Is Islam inherently violent?

phyllo · October 25, 2014, 1:36am

This is interesting :

But is Islam inherently more violent than any other religion? In her new book Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, respected historian and author Karen Armstrong explores the roots of bloodthirst and prejudice – and finds it not any holy tradition but in the human quest for power and personal significance. She spoke to Patricia Pearson this week about why we so often get religion wrong.

Q: The fact that you even have to write this book is interesting.

A: It is. A lot of people say to me, “Why did you need to write this book, because nobody really believes that religion is the cause of all the major wars in history.” And then for the rest of the interview they are insisting that it is the cause of all the wars. That idea is sort of stubbornly there.

Q: Maybe one of the reasons is because there is a lot of illiteracy now around religion.

A: There is, indeed. And also a sort of laziness about looking at some of the other factors contributing to Islamc extremism. There is a malaise among the young, a sense of helplessness and lack of meaning in their lives that is a very serious thing that we have to take into account when we consider this vogue for converting to Islam. Two of the young men who left Birmingham, England, to go and fight in Syria had ordered a book called Islam for Dummies. There’s such a wide range of religious illiteracy involved in this. They’re certainly not inspired by Islamic ideals. They’re making it up on the plane over.

Q: So where does the idea of Jihad and those heavenly virgins come from?

A: They came from soldiers manning the frontiers of the Islamic empire, who had been away from their families and homes for years. So they developed hugely compensentory day dreams, if you like, about what awaited them in heaven to make up for all the deprivations. It was they that said that Jihad was a central pillar of Islam. This was not the case in places far from the frontier, where Muslims thought of Jihad as a struggle to create a just society, such as giving to the poor.

Q: Tell me about Wahhabism – the Saudi-based sect of Islam that informs ISIS fighters.

A: The whole exportation of Wahhabism over the last 30 years is a huge problem. In several countries, the young have been brought up on a form of Islam in Saudi-funded schools that gives them a very narrow and restricted view of their own faith and a very limited view of all other faiths. This is entirely uncharacteristic of Islam. Before Wahhabism, which developed in the 18th century, the most popular form of Islam was Sufism, which had a very positive view of other faith traditions. It’s quite common for a Sufi to cry in ecstacy that he’s neither a Muslim nor a Christian nor a Jew because once you’ve glimpsed God these manmade distinctions fall away. And that is very much endorsed in the Koran as well. Indeed, in one passage, it says that religious pluralism is God’s will.

That has all been knocked out in Wahhabism, because they call any other form of Islam “apostate.” Also, Wahhabists encouraged people to read the Koran directly, and ignore the centuries of interpretation by learned scholars. Now that sounds great and liberating, but people were then licenced to come up with many wild interpretations. In the past, no one read the Koran on its own; it was enmeshed in a wide swath of complexity that actually held radical interpretations in check. Now that check’s been lifted, and all kinds of freelancers like Bin Laden, who is no more qualified to issue a Fatwa than I am, have free reign to come up with these extraordinary interpretations.

Q: What motivated the Saudis to promote this extreme form of Islam?

A: After the Iranian revolution, their noses were put out of joint. They started sending out all these clerics to counter the Shia influence of Iran. The United States encouraged this, because they hated Iran after the hostage crisis. Of course the CIA knew nothing about Islam and thought, “Well, if it’s anti-Shia then it must be okay.” Even now, their knowledge of Islam is pretty ropey. There’s still remarkable ignorance.

Q: So how do we fight back against stereotypes – and also against ISIS?

A: Obviously we can’t let extremists rampage around. There has to be a military corrective here. But we also need to remember that the fighters in ISIS are not only ignorant about their own faith, like the guys who bought Islam for Dummies, they are also former members of Saddam’s regime: secularists, and Bathist socialists with military training. There’s a wide range of recruits, here. It’s savage and barbaric but it’s also an extremely efficient, self-sustaining business worth two billion dollars. If we just put it down to their “crazy religion” we’re refusing to see the dark side of our own modernity.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/24 … thor-says/

A long article by Karen Armstrong:
theguardian.com/world/2014/s … th-secular

HatingMeIsEasier · October 25, 2014, 2:02am

All systems that separate us from The Universe; realigion; “life”, that place we were born into, is a system that should be eliminated from human lives. It destroys growth, evolution, expansion, connection and everything else that our humanity thrives off of. We have one world - one place - one spacious landscape for us to share with each other. No need for buildings, systems, laws, and all that. We as people need to be smart, not evasive; we need to be strong, not meek; we need to be always there on top of our emotions, fighting for reality, not our fantasy. Ideas are not toys, or a means to answer our desires with - they are a means to formulate a better conceived understanding of what “is”, not what we “want”. Life was never about creating a system of homes, systems, laws and so on - these things were created by evil people who use fear and misinformation to control the mass. Intellectual people do not go around doing bad deeds. Do you ever hear on the news of a well-renowned scientist running around doing bad things? Of course not. But people don’t want to admit to their shortcomings and are happy with their bread crumbs, so to speak. People won’t wake up because they are happy where they are at now, even though there is an unparalleled doom that becomes more imminent the longer we encourage ignorance/negligence, rather than stand up and give the reigns to intellects and scientists - the people who truly shaped our world into something no systematic, religious, political establishment ever could dream of creating. As long as idiots ignore intellects for their ignorance because learning and evolving is very meticulous process, this world will continue entering the mouth of every type of despair known to man. There will be no escape, as long as the people today continue to demonize intelligence and angelize ignorance. I can prove this to be an issue by simply telling you that there hasn’t been a single event in human history wherein people followed the genius over wars, gangs and riots. The people are the problem - they will always be the problem, until we eliminate their ignorance.

James_S_Saint · October 25, 2014, 3:06am

So you propose to be rid of Quantum Physics?

…and all people, it seems, considering that ALL people are “ignorant” in one way or another. And yet Quantum Physics is the proposal that ignorance is all there is and will ever be.

HatingMeIsEasier · October 25, 2014, 3:47am

Do you know what “ignorance” truly is on a cosmic level?

It’s “dark matter”.

In the beginning of the Universe, the Universe evolved in this order: darkness > form > light

In the beginning of our Universe, our experience, our life, we’re (supposed to) evolve in this order: ignorance > information > enlightenment.

Billions of people still are ignorant.

Some people are informed.

Few people are enlightened.

Take a look at the Universe - billions of dim stars.

Some interesting shapes and objects here and there.

Very few cosmic, mathematical, life-inducing properties that are enclosed within an incredible system.

zinnat · October 25, 2014, 6:45am

I agree with the OP and with the intent of Karen Armstrong. His is looking for the answers in the right direction. But, he has to deduct it further.

He is right in concluding that US played an indirect but very decisive role in promoting Islamic terrorism, and the only reason was the oil existed in the Middle East.

Had there been no oil in the ME, there would be no Islamic terrorism either. It would have died down long ago with the time as happened in the case of Christian terrorism (crusades). There was a time when terrorism was at the same level in both these religions and fought with each other too.

with love,
sanjay

HatingMeIsEasier · October 25, 2014, 6:52am

This is a lie.

Islam will never kill its violence and horror show - why? Its wars go all the back by 1500 years. That’s somewhere around year 500. America was not established until 1776. Islam has been this way for 1500 years alone and 1300 years before America existed.