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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Islamic Mystics - The Sufi
Message-ID: <1758@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 21:37:29 EDT
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Posted: Fri Aug 30 21:37:29 1985
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> > > > ***
> > > 
> > > For example many people oppose religions other than their own;
> > > and many people accept Islam { :-) }.
> > > 
> > > What I mean to say is that ALL religions have their weak points
> > > and strong points. But some religions are, on the whole,
> > > obviously better than others and, from the present day world events,
> > > it appears that Islam is certainly not one of them.
> > >              Comments?
> > >                                                murali.
> > 	
> *************************************************
> > 
> >  Don Steiny writes:
> >
> > 	There are 500 million Muslims in the world.  Many of them
> > are peaceful.   I most certainly agree that it would be as foolish
> > to judge Islam by its most enlightened members as it is to 
> > judge it by its least.  In fact, it is foolish to judge it at
> > all.  How could it be better or worse?  What can that mean?
> > Does it mean I like one way of doing things better than
> > another? 
> 
> You could judge a religion in relation to certain principles
> which is generally accepted as good. For example consider
> the principle:
>  
>   "Men and Women should both have (more or less) equal status
>    in society in terms of social status, educational,
>    economic and political rights."
> 
> In relation to this particular respect, Islam, or at least
> the way it is practised in the Arab world, is 
> the worst of all the religions I know of. 
>                                    Murali.
I think that the society influences religion in larger extend than
vice versa.  I agree that the current state of affairs in islamic
countries is not very nice.  On the other hand I think that those
nation undergo a stage of rampant nationalism, quite characteristic 
for Europe 70 to 40 years ago.  Americans never faced the problem
of a nation forced to define itself in an unfriendly enviroment.
A natural tendency is find why "we are different and better than
others".  In Europe nationalism had much broader scope than merely
fascism.  It was popular to view everything through the prism of
"national interest".  The supresion of minorities was rampant.
  Currently Arabs, Iranians etc. feel economically and culturally
dominated by the West.  Thus they turn to Islam as the source of
their uniqueness.  To see that turning to the backward religious
tendencies is not unique to Muslim, let us note two groups which
also defend their way of life and uniqueness in the same way. I have
in mind mixture of religious fundamentalism and nationalism in USA
and Israel.  In both countries those groups form minorities, but
the tendency provably exists.
  In all those cases we deal with "stage of siege" mentality.  The
atractive permissive culture of jeans, coke, pop music and hedonism
(I like personally all those things but coke) is perceived as an
engulfing threat.
   I hope that in 10-20 years Islamic nations will be genuinely
more assertive, so they will not need to resort to fundamentalism
to feel secure about they identities.
   In the meantime, one can point that there are secular tendencies
among muslim.  One can point Syria and Egipt as secular regimes
(although, at times, very nationalistic).
   During my student years, I happen to have a nationalistic Syrian
and fundamentalist Egiptian among my roommates, myself being a Jew.
Fundamentalists were not easier to talk with than born-again Christians.
But the other guy was different.  One could not make him to like
Israel or not to believe in imperialist machinations in the American
system (like orchestrated propaganda in mass media), but there was
appreciation for modernization and democracy.
  As a conclusion, snearing at Islam as an "ugliest religion" is
highly counterproductive.  It can merely increase the siege mentality
of Muslim.  It is much better to seek for universal values in all
religions.  Like Christianity, Islam can be interpreted in an open-
-minded way and in a narrow-minded one.
   Examples:  there are quotes from Koran with high regard towards
woman;  adultery is a heavy crime, but the required proof is impossible:
to find a couple in the act and find out that they cannot be separated
by a thread (a propos, fornication and adultery remains a crime in
places like Florida and Illinois).  The various treatment of minorities
may be supported by various quotes.  Polygamy is increasingly regarded
as shamul feudal backwardness.
  My prediction is that most of the Muslim will undergo transition through 
fundamentalism and more modern nationalism to values more associated
with current western culture.  Remember that those values were not so
dominating in many Europian or Latine American nations until recently.
If somebody is 80 years less advanced than you, it does not mean that
its culture is inherently inferior.

  Piotr Berman