Just curious, but have you ever read any Eric Voegelin, Joe?

Well, I for one have seen decent Muslims and decent Leftists.

Of both I had seen far too few, but hoped more existed than the estmate I might have made based on the few discovered.

But then there was Iraq, even with the uncertainty, so much hope on display there, so many examples that show they get it, want it, and are willing to fight for it.

Every day those working with us, and that vest their hopes in us, put on displays of courage and merit and Character.

Not only are we making lots of friends there, but look at what they are teaching america about the people there and what is possible there.

Who would have accepted recent history laid out as a prediction two years ago ?

As for the left, more room for doubt is an understatment, they must first accept what reality is before they can hope to form an honest opinion, and worldview, based on reality.

When objective Reality itself is at issue, the conditions for accepting even a self evident virdict borne by the facts look rather hostile.

But I have seen a few, a delightfull, often compelling and merit worthy Few.

Perhaps there are more.

Joe, the moderate muslims and sane leftists i know all have +140 IQ. At least. Is that a prerequisite? ;)

And, i read L'Express's Hirsi Ali article en francais . The other point she makes besides the false values of multiculturalism, is that there cannot be "reform" Islam as long as the Prophet and the Qu'ran are upheld by muslims.

No, SAO. Where would you recommend that I start?

I dunno, Joe. You're a self-described neo-con, and typically that means a Straussian as well (esp. in Canada. Don't worry, no Drury-esque bashing here).

If you are into Strauss I'd highly recommend Voegelin. I'd say he's a fellow traveler of sorts, but doesn't devolve into Manichaeanism (my problem with Strauss). He was a frequent correspondent with Strauss, as well as Gadamer.

I've read Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, and am working on Israel and Revelation, which is basically a chronology of how ideas of human character emerged in Israel as a revolution against other cosmological orders.

"The other point she makes besides the false values of multiculturalism, is that there cannot be "reform" Islam as long as the Prophet and the Qu'ran are upheld by muslims."

Can you explain this more fully? It sounds as if you're saying a reform Islam is a complete impossibility because they'd have to reject Mohammed as well as the Koran.

lindsey,
The title of the article in L'Express is "«Le problème, c'est le Prophète et le Coran»"
which translates as "The Problem is the Prophet and the Qu'ran".
She goes on--
Q: Is coexistance between Islam and the West not possible?
A: That is what I said. But coexistance is possible with muslims who can criticize their religion...[she says this to Boubaker(?) of the Grand Mosque of Paris]..I don't believe in a movement that pretends to liberalize Islam without giving up the Prophet and the Qu'ran. It is ridiculous...
If I said these things in a muslim country, i would have been dead a long time already.

It sounds as if you're saying a reform Islam is a complete impossibility because they'd have to reject Mohammed as well as the Koran.

Irshad Manji, Moslem, Canadian, lesbian, outspoken and courageous freedom fighter, explains (from a previous Winds of Change post).

See also her views here and here.

I guess I'm about to lose my union card, SAO, because I haven't read Strauss either (there are many other currents in neocon thought). Will look into Voeglin, might be interesting.

RE: reforming Islam... it may be possible to reform Islam to a non-literalist interpretation that changes the way Muslims view the Prophet and the Koran, without requiring their abandonment. Without that element, the seeds of violence will remain unaddressed and hopes for lasting progress will remain somewhat chimerical.

But note my words above, which use the term Islamism/ Islamist. A non-literalist interpretation will be anathema to them - and so, they must simply be beaten IMO. Physically, ideologically, and morally.

My evolving answer to Belmont Club's Mordor question is pushing me toward a "yes" answer, and hence the same view re: the non-reformist left.

Contradictions are not allowed. They can't handle contradictions so they kill (or demonize) anyone who strays from the strict leftist/islamist party line. Perhaps it requires a minimum threshold of intelligence to deal with contradictions. That could be why NPR employees and other MSM "journalists" always seem so stupid. Because they are.

I'm not sure that the problem in Islam is with the Koran and the Prophet. Islam was originally the most forward looking religion under the Ottomans until it was hijacked by the literalists in the 14th(???) century.

The problem is that somehow there's a tradition that all these various hadiths, that apparently anyone with a pen can right, effectively become part of the Koran. I'm not sure why it's not obvious that these are only various interpretations of the Koran, especially since Islam pretty much precludes anyone else claiming to be a prophet.

If, somehow, the idea that these hadiths are interpretations could be promoted widely, then it would seem that Islam could be reformed on that basis. The problem is that every little Imam loves him some hadiths, and some fatwas apparently.

Another thought occurs...

The big thing with the Protestant reformation, was disintermediating access to God, e.g. you no longer needed a priest to talk to God for you. This highlights two things about Islam...

1. There's still a lot of intermediation, so theres a huge willingness to cede authority to Imams..

2. Unlike in the Catholic Church WRT priests, apparently anyone can declare themselves to be an Imam and try to gain a following.

Put #1 and #2 together and you have a recipe for demagoguery.

""What I found interesting is that although he was advocating very strongly for a Muslim government based on Khilafah he wasn't prepared to go live under one. "

Sounds just like the communist sympathizers.

Lurker et al, i was only only translating Hirsi Ali's French. That is what she believes.
Personally, i think Islam can change, is changing. In cultural anthropology Islam is an ESS (evolutionarily stable strategy), and the RCC is an ESS, but at different evolutionary stages. They both have employed analogous strategies, severe punishment for defectors, "sacred" book, relegation of women to a slave class. Islam is less evolved, a lot of the strategies of the RCC have mutated into relatively benign forms over time. Islam is just younger.
The other reason i think Islam can change, is changing, is that i have friends who are moderate muslims. Hopeful. ;)

Of course, the hundred billion dollar question, is can Islam change fast enough to avoid, say, Wretchard's Three Conjectures.

Jinn, I never said it was you that said Islam couldn't change. I am surprised that the word 'meme' didn't show up in any sense in your response though. Mine was a high slow-ball right over the plate and you whiffed it!

;-)

Joe,

I think it is entirely possible to re-interpret the Koran -- and AFAIK this is already done. For example, a number of the "scientific" passages describing the nature of the earth itself cannot be reconciled with today's known facts unless those passages are reinterpreted -- because taken literally those passages are demonstrably wrong.

Here's a site with just a couple of examples

Who's to say that what's beyond the pale for reinterpretation today, might not -- with a little help -- be open for some new thinking tomorrow?

-Boo

And topical to the left, and nazi = left of the post on the subject past. More proof that I was right all along, about the NAZI flavor of the Left. Another Leftist Lie goos poof.

Allende's dissertation as well as his agenda as a Chilean health minister from 1939 to 1942 present a, let's say, unexpected proximity to the politics of the Nazis, according to research by the historian Victor Farias.

Davids Medienkritik

And

The proof, Farias writes, is all right here, in Allende's own dissertation. The scientist says the dissertation exposes Allende as a racist and anti-Semite, and as a proponent of eugenics and forced sterilizations.

Spiegel

Pinochet looks better all the time, for saving the people from Chile from the CommuNAZI Salvador Allende

This Same NAZI flavored Socialism is at the root of the Baath Socialists.

The proper way to interpet conflict between the NAZIs and the Commies, is an indoctrinate dispute between leftist factions, the same infighting we see all the time. The Red Kihmers was more radical than the Veitmihn, the split between pure collectivist Mao and and Capitalist Roader Deng Xao Peng, more of the same.

We know that Islam can reform because OBL told us so in his words and in his actions, which were in response to his fear of modernization.

JINN: But is political Islam an evolutionarily stable strategy? The Prophet instituted both a religion and a form of government. The data discussed here suggests that Arab-American immigrants are very succesful in the U.S., probably less succesful in the EU (though the religious breakdowns may differ). In contrast, governments claiming to be Islamic have a very long history of assassinations and political instability.

BTW, what is RCC?

RCC = Roman Catholic Church

Lurker,
I am surprised that the word 'meme' didn't show up in any sense in your response though.

actually, i was saving myself for this . ;)

And, P.D., the religion/state strategy is not new to Islam, it also existed in the RCC, and other religions. In Islam, the integration of religion and state is a variant strategy, which may be more or less successful.

Lurker you are referring to the debate between Averroes and al-Ghazali in the mid 1100's, which Averroes lost (he had to flee for his life to Christian France). The debate was over rationalism in Islamic society (Averroes was a big Aristotle fan) versus Tradition (al-Ghazali) which tradition won. The Ottomans were tolerant in that they accepted Greek Orthodox, Jewish, and Latin Christians into the government, to deal with outsiders or act as physicians to the court (their own medicine had lapsed). All experimentation and rationalism basically stopped around the mid-1100's. Islamic society has remained frozen in amber to this day, with the only "westernizing" elements being allowing foreigners to do tasks Muslims can't or won't do.

Personally, I don't think Islam can change without catastrophic failures throughout their societies imposing a Kemal Ataturk moment (think Battle of Meggido). Islam has been remarkably unchanging and unlike Japan, China, and India facing supreme cultural challenges from the West, has been unable to make significant changes to their society to enable even a modicum of competitiveness. Their society's closed nature and search for scapegoats masks the near total failure to deal with the modern world.

Frankly, comparisons to Roman Catholicism and Islam are ludicrous. The state has always struggled with the Church in Christianity, and the rise of nation states compared with the Church has been steady since Charles Martel in the 700's. Contrast to Islam where the State and the Church are the SAME. There is no difference. There is no hierarchy (excluding Iran which is a special case) and thus the hold on all aspects of life by Islam simply keeps the society from progressing. Example: both the Roman Catholic Church and Islam condemned (and Islam still does) "usury" which retards banking. However rulers of Christian nation states saw a strong banking system as essential to increasing the power of the state and thus steadily moved aside the protests of the Pope.

Can the Koran be re-interpreted. No. Doctrine holds that the Koran is the DIRECT and EXACT words of God as spoken in God's own language (Arabic) and thus holy in and of itself. To re-interpret the Koran is to deny or blaspheme against God, and every good Muslim is expected to learn Arabic to get closer to God (in contrast every Christian is expected to have the Bible in his/her native tongue). Talk of a Protestant reformation or other stuff is looking through Christian eyes at the successor and (to Muslims self-evidently superior) religion to Christianity. It doesn't reflect reality (as Bernard Lewis to Fouad Adjami suggest). Most likely there will have to be an order of magnitude larger event than the Black Fleet steaming into Tokyo Harbor to re-order Muslim society to base compatibility with the modern World.

Multiculturalists don't accept this because it violates their ideology, but it is what seems to be the case.

(JK: Space added here to restore our main page, due to an MT bug)

they burnt crosses in london

Jim Rockford
Frankly, comparisons to Roman Catholicism and Islam are ludicrous.
I really disagree with this. Both Islam and the RCC are ESSs. Both evolved successful strategy sets over time. There are many, many points of isomorphism, but not temporally co-located on the evolutionary curve.
Can the Koran be re-interpreted. No.
Again, I strongly disagree. If there is only one interpretation, why are there schools to study the Qu'ran? Why do clerics issue judicial rulings? Is Ibn Wahhab's interpretation the same as Sistani's interpretation?

Also.
every good Muslim is expected to learn Arabic to get closer to God (in contrast every Christian is expected to have the Bible in his/her native tongue).
For how many centuries was the Latin book interpreted for illiterate catholics?

Arabic is an oral tradition language. I think possibly the Qu'ran sounds better than it reads. Think about what a memetic advantage that would be for transmission of an ESS to a people without formalized writing.

hmmm, here you are comparing apples and oranges-- wasn't it you who just said comparison was "ludicrous"?

Hey Joe! I'll post this here since it seems to have come up in this thread...

WRT to the front page formatting...

Do you remember back (a year or so?) before Woc pulled a Wandering Jew act by moving to a new host? Well, I do and the front page was formatted correctly even links were right at the front of the comments.

I think the problem is that somewhere along the way, the Most Recent Comments section was changed such that the raw HTML is now displayed instead of the rendered display as it was originally. If you could switch it back so the displayed comments are rendered, instead of raw, then everything would indeed be copacetic! Peace!

BTW, Jinn thinks I'm famous!

Lurker, you're dead right about the technical problem. Unfortunately, it's a change that was made IN MOVABLE TYPE. I wish they'd change it back, it totally screws a very useful feature.

Jim,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, the historical clarifications especially.

I agree that there's not much wiggle room WRT recasting the Koran. It is all the hadiths and fatwas that have been built up through the centuries that provide opportunities for interpretation. This has already been demonstrated, as Jinnerella has noted, by the existence of the various Muslim sects that already exist, all with the same devine Koran.

Al qaeda wants to roll Islam back to the age of the Ottomans. What if we could spread the idea that rolling back Islam is fine, it's just that Bin Laden doesn't want to take it back far enough?

What if a convincing argument could be made that the mistake was really back in the 12th century when Islam threw out reason? Couldn't the current fallen state of islam be explained as Allah's punishment for the mistake of throwing out reason? It can certainly be argued that that was when Islam started it's decline.

Shout it out Bin Laden is almost right! We do need to return Islam to it's Golden Age™. It's just that he's mistaken about when it truly was. When did Allah's blessings pass from the Muslims to the Christians again? Oh. That's what I thought.

How's that for some memetic jujitsu?

Lurker, LOL!
You are subversive , my highest complement. ;)

Unfortunately, it's a change that was made IN MOVABLE TYPE.

I know squat about Movable type, but I just Googled and found this. Look at the second to last item about comment previews under Templates and Publishing.

Looks like something new in version 3.16 (2005.04.13).

RE: Jinn's point in #23... there's more to the whole Koran/Arabic thing.

Arabic isn't just oral. As you know, Jinn, it also has far more shades of meaning than Latinate languages because of the status and use of root words. Like Hebrew, the vowels are separated out, leaving root combinations that can be made into different words by adding vowels.

What this means in practice is that what's on the page can be given several different shades of meaning. And that any translation will inevitably leave important theological richness behind.

I can sympathize.

We had The Bible translated in Greek, then into Latin. then we watched as new parts were added. And y'know, you Christians are really nice people but we're still amazed at some of the stuff you think is in there, and some of the stuff you missed. Dean Esmay did a blog post on that, a while back.

So, if you think the Koran is the word of Allah, and ANY translation is going to leave stuff out and risk misinterpretation... I can see where the problem lies.

I can also see, however, how this insistence on Koran = Arabic could lead to nasty variants of supremacism and cultural imperialism. vid. Bangladesh.

Now, I'm a member of the Reform Judaism denomination. Most of our prayer books are in English, we have extensive translations of Torah and Talmud (annotated with arguments and asides - we're Jews, after all), and indeed this insistence on Torahs and Siddurim in other languages is something we pushed for and got dissed for.

Having said all that, Reform congregations and Renewalist movements like ALEPH.org are beginning to put more focus on teaching their congregants Hebrew. Why? Because having them not know any Hebrew at all impoverishes their spiritual experience.

I believe there is a balance to be found.

An Islam purged of supremacism, racism, oppression, and hate could contribute a lot to the world. and there are good and valid reasons why their path is likely to differ from Christianity's.

REAL multiculturalism can understand that, without excusing the supremacism, racism, oppression, or hate. Or backing off one inch from the insistence that Islam has to change, or The Islamic War is not just likely but inevitable - and their opponent in that war may not be someone as nice as the United States.

Here is another fine example for the blindness of multiculturalism:

In an unprecedented step in the European country, a German hospital has set up a special ward for its Muslim patients to be treated by an all-Muslim medical team.
Betra hospital in the northwestern city of Hannover also intends to provide a prayer hall for the Muslim patients, the Islamic association Milli Gorus reported Tuesday, May 24, on its Web site.
"We are to respect the Muslims' cultural values and understand their traditions," said Dr. Axel Düsenberg.
To guarantee the success of the experiment, the hospital has hired an entire team of Muslim doctors and nurses.
www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-05/24/article05.shtml

That's how the game is played, on a everyday level. "Tolerance" makes us an object for the silent conquest. Multiculturalism makes us forget our values. One day people may wake up and ask themselves where they live. Than it might be too late.