Are Muslims the new Catholics?

[robinturner]

After witnessing a bout of Islamophobia in, of all places, a Stoic forum, it occurred to me that Muslims today occupy a place in popular demonology equivalent to that held by Catholics in Protestant Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From popular broadsheets to Gothic novels like The Monk, Catholics were favourite bogeymen, and the popular view of Catholics had some uncanny similarities to the way Muslims are often perceived now.

1. Catholics abroad are bent on attacking our countries; Catholics at home owe loyalty to the Pope, not the King. Muslim nations are "rogue states" (unless we want to buy oil from them). Muslim immigrants are a fifth column whose loyalty is to mad mullahs rather than our democratic governments.
2. Catholics are always hatching evil plots. Guy Fawkes was the Osama bin-Laden of his day. Muslim clerics are the Jesuits of our day.
3. Catholics are simultaneously ascetic and licentious. Popular fiction of the day (either Protestant or, in the French case, secularist) often featured philandering priests, poking fun (with some justification) at the contradiction between the celibacy preached by the Church and the sensualism of some of its members. Similarly, Muslims are condemned simultaneously for restricting sexual behaviour and indulging in it. Again, Orientalism aside, there is some justification for this, but we should not forget that it is a nigh-on universal phenomenon found amongst Protestants too.
4. Catholics are irrational, superstitious and opposed to science and social progress. In the seventeenth century, science was strongly identified with Protestantism (see Frances Yates' The Rosicrucian Enlightenment) and Catholic dogma was seen as its antithesis. Now it is Islam which is seen as a dark force trying to drag us back to pre-Enlightenment days.

On this last note, here is part of what I posted to the forum.
[Note that "dispreferred indifferent" is a technical term in Stoicism; the Stoics believed that events outside our control cannot be truly good or evil and are thus termed "indifferents" (adiaphora) but these are divided into events which are "preferred" or "dispreferred", corresponding roughly to what non-Stoics would call "good" or "bad".]

I agree that there are Islamic groups (and individuals, of course) who
are actively involved in the promotion of dispreferred indifferents,
not to mention thoroughly vicious in their own right (though again, in
Stoicism, another person's vice is at worst a dispreferred indifferent
for you, as was discussed on this list a short time back). Here I am
of course referring to the likes of Hammas, Hizbullah and al-Qaeda, as
well as less colourful and more moderate Islamist groups, including
the party currently ruling my own country of residence (which is
currently facing closure for violating the constitution). Three
questions we need to answer are how great this "danger" is, who it is
a danger for, and whether this danger is inherent to Islam.

1. In some places, there is a definite danger that certain groups of
Muslims have considerable potential to bring about a large number of
dispreferred indifferents, both for their fellow-Muslims (as in
Malaysia) and for non-Muslims (as in Israel). In other cases, we can't
really talk about a "danger", since the damage has already been done.

2. The main danger of Islamic extremism is to other Muslims. A notable
exception is Israel, which is a unique case of a non-Muslim state
established on territory claimed by Muslims. I have yet to see
evidence that other non-Muslim countries are under serious threat from
Islamic extremism. All we have seen is a few acts of terrorism and
civil disorder, and certainly nothing to justify the comparisons I
have seen here with Europe on the brink of WWII, the siege of Vienna
or Thermopylae, all of which involved an adversary of unparalleled
military power, not a bunch of rag-tag terrorists. Israel has been
taking the worst that the Arab world can throw at it for sixty years
now, and is still no closer to destruction than it was in 1948. I
should also note cynically that Islamic terrorism has existed for
decades (anyone here remember Black September?), but it was only when
non-Jews started to be targeted that we started to hear about the
Great Islamic Threat.

Of course "danger" is about _potential_ harms, and it is possible that
some of the people we've been talking about may become more dangerous
in the future, e.g. by acquiring nuclear weapons. Obviously it makes
sense to do what we can to frustrate their ambitions.

3. The crux of the matter seems to be whether there is something in
the very nature of Islam as a religion that makes it dangerous _in a
way that other religions are not_. (As I said in a previous post, you
can take the view that all religions are bad, but that is a completely
different argument.)  This argument tends to focus on one or more of
three points.

(Quotations below are from the Quran or hadith, but from memory - I
don't have time to look them up right now.)

3.1. Jihad. It is frequently claimed that all Muslims are under a
religious obligation to forcibly convert or kill all non-Muslims. This
is quite absurd, given the oft-quoted line from the Quran: "There can
be no compulsion in religion." Jihad _is_ incumbent on all Muslims but
only in two senses: (i) the "greater jihad", or struggle for
self-improvement; (ii) the "lesser jihad", or fighting the enemies of
Islam _when a war actually exists_. Such a war cannot be a war of
aggression: "God does not love the aggressor." (This is the theory, of
course; in practice, Muslim rulers have been just as expansionist as
rulers of other faiths.) Even terrorist groups are careful to frame
their actions as a defensive response to what they present as
incursions on Muslim soil, a case reminiscent of the Romans' habit of
portraying every war of conquest they waged as a response to
aggression on the part of those they conquered. Even the lesser jihad
has to be fought under strict rules (which current terrorists violate
blatantly); for example, one may not attack those with whom one has
made a treaty (unless there is evidence that they are planning to
break the treaty themselves), nor may one kill women, children, old
people, cripples or even able-bodied men who are working in the fields
or drinking water. "If one kills an innocent person, one has killed
all of humanity." To cut a long story short, the actions of
contemporary jihadis are evil and, to an extent, dangerous, but this
kind of jihad is not an inherent feature of Islam.

3.2. Oppression of Women. Western criticism of the status of women in
Muslim societies is of course justified (though sometimes ignorant of
the facts of any one particular society;e.g.  there is a tendency to
take Saudi Arabia as typical whereas in fact it is an extreme case).
But again, we need to ask if this is intrinsic to Islam, and again I
think the answer has to be "no", or at least "not entirely". The Quran
states explicitly that the rights of a husband and wife are equal with
the sole exception that a man may remarry immediately after divorce,
while a woman has to wait until it is clear that she is not pregnant
by her former husband. Male and female believers are equal in the
sight of God, who has no gender (except for grammatical gender, since
"lah" is a masculine noun in Arabic). On the other hand, the Quran
does contain some verses which contradict this, such as the one which
says that men may manage the affairs of their wives, since they
provide for their material welfare (though not of course exclusively -
Mohammed's first wife, Khadija, was his employer). On the notorious
verse that appears to give men permission to beat their wives, there
is much debate, this focussing on the meaning of the word "darp" or
"daraba", which is sanctioned as a last resort when a wife is
"rebellious" (another hotly disputed word). This normally means "blow"
but could equally mean "slap" or "divorce". In contrast, there are
several hadiths explicitly condemning the beating of women. e.g. "How
can you beat your wife like a camel one moment then make love to her
the next?" or "If a man beats his wife, I [Mohammed] will stand
witness against him on the Day of Judgement."

To cut a long story short, I'd say that the inferior status of women
in Muslim societies is, like the inferior status of women in Christian
or Buddhist societies until recently, the result mainly of having a
predominantly agricultural economy where land is owned by men;
religion simply serves to back up the status quo. It's a nigh-on
universal rule: agriculture + metallurgy = feudalism + patriarchy.

3.3. Dogma and Intellectual Stagnation. Islam is portrayed as being
dogmatic, superstitious and opposed to science, the arts and political
freedom. It occupies a place in modern demonology similar to that of
Catholicism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Protestant Europe.
It follows from this view that Islam is not primarily a physical
threat but an intellectual one, with the potential to drag us back to
pre-Enlightenment times. As a critique of many current Islamic
societies, this carries considerable weight: these societies want some
of the benefits of the modern world, like cars, vaccines and mobile
phones, but don't want to pay the price, which is freedom of inquiry,
tolerance of different ideas and a generally scientific worldview. (To
be fair, this is a prominent attitude in America too!)

However, again we need to ask if this is intrinsic to Islam, and again
the waters are muddy. On the one hand, the belief that the Quran is
the final and undisputable word of God would seem to put the dampers
on intellectual inquiry, and throughout history many Muslim writers
have used this belief to dismiss new opinions and knowledge as
"bi'dah" (heretical innovation). On the other hand, Mohammed himself
said "Seek knowledge, even if you need to go as far as China," and of
course we have the so-called "Islamic Renaissance" (roughly from the
8th to the 13th century) during which the Muslim world was a hot-house
of scientific, medical, economic and artistic activity while Western
Christians still hadn't got the idea of washing themselves regularly.
(King John tried to import the Byzantine custom of steam baths, but
his subjects took it as proof of his wickedness - he sinned so
gravely, he needed to be baptised every day!) What caused the end of
this intellectual flourishing is a matter of debate: some scholars
blame the effects of barbarian invasions (notably the Mongols in the
East and Spanish in the West) while others point to the increasing
centralisation of Muslim states and their concomitant need for
religious and intellectual conformity. In any case, it is obvious that
while Islam, like any religion, can be used to stifle dissent and
innovation, it does not inevitably lead to this.

Comments

[dualistic.livejournal.com]

an interesting read :)

[(Anonymous)]

Frances Yates & the Hermetic Tradition, a new biography by Marjorie G. Jones of the ground-breaking British historian, who uncovered the influence of Hermeticism in Renaissance Europe, will be published later this month by Ibis Press. As explained by Yates in her great book, Giordano Bruno & the Hermetic Tradition (1964), Hermeticism, a synthesis of mysticism, Gnosticism & magic, transcends creed & thus can become a vehicle for people of all faiths to meet & understand one another on a higher plane.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to make this comparison! It's very interesting to read anti-Catholic tracts and compare it with some of the more alarmist reports in the media. Actually, in a weird sense, that gives me hope for the future.

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

Part of what happens, I think, is that people with a good historical perspective can compare Spain and England in the 1200s, or the rights of women under Muhammad vs. Europe during his lifetime, or religious tolerance under some of the Ottoman and Mughal emperors, and understand that the issues that many people have today with Islam are not inherent in the religion itself, but for most people, I think, the comparison tells them simply that "we" have "progressed" since then, and "they" have "declined," so that must make us superior, or at least make them flawed.

Palestinians = Muslims??

[(Anonymous)]

You wrote:
"A notable exception is Israel, which is a unique case of a non-Muslim state
established on territory claimed by Muslims. I have yet to see
evidence that other non-Muslim countries are under serious threat from
Islamic extremism".

Israel is not a territory claimed by Muslims, but land "claimed" by Palestinians who have lived in the land for centuries. Palestinians are not only Muslims, but also Christian and Jews. The dispute is not about wether Israel has the right to exist but wether the Palestinians have the right to exist. WetherPalestinians have a right to live of the land their forefathers worked on for centuries for the coming generations.

Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xEApSnFPIA

Destruction of olive trees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnVwKimPPdI

More destruction...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0XsC5EpDQA

Please explain to me which normal human being would be able to bare such humility, such destruction of their basic needs? Which human being would accept such brutality? Not a single person, not a single country.
The Palestinians have been terrorised, displaced, beaten, brought down to their knees because of some hair-brained zionist vision. And it is the Jewish settlers which the Israelis have placed in the cross-fire. This brutality has to stop. Palestinians and Israelis have to share the land equally. unfortunately its the Israelis who have decided that if it costs them the blood of every single Palestinian woman and chold they are going to rid them out of Israel.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Santayana was definitely right about those who do not remember the past being condemned to repeat it. But as you say, it's not enough to know that "we" did this and "they" did that; it's necessary to at least think about why these things happened, even if we can't come up with definite conclusions. For example, the rediscovery of classical works (often via Arabic translations, ha ha) had a lot to do with the start of the Renaissance, but then so, I suspect, did the invention of double-entry book-keeping.

Re: Palestinians = Muslims??

[solri.livejournal.com]

You are right of course that Palestinians are not all Muslims, nor indeed are all Arab nationalists Muslims, Michel Aflaq being the most prominent example of Christian Arab nationalist. You are also right that until comparatively recently, the Palestinian cause was phrased far more in nationalist than religious terms. Similarly, most of the early Jewish settlers wanted a state for the Jewish people, not the Jewish religion. Nevertheless, there has always been a religious element in the conflict, and in recent times it has become more prominent. (I'd guess that the turning point was the intifada, when control of the Palestinian struggle started to slip out of the hands of the largely secular PLO leadership and pass to populist Islamic movements like Hammas.) Similarly, orthodox Jews have become more influential in the Israeli state.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Here's a nice little image I found when blogging about the Danish Mohammed cartoons furore:

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabriel/]

Thank you. That was a very interesting read.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

I've been toying with this (and related) idea(s) for a long while, now. I know others have, too; others who are certainly more qualified, more learned and more experienced.

I just can't seem to come to any firm conclusions....

So while it's popularist to fall on one side of the line or other on this right now, I just don't know which is the right side, still. So I'll watch and listen.

Thnx!

Re: Palestinians = Muslims??

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

It's strange what's happening with orthodoxy in the state. They are mostly reviled, now, publicly, and the government has been removing supports (many-children stipends and territorial expansionism; then the pull-out from Gaza in 2005 which unfortunately seems to have proven the religious right's position on the relationship between state security and settlements rather than disprove it) since the onset of the Second Intifada.

As for Hammas, many argue that they can convert themselves to a legitimate (non-terrorist) political party. I think they'd do better as the new military for a Palestinian state...

Ever so slowly, a secular intellectual culture has been developing in the West Bank--it was basically frozen during the extreme lock-down of the Second Intifada, but since Abbas has been President and before Hammas took Gaza, it was actually developing relatively well. Depending on how well Hammas can hold the minor factions, this new truce between Gaza and Israel might help that kind of culture along--but for the same reasons Hammas could never really be a legitimate political party, it won't hold for long; but, maybe it'll be long enough...

I'd also like to see some people who comment on the treatment of Palestinian 'refugees' visit Jordanian and Israeli camps in the same day--the difference is like day and night and it's no wonder most Israeli Arabs would want to stay in Israel even if they had a fully-fledged Palestinian state--and then talk about 'peoplehood' and 'suffering' in the same way.

Re: Palestinians = Muslims??

[solri.livejournal.com]

As far as I can understand, to be Palestinian means to be screwed, not only by the Israeli state, but also by your own people and your Arab brothers. A country with the resources of Saudi Arabia could easily enable every Palestinian refugee to live in comfort, but they would rather use the Palestinians as a political football. And I suspect the main reason for the rise of Hammas was dissatisfaction with the corruption of the PLO, whom Hammas were able to portray as having departed from Muslim values like concern for the poor.

[solri.livejournal.com]

That looks like an interesting book. I looked it up at amazon.co.uk but it was listed as out of stock (or probably, not in stock yet, given the publication date). On the other hand, I am a little skeptical about the potential for Hermeticism to appeal to more than a tiny minority. they don't call it "hermetic" for nothing!

Re: Palestinians = Muslims??

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Robin

Do you think that the Palestinians are the new Jews of the Middle East?

Alex Rooke