happened that early one freezy-chilly morning, fajr time, Ibn Sina requested this student to fetch water for vazoo. The student replied that it was really really cold and can`t the prayers be postponed.

Ibn e Sina then said to him `` Now you understand what kind of prophet out beloved one was. Here I am, in flesh, requesting you something and you do not follow me and there are muslims all over the world who diligently lovingly carry out commands of the one who endeared himself to everyone beyond space & time.

Whatever Razis (or rushd or sina) musings are about belief-systems are nothing but a tete-a-tete with the Creator just like Meer, Ghalib, and Iqbal have done in the recent times.


``Meer key deen-o-mazhab ko tumm poochhtay kyaa ho unnay tO
Qashqua khainchha, dair mey baithay, kubb kaa tuark Islam kiya``--Meer

``Jubb kay tujhh bin naheen koi maujood
Phir yeh humgaama aye khudaa kyaa hai?``---------Ghalib

``Kafir-e hindi hooN mein, dekh mira zauqo shauq
dil mein salat-o-durood, lubb pey salaat o durood``-------Iqbal

Dummie-muslims sometimes do consider such writings as to give them a free rein to bring about their desire to reign over non-colonised minds. Now that would never ever happen. Very few become or stay muslims because of worldly, material, or hedonistic incentives. Unless this ``conundrum``( read: power) is resolved a muslim will never ever be ruled by those wallowing in corruption, mammonism, and epicuranism.

A well-written and thought provoking article and I do hope we get more of these. Now, a listing of what I feel are biases or debatable assumptions:

1. Gill uses ``Islamic Tradition`` synonymously with (let`s use that hackneyed) ``True Islam`` despite the fact that his title suggests multiple thought trends. Some Islamic tradition at one point or the other may have been an enemy of reason or free enquiry (in this case they burned books rather than a menu of hemlock or decapitation) but my version of ``true`` Islam did not ever. A very solid argument can be developed about the Quran and the Prophet supporting empirical enquiry and reason. Bases include over twenty refereces in the Quran to use one reason and study creation to check whether the Quran makes sense or not - as well as reputable Ahadith in which the Prophet called the learned his inheritors and urged people to go to the end of the earth (i.e. China) in search of knowledge. This is why, it can hardly be argued that it was Islam and the Quran which created such intellectual dynamism in Islam. So at the very least, we have an apparent contradiction on our hands whereby the same fountainhead which created the intellectual dynamism is then claimed to have stifled it.

2. Of course Gill`s other bias/assumption is the Darwinian/Positivist/Materialistic one that we as the human race are evolving and progressing and the current State of the Art - the West and its space program - represents the pinnacle of human achievement. Any number of post-modern philosophers would disagree - quite apart from (let us call them) Islamic reactionaries or your odd World Economic Forum rioter. Is the extra car in the garage worth the fact that you never knew your father? Are you okay with your state school system teaching your children gay fairy tales as a price to pay for your cherished freedom of opinion? Do we believe that USA mass media presents pluralistic viewpoints on really important issues? What happens when we apply American consumerist trajectories - say in the consumption of Oil -to China in a generation? POOF! So let us say these are value judgements - and leave it at that.

A minor point - the Arabs did have a great tradition of mathematics. The advances in mathematics attained by the people living in the delta of the Tigris and the Euphrates were unsurpassed till the Greeks five thousand years later. Of course by the time of the Prophet in Arabia all that was lost. This then leads us to Gill`s key thesis that in fact it was the collision of reason with religion (in the case of Europe the good side one) that lead Islam into decline. The above two points I have raised question some of the assumptions behind his argument. This then leads to the question of what caused the decline in the Islamic civilization? But first let us put this question into perspective. Let us look at other Dominant civilizations of the past - Athens lasted what - a couple of hundred years? Rome - maybe three hundred years. Britain - one/two hundred years. All now little countries. America - a hundred years and counting. Islam was dominat from say the end of the seventh to the end of the seventeenth century - a thousand years. (Its decline started with the Battle of Alleppo in 1571 - but the Ottomons were still dominant for another century.) Today, a sorry state they might be in, but Muslims ring the globe.

Finally this brings us to Gills covert question (and recipe) - how does the Islamic world improve/modernize/whatever? Well certainly it is not the New World Order recipe.

At the time of the collapse of the Ottoman empire - 40% of the land in Constantinople was public Waqf - donated by the rich to the poor. Egypt provided a full time attendant to every blind man. Education was free. The Prophet, when he died, sank to a mat on a barren floor - refusing to emulate the Byzantine emperors. One man challenged the Caliph Umar about the length of his tunic which seemed longer than the standard allotment of cloth from the last spoils of war - which every man received. He answered because I am tall my two sons gave me some of their cloths. In Spain and elsewhere, Muslims, Christians and Jews, black,white, rich and poor lived and worked together not with tolerance but with true empathy and brotherhood. All this amidst a great flowering of science, mathematics, medicine, literature, poetry and state craft. For my money, it is someone in there that the answer lies.

sameerjb:
well said -- Mulla`s Islam ``ofers too much in after-life `` -- and too little in real-life -- too many DONTs -- too few DOs -- the DOs are so funless they are worse than DONTs.

ah those good old days -- of 40`s and 50`s -- when HEAVEN as a REWARD for good deeds -- used to be ALLEGORICAL and poetic --

NOT like 2002 --

where Mulla`s have turned `JUNNAT` -- so LITERAL -- it sounds like a Hashshasheen`s House of ill repute -- with rent free plots with gardens, -- plenty of free wine, -- a bevy of beautiful belles called Houries and and -- Ghilmans -- Ghilmans ?? -- for the pious Mullas?? -- asthugfarullah.

YET -- something to kill for and die for -- mashaallah.

Ghalib Zaman #81 I thought the discussion was about Sabbatai, not me. But...now that you mention it, that is a neat little poem although I hope I dont come across as the Unknown Citizen, and flatter myself by thinking that I use my own mind rather than what I am told, and I reach my own conclusions rather than the politically correct ones or the ones declared by general musharraf as being in the ``supreme national interest``. THAT would make me very unfree and very unhappy!

interesting analysis of the new arab media.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/29_11_02_c.htm

``_ _ _In their core political and commercial values, the new Arab media are something of a wedding between Madonna and Osama bin Laden ­ they bring together the worst traditions of Western television (titillating entertainment) and the worst political legacy of the Arab world (endless ideological argument, self-flagellation, and mostly blaming others for our ills). Our new media certainly are bold, sexy, confrontational, loud, and endlessly engaging. Yet, ultimately, they have no measurable political impact on the real world, because their Arab viewers cannot go out regularly and vote for their governments or change their policies. The fare on our Arab screens
has changed; the exercise of our Arab political authority has not. The stark detachment between the Arab citizen who watches the new media and the realities of power in the contemporary Arab state means the new Arab media are mainly entertainers, rather than credible political actors``.

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nasah#83: What Islam offers for non-Muslim others and for Muslms are two different things. That WP article is good but it deals only with the first aspect of Islam. That is bound to happen. The things you suggested in one of your earlier post very succinctly can not go on for ever. They will have to be tolerant and respectful of other religions. Many people here like tahmed321 and even Romair have been suggesting it. Right now, Islam is fervently opposed to Christians, Hindus, non-religious and Jews and that means against 70 percent of world population. In India and USA, Muslims will have to respect others or continue face losses while in Indonesia, the nation will fall apart with intolerance towards non-Muslims.
What Islam offers to Muslims compared to what other religions offer to their followers is the major question. Because of insecurity, it ofers too much in afterlife and severe punishments both here and afterlife as a discouragement to skepticism. Things do not change without questioning and skepticism. One has to be a skeptic in order to become a reformer.

This is a blockbuster of an article about the future of Islam from today`s Washington Post --

a very intelligent, shrewd, thoughtful analysis presented by a US army Intelligence analyst about the future of Islam – very pertinent to the subject being discussed on this board.

while discussing the future of reforms in Islam -- the article points out to three countries: India, Indonesia and the United States -- not Riyad or Al Azhar -- from where a tolerant, inclusive, modern, Islam will emerge –– and why:


Turn East From Mecca
Islam`s Future Will Be Decided on Its Frontiers(Beyond Arabia)
By Ralph Peters
Washington Post, Sunday, December 1, 2002
(Excerpts)


The good news is that the Islamic world, on its populous and expanding frontiers, is far more open to us than we might suspect. Millions of Muslims are willing to keep that door open, despite the actions of a legion of fanatics.

But make no mistake: A struggle of immense proportions and immeasurable importance is underway for the soul of Islam. It is a mighty contest that pits a humane, tolerant and progressive faith against a hangman`s vision of a punitive god and humankind defined by prohibitions.

But this great battle -- this war for the future of one of the world`s great religions (and, certainly, its most restive and unfinished) -- is not being fought in the Arab homelands, which insist upon our attention with the temper of spoiled children.

It is time to recognize, belatedly, that Islam`s center of gravity lies far from Riyadh or Cairo -- that it has, in fact, several centers of gravity, each more hopeful than the Arab homelands.

On these frontiers, from Delhi to Jakarta to Detroit, Islam is a dynamic, vibrant, effervescent religion of gorgeous potential.

The U.S. government can never be a decisive factor in this struggle for Islam`s future. That role is reserved for Muslims themselves. But we can play a more constructive role. Until now, we have not even bothered to participate.

Over the past few decades, Middle Eastern oil wealth has been used by the most restrictive, oppressive states to export a regressive, ferociously intolerant and anti-Western form of Islam to mosques and madrassas abroad, from the immigrant quarters of London to the back-country of Indonesia.

.... in this disturbed and dangerous world, no other factor is as important as BELIEF. Religious intolerance always returns in times of doubt and disorder.

The ease with which today`s Americans of diverse faiths interact has allowed us to forget that our ancestors, in their homelands, massacred one another over the contents of the communion cup, or slaughtered Jews and called it God`s desire, or delivered their faith to their colonies with Bibles and breech-loading rifles.

Some brought their hatreds to these shores, but America conquered most of their bigotries over the generations -- although we have not vanquished intolerance completely.

On its frontiers, Islam remains capable of the changes necessary to make it, once again, a healthy, luminous faith whose followers can compete globally on their own terms.

Our strategic blunder has been to attempt to work outward from Islam`s inner sanctum. But in terms of population density and potential wealth (not to mention power), Islam`s centers of gravity lie not to the west of Afghanistan, but east -- in the countries of India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The most powerful determinants of Islam`s future course, however, will probably be the success or failure of modernizing forces in Indonesia and India.

Over the past two years, I have enjoyed extended stays in both places. Most Americans, and most government officials, haven`t a clue about the on-the-ground reality in either one.

First, India.
Recurring violence between Hindus and Muslims within India is undeniably a serious problem. Widespread pogroms a decade ago killed Muslims by the thousands, as well as hundreds of Hindus. The founding of India and Pakistan was anointed with the blood of at least half a million Muslims and Hindus. But consider what hasn`t happened: Despite the resurgence of virulent Hindu fundamentalism among a small minority of India`s citizens, hundreds of millions of Hindus and Muslims (as well as those of other faiths) have not killed each other. Instead, they have learned to work together as Indians, in the government, in the military, in business.

The frequency and intensity of interfaith violence has decreased impressively over the past half-century. Given that Muslims make up at least 12 percent of India`s billion people, and given the poverty that still afflicts much of its population, India could be regarded as an emerging model of tolerance.

Islamic extremism has not made nearly the inroads it has across the border in Pakistan or even next door in Bangladesh. Overwhelmingly, India`s Muslims have accepted an Indian identity. For all its merciless corruption, India is a rule-of-law state, displaying surprising religious diversity within its government and armed forces.

All this seems to have encouraged a more flexible form of Islam. I would not paint the picture in pious, stained-glass hues -- and some would argue that Muslim docility is the result of repression -- but there is something to be said for a country where a Muslim friend and I can enjoy a couple of beers in public, where the murder of a compromised woman by her relatives is not accepted as business as usual, and where local pogroms shock citizens throughout the country.

Indonesia
The importance -- and promise -- of Indonesia is even greater than that of India. The danger -- real, if slight -- comes not from the syncretic, humane, tolerant, homegrown forms of Islam. It comes from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, insinuated into Indonesia through infusions of cash, missionaries, hateful propaganda, and the building of mosques and madrassas where secular schools and clinics are badly needed.

Yet, as one friend put it, the unhappiest investors in the world are not the Americans, but the Saudis who spent millions upon millions to bring extreme fundamentalism to Indonesia. The Indonesians took the money, then did whatever they wanted to do.

In Yogyakarta, the old cultural capital of ``Muslim`` Java, the elite and the middle class send their children to Christian-run schools for a better education, they use Christian-sponsored hospitals because of the higher-quality care and they`ve got far more interest in Britney Spears than in Osama bin Laden.

This is not a metaphorical statement. While I was in Indonesia, Miss Spears, in all her inarticulate, trailer-court-tart splendor, got far more air-time than did Osama. Now, hard-headed politicos may dismiss the Cult of Britney , but a society in which girls and women tune into such video displays of life-affirming exuberance is unlikely to sign up for the whole fundamentalist package.

Technically speaking, Indonesia may contain almost 200 million Muslims, but I would say that fewer than 20 percent of them -- and that is a generous estimate -- would begin to pass muster with the mullahs of the Middle East.

One woman who was showing me around described her female employer as a ``most devoted Muslim, very strict,`` then added approvingly, ``She doesn`t pray during the day or wear religious clothing, and she likes to drink a little bit, but she is really a very good Muslim.``

I am not belittling the devotion of Indonesians. On the contrary, they are often profoundly religious. But they have adapted Islam to their own culture, rather than adapting their culture to the extremist form of Islam.

One of my enduring images of Indonesia is from a small ``supermarket`` on the dusty edge of Solo. The young cashier wore a miniskirt that wasted no fabric on modesty, while the girl bagging my groceries wore demure Islamic kit, including the local head scarf. The two girls were friends, and there was no tension in their interaction -- or in their dealings with me. While Indonesia remains a male-chauvinist society, the opportunities afforded to women have dramatically outpaced anything in the Middle East -- and this is a country with a popular, elected female president.

USA
The most vital frontier may be the one closest to home. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, created a wide variety of stresses upon and distress for America`s Muslim citizens and residents.

This newest body of immigrants reacted with complex emotions:
Horror at the attacks, anger at the damage done to their adopted country as well as to their chosen religion,
alarm that their faith might be misunderstood by their fellow Americans and anxiety about blind retribution.

But there was also defensiveness about the often-disastrous societies they had left behind, incendiary excuses for the inexcusable and, among the most disappointed and disaffected, muted pleasure that the proud had been given a public blow by the weak.

American Muslims are in perhaps the most difficult situation of any immigrant group since the Irish fled the Great Famine.

Many of our Muslim citizens have long-since integrated into American society -- some have been fully Americanized for generations – while some new arrivals are still in the process of adapting.

All of this is the normal stuff of the immigrant`s experience, with its shocks, discords and ultimate success.
_______________________________________________________
What matters, not only to us but to the world, is that the long-overdue, liberal reformation of Islam is likeliest to happen here, where tolerance is woven most firmly into the fabric of society.
_______________________________________________________
In the dark days of the Cold War, American strategists touted the notion of ``rolling back`` communism.

In fact, we never rolled it back much, but did our best to hold the line. We did not imagine that we could defeat Soviet communism starting in Moscow.

Likewise, Islamic extremism cannot be engaged most effectively where it was born and bred.

The complex, exasperating and frequently inspiring world of Islam faces a historically unique challenge.
________________________________________________________
An entire religious civilization, of remarkable variety, must change if it is to survive economically and culturally. We are foolish if we do not do what lies within our power to enable that change to occur.
_______________________________________________________

(WP)

Re: Jay

I am not a Islamic scholar, unlike others on Chowk, and thus, am of the opinion that I am not qualified to write about Islamic laws in Pakistan. I have opinions on the issue, but those are just opinions. Hence, I would have to decline your offer!

On a more lighter note, my articles do have a point, which have always missed you!

Re: nasah

Islam has become intolerant and there are reasons for this transformation, but I still hold to my previvious contention that Islam`s most glaring failure lies in its inability to reconcile its doctrine, with the modern world. Islam, in failing to reconcile with the modern world has opted to regress into its past. This is where the insecurity of Islam stems from and that is, since the past is indeliable and cannot be changed, Islam harks to the past, because it feels secure and not threatened. The past has become of a sort of ``security blanket`` for Islam and it warps itself in it, when ever it feels threatened.

Re: einsteinwallah

Yes, there is a problem and the refusal to acknowledge that problem is a problem in itself. The skeptic tradition seeks to question and in questioning, it hopes to better understand the essence of knowledge itself. In this sense, SameerJB`s post is illuminating, because it sheds light on the penumbera of why skepticism is discouraged in Islam.

Ciao

#79 tahmed32:

You come across as the one who was a diligent and obedient student throughout his school years. Maybe was the one who always got the good conduct prize and did boy-scouting kind of stuff as well....maybe volunteered with the redcross or salvation army.

Such are the Unknown Citizens who inspire poets like W.H Auden to wax lyrical . They are always on the right side of history, by their sheer knack to read the vanes.