The Roots of Islamic Reform

[Carcano]

And the only thing one would find when looking at the life of the Holy Prophet objectively is love, peace, honesty, harmony and understanding.

How are you going to recognize when someone is "looking objectivity" if you dont even know what objectivity is???

 

[Arsalan]

Objectivity. Now i know.

Moreover, there have been many people who have studied Islam objectively and found nothing wrong with it.

 

[GeoffP]

What you have to understand is that most ideas that Westerners have about Islam and the Prophet have trickled down from western writers who have for centuries, portrayed the religion and Prophet in an unseemly light, manipulating Quranic verses and Hadiths to make spurious points unrecognisable to most Muslims. Even today, you can identify these people from the same practice. Rather than quote Islamic scholars and established recognised sources, they quote spurious scholars who make up their interpretations based on ignorance of both the language and the religion. In any other field this would be laughed at.

Really? Spurious scholars like al-Dahud? Buhkari? Al-Muslim? Mohammed? Those spurious scholars? Or any of the four islamic schools of legal jurisprudence on apostacy, for example? Those guys? Because, I have to tell you, these tricksy "western writers" seem to have convinced a goodly chunk of the islamic world of the same thing in a tradition dating back a thousand years or more. Odd. But by all means: let's pretend there's no tradition of violence in any proportion of islamic practice. This would certainly explain the extirpation of unislamic culture in the islamic world.

And the only thing one would find when looking at the life of the Holy Prophet objectively is love, peace, honesty, harmony and understanding.

And the odd murder of critics and enemies of his faith. How can that be reconciled with peace and love?

What sources have you used which made you come to that view objectively?

The Quran, which I read, and the hadiths, which I'm still reading.

He's not allowed to post hate sites

Neither are you, although you have.

Anyway, I wouldn't call the Quran or the tafsirs of noted hadiths posted by the MSA at USC "hate sites" specifically. Well...maybe that tafsir you posted from the MSA. Are you allowed to post from hate sites? You still never really explained that one other than blaming it on your hunger, which I guess is why you posted it all those other times when you weren't fasting, too. Tell me: are you allowed to make racist comments about posters' wives?

 

[iceaura]

Do you see a problem with this argument?

Yeah, starting with the notion that "individualism" led simultaneously to the crash of the monarchies and colonialism - that would be leading in two different directions, methinks.

I think he is right about the Western hyper-individualism. From the guillotining of the elite in France to the civil war in the US to the rise of the labor classes in the communist countries and the conflicts that led to the partition of India and the demarcation of the ME to the holocaust and the world wars, these were all results of individualistic thought gone berserk

The rise of the communist labor movement is attributed to "individualistic thought" ? The guillotining of the French elite by the representatives of the masses ?

The US Civil War? Fascism ? The Holocaust with it's collective guilt and loyalty to the State ?

Offhand, that's not exactly - how to put this - obvious.

Outside of failure to submit to some cleric's take on the word of Allah, I don't see the hyper-individualism in the Soviet - what do they call it - "collectivist" organizational principles. What am I missing ?

 

[S.A.M.]

I don't see the hyper-individualism in the Soviet - what do they call it - "collectivist" organizational principles. What am I missing ?

Thinker vs doer.

Tamiya vs Bin Laden/Amina Wadud

Marx vs Lenin/Stalin.

 

[GeoffP]

Ach, Sam knows the importance of real Societiepolitik. You need to break eggs, sometimes.

 

[iceaura]

I don't see the hyper-individualism in the Soviet - what do they call it - "collectivist" organizational principles. What am I missing ? ”

Thinker vs doer.

Tamiya vs Bin Laden/Amina Wadud

Marx vs Lenin/Stalin.

So where's the hyper-individualism supposed to be - in the thinker ? the doer? Please tell me Marx is not supposed to represent Western hyper-individualism.

 

[S.A.M.]

So where's the hyper-individualism supposed to be - in the thinker ? the doer? Please tell me Marx is not supposed to represent Western hyper-individualism.

Are you saying that western society has not been driven by individualism over society?

I cannot see what you are objecting to, really. OBL for example, is a breaker from tradition, much like Tamiya was, he's definitely not a follower of traditional Islam, but a mujtahid. Much like all the thinkers who define the changes in western society. For Americans, probably Ayn Rand is a better example. Her contribution to the US for example has been hyper individualism, even at the cost of social decay.

 

[iceaura]

Are you saying that western society has not been driven by individualism over society?

Chasing your tail, there.

I was observing that ascribing "hyper-individualism" to the Soviet empire, or any of the thinking that it was founded on, needs some serious argument. It's not at all obvious.

Western society features the individual over the tribe, I think - is that what you meant?

 

[S.A.M.]

Chasing your tail, there.

I know.

I was observing that ascribing "hyper-individualism" to the Soviet empire, or any of the thinking that it was founded on, needs some serious argument. It's not at all obvious.

What do you think was the essence of Marx's ideology?

Western society features the individual over the tribe, I think - is that what you meant?

Its a very very different way of thinking, I just came across this book review the other day and I look forward to what it reveals.

Perhaps you are aliens after all.