Is Islam "exceptional"?

[milestogo]

Events from 14 centuries ago still shape Islam’s relationship to politics, argues Shadi Hamid, which will in turn affect the future of the Middle East.

Shadi Hamid

To understand the Middle East’s seemingly intractable conflicts, we need to go back to at least 1924, the year the last caliphate was formally abolished. Animating the caliphate—the historical political entity governed by Islamic law and tradition—was the idea that, in the words of the historian Reza Pankhurst, the “spiritual unity of the Muslim community requires political expression.” For the better part of 13 centuries, there had been a continuous lineage of widely accepted “Islamic” politics. Even where caliphates were ineffectual, they still offered resonance and reassurance. Things were as they had always been and perhaps always would be.

Since the Ottoman Caliphate’s dissolution, the struggle to establish a legitimate political order has raged on in the Middle East, with varying levels of intensity. At its center is the problem of religion and its role in politics. In this sense, the turmoil of the Arab Spring and the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, is only the latest iteration of the inability to resolve the most basic questions over what it means to be a citizen and what it means to be a state.

It is both an old and new question, one that used to have an answer but no longer does. Islam is distinctive in how it relates to politics—and this distinctiveness can be traced back to the religion’s founding moment in the seventh century. Islam is different. This difference has profound implications for the future of the Middle East and, by extension, for the world in which we all live, whether we happen to be American, French, British, or anything else. To say that Islam—as creed, theology, and practice—says something that other religions don’t quite say is admittedly a controversial, even troubling claim, especially in the context of rising anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States and Europe. As a Muslim-American, it’s personal for me: Donald Trump’s dangerous comments on Islam and Muslims make me fear for my country. Yet “Islamic exceptionalism” is neither good nor bad. It just is.

Because of this exceptionalism, a Middle Eastern replay of the Western model—Protestant Reformation followed by an Enlightenment in which religion is gradually pushed into the private realm—is unlikely. That Islam—a completely different religion with a completely different founding and evolution—should follow a course similar to that of Christianity is itself an odd presumption. We aren’t all the same, but, more importantly, why should we be?

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/06/08-is-islam-exceptional-hamid

[braddy]

1. Christianity was not gradually pushed into the private realm, it was outside for it's first

centuries, banned and Christians tortured to death, and then the Roman emperor adopted it and created the Roman Catholic church which remained connected to government for centuries.

Islam was a military/government/legal system/religion of world conquest, from the beginning, Mohammed quit being a merchant when he started Islam, and switched to a war leader, sex slave raiding, beheading, child lover, polygamist, which formed the true Islamic religion.

[Herman4747]

2. Yes. Exceptionally bad.

No logical reason to accept the sexist, misogynistic, belligerent "revelations" of a 7th century narcissistic warlord.

[Chan790]

3. Shadi Hamid is brilliant and on the mark...

unfortunately, too many people are simply not going to listen to him despite being correct about the battle for the future of Islam and how it could be a progressive future of a progressive faith if the right movements and leaders prevail.

His book is amazing, if you had not read it.

[radicalliberal]

4. Let me see. . . .

In the 21st century, women who are raped in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia end being stoned to death as "adulterers." Muslim culture is so extremely, freakishly misogynistic that it makes so-called "Men's Rights Activists" look like feminists. Homosexual men are brutally executed. Muslim immigrants to Western countries such as Great Britain openly proclaim they have no use for democracy. Indeed, in public demonstrations they chant "Death to the West! Death to the West!" (So, why have they chosen to immigrate to countries they hate?) They arrogantly demand that Western societies respect their horribly antiquated religious law. Sharia courts now exist in Great Britain! British Muslim women treated unjustly or abused by Muslim men now have nowhere else to go! Instead of assimilating, some (if not many) of the immigrants form "no go" zones where no intrusion by non-Muslims is tolerated. (This is assimilation?) With the influx of Muslim immigration in recent years, rape has skyrocketed in countries such as Norway and Sweden -- which has now been called the rape capital of Europe. The women of those countries have been betrayed by leaders of their governments and their own media, who have acted in collusion in an attempt to keep the public unaware of the attacks on their native women. ISIS is horribly brutal -- just as barbaric as the Khmer Rouge of the 1970s. Jews are being driven out of France because they have been harassed and assaulted by Muslims. In some school districts in Sweden, the Holocaust is no longer taught because antisemitic Muslims won't allow it. (Antisemitism is okay if practiced by Muslims?) I could go on and on and on. The fact is that Islam is not compatible with democracy. Name a single functioning democracy that has a Muslim majority.

Yes, people (including Muslims) should be treated as individuals; and bullying of Muslim children should not be tolerated. But that is a different issue. Enough is enough! I'm sick and tired of the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" attitude toward Islam. Individuals (Muslim or non-Muslim) who commit crimes such as rape should not be protected by the media, but should be prosecuted by the law. I'm amazed that so many progressives act as if they have no problem at all with a religion that is so regressive and intolerant that it makes the likes of Jerry Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly look liberal in comparison. Indeed, the reaction of most progressives is one of silence. Yet if progressives found themselves living in an "Islamic Republic," they would be the first to be beheaded.

But the prevailing policy seems to be "Don't ever criticize any Muslims! To do so would be the moral equivalent of supporting white supremacy!" No critique is to be made of Islam, no matter how many people are brutalized in the Middle East and the West? Oh, please!

[elljay]

5. I have been trying to explain this for a long time

though not nearly as well as the author. Most Americans are from a Christian background and they are woefully ignorant of the fact that Judaism and Islam are very different in structure. Judaism requires Jews to follow laws, has no requirement of faith, and is really unconcerned with what non-Jews do. Christianity has no laws but is based on faith. Islam is a hybrid of the two. It incorporated the predatory Bedouin culture of early Arabia, which was renowned for raiding, into versions of Jewish and Christian teachings and transformed it into a religious/political system. Islam teaches that the entire world has been given to Muslims and it has laws that we would call Jim Crow. Christians and Jews are prohibited from ruling in an Islamic nation and have permanent second class status. As Hindus, Sikhs, Baha'i, and Buddhists will tell you, Islam requires that they convert or die.

What Christians fail to grasp, because their religion is premised on not following the written laws, is that Jews and Muslims disagree with them. When the rules are written in a book that is considered the perfect rule of god, they must be followed. Over the millennia, Rabbis have interpreted and modernized Jewish law by determining that certain commandments have been fulfilled (killing all Canaanites) and creating impossible to follow prerequisites for others (to impose the death penalty, we would need to reconstitute the Sanhedrin of 2000 years ago and need a large amount of witnesses).

For Islam to be compatible with today's diverse democracies, it will need to find a way to interpret discriminatory, supremacist and violent Koranic text to make it no longer applicable. As the author points out, this is difficult and he sees no LAH for doing so. Sobering thought.

[Nitram]

6. elljay, I fear you have mistaken a radical form of fundamentalist Islam for Islam as a whole.

Even today many fundamentalist Christians believe the Bible should be law. There are Representatives and Senators in Congress who believe the Ten Commandments should be enshrined as the basis for the U.S. Constitution and for all our laws. You are correct to observe that Muslims should (and undoubtedly will) find ways to ignore discriminatory, supremacist and violent language in the Koran just as Christians and Jews have managed to do with similar passages in the Bible.

Islamic Middle Eastern societies lived peacefully with people of other religions for centuries. Most Muslims today believe that jihad should be an personal internal struggle towards perfection rather than a violent attack on non-Muslims.

[elljay]

7. There is a difference between living peacefully

and living equally. I have relatives from Muslim countries. They weren't murdered like my European family was by Christians, but they were permanent second class citizens. They could not testify against Muslims in court, could not ever rule the country, had to get permission to build or improve synagogues, etc. When people tell me that Jews, Christians, Yazidi, etc lived peacefully with Muslims, it really means that they found a way to accept being second class and not rocking the boat. It is similar to African Americans living under Jim Crow. They had to know their place and not demand equality.

Yes, all religions have zealots who want to impose their beliefs on others, and we must deal with them. My point is that the only way to change with religions that have embedded legal codes like Judaism and Islam is to get the population to almost universally accept that portions of their texts must no longer be followed as written, and for the religious leaders to do their part in confirming this. We have largely gone through this transition in Judaism. Most Jews do not follow all of the commandments and those who do have rabbinic rulings that have ended or modified many of the worst practices (e.g. killing disrespectful children). For example have denominations which include the majority of American Jews and which practice gender equality and gay rights, neither of which is in the Torah. We freely criticize the behavior of our prophets and discuss the uncomfortable aspects of our religion. Islam needs to go through this same transition collectively. There must be critical conversations within the religion about Muhammed, whether some of his behavior is really appropriate according to today's standards, whether some of the teachings of the Koran should no longer apply or are just plain wrong. The entire world does not and will never belong to only one race, people, nation or religion. No one group is inherently any better than others. We can and must all live together respectfully and as equals. I look forward to the day when the Muslim community universally accepts this and follows the many wonderful things about the Muslim religion and not the discriminatory and violent aspects.