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If Islam of today was as it was in the past, there would be little reason not to accept it. I have said on occasion that Islam is stuck in the dark ages, but I was wrong...In what we consider the dark ages it was a great and noble progressive religion.
The Islamic Golden Age is traditionally dated from the mid-8th to the mid-13th century A.D. During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, sociology, and technology, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding inventions and innovations of their own.
Many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic, rational and scientific discourses in their search for knowledge, meaning and values. A wide range of Islamic writings on love, poetry, history and philosophical theology show that medieval Islamic thought was open to the humanistic ideas of individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism and liberalism.
Religious freedom, though society was still controlled under Islamic values, helped create cross-cultural networks by attracting Muslim, Christian and Jewish intellectuals and thereby helped spawn the greatest period of philosophical creativity in the Middle Ages from the 8th to 13th centuries. Another reason the Islamic world flourished during this period was an early emphasis on freedom of speech.
A number of important educational and scientific institutions previously unknown in the ancient world have their origins in the early Islamic world, with the most notable examples being: the public hospital and psychiatric hospital, the public library and lending library, the academic degree-granting university, and the astronomical observatory as a research institute. Islamic Golden Age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It seems that Islam started on the trip downhill with the resurgence of Islamic theocracies...Do we blame people like Khomeini? Over the past few decades, principles of theocratic governance have gained enormous public support across the world. The Khomeini led revolution in Iran is perhaps the quintessential manifestation of this trend.
Why do you think it regressed to what it is today?
Why do you think it regressed to what it is today?
It developed rules
The prophet was winging it. And adapting as it developed. Christianity did the same after Jesus. Now it is defensive........can't allow innovation because of the history.......the history might be proven less relevant.
Several factors have been considered.
The Mongol Conquest - Destroyed some of their education centers in the core area.
The Reconquista - The Muslims in Spain became more militant due to fighting with Christendom and then were defeated.
Al-Ghazali - Although personally in favor of science his "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" has been criticized as damaging the more philosophical forms of Islam and thereby retarding Islamic thought.
Ottoman stagnation - The decline of the Ottoman Empire led them to become somewhat stagnant in terms of education or advances. This also occurred at the same time as the rise of the West.
Modernity and colonialism - For many Muslims modernity began to be associated with colonial powers who wished to exploit or curtail the faith for their own ends. The Ethnic nationalist states of Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, and others were seen as gross violators of religious freedom or toleration. A modern outlook being associated to a pro-Western one may have led to a hardening of some positions. It also may have caused a certain need to prove themselves.
Sufi quiescence - Another legacy of colonialism being that many of the more mystical/non-violent forms of Islam appeared, or just were, passive in response to foreign rule. This may have hurt their legitimacy and their ability to effect the political climate. Muslims who are moderate and enlightened still have some tendency to be fatalistic or quietist. Their goal is not to "change the world" and many believe that the unknown is possibly scarier than any dictatorship. The violence in Iraq or Afghanistan after the regime changes may be seen as supporting their outlook.
Radical Islam's Revolutionary nature - In many cases, like Sudan which I researched most, Radical Islam offered a vision that went beyond the tribalism or clan-orientation of the pre-existing culture. It cited that loyalty was to the Ummah so a person of low-birth could matter and, in Sudan at least, it taught even a woman could defy her parents to serve the cause. This is heady stuff for young people and led, again in Sudan at least, to it being the most popular group in Sudanese colleges outside of the Communists. I think there are differences in other nations, but the promise of educated low-birth people fighting for a higher cause than clan I think is part of the generalized appeal in the Islamic world. (Although outside Sudan I think the idea of disobeying your parents is less accepted in Islamist thinking)
I'm painting with a bit of a broad brush on some of these. In many Muslim countries moderate or Sufi Muslims are very political active. Particularly in Senegal and maybe Indonesia. The influence of Al-Ghazali is subject to much dispute. Also the reaction to modernity and colonialism is more varied, and at times twisty, than I'm indicating here. (For example the ideas of some reformist Muslims who wanted to re-interpret Islam for the modern world led or inspired, by a progression, to the Salafism movement and maybe by extension Al-Qaeda)
If Islam of today was as it was in the past, there would be little reason not to accept it. I have said on occasion that Islam is stuck in the dark ages, but I was wrong...In what we consider the dark ages it was a great and noble progressive religion.
The Islamic Golden Age is traditionally dated from the mid-8th to the mid-13th century A.D. During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, sociology, and technology, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding inventions and innovations of their own.
Many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic, rational and scientific discourses in their search for knowledge, meaning and values. A wide range of Islamic writings on love, poetry, history and philosophical theology show that medieval Islamic thought was open to the humanistic ideas of individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism and liberalism.
Religious freedom, though society was still controlled under Islamic values, helped create cross-cultural networks by attracting Muslim, Christian and Jewish intellectuals and thereby helped spawn the greatest period of philosophical creativity in the Middle Ages from the 8th to 13th centuries. Another reason the Islamic world flourished during this period was an early emphasis on freedom of speech.
A number of important educational and scientific institutions previously unknown in the ancient world have their origins in the early Islamic world, with the most notable examples being: the public hospital and psychiatric hospital, the public library and lending library, the academic degree-granting university, and the astronomical observatory as a research institute. Islamic Golden Age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It seems that Islam started on the trip downhill with the resurgence of Islamic theocracies...Do we blame people like Khomeini? Over the past few decades, principles of theocratic governance have gained enormous public support across the world. The Khomeini led revolution in Iran is perhaps the quintessential manifestation of this trend.
Why do you think it regressed to what it is today?
It's what happens when simple religious belief turns into fanatacism.
Islam would not exist without Jihad. It is "Love me or I keel you". That is the true nature of Muhammad. You want to take apart Islam and study all of it's evils, look at Muhammad. He was an oppressive liar, murderer, thief, slave raper, and pedophile, and you are not allowed to speak the truth about him, or else you get you head chopped off. Or in my case, you get banned. It is a big cover-up. No one in Islam has any compassion for any of Muhammad's countless victims. They are told not to.
Islam would not exist without Jihad. It is "Love me or I keel you". That is the true nature of Muhammad. You want to take apart Islam and study all of it's evils, look at Muhammad. He was an oppressive liar, murderer, thief, slave raper, and pedophile, and you are not allowed to speak the truth about him, or else you get you head chopped off. Or in my case, you get banned. It is a big cover-up. No one in Islam has any compassion for any of Muhammad's countless victims. They are told not to.
"Treat your neighbour (for love) as you would have Him treat you" has equal or maybe even greater inadequacies. It amounts to the feeling that once you separate you can just depend on the mercy of forgiveness by the courtroom in the contract to fulfill.
We eventually, I believe, shall have to take on the world with the fervor of everyone being a human being to the hilt of self-forgiveness like it we cannot excuse the lonely and destitute. People are not justly realized for failing each other because they can excuse whatever life make chaotically for the misfortune. And, Misfortune over your neighbor is more common than fortune.
I believe this; and I so often feel that the materialistic realities of the social world have been grateful to so many. I didn't want it.
Last edited by tgnostic; 03-19-2011 at 11:29 PM..
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