Shortlist for Islamic Reading

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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We Muslims consider ourselves the best community to have ever lived. Sure, you’ll find bad among us, and posting shrill and often falsified newspaper headlines is a bit redundant because l could sit here all day, every day, posting even more news headlines showing Atheists and Judaeo-Xtian crimes.

For me, this would be irrelevant because if the evil isn’t traced to the scripture, then it’s people being people.

So, please, read about us from our own sources FIRST before judging us. The Qur’an and Sunnah (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him) are a treasure to us. It’s hard to draw away from the ahadith (traditions) of the Prophet when reading them, there’s so much wisdom there, hopefully you’ll appreciate why we’ll never forget him no matter what happens to us in this world.

Here is my recommended list:

- Qur’an - the best English translations are probably by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, Abdulhaqq & Aisha Bewley, or AJ Arberry, but it helps to occasionally dip into other translations too, there are sites with multiple parallel English translations available. In fact, once you’re done with these translations, seek out others. The Qur’an is also colloquially known by some as the Al Furqan, meaning “The Criterion”, my point being: this book is ESSENTIAL reading for understanding Islam and along with the Sunnah, for judging the actions of people that are undermining us from within and without, by badmouthing, misrepresenting us, etc.

- https://sunnah.com/ for online Hadith compilations - this site is top, top, top quality. It has the full range of the top compilations. In all fairness l’ve found good things in the Al-Kafi compilation used by the Shi’ah, but unfortunately that contains some obvious fabrications where a person randomly reminds us we must respect the People of the House, thus politicising the prophetic Household (peace be upon them). Bear in mind though, that we still consider the Shi’ah Muslims and it is probably a nullifier of Islam (excommunication) to declare Shi’ah unbelievers arbitarily. We aren’t cruel like that and like l said l’ve read lovely things in Al Kaffi.

- The website of Abu Amina Elias - he is a North American convert to Islam and although he seems to have Salafistic leanings, honestly l’d consider myself unfit to shake hands with him he’s so superior to me in every way in my opinion. His website showcases some very dear ahadith of the Prophet.

- Rumi in a Nutshell (published by Hodder & Stoughton) ISBN: 0340694688
Nice concise book that gives you the best of Rumi. This helped me a lot. Rumi’s Mathnawi - e - Manawi was a Persian-language composition of quatrains said to be the “Qur’an in Persian” - don’t be fooled by non-Muslim commentators that try to link it to some lady-worshipping pagan rebellion against Islam by Aryans. It’s Islam pure and simple - Sufism is the beginning and end of Islam. Moomins (“Believers”) are the core and the highest expression of Islam. The word “Believer” in Islam could mean People of the Book or Believers in general, or someone who is a worshipper in the very core of the soul, someone that is a fully realised worshipper, it’s basically like the word “Darling”, so, that’s what Sufism is basically and Rumi’s works illuminate the path of love which makes us “Darlings”.

- Abdul Qadir al Jilani - “Secret of Secrets” (available in English translation everywhere) - Jilani was arguably the greatest Sufi ever (my personal fave is Rumi but that’s just me - Jilani goes into specifics whereas Rumi is more like spiritual calligraphy)

- Ahmad von Denffer - “A Day with the Prophet” - this is a concise book showing the basic daily routine of the Prophet

- Ibn Kathir - “Signs Before the Day of Judgment” - translated by Huda Khattab. This is very important to understand the way the world is headed. There is a strong belief that the Final Hour will come something like 1,500 years after Islam but others have dismissed this, but in any case - this book doesn’t list that calculation, it settles on more agreed-upon views of the words of our Prophet. Believe me this book is scary. To my Jewish cousins, please note: the destruction of Jews foretold by our Prophet will come at a time when almost all Jews have converted to Islam, just before and during and after the return of Jesus (peace be upon him). There will be a few who would still oppose Christ - it is these who will be destroyed at the forthcoming time of Christ’s rule.

- Martin Lings - “Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources” ISBN: ‎0946621330 - whilst l haven’t read this (so l hope l’m doing the right thing by recommending it), this is highly regarded. The Prophetic biography l read was The Sealed Nectar by Mubarakpuri, which was very hard to read in English translation, but it ultimately helped me a lot so you can go with that too if you like. Reading a biography of the Prophet is very important to understand how to interpret the Qur’an, it was a revelation which unravelled over approx. 23 years, spanning Makkah (the early phase, more Sufistic, spiritual), Madina and then Makkah again (these latter phases of the Qur’an were increasingly legalistic as Statehood developed). A biography of the Prophet would help you understand specific offhanded references in the Qur’an and specific peculiar events which formed the backdrop of some revealed verses.

Conclusion:

Without a good reading list like this, you’ll be at the mercy of people that are committed to deluding you away from Islam - there are many such people out there and they don’t always overtly appear as Islamophobes! Peace!

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The Self in Muslim Philosophy
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General Note:

  • All the books l mentioned can either be had for free online (including some YouTube videos narrating them so you won’t even have to read anything) but if you buy them, they will be cheap (apart from the hadith compilations, which are huge publications and expensive to produce in physical form).

About Qur’an:

  • The Qur’an is repetitive perhaps because it enables the reader to start wherever they wish. Also, one of the core messages is to avoid eternal Hellfire and that cannot be repeated enough.
  • Some inconspicuous parts reveal great depth if you ask why they had to be phrased in the particular way they were (it helps to check multiple translations to get a feel of the peculiar wording in some parts). My take is that God stoops to explain things to us hence great complexity is often locked up in syntax.

About Sufism:

  • It is not a sect. If worship were homework, then Sufism would be homework music (in fact, it often is music, or poetry). It is just a refinement and a pleasure. It is not a separate rite, nor is it an acadamic subject (e.g. in comparative religion) as many non-Muslims try to turn it into, including on this forum.
  • Unfortunately some followers of Abdul Qadir al Gilani began saying after his death: “O Gilani, for the sake of Allah, help us”. This is a grave wrong in Islam. Obviously the correct wording should be “O Allah, for the sake of Gilani, help us”.
  • Another concise work by Gilani is “Futuh al Ghayb” (Revelation of the Unseen). Available anywhere.
  • There emerged Sufis of other religions in the advent of Islam, e.g. Zoroastrian (e.g. Mir Zulfiqar Ardestani? Author of the Dabestan-i Mazaheb, one of the greatest books on the religions of India ever written, proper first hand testimony, not Orientalism - download it via archive.org), Jewish (Maimonides of Egypt, Solomon ibn Gabirol of Spain, Abraham Abulafia of Spain / Malta, and another one from Syracuse whose name l forget) and Christian (Kahlil Gibran, probably others too).
  • That said, according to Islam, there is no other religion acceptable to God but Islam (obviously, otherwise why would it be revealed?). However, it is also true that Allah loves to hear excuses:
    Al-Aswad ibn Sari’ reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “No one loves to be praised more than Allah Almighty, and no one accepts more excuses than Allah Almighty.”
    Source: al-Mu’jam al-Kabīr lil-Ṭabarānī 836
    Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Albani

So my point is, we live in an era of immense disinformation (and malinformation) about Islam. This, coupled with the fact that we have no right to say who is saved and who is not, and the immensity of God’s mercy, we cannot presume anything about people outside of our religion (and besides, Islam acknowledges that there will be many non-Muslim believers from prior times, in Heaven). But formally: Islam teaches that the only religion to adopt, is Islam, in the sight of Allah - even though Sufism is the common heart of all Believers of all faiths (i.e. the beginning of Islam) and the very best of Muslims (i.e. the end of Islam).

Conversely, Avoid:

  • Avoid Ahmadiyya websites (Google —> Best Ahmadiyya websites), they are a sect centered around one of the 30-or-so lesser Antichrists that will emerge within the Islamic world before the big Antichrist - the Dajjal - who will be a man with godlike powers (every prophet warned against him, hence Paul twisted Nazarene Christianity into Trinitarianism and made Messiah into a man-god, to confuse him with the False Messah, the one eyed Dajjal). That lesser antichrist was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who claimed to be the second coming of Christ. Funny thing is, some of the Ahmadiyya sites are pretty good reading, until they mix in all this stuff about how the signs before the day of Judgment have all now been fulfilled and Jesus was allegorically or physically reborn in Punjab, India.

I cannot give religious advice but you can make your own enquiries using the sources l’ve recommended here. Thank you.

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Also avoid YouTube channels such as:

Al Muqaddimah

Let’s Talk Religion

Religion for Breakfast

These are all youthful and trendy but ultimately hard core Orientalist. Which means they only speak venomously about Orthodox (Sunni) Islam, and always try to bring together Shi’i sects, extreme heterodox Shi’i sects, sects of Judaism and Christian sects, casting them as rebels who do whatever they do with an enlightened twinkle in the eye, unlike the unspeakable Orthodox Muslims …. !

To learn about Islam, please, study Orthodox Islam, it is the main body and is, well, Orthodox - i.e. onside with the scripture.

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I hope I’m not doing wrong by naming people but most speakers for Islam on YouTube that I’ve seen, are in error. One key area is Gog and Magog. Nobody has seen them, yet they outnumber the rest of mankind by a huge factor. Modern preachers find this a bit embarrassing to discuss!

So, speakers will use modernist, materialist explanations to dismiss what they don’t understand.

Such speakers are:

Shabir Ally - Qur’anist that says nobody stays in hell forever, despite the Qur’an repeatedly showing so, and that the severe punishment of cutting hands / feet off for repeated thefts, no longer applies because hands can be stitched back on with med tech etc etc He rejects the hadith arbitrarily (the narrations are not infallible, admittedly), in violation of the Qur’an

Yasir Qadhi - as l recall, he has an alarming tendency to explain away supernatural aspects of Islam as allegory

Imran Hossein - claims Gog and Magog are Ashkenazi Jews, who are descended from Turkic Khazars, who in turn came from Gog and Magog etc. - but Gog and Magog are hairy northern trolls and goblins, not bankers, and the Khazars were nomadic warriors, not bespectacled Yeshiva types, plus they were partly Mongoloid, partly Finno-Turkic, some converted to Judaism but most became Muslim and Xtian. Ashkenazi Jews are actually, as they appear to be, German merchants that converted to Judaism and traded with Silk Road Jews. Imran Hossein tends to do a lot of allegorising like this on many subjects. They all do.

Daniel Haqiqatjou - This man is very Jewish (no, not a crime in itself, most of our named Prophets, peace be upon them, were Biblical and some Jews were among the first Muslims), his surname even appears to mean “Really Jou” so it seems like someone is having a laugh. He engaged in one debate where he was clearly in league with his “Christian” opponent (another Jewish person) -

In that debate his opponent Andrew Wilson tells Muslims they are at the mercy of Christians who can nuke Muslims and are wealthier than Muslims, and he says Muslims are inbred and low IQ, especially in Africa. Daniel Haqiqatjou agrees but claims AI will help us be as clever as Christians and perhaps even as clever as Jews. All this, instead of just telling his opponent that is a hateful and un-Christian way to argue, and IQ doesn’t matter in the scheme of God anyway, as we can’t have one higher than God. etc etc. He throws Islam under the bus. He also goes into politics way too much, and even repeatedly uses the term “Blue Haired Libtard” which is ableist and is party strife. Talking religion should suffice.

  • There are many more speakers l could mention but you get the picture, they tend to re-interpret Islam in materialistic ways.

CONCLUSION:

The best sources for Islam are its Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Qur’an, and following that, classical Islamic scholars from the Golden Age. Just avoid Ibn Taymiyyah, he was, like Christians and Jews, an anthropomorphist. He was jailed for it in his lifetime, but today? Muslims almost universally laud him as nearly a prophet, and he is frequently mentioned in sermons. Despite being roundly cursed by his contemporaries as a materialist anthropomorphist blasphemer (this is not my fatwa, this is what he was accused of). All you really need is the Qur’an and Sunnah (body of hadith literature) and follow your heart my friend!

I think that wraps it up. Peace!

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Question for you.

Perhaps the most foundational belief of Christianity is that no one can make themselves righteous. This despite the fact that Jesus repeatedly pointed in the other direction: not only can they make themselves righteous: they must for salvation, to receive eternal life, to receive the spirit of truth; they are His true disciples.

Where does Islam stand on this?

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Since you mention the Golden Age, do you agree with the conclusion of Al-Ghazali in the Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifah)? Should the muslims consider philosophers like Ibn Sina and their followers infidels, punishable with death, just because they believe in the eternity of the world?

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Jesus is an inconsequential event in the history of judaism, and had he never been born, nothing substantial would be different about religious practice and culture. Don’t think ‘Jesus’ when you think Christianity. Think Europeanized judaism using a character (Jesus) to neutralize jewish power and ideology. Instead of Zionist ruling classes using the mind virus to control the working classes, Romans are using it this time.

If you want a genuine history of this crazed lunacy in action, check out what your homeboy Moses got up to when he was in his prime. You’ll find stuff that Dr. Craig, Jordan’s Peterson, and Shapiro won’t tell you about.

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@WeSee this thread is really just about source materials on Islam, to enable people to make informed choices / arguments about it.

I would welcome you to join a formal debate with these questions. Short answer: we believe in works and rituals.

Some rituals and works are mandatory (Prayer, Pilgrimage, Almsgiving), some are superogatory (voluntary, ad lib - e.g. superogatory prayers, additional acts of charity).

However, we never assume that Allah has approved, even if He says (for example) all our sins will be forgiven if we pray 3 sets of voluntary prayers appended to the sunset prayer.

The Qur’an teaches us that some bad people will be shocked on the day of judgement, they will be expecting paradise. This seems true especially for a lot of personality types l witness. So, we are not to be self righteous. I can discuss more if you join a formal debate.

@ghatzige Being an infidel is not punishable by death but l think being an apostate sometimes may. It is much the same as, say, being a soviet double agent in 1950s USA vs. being absolving onesself of USA’s actions during various wars. I mean, l feel there are different intentions behind apostasy and the reaction from the state varies accordingly. I say this because in some examples the response was definitely lenient (according to some hadith). Please do join the debate.

By the way: anybody is also welcome to raise points made by the flamer above, if they phrase those points in an academic manner.

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@ghatzige i thinkl the issue in Ghazali vs Ibn Sina was the eternity vs. creation of the world. I think l can easily overcome both their contentions. There’s something neither seems to have grasped.

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This was one of the main points indeed. I will elaborate further this question in our actual debate.

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Your response doesn’t seem to answer my question. Can you directly answer the question? Not interested in having a debate, but thanks for the invitation.

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@LampAndNightingale

I thought you were Jewish this entire time.

Sunni or Shia?

:clown_face:

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Well, this is not a debate thread.

We do righteous work - those commanded of us, and extra things not commanded of us - as per my reply:

^^^ but as per my reply, we are not to assume anything about the acceptance of our righteous acts. Only a handful (l mean, two hands, 10 people) were promised Paradise by our Prophet (peace be upon him). I imagine those promised paradise lived in dread because it’s probably not something won easily.

I believe l have answered your question fully.

Also note, God (Allah) can send people to hell for doing good if he so wishes. We worship between love and fear. Omit the Fear part, and you get a Satan, omit the Love part and you get a problematic worshipper, a dogmatist, who is still an excellent human but it seems a precarious stance. Dogmatism, worship without love, is probably how Satan came about. So either way, you get a Satan. My point is, we don’t forget the Fear part of worship. So we work righteousness down to a Tee. But we hate to rest on our laurels.

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Sufi of the Sunni variety. But l love my Shi’i brothers and sisters too, l just wish they would not form a sect because the only saved group of Muslims is the main body:
“The Jews split into seventy-one sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy in Hell. The Christians split into seventy-two sects, seventy-one of which will be in Hell and one in Paradise. I swear by the One Whose Hand is the soul of Muhammad, my nation will split into seventy-three sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy-two in Hell.” It was said: “O Messenger of Allah, who are they?” He said: “The main body.”
Grade: Hasan (Darussalam)

Reference : Sunan Ibn Majah 3992
In-book reference : Book 36, Hadith 67
English translation : Vol. 5, Book 36, Hadith 3992

“And hold fast to the Rope of Allah, altogether and be not divided.” (Qur’an Āli ‘Imrān: 103)

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Apparently shia was a kind of political reaction in Persia against Arab rule.

Much like Goth protestants.

Read that by some medieval Arab legal scholar whose name have I now forgot.

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Frankly I think once you get a taste of a life free of theocratic rule, there is no going back.

No matter how great any one religion may be, it is just not worth subjugation.

My main issue with Mohammedism is that I am not sure a world without a theocratic state is even formulatable within its tennets. I may be wrong. I know plenty of Muslims who thrive in secular life, and many states within Russia seem to have no great struggle with it.

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@Mary-Poppins

I was a very nihilistic atheist for over a decade before becoming Buddhist and delving into spiritual mysticism.

Sometimes atheists become spiritual and religious like myself finding atheism lacking.

:clown_face:

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@LampAndNightingale

This doesn’t really answer my question either.

There’s a distinction that needs to be made between righteous acts and a righteous individual which is a state of being.

I’m asking about the latter. A righteous individual does not commit sin. It’s a concept demanded by God according to later OT prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel and Hosea and echoed by Jesus. Paul then did a 180 and made Jesus out to be the ultimate atoning sacrifice, as well as God incarnate, instead of the prophet that Jesus claimed to be. Christianity has the Pauline concept as its foundation.

Just wondered if Islam continued along the trajectory established by the later OT prophets and continued by Jesus. Based on what you’ve written thus far, the answer seems to be, “no”.

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Hi, l really wish this could be part of a formal debate so that it doesn’t get buried.

Anyway:
Your original query was centred around a verb, not an adjective. Your verb, given twice, was “make” as in “make themselves righteous”:

The finished product is the righteous person. A person cannot be righteous without righteous works. I understand that in some slants on some traditions, one need only stitch a cross onto the clothing (if historical reports were correct) or “say the line” about trinity. I don’t see this as righteous work, it is de minimis.

Your negative definition, the verb, the action, of not-doing, is still a verb. Not sinning, when confronted with sin, is a verb. Remaining silent in the face of evil, is, in my opinion, an action in its own right - with quietism (noun) and the quietist (adjective) being its endpoint.

In answer to your further query about being sinless - l’m unfamiliar with the OT in this regards. Sadly most of my OT knowledge is cherrypicked “rude” stuff (yep, those parts) and babies being battered to death etc. However, l do feel there are some genuine parts left in the Bible, especially in the NT. That said, l do feel mankind will always sin in the mortal state, as opposed the Hereafter, because the finite world has sin as its Way, whereas all Virtue is a factor of the infinite reality.

So, we will always sin. It’s the returning that counts. From the links in my OP, l give you this:

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) having said:
“By Him in Whose Hand is my life**, if you were not to commit sin, Allah would sweep you out of existence and He would replace (you by) those people who would commit sin and seek forgiveness from Allah,** and He would have pardoned them.”

Reference : Sahih Muslim 2749
In-book reference : Book 50, Hadith 13
USC-MSA web (English) reference : Book 37, Hadith 6622
(deprecated numbering scheme)

According to some Sunnis, Shi’ism began with a Yemenite Jewish convert to Islam called Abdullah ibn Saba, though Shi’ah reject this. Shi’ism was a political faction which wanted the Prophet’s cousin 'Ali to rule. In fact he eventually did rule, and is counted as one of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (Rashidun Caliphs), after whose death the Prophet predicted Islam would begin to die. Google AI says:

Key Aspects of the Prophecy:

  • Thirty-Year Prophecy: The Prophet stated, “The Caliphate will last for thirty years, then there will be a biting kingship”.
  • Fulfilment: This prediction was fulfilled, as the period of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs—Abu Bakr (2 years), Umar (10 years), Uthman (12 years), Ali (about 5 years), and Hasan ibn Ali (6 months)—amounted to roughly thirty years before the establishment of the Umayyad monarchy.

So, we all love 'Ali. In fact 'Ali was my favourite Caliph, but l am Sunni.

'Ali got a lot of unwanted attention and l do wonder why. I think it was because the Prophetic lineage continued throgh him. He was the Prophet’s cousin and he married the Prophet’s daugther Lady Fatima (may Allah be pleased with her), and from that union came all of the surviving descendants of the Prophet, aka The House (al Ashraf), the People of the House (Ahl ul Bayt).

So it was that some people formed an inconsolable sect around 'Ali and got him to challenge another Caliph (Mu’awiya) and also Lady Aisha led an army against him because there were allegations he didn’t do much to punish the klillers of Caliph Uthman. There were terrible conflicts in the early years in the wake of the Prophet’s death, much like a bereaved family can be riven apart with bitter arguments when a dearly loved one passes. I wouldn’t like to go into the other events that occurred in those early days.

So anyway, 'Ali and his sons Hasan and Husein (may Allah be pleased with them all) were the focus of sectarians in a massive way. With Hussein, the people of southern Iraq promised him support if he’d create a revolt, and then they abandoned him at the last moment and he was beheaded by the army of Caliph Yazid at the Battle of Karbala.

So, that’s how Shi’ism began - an inconsolable group of partisans for Ali, and his descendants Hasan and Husein, the grandsons of the Prophet. They eventually began to accrue gnostic concepts, and thus a Christology, i.e. a holy family (the Shi’i pentad, symbolised by the open palm amulet, the Khamsa, l think with an eye in the middle of the palm - it is used in other religions too), and people also began to form sects saying that 'Ali was the incarnation of Allah, same as they did with Jesus (peace be upon him). In fact, even in 'Ali’s lifetime, some people began calling him God and he killed them by burning them in fire. Surviving members of the sect even began to say that, as burning alive was reserved solely for Allah (Muslims are strictly forbidden from punishing with fire, that’s one reason why we didn’t enthusiastically develop WMDs in the modern era, but also it’s because if you kill one innocent person deliberately, you won’t get even a whiff of paradise) then Ali really was Allah! I think the Alawaite / Nusayri sect of Syria arose from that.

I’m sorry to recant these deeds of 'Ali but as l say, he was still my favourite, just because the feel of his sayings were so close to the Prophet’s.

The Prophet Muhammad wouldn’t let his daughter Fatima even inherit a palm tree. The reason is he foresaw all the persecution of his bloodline and wanted them to have no part in this world until the Mahdi comes (the Mahdi will be his descendant and will be born in Khorasan, which corresponds to eastern Iran , Afghanistan, western Pakistan, southern Uzbekistan).

So, you see: Sunnis wanted the Prophetic bloodline to quietly vanish, as per the Prophet’s own wishes. The Shi’ah wanted something frowned upon by Islam per se (but now widespread): Kingship by bloodline, aka political Islam.

To conclude, here’s how the Prophet felt about his bloodline:

From: Sunan Ibn Majah
Chapter No. 39, The Chapters on Tribulations
Hadith No: 4082
Narrated/Authority of Abdullah

“While we were with the Messenger of Allah (saw), some youngsters from Banu Hashim came along. When the Prophet (saw) saw them, his eyes filled with tears and his color changed. I said: ‘We still see something in your face that we do not like (to see).’ He said: ‘We are members of a Household for whom Allah has chosen the Hereafter over this world. The people of my Household will face calamity, expulsion and exile after I am gone, until some people will come from the east carrying black banners. They will ask for something good but will not be given it. Then they will fight and will be victorious, then they will be given what they wanted, but they will not accept it and will give leadership to a man from my family. Then they will fill it with justice just as it was filled with injustice. Whoever among you lives to see that, let him go to them even if he has to crawl over snow.’”

You may note that these “black banners” are being imitated by ISIS, including ISIS-K, of Khorasan, who have zero to do with Islam but are pretending to be the people of the coming Mahdi.

Oh one last thing: Persia was Sunni until the 1500s, when some people from the mountains of Azerbaijan began forced conversion of the populace. In bulk of the Golden Age of Islam, Persia was Sunni.

Survivor bias. The horrific things done to Russian Muslims could fill, and probably do fill, volumes, even right up to modern times when Russians blitzed Chechnya, beheaded 100 children in a cave, Communists dumped the old and infirm of some Circassian region into a kiln and burned them alive, and transported the populations en masse to Siberia and Central Asia, by which l mean suddenly bundled them into trains and locked the doors for several weeks, and left them like that as the trains transported them. Basically being locked inside a box for weeks. Few survived. And even bfore then, the CIrcassian Genocide etc. etc. I’m sorry but Islam forbids these atrocities, the firebombings of Dresden, the Nazi Blitzkrieg of London, Coventry, Birmingham etc., the US napalming of Vietnam and Cambodia, the firebombing of Japan which was even worse (according to Mearsheimer) than the subsequent A-bombs, and even worse than all those, according to Mearsheimer, or at least on a par, was the untold horror of the Korean civil war, etc. etc. etc. Sorry but l really think you have survivor’s bias by saying the subsequent respite, the subsequent modern world where we can sit there for hours googling cat pics … it’s built on bones. And how many people are even happy with the way things are right now? I think we are headed toward monarchies and empires again. Britain certainly could do with a monarch right now. Make America British Again. :stuck_out_tongue: Semi-joking

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Edit: I re-read what you wrote. I think Islam and secularism are immiscible. This is a huge problem in the modern world, where you have Muslims adjusting Islam to force it to fit with secularism. The moder honest approach would be to say: Islam as a religion is defunct, and now it is all voluntary, which is to say, the Sufi phase of Islam as it was when it began in Makkah, without many rules, more focused on the groundwork of faith.

Muslims can contribute a lot to secular society in terms of the stabilising values of Islamic culture. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing is guys walking around in pyjamas and not speaking English very well, even when they originally came to the West wearing smart suits, they have degenerated into an isolated group whom nobody wants to befriend and thus in isolation they act as if they have Islam in a secular society, and this of course generates a newspaper headline every day.

Islamic law forbids Muslims to settle in non-Muslim countries, the only reasons to become migrants is for war, or the pursuit of knowledge (academic), or trade, or preaching.

Not setting up a family home and becoming a taxi driver. Of course l empathise with the Muslim economic migrants, we emigrated because the world’s economy was destroying us and we were invited here to fill labour shortages, we leapt at the chance to gain real money and send money home. Understandable.

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