Singularity
11-10-2008, 07:51 PM
One of the benefits of taking world history from an Asian guy is that he goes out of his way to buck the trend of viewing history through the lense of Western civilization. This is definitely not the first history course I've taken over the years, and certainly not the first one to cover China, the Middle East, and others, but it is the first one that dispenses with the middle ages by dismissing it as society going backwards.
Case in point, Islam. In the past, when studying it, I've read from very Westernized textbooks that present just enough facts that provide a basic understanding of it, but not enough information to truly understand it. Likely, this is because westerners wrote the book, not because they were particularly swayed by Christianity, but because a number of assumptions have been made about it that are simply untrue, and when combined with 9/11 and terrorism, there is a lack of desire to treat it fairly.
The stuff I already knew were the five pillars of Islam - There is no God but God and Muhammed is his prophet, study of the Qu'oran, daily prayer - 5 times per day, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and giving alms to the poor. Also that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is an Abrahamic religion, and that Mohammed was merely a prophet and not the son of God and did not perform miracles.
The reason I've always been critical of Islam is the same reason that I'm critical of religious fundamentalism, which is that the religion is also a form of government. I mean, this is what I had been taught, nobody bothers to dispute this, so why question it?
While Europe was in its dark ages, most of it slave to a religion that forced conversion, Islam was spreading throughout the central Afro-Eurasia region, but it wasn't doing so by the sword, as I had always learned. The appeal of Islam is that if you abide by the five pillars of the religion, native cultures can still exist as they had before the introduction of Islam. Other things: the Qu'oran, unlike the Bible, does not try to define God. In that religion, the notion of God remains elusive. Other nifty things: they discovered Greek writings and Helenistic culture before western civilization and translated the Greek works into Arabic (later, the Arabic writings were re-translated back into Latin from the Arabic translations, which is how we have much of the knowledge that we have of them). Their scientists realized that the Earth revolved around the sun a hundred years before Copernicus did the same thing for the western world. Most importantly, the sect that believes that the religion = government is only the Shia, and they are limited mostly to Iran and Iraq. Most of Islam believes in maintaining a secular government. In other words, they're no more likely to try the whole conversion by the sword crap than your typical moderate branches of Christianity.
In other words, my "problem" with Islam is the same problem I have with Christian fundamentalists, which is their desire to transform their society's into theocracies.
In many ways, I respect the religion much more than I do Christianity for a number of reasons. First, the Qu'oran was written while Muhammed was still alive, while the Bible was written quite a while after the death of Jesus. This means that it would have been easy for personal agendas, miracles, and (particularly important for me) the myth of his divinity to be inserted into his story after his death. I do believe that Jesus lived, but I generally think of him as a religious philosopher along the same lines as the Buddha, but certainly not supernatural. Islam doesn't try to say that their central figure is in any way supernatural.
Further, after returning from Yathrib to Mecca, along with an army, what was expected of Muhammed by the people he had just conquered was that they would be put to the sword, raped, pillaged, and otherwise treated poorly, as was the custom of the time. Instead, the only thing he attacked was the idols of their tribal gods. Since this is such a fundamental part of their religion, since they only fought when they were attacked, it suggests to me that the message of the religion really is peace.
I think the fundamentalists are just as wrong as they have ever been, but the majority of Muslims are not fundamentalists. They're a minority that makes the whole look bad, much the same as Christian fundamentalism makes the whole of Christianity look bad to those who don't understand the various sects.
That is not to say that I think their religion is "right," I don't think any religion is right. It does mean that I have a newfound respect for it, mainly because their notion of religion is much more based on reality, reason, peace, and the common good than I ever realized (Mohammed was very much in favor of wealth redistribution, which is why the Meccans hated him). Why is this important to me? Because I no longer equate the entire religion with intolerance and oppression as I once did. Mainstream Islam is no more of a radical choice than mainstream Christianity is - maybe a little bit less so.
Case in point, Islam. In the past, when studying it, I've read from very Westernized textbooks that present just enough facts that provide a basic understanding of it, but not enough information to truly understand it. Likely, this is because westerners wrote the book, not because they were particularly swayed by Christianity, but because a number of assumptions have been made about it that are simply untrue, and when combined with 9/11 and terrorism, there is a lack of desire to treat it fairly.
The stuff I already knew were the five pillars of Islam - There is no God but God and Muhammed is his prophet, study of the Qu'oran, daily prayer - 5 times per day, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and giving alms to the poor. Also that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is an Abrahamic religion, and that Mohammed was merely a prophet and not the son of God and did not perform miracles.
The reason I've always been critical of Islam is the same reason that I'm critical of religious fundamentalism, which is that the religion is also a form of government. I mean, this is what I had been taught, nobody bothers to dispute this, so why question it?
While Europe was in its dark ages, most of it slave to a religion that forced conversion, Islam was spreading throughout the central Afro-Eurasia region, but it wasn't doing so by the sword, as I had always learned. The appeal of Islam is that if you abide by the five pillars of the religion, native cultures can still exist as they had before the introduction of Islam. Other things: the Qu'oran, unlike the Bible, does not try to define God. In that religion, the notion of God remains elusive. Other nifty things: they discovered Greek writings and Helenistic culture before western civilization and translated the Greek works into Arabic (later, the Arabic writings were re-translated back into Latin from the Arabic translations, which is how we have much of the knowledge that we have of them). Their scientists realized that the Earth revolved around the sun a hundred years before Copernicus did the same thing for the western world. Most importantly, the sect that believes that the religion = government is only the Shia, and they are limited mostly to Iran and Iraq. Most of Islam believes in maintaining a secular government. In other words, they're no more likely to try the whole conversion by the sword crap than your typical moderate branches of Christianity.
In other words, my "problem" with Islam is the same problem I have with Christian fundamentalists, which is their desire to transform their society's into theocracies.
In many ways, I respect the religion much more than I do Christianity for a number of reasons. First, the Qu'oran was written while Muhammed was still alive, while the Bible was written quite a while after the death of Jesus. This means that it would have been easy for personal agendas, miracles, and (particularly important for me) the myth of his divinity to be inserted into his story after his death. I do believe that Jesus lived, but I generally think of him as a religious philosopher along the same lines as the Buddha, but certainly not supernatural. Islam doesn't try to say that their central figure is in any way supernatural.
Further, after returning from Yathrib to Mecca, along with an army, what was expected of Muhammed by the people he had just conquered was that they would be put to the sword, raped, pillaged, and otherwise treated poorly, as was the custom of the time. Instead, the only thing he attacked was the idols of their tribal gods. Since this is such a fundamental part of their religion, since they only fought when they were attacked, it suggests to me that the message of the religion really is peace.
I think the fundamentalists are just as wrong as they have ever been, but the majority of Muslims are not fundamentalists. They're a minority that makes the whole look bad, much the same as Christian fundamentalism makes the whole of Christianity look bad to those who don't understand the various sects.
That is not to say that I think their religion is "right," I don't think any religion is right. It does mean that I have a newfound respect for it, mainly because their notion of religion is much more based on reality, reason, peace, and the common good than I ever realized (Mohammed was very much in favor of wealth redistribution, which is why the Meccans hated him). Why is this important to me? Because I no longer equate the entire religion with intolerance and oppression as I once did. Mainstream Islam is no more of a radical choice than mainstream Christianity is - maybe a little bit less so.