Thought this would be worth posting, a reader response to a comparison between modernizing Islam and the Protestant Reformation in England:
“In immigrant communities and in urban enclaves, they tend to be embarrassed by the clergy imported from their native lands or from the countryside…”
…along with this article via the A & L Daily, about the rise of Muslim creationism, or perhaps the attempt to fit all of the world (including the Enlightenment and post-enlightenment) into the Quran:
Full article here at the New Humanist.
Are we anywhere close to having enough Muslims in America that their religious conservatism finds allies with the religious and political right?
Too soon? A pipe dream?
From Julian Sanchez here, suggesting that if you’re living in an urban area:
“…if you’re a believer convinced that there’s one uniquely authoritative set of commands and practices that have been divinely ordained, this can provoke enormous cognitive dissonance—and prompt a search for the “true” version of Islam purged of all these regional variations. Insofar as this also purges the system of its evolved adaptations, the result is apt to be more radical, and potentially more dangerous.”
Once you become concerned, in some way, about Islam, you have to deal with its claims (and more radical claimants) more seriously (as in extending moral concern to the Islamic world). Some of these claims are openly and directly hostile to the West, don’t care at all for separation of church and state, and are perhaps sympathetic ideologically, if not morally, to the radicals.
Some of this has to do with the influence of the West upon the Middle East, which is unjust in some cases, and Muslims have legitimate grievances.
So…surely extending moral concern to Islam is a possible way forward, but must that moral concern be religious? must it be in conflict with Islam? It surely must deal with the powder keg of occupied lands, relatively weak economies, and some pretty tribal areas under which Islam is the uniting glue, as well as some of Islams claims to religious conquest?
A pipe dream?
See Also: From Slate: ‘In Aleppo, Syria, Mohamed Atta Thought He Could Build The Ideal Islamic City’…From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”…From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism
