Noah Feldman says it's awesome but his article seems deeply confused to me for roughly the reasons Noah Millman points out. Feldman's running a lot of different ideas together, and getting too cute by half.
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Sharia?
26 Mar 2008 11:13 am
Comments (27)
Feldman has always been extremely underwhelming. His book and his articles promise a great deal and deliver little.
Millman is great, though.
Occam's razor says foundationalist doctrine based on religious revelation and sacred texts is fundamentally (fundamentalistically?) contrary to pluralistic politics in a democratic republic. Thanks, but no thanks. In some states with completely homogeneous religious populations, this may be a fly-in-the-bottle type of question (so long as the fly doesn't care to get out, who should care about the bottle?). But in the vast majority of societies, this is a ticket to unfreedom and invidious domination in daily life.
Obviously, people will follow their religious leaders and their judgments to some greater or lesser degree, but why that has to be sanctioned by the state is not clear to me. Just as I wish "holy matrimony" were a wholly private affair within religious communities, and civil unions were viewed as entirely separate and unconnected licencing procedures defining people's legal relation to the state in a wholly prosaic and mundane manner. The confusion of these two dimensions of life--the religious and the civic--is the source of many woes.
I'm not at all happy about all these people who have my first name and are more famous and better at writing than I am...well, at least my last name is still nice and unique...
I couldn't manage to make it through Millman (or the critic at TNR he linked to), seemed mostly like he's confusing a magazine article for an piece of traditional scholarship. Feldman mostly told a story about the old times and why some people are still interested in sharia. The detail were essentially irrelevant and have been forgotten by everyone that read the article when it came out.
I thought it was Millman's article that was deeply confused. I couldn't get through it because it wasn't really making any sense. As a basic primer on Sharia, Felman's article was pretty good. As a scholarly article, it deserves some criticism, but this is the New York Times, not a think tank. When you consider the target audience, Feldman's article seems appropriate. And who knows? maybe a reader or two actually learned something. I know I did. And I suspect that many Americans were unaware that Sharia actually grants rights as well as taking them away.
I certainly wouldn't recommend Sharia for Western countries, but some form of Sharia might be appropriate for Muslim countries. Compared to the lawless thugs that have recently been running most Muslim countries, some form of the Rule of Law would probably be an improvement. I would be hard to get much worse.
Well, I'm hardly a religious scholar, but it's always seemed pretty obvious to me that---ironical as it might seem in today's political landscape---Islam and Judaism are essentially the SAME religion, the biggest difference being that the former represents a universalist/non-tribalist/non-racialist extension of the latter (or equivalently, the Jews might be regarded as a heretical, unreformed "holdout" sect of Muslims, much like Old Believers are in Russian Orthodoxy, but much more extreme).
For example, I'm pretty sure that Muhammad initially regarded himself as a Jewish prophet, much like all those in the Old Testament, and was miffed that the Jewish leaders of the day refused to recognize his role.
As I've said before, if the characteristics/belief systems of the world's dozen or so most important religions were simply mapped onto a multidimensional space, Judaism and Islam would be extraordinarily close together, far closer than any other two religions, and certainly closer than some of the more "eccentric" sub-sects of Islam, Christianity, or Buddhism.
I'd be pretty curious how any commenters who ARE religious scholars might view this sort of analysis.
I lived under Sharia law adopted in a modern secular state. (Aceh province in Indonesia). It had serious drawbacks for me, as a non-Muslim but I am not sure if it was a problem with the law itself, or how it was enforced. Mostly it was a hassle, -hard to buy beer, could not go to lunch at a restaurant during Ramadan, no coffee shops open on Friday afternoon, no wearing shorts in public (even while doing sports) I could not be in a room alone with my girlfriend - had to have the door open at least. The one advantage was no drunk drivers. It would have been a bigger hassle if I were a woman.....
I seemed to me that enforcement concentrated on women's modesty, Alcohol, and gambling. Ignoring corruption, and usury. There was some overtly political enforcements (like the time the Sharia Cops marched a whole squad of Indonesian Army troops down to the police station where they all got a lecture on the length of the shorts they were wearing on their morning runs).
I saw no benefit to the local society, other than perhaps a reduced problem with drugs and alcohol compared to similarly developed areas.
But think of the potential of a Sharia Cops TV show. Hot pursuit of a woman not wearing a headscarf, or man with no shirt......
Re: I certainly wouldn't recommend Sharia for Western countries, but some form of Sharia might be appropriate for Muslim countries.
Unlike, say, the New York State Penal code, or even the ancient Levitical law of the Jews, Sharia has no definitive written form. It's not found, for example, in the text of the Qu'ran. It's more like common law: a huge body of legal tradition that can be interpretted (within bounds) however the local legal-religious authority sees fit. That's why the Taliban stuck women in burqas and fired them from their jobs while in Iran women serve (in significant numbers) in the national legislature: differing interpretations of what Sharia law requires. A moderate Islamic authority could conceivably interpret the tradition in a (somewhat) liberal light, though so far those moderates seem awfully thin on the ground. One problem may be that liberals in these cultures tend to reject sharia outright and favor Western legal norms, so that only conservatives and outright reactionaries are doing Sharia legal work.
JonF- Obviously the devil is in the details, and so far, nobody seems to have implemented anything resembling a modern and functional form of Sharia. But when the alternative is brutal leaders like Hussein and Assad with no real checks on their power, it may be worth a try. Your point that liberals tend to prefer a Western style system and therefore are not working on Sharia is a good one. I tend to think that the Turks are probably the most capable of producing a modernized and fair version of Sharia, but the liberals there are obviously very committed to Kemalist secularism and will never even consider it. Even the AKP won't really go there. They're already in a bit of hot water over a fairly modest relaxation of the Hijab rules. So the Turks aren't going there even though they could probably do it well.
JonF- Obviously the devil is in the details, and so far, nobody seems to have implemented anything resembling a modern and functional form of Sharia. But when the alternative is brutal leaders like Hussein and Assad with no real checks on their power, it may be worth a try. Your point that liberals tend to prefer a Western style system and therefore are not working on Sharia is a good one. I tend to think that the Turks are probably the most capable of producing a modernized and fair version of Sharia, but the liberals there are obviously very committed to Kemalist secularism and will never even consider it. Even the AKP won't really go there. They're already in a bit of hot water over a fairly modest relaxation of the Hijab rules. So the Turks aren't going there even though they could probably do it well.
Judaism and Islam would be extraordinarily close together, far closer than any other two religions, and certainly closer than some of the more "eccentric" sub-sects of Islam, Christianity, or Buddhism.
I'd be pretty curious how any commenters who ARE religious scholars might view this sort of analysis.
Posted by RKU | March 26, 2008 12:34 PM
I recommend reading Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption in order to get a bit of a handdle on these issue.
In one sense you are right. Islam is close to ancient Judaism, pre temple Judaism. But it is miles away from the Judaism of the reforming prophets (Nathan, Job, Isaiah, Samuel) and even further away from post-temple or rabbinic judaism.
Islam anoints the Arab people as the faithful decendents of Abraham and orders them to bring all other peoples to obedience (submission) by word if possible but by force if necessary. This is completely different from Judaism, which emphasises the golden rule and a good example for all faithful jews and Christianity which takes this concept even further - love thine enemies - as the good samaritan parable illustrates.
People get confused on this issue by substituting the behavior of the State of Israel or the use of Christian theology by secular power from Constantine onwards to infer a equivalency between the three Abrahamic faiths that simply doesn't exit. But an actual reading of the scriptures shows that this is not the case.
Note that as Muslims claim to be the ultimate fulfillment of the God of Abraham it is only natural that they would endorse the idea of unity between the three faiths. But if you read the Koran you quickly come to realise that this is not the God who presented himself to Moses in the burning Bush or who Christ called my father. He sounds wrong and he endorses things that are profane. Rosenzweig's theory is that Islam is really the pagan pantheon wrapped up into a monotheistic package. It's an ersatzs God, who borrows the trappings of Jusdaism and Christianity without the spiritual commitment or moral understanding. Substituting strict ritual and obedience in place of a relationship with the loving God. Allah does not love mankind. They are often referred to in the Hadith as his slaves. This is much like Zeus. The god of the Jews is a living presence who loves his children even the least of them.
Look into it. Read the Koran. Maybe a good book on Jewish Theology. You'll see. It's all there.
As I understand it, the Feldman article is basically a summary of the book he's publishing, which might account for some of the breeziness people ascribe to it. I've noticed that when the NYTimes Magazine runs these types of articles (I remember one by Kenji Yoshino about Covering and by Michael Lewis about The Blind Side), they tend to be underwhelming compared to the rest of the author's work (at least for me). At least in Feldman's case, I thought the article was interesting, but that it covered too much ground to be really well-argued.
Feldman's article is perfectly reasonable as an introduction to Shariah and the reasons why many Muslims are turning to it. His argument is very reminiscent of Richard Bulliet's in books like Islam: The View from the Edge and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, actually. The ulama has historically played an anti-tyrannical role, so Muslims facing modern tyrannies are quite reasonably turning to updated and modernized versions of religious rule as a solution.
Millman's article, however, is kinda dumb:
1) It's simply not fair to accuse Feldman of confusing Shariah in the West with Shariah in Muslim countries. Feldman uses the Archbishop as an introductory hook, nothing more.
2) Millman claims that Shariah advocacy "is a populist and reactionary movement. And populist reaction does not lead to his ideals of an enlightened clerisy that “checks” abuses of power."
This is not just begging the question but plainly wrong. Islamism in the modern world is not some sort of medieval throwback, but a response to definite modern conditions, with historical roots in modern thinkers and new kinds of organization and tactics. This all-too-common American picture of Islamism as fundamentally the reaction of an age-old force to a discomfort with modernity is badly misleading and, in fact, tinged with racism.
Northern Observer is pretty clearly not a religious scholar, or at the very least not a scholar of Islam.
Islam anoints the Arab people as the faithful decendents of Abraham and orders them to bring all other peoples to obedience (submission) by word if possible but by force if necessary.
Bullshit. Islam is universalistic, like Christianity - the Arabs are not chosen - and there is no commandment to forcible conversion.
an actual reading of the scriptures shows...
Very little. To anyone but the most naive idealist, what should matter is the living faith tradition, which includes centuries of interpretation, not a raw reading of the scripture. This applies to Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam.
things that are profane
By whose definition? I find obscenities in the alleged actions of the Abrahamic God in any of his varied scriptures. But I wouldn't pretend to use my emotional reaction as some sort of argument.
Allah does not love mankind. They are often referred to in the Hadith as his slaves.
It's Islam that habitually refers to God as "the merciful, the compassionate." Of course that's not the only side of the religion, but Christianity and Judaism are hardly pure love, either - in scripture or practice.
Northern Observer is pretty clearly not a religious scholar, or at the very least not a scholar of Islam.
Islam anoints the Arab people as the faithful decendents of Abraham and orders them to bring all other peoples to obedience (submission) by word if possible but by force if necessary.
Bullshit. Islam is universalistic, like Christianity - the Arabs are not chosen - and there is no commandment to forcible conversion.
an actual reading of the scriptures shows...
Very little. To anyone but the most naive idealist, what should matter is the living faith tradition, which includes centuries of interpretation, not a raw reading of the scripture. This applies to Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam.
things that are profane
By whose definition? I find obscenities in the alleged actions of the Abrahamic God in any of his varied scriptures. But I wouldn't pretend to use my emotional reaction as some sort of argument.
Allah does not love mankind. They are often referred to in the Hadith as his slaves.
It's Islam that habitually refers to God as "the merciful, the compassionate." Of course that's not the only side of the religion, but Christianity and Judaism are hardly pure love, either - in scripture or practice.
Sorry for the double post. Got some kind of error and pressed post again - I knew I should have waited and checked.
Kalkin,
If only what you passionately felt was true the world would be a much better place. Perhaps you are describing the Islam of your ideals and dreams but it is not the Islam of the living ummah or the scholars.
The most profane thing about the Prophet is his participation in beheadings and ordering the murder of the poets and the massacre of the Jewish tribes of Arabia. How can the perfect man kill? Christianity certainly has nothing like this, despite the behavior of Christian kings to the contrary.
I think the whole Arabs are not chosen is directly contradicted by Mohammed and his explanation for why Gabriel came to him. The Arabs were chosen because Mohammed was chosen and was from Arabia. I never said that Islam was not univeralistic, but the Arabs play a special role. I mean if the Arabs are not chosen why is Koran written in Arabic?
This all-too-common American picture of Islamism as fundamentally the reaction of an age-old force to a discomfort with modernity is badly misleading and, in fact, tinged with racism.
Posted by Kalkin | March 26, 2008 2:55 PM
What exactly is racist about it?
Where does racial content come into it at all?
Have you read the foundation texts of the Brotherhood. Have you read Qtub's Milestones?
What do you think of the the teachings of Omar Abdel Rahman the Blind Sheik?
Perhaps this is not the right place to speak of such things.
Oh, you make me nostalgic. I've moved far enough to the left that I don't get too many condescending comments about my idealism any more – I'm more commonly viewed as some sort of America-hating Mexislamocommunofascist.
I have done very little to describe Islam, but have tried to confine myself to disputing your characterization. The religion of a billion people is at this point in history a bit too diverse to be the subject of much meaningful analysis as a social or political force. It is, however, possible to say something meaningful about various Islamist political movements, and even a little about the late 20th century expansion of Islam into politics in general. That's because that expansion has almost nothing to do with some essence of Islam which has lasted from Muhammad's time. I note that while you accuse me of neglecting really existing Islam, your arguments are based entirely on your interpretations of first-millennium events.
Jesus may have been admirably pacifistic, but Christians and Jews (like Muslims) both endorse – of necessity – actions by the God of the Old Testament that make anything Muhammad did pale in comparison. For example, murdering Egyptian babies en masse, and genocide by drowning. Islam stems from Arabic roots, clearly, but the Quran being written in Arabic means little more than the one-time Catholic tradition of the Latin mass. A sacral language does not make a chosen people.
I've read neither Milestones nor anything serious by members of the Brotherhood. I'm not a scholar of Islam; I've only read maybe a dozen books for a couple of college courses, and hung out with various Muslim friends. I'm an interested amateur and never claimed anything more. Do you?
Racism in views of Islam? Well, while we're citing books in the place of argument, I could instruct you to read Said's Orientalism & Culture and Imperialism and perhaps Quinn's The Sum of All Heresies. But I find that kind of Internet behavior annoying, so (beyond that) I won't. Instead, I'll say that there exists a tradition in Europe and the United States, stemming from the colonial era, of viewing other places as inhabited by barbarians – people who are irrational, backwards, hateful, violent, and unchanging – that this tradition derives its spread and durability from things other than truth, and that it is a product and a support of an oppressive system, namely imperialism. Belief in a specifically biological race, a fiction, is an inessential component of racism, and therefore Islamophobia is a form of racism. What, here, do you deny?
Re: Islam is close to ancient Judaism, pre temple Judaism. But it is miles away from the Judaism of the reforming prophets (Nathan, Job, Isaiah, Samuel) and even further away from post-temple or rabbinic judaism.
I disagree. Islam does have something very like the ancient Jewish Temple: the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which is the focal point of the faith in a way that no single church, not St Peter's nor the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, is in Christianity, but which the Temple definitely was in ancient Judaism. The main difference of course is the lack of a Temple priesthood in Islam, with the faithful themselves performing the various sacrificial rites during their haj that the Levitical priests performed for Judaism. Nor has there been a lack of reformers (though Islam will not call them "prophets") who have sought to purify the religion and call the faithful back to that Old Time Religion much as the prophets of Israel did. Where Islam and Judaism part ways is in the fact that the Jewish state was destroyed and the Jews had to develop a religion without a political foundation of any sort. This has not happened to Islam which has sustained some disastrous military defeats and endured occasional foreign rule, but has always managed to either convert its conquerors or else cast them out.
Re: But if you read the Koran you quickly come to realise that this is not the God who presented himself to Moses in the burning Bush or who Christ called my father.
Yes, true, but the God who speaks in the Gospels sounds very different from the one who speaks in the Old Testament too (and the Old Testament God has several very distinct voices and messages). Obviously this is the case or how can we explain the continued existence of Judaism? To the Jews the God who speaks in the Gospels cannot be the God who spoke to their fathers in the old Testament; he can only be as much a fraud as the God who speaks in the Qu'ran.
Re: He sounds wrong and he endorses things that are profane.
To an observant ancient Jew the God who told Peter it was OK to eat non-Kohser food and accept uncircumcized gentiles was blessing some pretty profane things too.
Re: Rosenzweig's theory is that Islam is really the pagan pantheon wrapped up into a monotheistic package.
I have no doubt that Islam welded a lot of pre-Islamic paganism into its beliefs and practices. But so did Christianity. In fact, so did the Jews. With Christianity however a lot of this paganism came in the form of abstruse Platonic philosophy which we celebrate for he acuity of its insight so we don't see it as pagan, but in fact it was. (FYI: I don't have a problem with this. Paganism is simply mankind reaching out to God on his own and you can't purify that out of even the truest religion, though one should be careful that the humanistic/paganistic elements are things that accord with the truth, not mislead.)
Re: Substituting strict ritual and obedience in place of a relationship with the loving God.
Sounds like the Pharisees of old. This is a perennial mistake with all religions: substituting outward gestures for inward commitment.
Re: They are often referred to in the Hadith as his slaves.
Christianity (at least its more ancient forms) contains all sorts of abasements before God, including labeling the faithful "servants of God" and the like-- and a whole lot of florid, verbose prayers that sound as if one is cajoling a Byzantine emperor or seeking favor from his courtiers and family. Again, I am not turned off by that. It's how people once experienced the world; a ruler-subject relationship was their only way of figuring out to relate to God back then. We Americans might be a bit put off by prostrations (some Christians do them too by the way) and breast-bearting and the like-- but we shouldn't assume our egalitarian culture is the norm for all all people, all times, everywhere.
Re: I think the whole Arabs are not chosen is directly contradicted by Mohammed and his explanation for why Gabriel came to him.
Within a century of Mohammed's death Islam had jettisoned any notion of the Arabs as a chosen people. From the early Umayyads down to the present the religion has been quite egalitarian as far as accepting all human beings as converts. Recall that the last Caliph was a Turk-- and the office had been held by Turks for five centuries. And an Iranian Mullah would laugh at you if you told him the Arabs were God's Chosen.
Re: I mean if the Arabs are not chosen why is Koran written in Arabic?
Um, because it had to written in something? The Gospels are written in Greek-- but even the Byzantines at their most pretentious never claimed to be God's Chosen people. Historically, a Muslim would say that God did choose the Arabs from whom to raise up his last Prophet. But that's no more significant theologically for them than the fact that Jesus was a Jew is for Christians (less so in fact).
Racism in views of Islam? Well, while we're citing books in the place of argument, I could instruct you to read Said's Orientalism & Culture and Imperialism and perhaps Quinn's The Sum of All Heresies. But I find that kind of Internet behavior annoying, so (beyond that) I won't. Instead, I'll say that there exists a tradition in Europe and the United States, stemming from the colonial era, of viewing other places as inhabited by barbarians – people who are irrational, backwards, hateful, violent, and unchanging – that this tradition derives its spread and durability from things other than truth, and that it is a product and a support of an oppressive system, namely imperialism. Belief in a specifically biological race, a fiction, is an inessential component of racism, and therefore Islamophobia is a form of racism. What, here, do you deny?
Posted by Kalkin | March 26, 2008 4:42 PM
1) Said was wrong. Or rather he mischaracterised the 19th century European Scholars who interpreted Islam to the Western Public. If anything they were too superficially romantic in their interpretation of Islam and Islamic culture and rounded off the hard edges to present an exotic foreign object. In short they were seduced by their subject and failed to assess it rigorously. A good book on this is
Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents: Robert Irwin.
2)Islamic civilization is in no position to point fingers at any other human culture and cry Imperialism. In fact Islam has been the teacher to Europe on how to be an imperial prower. It was something European culture developed in the face of the unrelenting Jihad from Mecca. One need only look at the long development of Spanish culture shaped and formed in resistence to Islamic conquests. The later conquistador spirit of post 1492 Spain is explained by its exposure and resistance to Islam.
3)And so on racism Islam being imperial in nature is in no position to look down on others. What can I say to you Kalkin that will open your eyes to the truth? Be its fruits shall they be know to you. Why are the black muslims of Darfur ignored while support goes to the Arabic Baggara Tribes. Why has Chistianity outlawed slavery twice, 500s in Europe and 1800s as a Global trade, yet Islam has never done so? There is a hierarchy in Islam and the Arabs are at the top of it. Let's not pretend otherwise.
Yes you should not look down on others, but you also must not ignore things as they are or lie to yourself. Look at Islam properly Kalkin, look at what it demands of believers, look at its fruits. The truth will set you free. Peace be with you.
I don't think this is going anywhere. The only element of your last post that could be construed as a rebuttal to anything I've actually argued is yet another book citation (Irwin). Instead, you tell us that European imperialism - from, apparently, the 15th century onward - was a product of Muslim aggression (if they didn't fight them in Peru they would have had to fight them at home?), and that the history of the Atlantic slave trade proves the moral superiority of Christianity. This does not suggest to me that further engagement would be productive. Goodbye.
There is a very good reasons the Quran was first given to the Arabs, as I was taught a very long time ago. Of all the peoples in the world, they needed the most help!
Re: It was something European culture developed in the face of the unrelenting Jihad from Mecca.
Oh good grief, here we go with historical Neocon fictions! There has been no "unrelenting" jihad from Mecca! First off, the political capital of the Islamic world was moved up Damascus and then to Baghdad rather early on; Mecca ceased to be anything but a religious center. But more to the point there have been two, and only two, major eras of Islamic expansion. The first occurred immediately after Mohammed's death and lasted a little over a century: this was the age when the Caliphate expanded west to Spain and the Atlantic, and east to the borders of India and China-- an expansion made possible by the fact that the world had been badly depopulated by a series of natural catastrophes in the 6th century. The expansion pretty much ran out of steam by the middle of the 8th cenury and the Islamic world went into a long period of stagnation, fragmentation and decay.
The second era of expansion began in the 15th century, and lasted until the end of the 17th, driven by four great empres, the Ottoman, the Moroccan, the Persian and the Moghul. This was far more a political expansion than a religious one, similar to (and coinciding with) the Spanish conquest of the New World and the Russian conquest of northern Asia. And by 1700 the Islamic empires were exhausted and began their long (or rapid, in the case of the Moghuls) fall into decadence. So on the whole, history since Mohammed has mostly been about Islamic empires declining, not expanding.
Re: Why has Chistianity outlawed slavery twice, 500s in Europe and 1800s as a Global trade, yet Islam has never done so?
Slavery was not outlawed in Europe in the 500s. It simply fell out of common use since it ceased to make much economic sense, especially after the invention of the rigid horse collar made horse labor more efficient than human labor for brute strength tasks. Also, note that Byzantium, the premier Christian state in Europe for centuries, was also notorious as the Mediterranean's major slave trade depot, a role that finally ended when the conversion of Russia to Christianity choked off the flow of slaves from the north and sent the slavers south into Africa instead.
JonF,
You know more about Muslim history than I, I'm sure. But wouldn't it be fair to say that there was a time
when the Middle East was divided between Christians and Zoroastrians (with the odd Jew, Manichaean or Mandean) before Islam was even heard of. Today, the Middle East is overwhelmingly Muslim. Don't the Christians and others whose religions were displaced (most recently the Mandeans who are suffering bloody purges in Iraq) have a right to feel pissed off at the expansion of Islam?
With due respect, I have to agree with Northen Observer here. Slavery did not disappear from Western Europe simply because of 'economic factors'. Those played a role, but equally important was that Christian teachings about the essential ontological equality of all men, made the intelectual basis of slavery deriving from Aristotle increasingly problematic. This is acknowledged by even a secular liberal such as Orlando Patterson. It is no accident that Christianity was called 'the creed of slaves and women'. During the high point of Western Christendom in the Middle Ages, it was impossible for one to defend slavery in the wholehearted way that, say, Aristotle had done.
Islam, on the other hand, never advocated for the abolition of slavery, and indeed Muslim countries have been the last to abolish slavery- in Mauretania, not until 1980!
True, Islam was only expansionist for two periods (although the second one was quite long). Does that matter? The expansion from 632 to 732 was so rapid and sweeping, and the second one also, that its victims have every right to be annoyed at the centuries of oppression they have endured at Muslim hands.
There's nothing 'neocon' about this narrative. Hindus in India have held for a thousand years, with much reason, that they were sorely abused by Islam. I have little doubt that a Christian in Syria or Ethiopia and a Zoroastrian in Persia would say the same thing.
Re: But wouldn't it be fair to say that there was a time when the Middle East was divided between Christians and Zoroastrians (with the odd Jew, Manichaean or Mandean) before Islam was even heard of. Today, the Middle East is overwhelmingly Muslim.
True enough. But that was also the time when the Middle East was divided between the Roman and Persian Empires. I feel no remorse for the passing of either of those two entities. That's how life works: things come and things go and the only constant is change.
Re: Don't the Christians and others whose religions were displaced (most recently the Mandeans who are suffering bloody purges in Iraq) have a right to feel pissed off at the expansion of Islam?
The persecution of Christians, Jews, Parsees, Baha'is and even splinter Muslim sects is a vast shame, you'll get no argument from me there. I'm not sure there's much we can do about it, other than accept the refugees, just as there's very little we can do about similar persecution in countries like China and Burma.
Re: Slavery did not disappear from Western Europe simply because of 'economic factors'.
I partially agree, though without those economic factors slavery would not have disappeared (it did not disappear from the Christian late Roman Empire, and lasted several centuries longer in Christian Byzantium after all). But it is true that both Christianity and Islam strongly frowned on making slaves of one's co-religionists, except as a penalty for criminal behavior-- and that reason for slavery did survive in Western Europe. Moreover in Western Europe the principle non-Christian peoples of the early Middle Ages were also the strongest militarily for a long time, and as such were not attractive targets for slave-taking. By contrast in eastern Europe the Slavs were not strong militarily and for long served as a ready source of slaves for Byzantium (and many were sold into Muslim lands as well). Once they had become Christianized, and were protected by strong rulers like Tsar Boris of Bulgaria and Prince Vladimir of Kiev, that source of slaves was cut off. Islam meanwhile had ready sources of (infidel) slaves from outside its borders, which Europe did not. Moreover the arid lands of the Middle East were less appropriate for the substitution of horses for humans-- horses were mainly for military use, not daily work. And note that when Europe did gain a ready source of non-Christian slaves (when the Portuguese flanked the Arabs and contacted Africa directly) at the same time they also faced the herculean labor of transforming the New World from Stone Age to Iron Age, they were not at all shy about using that source of labor.
Re: During the high point of Western Christendom in the Middle Ages, it was impossible for one to defend slavery in the wholehearted way that, say, Aristotle had done.
Unfortunately, slavery came to be defended by an even worse fiction, that of racism. Aristotle's critique at least applied to individuals. In enslaving Africans the Europeans created a pernicious myth to justify themselves whose effects linger even today.
Re: Islam, on the other hand, never advocated for the abolition of slavery, and indeed Muslim countries have been the last to abolish slavery- in Mauretania, not until 1980!
No other culture, not even the generally humane Buddhist cultures, ever conceived of abolition. We Christians and Europeans (culturally European that is) can take genuine credit for that.
Re: The expansion from 632 to 732 was so rapid and sweeping, and the second one also, that its victims have every right to be annoyed at the centuries of oppression they have endured at Muslim hands.
Hector, no one has experienced "centuries of oppression" because no one lives that long. And this habit of holding onto ancient injustices is one of the worst human follies, responsible, at a guess, for more blood and woe than simple greed and power-lust are. One of the virtues of this nation (outside of certain benighted Southern areas, and some self-appointed minority leaders) is the fact that we Americans are not ruled by our past, but by our hopes for the future. I would also say that letting go of old grievances (even those done to you personally) is a Christian virtue as well.
Comments closed April 09, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Hey...two references to writers named Mark in a previous post, now dual Noah references...what next, dual Kathy references?
Posted by KathyF | March 26, 2008 11:33 AM