Recently, on posts about enrichment issues, I have been subjected to two basic forms of criticism:
| 1. | The highlighted behavior is not unique to Muslims. Other groups, such as [choose favorite infidel examples and insert here], do similar things. | |
| 2. | Even among Muslims, this behavior is merely a reflection of centuries-old cultural traditions. Admittedly these practices are barbaric, but they have nothing to do with the Islamic religion. | |
Strangely enough, the countries and cultures within which these barbarities occur are overwhelmingly Muslim. When incidents such as this one come to light, in 95% of the cases an Islamic culture is involved.
Yes, it is true that these are archaic cultural patterns that pre-date Islam. Yet many of them they were common everywhere two millennia ago, and not just in the Arabian Peninsula. Why did they disappear in the civilized world while remaining relatively untouched in the Ummah?
Let’s face it: Islam is a self-sealing ideological system which has preserved the barbaric practices of antiquity as if in amber. Cultural anthropologists are fortunate to be able to study Islamic cultures as a window into the distant past.
Nowhere is this discrepancy more apparent than in the Indian subcontinent. Abominations such as those described below do not occur solely among Muslims, but they are far, far more likely to appear in an Islamic setting than among the Hindus or the Sikhs.
One of the quaint customs that has been brought forward into modernity is the assumption that a woman who is raped is the guilty party. For a case in point, take this article from Asia News:
Bangladesh, A Minor Pregnant After Rape: Beaten and Forced to Marry Her Torturer- - - - - - - - -
by William Gomes
For months, the imam of a village in the district of Faridpur abused the girl, who did not denounce the man for “fear and shame.” The young girl is seventh months pregnant, a premature birth is likely. The local council has condemned both to 101lashes with a cane.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — The victim of repeated rapes who has become pregnant is being forced by local leaders to marry the man who abused her and sentenced to a beating for the “crime” committed. This is the story of a teenager in the village of Char Padma in Faridpur district of central Bangladesh.
Omar Faruk is a teacher from the “Maktab”, the village Islamic school. The imam has long abused the minor, taking advantage of the position of prestige within the local community. The girl is in the seventh month of pregnancy, her physical and mental health are not good, and she risks a premature birth.
For several months she hid the violence and pregnancy, for fear and shame. When her belly started to grow, the news spread throughout the village. On July 18 last the Arbitration Council met, consisting of a group of experts led by Fazlur Rahman Fazal, to discuss the matter and issue a verdict. The meeting ended with a conviction of 101 lashings a head for the young girl and the imam, author of the violence.
Local sources revealed that both have already received 25 beatings, pursuant to the decision. The girl will even have to marry her torturer, who has two previous marriages behind him. In Bangladesh, women are often victims of violence and abuse, most of which goes unpunished. AsiaNews in recent years has repeatedly documented instances of women and young girls raped, disfigured, victims of family feuds, excluded because they convert to Christianity and repudiated by their family.
In recent weeks, Annie Halder, a Catholic activist, denounced a continued growth in the instances of violence, especially against “anyone who decides to convert to Christianity”. Among others, the woman recalled the case of Christina Gomez Goni, “killed by extremists” for apostasy.
Attitudes and actions such as these have been imported en masse into the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway along with the “Asians” who bring so much enrichment to European culture.
Hat tip: C. Cantoni.
40 comments:
“Cultural anthropologists are fortunate to be able to study Islamic cultures as a window into the distant past.”
I wish this were true. 19th century anthropology and some anthropological trends in 1950s and ’60s, perhaps. But today’s anthropology is still under the grip of the nefarious school of cultural relativism.
I have been reading your hilarious 2005 essay “One Ring to Rule Them All” and liked it a lot along with the commenters’ replies. Really! But I disagree that “Sauron is clearly a composite of Osama bin Laden… Saddam Hussein, with all of al Qaeda.”
To me, it’s crystal-clear that the enemy is at home.
I would identify Sauron with all the white leftists and relativists, whether professors or students, who through the last decades have hated the West that much that presently it’s falling apart. You are Gandalf of course, and the most notable GoV commenters the fellowship of the ring.☺
An alternative view: Islam as Sauron and the treasonous Left as Sauruman.
Thus if militant and radical Islamists were Sauron in turn that would make those rightwingers on this site rather like a collective Denethor. Blind, unwittingly helping the enemy by misdirecting the real battle and ultimately doomed to fail when reality sets in.
An ignorant lefty like Obama may be Denethor, not us. You seem to believe that moderate Islam exists, and that only the radicals are the bad guys. Larry Auster has refuted that view.
P.S.
The above linked article is long, but it's Auster at his best. For an abstract of what his article says see this entry in my blog.
P.P.S.
In my above-linked entry I also quote Wafa Sultan:
"Please pay attention to my statement: I have decided to fight Islam. Not the political Islam. Not the militant Islam. Not the radical Islam. Not the Wahhabi Islam. But Islam itself. I truly believe that the West has invented these terms for the sake of being 'politically correct'... Islam has never been misunderstood, Islam is the problem."
Solkhar who is deaf and blind to the reality of his chosen religion/ideology but unfortunately not dumb as in silent is a fine one to be calling anyone else blind.
Why does he not ride with his mythical moderate Muslim brigades to marginalize the fundamentalists he says are the sole problem instead of haranguing us? Harrass the victimizers, not the victims.
Why does the refusal of infidels to genuflect to Solkhar's false pronouncements about Islam irk him far far more than the evil acts of his coreligionists and cause him to expend all his energy?
So-called "moderate" Muslims who interfere with and lecture non-Muslims discussing how best to defend against thousands of separate Muslim attacks across the globe are just harriers for the Islamic army.
The West does not consider "moderate" to describe just someone who doesn't strap on a bomb vest himself. A true moderate takes on the fundamentalists/
terrorists he claims are a tiny minority marring a beautiful religion.
Solkhar is an enabler of the fundamentalists by doing his best to throw sand in everyone's eyes on non-Muslim sites.
Until he links to his tongue lashings of fundamentalists on their sites instead of his various diatribes against uppity infidels, everyone should discount everything he says here.
Laine,
which right wing extremist group do you represent?
Solkhar,
OK,so, where's the real battle and who is the real enemy? I'd say the totalitarian ideology of Islam.
Another deflection from Solkhar. He projects his own extremism (insulting everyone's intelligence by lying about even the basic precepts of Islam) onto others. Verbally resisting an apologist for Islam does not make any westerner an extremist except in the eyes of Islamic propagandists. Their resentful squealing gives them away.
The OIC that Solkhar praises is constantly attempting through the UN to outlaw criticism of Islam and Muslims. How frustrating it must be for them to lack the totalitarian control they covet over non-Muslims.
Solkhar has shown no interest or track record confronting or altering the behavior of the fundamentalists he claims are the sole problem with his adopted religion. Insulting and harassing non-Muslims who don't believe his teeny minority a la Sina view of Islam influences the mainstream Muslim majority or that it is even moderate in the western sense does not prevent a single violent act by his coreligionists.
So whom does he serve with his stalling and obfuscating tactics on infidel sites?
Until Solkhar links to anywhere that he has taken Muslim terrorists to task for their supposed misinterpretation of his beloved religion he is just a stubborn takiya agent lying to non-Muslims.
It's in fact very easy to tell a real moderate Muslim (very rare and admirable) from MINO's (moderate in name only). The real ones direct their verbal gunsights at Muslims inflicting death and terror on civilians in the name of Islam and also educate non-Muslims with inside dope on the religion/ideology. The fakers never take their killer coreligionists to task and keep lecturing the victims that they are not sufficiently deferential to Muslims.
Why doesn't Solkhar reserve his venom for those who are actually KILLING innocents in the name of his prized religion? Why not attack the actual blot on Islam's escutcheon? Because he's not a moderate Muslim.
Chechar: Larry Auster has refuted that view.
And done it very well. Auster's article is a MUST READ for anyone who is tired of the usual bull's pizzle about "moderate" Muslims.
Auster also notes:
Angelo Codevilla, also at the Claremont Review, goes further than his colleague Mark Helprin, advocating the outright destruction of several terror- and jihad- supporting Muslim regimes, either by killing the members ourselves (about 2,000 in each country) or, better, turning them over to their domestic enemies.
Angelo Codevilla is someone who "gets it".
In war, the question that gives meaning to all operations is who is the enemy whose death gives us peace?.
Succint and to the point. What's not to like?
"In war, the question that gives meaning to all operations is who is the enemy whose death gives us peace?"
In another of Auster's threads a commenter really hit the nail by stating: "If Islam were to disappear tomorrow, the West would still be at grave risk. If modern liberalism were to disappear tomorrow, it would be Islam facing the grave risk from a newly-revived West.”
If only we could get rid of modern liberalists...
Out comes the far-right of some in this thread.....
"Neo-fascism usually includes nationalism, anti-immigration policies or, where relevant, nativism (see definition), anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy. Allegations that a group is neo-fascist may be hotly contested, especially if the term is used as a politic epithet. Some post-World War II regimes have been described as neo-fascist due to their authoritarian nature, and sometimes due to their fascination with fascist ideology and rituals. Neo-fascist movements are more straight-forwardly right-wing than the pre-WWII movements, and have become intertwined with the radical right. - Wiki"
Suggest some should come clean
The "wiki" is run by the extreme left. Some even say that there are more gays in Wikiland than in San Francisco. I used to edit in the wiki but I gave it up: it is nothing short of a colossal energy sink to discuss a single line with Wikiland's West haters.
Mace asked the question:
"OK,so, where's the real battle and who is the real enemy? I'd say the totalitarian ideology of Islam."
Mace, there is as much totalitarian ideology in its writings as all the core religious texts of Judaism and Christianity.
The enemy is and will always be extremist-purists whom stop the clock of advancement, concider the founding time of the religion to be the pinnacle and thus shut out anything afterwards. It happens in all religions.
This enemy for us is radical Islamists whom over the last 30yrs have been allowed to merge with militancy (following the example of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.
What transpired was that the usual balance and pendulum-like swings between liberalism and ultra-conservatism stopped because the latter was willing to use force.
That force linked with hard-line interpretations of the Qur'an plus regional cultural and tribal values (burqa, child marriage, sexism, stoning and cutting off hands etc) into the equation gives you all those horrible images and doctrines that are so repugnant.
The enemy is those that espouse this and it should be pointed out that most Muslim countries - about 46 out of 56 OIC countries do not have Sharia courts, stonings, beheadings, cutting of limbs, accept marriages below 16 and countless other rediculous laws. Those that espouse that in most Muslim countries are either laughed at or in fact charged with insighting hatred and disunity.
A great problem, Mace, is that since these people and their ideals are outlawed, including in Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan, they left as refugees. What is inexplicable was that in the 1970s, many of these were accepted as refugees in the West, particularly in the US, UK, Holland, France and Germany were they have installed themselves and created support groups that are now linked to terrorism.
So what you have now is the rediculous situation of radical Muslims in the west demanding ultra-conservative Islamist ideals that are not accepted in the actual Muslim world.
Wiki is for me a quick check and that is all, but the quote is correct and it would be shame to use your opinion to avoid the subject.
I am certain though that you would use wiki for reference to your advantage though, most have done so.
FYI, I detest both the far right AND far left.
"it would be shame to use your opinion to avoid the subject"
The wiki should never be quoted except in articles about technology and hard sciences.
On the humanities side, the wiki is sometimes so psychotic that the article on races (at least the last time I read it) said that there were no races at all; that it was an anti-scientific concept.
Quoting the wiki on humanities is sometimes like quoting Alice in Wonderland.
clever attempt to avoid a question, so I will put it again from a different perspective....
Do you support nationalism, anti-immigration policies or, where relevant, nativism, anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy?
I found a really intersting article in the European Tribune about the far-right and its dangers that I think was well constructe, you can My Titread it here if you wish.
Look forward to your answering the question an from a number of others whom I am sure the know whom I refer to.
...sorry still getting used to links... almost got it.
Of course rational people (avoid insulting labels) support some nationalism, anti-immigration policies and anti-communism. It is plain common sense! What is wrong is to label common sense as "neonazi", etc.
But I am done. Will leave to others to answer your questions. My time is precious...
Solkhar,
"Neo-fascism usually includes nationalism, anti-immigration policies or, where relevant, nativism (see definition), anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy."
That is a very slippery definition.
With the exception of "opposition to liberal democracy" you could be describing President Eisenhower. Unlike right-wing conservatives, fascists supported economic corporatism and were unmistakably patriarchal in their understanding of the family and all other social relations.
Or do these elements of fascism need to be quietly forgotten about in order to dress conservatives up as "neo-fascists"? You yourself said on an earlier thread that you favoured sensible restrictions on immigration. In the eyes of some that would make you a danergous right-winger too.
In A History of Fascism, 1914-45 Stanley Payne describes the tripartite typology of the non-democratic right, distinguishing between 'fascism', 'authoritarian conservatism' and the 'radical right'. For instance nobody would describe King Louis XIV as a fascist yet he was clearly not a democrat either.
Solkhar: Mace, there is as much totalitarian ideology in its writings as all the core religious texts of Judaism and Christianity.
Solkhar, when will you stop with the tu quoque (or, "you too") arguments?
Jews and Christians aren't flying fully loaded passenger jet airliners into occupied skyscrapers.
Jews and Christians aren't setting off car bombs with babies belted down inside of them.
Jews and Christians aren't sending retarded children into crowded areas with bomb vests strapped to their bodies.
Jews and Christians aren't the source of 13,657 FATAL TERRORIST ATTACKS AROUND THE WORLD SINCE THE 9-11 ATROCITY. Go to the linked website and scroll down to the page's bottom for a list of recent Muslim terrorist attacks. The list details OVER THREE HUNDRED FATAL MUSLIM TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS ALL AROUND THE WORLD.
Only Islam is generating this sort of violence and it is not small numbers of Muslims who are involved. Furthermore, untold millions of Muslims have expressed their support for terrorism.
Again, not the Christians or the Jews, just the Muslims have so many followers who advocate terrorism.
Why is this?
The enemy is and will always be extremist-purists whom stop the clock of advancement, concider the founding time of the religion to be the pinnacle and thus shut out anything afterwards. It happens in all religions.
You can say that "It happens in all religions" but the Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Shinto, Animists and Esquimaux just are killing people in the vast numbers everywhere on earth like Muslims are. So enough of the ""you too" crap and enough of the garbage about claiming that it is a tiny number of extremists who are committing these terrorist attacks.
The Qur'an is filled with hate speech that large numbers of Muslims continue to take very seriously to this day. Nobody, repeat NOBODY in Islam is doing squat to alter the situation. You and your small group of al Sina have all the effect of a fart in a windstorm.
The only way to start effecting any change in Islam is to KILL the jihadists. Nothing of the sort is happening. Therefore, Islamic atrocities will continue until one supremely horrible terrorist attack will see the West arrive at the tipping point.
The tipping point will be when it is more trouble to live with Muslims than to live without them.
When that time comes you will have no one to blame but yourself and fellow Muslims for inadequate action in the face of obvious danger to the entire MME (Muslim Middle East). That danger comes from only one source and that is Islam itself and the hostile dogma it contains.
The vast majority of other religions have abandoned the exhortations to violence contained in their scriptures. Muslims clearly have not. Why is that?
You keep dodging the question and are less the man for it.
TYPO:
You can say that "It happens in all religions" but the Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Shinto, Animists and Esquimaux just are NOT killing people in the vast numbers everywhere on earth like Muslims are. So enough of the ""you too" crap and enough of the garbage about claiming that it is a tiny number of extremists who are committing these terrorist attacks.
Solkhar,
Zenstar has already mentioned the weaknesses of your arguments in defence of Islam. However I will comment on an approach,used by many commentators, that is totally unproductive. This is, the analysis of Jewish,Christian and Islamic texts in order to dicover those barbaric sentiments that they all have in common(tu quoque) or to prove that Islam is particularly nasty at its source.
The critical argument is,by demonstration, there are no progressive,liberal democratic Moslem majority states(it's too early to tell with Indonesia).Without Western influence Islamic societies would have remained in their thousand year torpor. I understand your historical references,however these support my argument,Islamic society is inimical to progress and democracy. The jihadi fish swim in an Islamic sea.
Sean, well structured points there, my raising the issue is about modern neoNazism and how far elements of the far-right will go to have their ideals fulfilled.
As for me and my immigration views, I have no problem with a bit of nationalism if it is not hypocritically done - ie have it clear and supported by the majority. I support parliamentary democracies for the right type of states that can cope with it. I am a "needs-based centrist" and was correctly accused of being so by the President of the Brussels ULB/VUB University when I did my MA there -(realizing later on he was correct).
Zenster and others on threads were discussing very totalitarian and rather repugnant views on immigration solutions and dealing with Islam and it occured to me that the neoNazi definition may correct as to do so would only work with coordinated elimination of certain democratic processes.
mace: The jihadi fish swim in an Islamic sea.
Great comment, mace. Let's see if Solkhar has enough courage to answer your question with anything more than his usual misdirection and tu quoque.
Mace, I do not thin that I have shown a weakness in my argument at all, Zenster I ignore anyhow because his process of thinking is either/or on the verge of neoNazism.
My argument has to be taken as a whole or not at all and that I think is missing here.
The level of violence is not denied nor is the claims by those organising it. On another thread I pointed out the causing factors of the violence and its origins to the Baron, non being the core principles or the text of the Qur'an. I stand by those points.
Thus each time the comment that the Qur'an itself is blamed I will come back stating that there is as much text in the Qur'an as in the Torah or Bible to argue violence and thus it has to come from another source.
The source is from radicals, extremists and militants following them. I no longer use the world fundamentalist because it is technically wrong and represents Christian fanaticism (see this item to explain it).
Your point that "Without Western influence Islamic societies would have remained in their thousand year torpor" is incorrect but will never be proved either way because it was the West that had the industrial revolution and thus the military power to colonize, control and decolonize in the way it did. Those parts of the Islamic world that were not suffering "cultural" tribal habits were progressing fine and in some places faster than the west and influencing western thought.
I would also add that saying "Islamic society is inimical to progress and democracy." is also incorrect. Your statements assumes that clerics have a place in government. Some wold argue that Turkey has always been a Muslim state and closer to what for a country without an alternative form of good-governance - is a progressive Muslim democracy. It certainly is getting close to it now that the institutions have realised that the bulk of the population are still practacing.
If you note, I carefully added the word - good governance - because democracy is an overused and abused word that has all but discredited what it is. Western style liberal democracy, we should all remember, is the single main cause for the horrors, corruption and abuse of the third-world with the result of what most nations in Africa are to this day. The Congo, Zimbabze, Rawanda and Liberia being the best examples of what forcing such a democracy does. The term should always be "good governance" and I will use the country that I now live in - Morocco as the best example of a country with a Monarchy that is proudly supported by almost the entire population, has now allowed limited democratic power to a parliament and a prime minister with only key posts appointed still by the King. Still with that level of democracy you end up with over 60 political parties that are frankly personality cults and the people are very thankful that there is a strong Monarch to ensure things work rather than being left to personalities.
In a nutshell, western liberal democracies are great for economically stable, politically mature nations that have no other cultural or historical system in place....
So to finish up and back to your argement re your comments about Islam and Islamic doctrine being the cause - no and the jihadi fish swim in "their own brine-infested" Islamic sea.
ERRATUM
Got it wrong again, the correct link is see this item to explain it to the item about the use of the word "fundamentalism".
Solkhar,
"there is as much text in the Qur'an as in the Torah or Bible to argue violence"- perhaps not the New Testament,however Scripture is not my area or interest or expertise. As I indicated earlier, I think textual analysis is irrelevant and nebulous, so let's leave it at that, as we appear to agree on that point.
My comment on the conservatism of Islamic civilisation stands,by your own admission, you cannot say it is "incorrect".Perhaps I overstated my case, however the fact of the West's progress relative to the lslamic world and its industrialisation seems QED to me.How much time would you have allowed Moslem societies to demonstrate self-generated development without Western influence? What parts of the Islamic world were progressing "faster than the west"? In the last 1000 years?
I don't share your optimism in regard to Turkey,as a "progressive Moslem democracy" it is still well behind Western standards after 80 odd years of "secularism". Contrast Turkey with Japan over the same period,or South Korea.
You've made a significant point in regard to your comments on the recent horrors in Africa.Even J.S.Mill, the champion of liberty ,thought that some societies were not ready for democracy.However that sentiment is so non-PC and even "racist" that very few Westerners will agree,publicy,these days, because we believe in the concept of universal human rights.
There are numerous surveys that report significant support for the Jihad by Moslems in many nations, these people are the "sea" in which the jihadi fish swim.
Solkhar: Zenster and others on threads were discussing very totalitarian and rather repugnant views on immigration solutions and dealing with Islam and it occured to me that the neoNazi definition may correct as to do so would only work with coordinated elimination of certain democratic processes.
What a larf. Islam is the most Nazi oriented group to manifest since Hitler's downfall and yet I am tarred with the brush of Nazism. Hamas uses the sieg heil salute and "Mein Kampf" is a perennial best-seller in Muslim countries but it is me―whose mother survived the Nazi occupation of Denmark and whose relatives died at the hands of Nazis―who is the "neo-Nazi". PRICELESS.
Solkhar: Zenster I ignore anyhow because his process of thinking is either/or on the verge of neoNazism.
How curious that a member of Islam whose members claim that "we will finish Hitler's job" even as they say that the Holocaust never occured, should denounce me as some sort of neo-Nazi. Effing priceless. Talk about misdirection.
Muslims are hell-bent on another Jewish genocide and myself, part Jew, is accused of Nazi tendencies. Allah in an Indy car! What a sick joke.
Solkhar: Thus each time the comment that the Qur'an itself is blamed I will come back stating that there is as much text in the Qur'an as in the Torah or Bible to argue violence and thus it has to come from another source.
MORE tu quoque! Will this Muslim shill ever leave off of the "you too" crap that he cannot seem to help but spew?
Christians and Jews have given up the hostile parts of their respective doctrines for some CENTURIES but Solkhar is honor-bound to protest on this basis even as Muslims kill more people while I type these words. Effing priceless.
Lay off of the tu quoque accusations you smarmy Islamist enabler!
Solkhar: Thus each time the comment that the Qur'an itself is blamed I will come back stating that there is as much text in the Qur'an as in the Torah or Bible to argue violence and thus it has to come from another source.
Even MORE tu quoque!
Solkhar: The source is from radicals, extremists and militants following them.
No, the "source" is the Qur'an. Something that your refusal to recognize only cements further in the minds of sane people. GOOD WORK!
Solkhar: Your point that "Without Western influence Islamic societies would have remained in their thousand year torpor" is incorrect but will never be proved either way because it was the West that had the industrial revolution and thus the military power to colonize, control and decolonize in the way it did. Those parts of the Islamic world that were not suffering "cultural" tribal habits were progressing fine and in some places faster than the west and influencing western thought. [emphasis added]
Cite please? Not anecdotal passages that you seem to hold in such high esteem but real factual evidence with links and proper citations, please.
Mace, good discussion here and without all the diatribe and attacks from others.
A society can become all modern and well structured very quickly these days simply with cash as long as the population tolerates or can cope with it. Japan in fact was a destroyed society in 1945 when it was rebuilt after the war and to their great effort and praise and credit advanced further than others had expected. Visit Dubai and parts of the UAE to see what cash-injections can do, Qatar and Oman following suit.
I wored in Turkey in our Embassy for two years, they are also capapble of incredible movements but for the heavy-handed secular military in the background, but that is slowly being released as the old-guard die off. Well, I hope so they have great potential if they just allow accept the peoples needs, culture and faiths a bit more.
"Muslim advancement in the last 1000 years" as you requested could be summed up by the various times of Muslim "enlightenment" are actually significant with those areas not under tribal influence progressing as cities, with univerisities and famous philosophers. Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba, Fez, Samarkand, Delhi, Isfahan and Tabriz amongst others all having their golden eras. At their most richest, the Muslim world was bathing in soap when Europe was in the darkest part of their "dark ages".
Ibn Rushd known in European literature as Averroes whom lived in Al Andalous was amongst the most famous 12th century figures.
Ibn Sina (my favourite) known as Avicenna in the west is still considered one of the founding fathers of medicine is an 11th century icon. Plato would have been lost if not for Al Ghazi at that same period.
The last great philosopher was probaly Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā who lived from 1571–1636 and it is interesting as that also equates with the rise of war with the west. Though I have not the material with me (I am half way in my holiday in a hotel in Agadir in south Morocco), life in the Ottoman cities of Anatolya was comparable if not better than those of most of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century - I will search references this evening, that equates with the industrial revolution starting.
There is a good website called Muslim Heritage that has some timelines and examples that are worth reading, click here for the link.
Though some will kill of wiki altogether and I take it with some reservation myself, as a quick resource it can be easy and going to their link here gives a good list of the most famous of those philosophers.
Your reference to the support for Muslims of Jihad is not actually correct and that difference is very important and part of my whole point. The support by the illeterate masses for attacks say on the west must be looked at 1) what they were told and 2) what they themselves believe. They were told over and over again that the West and the US in particular are waging war on Islam that they want to kill Muslims and so they believed it. They were all told that America helps and helped Israel in killing Palestinian Muslims and they believed it and many if not most still do. They here that an icon of America was attacked and they cheer. They here that there are fighters in Afghanistan killing Americans in a Christian attack on a Muslim country. They were told that Americans were in Saudi ready to attack Mecca etc, etc, etc. They are the ones confused about what Jihad really is now. The illterates. Ask educated and there is no such popular support.
Zenster,
Sorry, your not a neoNazi and I take that back with apology, it was a non-deliberate typing error. I too lost family whom were occupied under the nazi regime.
To to clarify, you're views are neo-facist.
Solkhar,
"They are the ones confused about what Jihad really is now"
I think you have defeated your own argument propaganda and subvertion is part of the same dirty stick as violent jihad.
Solkhar,
Interesting site, I'll spend some time there. I'm not ignorant in regard to Islamic contributions to learning and particularly the preservation of Classical literature that was lost to the West after the fall of the Western Roman empire. However,some commentators claim that the Moslem contribution to Western civilisation has been overstated, I refer you to Fjordman's numerous posts on this site. I don't dispute the more advanced state of Islamic( and Chinese and Hindu) societies in the 17th century(and earlier)but these were static and conservative compared with the West which was developing rapidly at the same time,that's my point.
I've never visited the UAE,so I have to rely on reports in the Western media. These seem to suggest that there's a conservative society behind the glittering towers.I'm not yet convinced that the UAE and other oil kingdoms are much more than passengers on the Western bandwagon, only time will tell.
Your final argument really depends on the ratio of illiterates to the educated in Islamic nations and the tendency of their governments to lie to them. That is not encouraging.
I have to say I'm very sceptical about claims of potential industrial revolutions outside the UK.I studied the history of the British industrial revolution at university many years ago.The consensus amongst historians then was that it occurred because of the simultaneous development of particular social,economic and political factors in 18th century Britain that did not appear anywhere else on the planet,so there is no reason to believe there is anything inevitable about industrialization.
I should let you get back to your holiday.
@ Solkhar (Robert) If you are really interested in Avicenna et al, I would like to recommend you A History of Medicine in the Islamic World. I am shure you will enjoy that.
But off topic: A while ago you accused an Islam critical blog of having the word "racist" somewhere and therefore being "racist". You also named them gameplayers...
Now what I don't really understand is that you yourself are a volunteer "Neophyte" gameplayer in a sort of "Neo Nazi" Race Wars Game.
Can you explain that Race thing, Rob?
VH,
Ibn-Sina for me is very interesting, any article that is written by Bruce Spencer on Islam needs to be taken with much doubt and question, though he academic achievements in the past are noteworthy, his strong conservative-right agenda-base has become more pronounced each passing year. That is clear and evident in his providing almost excuslively to the conservative media, his support for the Serbs in Kosovo that was a great disapointment to even his own academic community. His personal participation of the radical hate-come-bigot blogs Jihad-Watch and Dhimmi-Watch simply shows that there is something seriously wrong with the man, basically torching his academic redibility and now he has chosen to avoide academia altogether (probably out of embarrassment) deciding to go for the money instead using the current climate of anxiety over Iraq and Afghanistan to selling books and appearing on television.
Those blogs I have mentioned are exactly as I have described them in my own and with explanation why.
Cheers
ps. I have been involved on-and-off with roleplaying games since Gygax invented D&D in 1974 and experimented with the internet ones many times, mostly dropping out due to the poor quality of rpg results and my own lack of time. I tend to ensure separationof fact and fiction though unlike some in these threads.
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