I recently had an e-mail exchange with a writer who said that the problem facing the world today is Islam. Not radical Islam, not Islamic terrorists, but Islam itself.

He pointed out, correctly, that much of the most violent behavior is justified by either the Koran or the recorded sayings of Muhammad. His main thesis was that Islam is not a peaceful religion, it is a violent one, and thus cannot be accomodated; it must be opposed.

Even if you believe this, there are lots of reasons not to act on that belief -- not making instant enemies of the world's 1 billion Muslims, for example. I know moderate Muslims, so they do exist. Even "battle of civilizations" proponents should want such Muslims on their side, simply because it makes the battle more winnable.

But that's not the point of this article. What I'm reaching for here is historical context. I do not pretend to be a religious scholar, but this is what I see unfolding in Islam today.

Most major religions are born out of conflict and tribulation. Judaism arose from the beliefs of the wandering tribes of Israel; Christianity arose from the torture-death of a Jewish heretic and rabblerouser; Islam arose among the warring nomadic tribes of the Middle East. The notable exception to that rule is Buddhism -- which is also, not coincidentally, the most peaceful of the major religions.

Thus Jewish scripture is full of stories of conquering land, slaughtering enemies, condoning polygamy and slavery, and horrific punishments for violation of minor religious laws. Christianity, being an offshoot of Judaism, adopted those same stories, renaming them the Old Testament. And despite the New Testament being a modification or even wholesale replacement for the Old, the Old Testament is still cited on such matters as homosexuality and adultery, as well as when invoking the awesome power of God and the penalties for defying him.

Islam, too, contains a contradictory mix of violence and peacemaking, a product of the tribal culture it sprang from, as well as the practical realities that Muhammad straddled the secular/sectarian line. He founded a major religion, but he was also heavily involved in efforts to unite the tribes and turn their violent energies outward, into a conquering force that swept the region. It's no coincidence that the Koran is more forgiving and peaceful than some of Muhammad's other writings. The task is trying to separate the words of Muhammad the prophet from the words of Muhammad the general and tribal nationalist.

From those usually violent beginnings, most religions seem to undergo a predictable growth arc -- from persecuted sect to evangelical expansion to established religion that persecutes its own sects in turn. At some point there is a schism among believers, which is either settled -- violently, for the most part -- or results in a split, such as the Protestant/Catholic split in Christianity or the Sunni/Shiite split in Islam.

But at some point a religion has to reconcile its violent, expansionistic origins with the reality of being part of the establishment. And that means repudiating the more extreme aspects of their origins. Hence no mainstream Christian denomination follows Jewish dietary law, even though Jesus was a devout Jew. No Jew or Christian thinks slavery is divinely approved, even though the Old Testament had no problem with it. Most of Leviticus has been discarded wholesale.

In addition, most religions discover that religion and secular power don't mix well, nor does intolerance and enforced orthodoxy. So over time most religions get out of the governing business, and allow all believers to follow their conscience. Christianity managed that trick just a couple of centuries ago -- and still hasn't shaken the impulse entirely.

Such growth didn't happen easily, and it didn't happen overnight. It takes a long time for a religion to mature. It's no coincidence that the oldest major Western religion, Judaism, is also the least evangelical and most tolerant; Jews resolved their major schism thousands of years ago. Christianity is younger, and resolved its contradictions just a few hundred years ago, although the effects linger in certain quarters.

Islam is the youngest of the three. I submit that what we are seeing today is Islam passing through the same painful adolescence that both Judaism and Christianity endured centuries ago.

Let's look at the timeline. Christianity was born in the 1st Century. The Reformation came 1,500 years later, and took a century of warfare to resolve -- and was preceded by centuries of religious warfare, such as the Crusades.

Islam was founded in the 7th Century. And now, 1,500 years later, it is at the same stage of development as Christianity was 600 years ago.

The parallels are striking:
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/...historyid=ad03

The 1400's began with the Spanish Inquisition, which eventually led to the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain. Elsewhere there was a brisk business in burning heretics at the stake, notably John Huss and Jerome of Prague, burned for spreading the writings of John Wycliffe.

This led to the rise of the Hussites, which in turn prompted the first interChristian Crusade, a 13-year war between the church and the Hussites that the Hussites won.

All this bloodshed merely laid the foundation for the Reformation, which would convulse the entire 16th Century in violence and horror. And religious wars also marked the 17th Century, notably the Thirty Years' War that began in 1618.

But Christianity emerged from all that a more mature religion. Split, of course, between Catholics and Protestants, but with armed force no longer a desirable option for enforcing orthodoxy. Two centuries of war had, quite simply, worn everybody out. They were ready to embrace tolerance if that was the price of peace.

And so it is, I believe, with Islam. We are unfortunate enough to be alive during Islam's bloody transition from its medieval origins to modernity. The good news is that eventually moderate theology should win the day: the more violent parts of the Koran will be devalued, and any conflict between the Koran and Muhammad's other sayings will be resolved in favor of the Koran, since the Koran is God's word and Muhammad, in the end, is merely a prophet, and human.

The bad news is that it could take 100 years or more, and the fallout and human cost could be very, very high.

There is reason for optimism. The world is not as backward a place as it was in the 15th Century. The West has learned the lessons of religious violence, and can serve as an example and guide for resolving Islam's internal conflicts. So while the Islamic Reformation is and will be violent, it can be expected to take less time than the Christian Reformation did.

Our job, therefore, is to encourage and support the moderate reformers while opposing and undermining the medievalists. It will take patience, money, intellectual firepower and an acknowledgement that it will proceed in fits and starts. But the entire world will benefit from Islam shedding its medieval past. If ever there was a project well worth undertaking, this is it.

If you like this post and would like to link to, you can use the following:
http://midtopia.blogspot.com/2006/04...formation.html

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

First of all, it would be more accurate to say that some parts of the Koran can be interpreted as calls for violence. There are no explicit calls in the Koran that justifies violence against people just because they are non-Muslims. In fact, the Koran does explicitly say that the People of the Book (Christians), Jews, and Al Sabin (usually translated as resigned monotheist, or one who believes in God but not organized religion) shall have no fear nor shall they feel sad as long as the believe in God, the Last Day, and undertake righteous acts. In addition, according to the Islamic Law set up by Muhammad, non-Muslims would be protected as long as they paid a tax for this protection.

Finally, most of the calls for violent acts often cited by people against Islam are from the Hadith. The Hadith is comparable to the oral tradition in Jewish theology, but the methods to verify authentic Hadith from made up things is questionable at best. The Hadith (or sayings of the prophet) was not established and written down until a long time after the prophet died...I believe its between 100 and 200 years. And the only measure to verify its validity was by analyzing the chain of narrators that it came through. So if someone considered a pious Muslims said that this is something Muhammad did or said and he traced this info through a chain of supposedly pious Muslims this piece of hadith would be written into the larger collection of sayings. This haphazard way of selecting valid hadith has led to many questioning any Hadiths validity, and because of this different sects of Islam have entirely different volumes of hadith.

Sounds about right, Raytri.

It's my opinion that the Islamic Reformation and their age of Enlightenment will spread out from the USA's middle class american-muslim community. Also the elites of the arab world being educated in the finest british & american schools is helping lift their homeland out of the dark age.

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"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan
The United Church of the Latter Day Tangential Tarts

See, I told you I wasn't a religious scholar.

The main point seems intact, though. The Hadiths are less authoritative than the Koran. So where they conflict, the Koran will win. They may have to do what Christianity did with the Bible -- go through and decide which books should be included and which books should not. But one way or another they will ditch the baggage and produce a modern Islam.

Fundamentalists like al-Zarqawi cannot win. That's because he views *everyone* as the enemy. His particular brand of Islam considers other Muslim sects to be worse than infidels. He's like ebola -- he's so deadly and uncontrollable that he will burn himself out. It's just our bad luck that we have to endure him in the meantime.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

Some extra points to consider...

1. Although the Hadith's authenticity may be questionable to secular religious scholars, it is still used as the second source of Islamic law. The only point I was making is that the Hadith doesn't neccessarily represent the teaching of the prophet.

2. Islamic culture had a long period of prosperity during the Abassid caliphate between 750 and 1258. The arts, sciences, etc as well as the economic well being of the civilization was incredible and their was little violence. I have no idea how this was attained but it does go to show that Islam in government can be succesful.

3. You say we must separate the tribal aspect of Muhammad (I.E. his expansion and conquest) with the so called religious side of his teachings. The tribal side you describe is basically Muhammads political actions, and based on my understanding in Islam religion and politics are required by the Koran and the example of the prophet to be combined.

Not a scholar, but apparently Raytri can see the future. Why it's he almost... prophetic


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Anyhoo, now that we have several muslim members present.. it would be interesting to hear their views on the subject of this thread.

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"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan
The United Church of the Latter Day Tangential Tarts

I think what people often don't like to face about religion is that it can and does adapt to conditions.
I recommend finding if you can an essay by Rodney Stark called "How New Religions Succeed: A Theoretical Model". It's just a beginning for such research but it looks into what I would call the marketing of religion.
People switch to new religions when old religions don't work and when new religions can promise more, amongst other criteria.

Fundies are the old religion trying to gain dominance over adaptive elements. It stands to reason that they see a strong threat that Western influence can change their religion. And likely it will.
A change in environment will make Islam as it is known today by fundies useless. Thus it will be reformed. And the old masters will try to use coercion to make the adaptation seem more expensive... but they will not be able to stop reality...
Unless they manage to change the direction of the global change. Thus terrorism.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

First, Islam isn't homogeneous. The Sunni sect, which is probably closest to what most people think of as "mainstream Islam", considers the Shi'a to be an aberration, and "not good Muslims", because they follow a lineage that isn't recognized as "official" by anyone but themselves. Then there are the Salafis (one version of which is Wahabbi, OBL's native religion), which are again different. You could look at these "sects" kind of like the "demoninations" in Christianity - the Catholics believe in the Pope, the Protestants don't, and each claims the other is "wrong" in that regard.

The difference is, that most Christians don't fight over that stuff today. But many Muslims do. That's the root of the sectarian violence in Iraq, for instance. Politics and religion are deeply intertwined in Islam, and so if someone's religion is "wrong", then their politics must be "wrong" too. In a way, this situation is reminiscent of the divisions in Ireland, where the politics around the religious divisions have (recently and historically) resulted in armed conflict.

Then, there's also the idea of a "secular Islamic state", which realizes itself in various forms across the globe. Many "traditional" Muslims aren't happy with that, they consider that concept to be an oxymoron. The smart ones choose to work within their respective political systems, but the more extreme mindsets are willing to actually their beliefs into overt violence.

I don't know about you, but I don't see this situation changing anytime soon. The last time pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism were significant geo-political forces, was during Nasser's tenure. One of the interesting pieces here, is that the Internet has become a pretty central player in this equation, globally speaking. Suddenly like-minded peoples who were previously isolated, are able to communicate and coordinate with nothing more than a personal computer. And there are many examples of Islamic encryptions which our intelligence agencies have so far deemed to be "unbreakable".

It seems to me, that we (the United States) must tread very carefully over this turf. It will be very easy to overplay our hand, or over-react to situations that bother us. The Muslim sensibilities are very different from our own. It seems to me, that it would be wise to be aware of that.

And one key note about the difference between Islams troubles today and Christianities troubles a few hundred years ago:

Up until fairly recently, a couple hundred radicles could only kill a couple hundred people they disargeed with. Today, if a couple hundred radicals got an atomic bomb (likely through Iran or N Korea) they could kill tens of millions. I can't imagine what would have happened to the world if Henry VIII or bloody Mary had the firepower that is avaible today through modern technology.

Fundamentalists can win when their enemies are more concerned with not upsetting them than beating them.