Transterrestrial Musings

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As an exercise, we can also demonstrate the proper use of "although" in a sentence . . .
"Although Americans believe they are better informed than they were five years ago, a new CBS News poll finds fewer than one in five say their impression of the mainstream media is favorable."

Posted by J Heslin at April 13, 2006 01:32 AM

They believe they're better informed because they've read about it more in the news, but, the news is actually far more dominated by stories of violence and radicalism in the Islamic world than any other kind of story about them--CAIR and their ilk notwithstanding.

I have very negative opinions about CAIR. I don't have particularly negative feelings about Islam, but, I'm better educated on the subject than most Americans are. I know for a fact that most Muslims are non-violent, do not support terrorism, and fear and dislike the violent radicals, because numerous surveys of muslims worldwide have shown this to be true. I know that, indeed, the people who are most likely to be bombed by muslim terrorists are MUSLIMS, who die by far more often than we do from these thugs. I know that the radicalism is a fairly new development for the religion, as a reaction against certain civilizational failures. I know it has two basic branches:

1) The Salafism (sometimes called Wahabbism) of the Suni branch of Islam, and

2) The Khomenei-style radical movement within Shia Islam that started in Iran.

I also know that the majority of the world's muslim nations have never been exporters of terrorism, that a majority of them have been moving pretty briskly toward modernism and liberalism, and that indeed, in places like Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim nation by far) the forces of liberalism, moderation, and tolerance are fighting very hard against the forces of Salafist extremism, and winning.

I also know that all of these elements need our help, and aren't helped much at all by people who snottily declare that Islam itself is the enemy.

I know all this. Alas, most Americans don't. This is why, despite the fact that most Americans THINK they're more knowledgeable about Islam, they've grown to have a more antagonistic attitude toward it. And that's a real shame, since that can only hamper our efforts in the War on Terror in the long run.

Posted by Dean Esmay at April 13, 2006 01:51 AM

> I know for a fact that most Muslims are non-violent, do not support terrorism, and fear and dislike the violent radicals, because numerous surveys of muslims worldwide have shown this to be true.

Yet, those very same Muslims continue to tolerate the bad ones.

> I know that, indeed, the people who are most likely to be bombed by muslim terrorists are MUSLIMS, who die by far more often than we do from these thugs.

Interestingly enough, that fact doesn't support Esmay's belief that most Muslims are tryiing to get along with the infidels.

Intra-faith battles over which branch rules does not imply that they're opposed to the other branch ruling the infidels.

> that indeed, in places like Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim nation by far) the forces of liberalism, moderation, and tolerance are fighting very hard against the forces of Salafist extremism, and winning.

What were those forces doing during the stoning of the Playboy offices?

Esmay's "good Muslims" are like English pacifists during WWII - they are objectively pro-fascist. They'll tell you otherwise and point to their teachings, but "by their fruits" we know them.

Posted by Andy Freeman at April 13, 2006 07:38 AM

Or, contra Dean, Americans who were (rationally and blamelessly) ignorant about Islam now do know more than they did before; they really do know more about Islam than they did five years ago.

They may, however, not know as much as they think they do, regardless of knowing more than they did.

Posted by Sigivald at April 13, 2006 10:00 AM

Andy,
you say the good Moslems are still keeping mum about terrorism. I expect it's the same quiet sourtherners used to keep about the Klan, or Italians kept / keep about the Mob, or average Russians kept about Communism.

They keep mum because they want little Achmed and his siblings to grow up, with parents. They can't know who is or is not in charge of terrorists anymore than people knew who was who in my other examples. They just know to keep their mouths shut.

Posted by Steve at April 13, 2006 12:19 PM

"I know for a fact that most Muslims are non-violent..."

Logical if not factual, since most Muslims are human and most human are relatively non-violent.

"I know that the radicalism is a fairly new development for the religion"

What the hell does this codeword really mean? If it means killing then the statement is clearly false since the roots of and the entire history of this religion are violent.

Posted by ken anthony at April 13, 2006 12:36 PM

As a Canadian, I've been in debates about the U.S. similar to this one about Islam. It's not enough to point out the bad things; you also need to consider the good things to judge a people's character.

So... In comparison to the US, let's look for similar good things coming out of the Islamic world in recent decades, to balance the bad:

On Sept. 10th, 2001 Afghanistan was suffering from drought, and vast numbers of refugees were showing up in countries as far away as Australia. 80% of foreign aid to Afghanistan came from the US, despite bombings originating from Afghanistan against US citizens. This is just aid to Afghanistan - many other countries get substantial aid from the US, sometimes in the $billions.

What is the equivalent aid program in the Islamic world, on the same scale?

Does the Islamic world do equivalent scientific research to, well, if not the U.S., then Britain or Germany or even Canada?

How about engineering? Say, satellite launches, electronics, automobile or aircraft manufacturing? Or advanced construction projects built by people in the Islamic world, rather than for them by westerners?

Too materialistic? How about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, worker's rights or women's rights? Education programs for the poor? Medical research?

Or the right to throw out a bad government: Do most Islamic countries have the equivalent of a Canadian non-confidence vote, or a voter recall or a U.S. impeachment? Can these be demanded without fear of reprisals?

Freedom of religion? Are you as free to practise or promote any faith in most Islamic countries as you are in the US? Or criticize? Or parody? Or convert?

Answer these questions, and you'll have a better picture of the character of the Islamic world.

Posted by Roger Strong at April 13, 2006 01:45 PM

Here's a random fact that I wonder if anyone here is aware of:

Did you know that, in the tenth century, there were forty-five thousand Christians living in peace, in Baghdad?

Hmm? Anyone here know that?

I'd like to see things like that squared with blanket assertions about "ruling the infidels".

Posted by Billy Beck at April 13, 2006 02:03 PM

Living in a state of dhimmitude is not the same as living in peace.

Posted by Mike Schneider at April 13, 2006 02:12 PM

I know for a fact that most Muslims are non-violent, do not support terrorism, and fear and dislike the violent radicals, because numerous surveys of muslims worldwide have shown this to be true.

So what? That's like polling Soviet citizens circa 1980 for their opinions of war.

Posted by Mike Schneider at April 13, 2006 02:15 PM

> in the tenth century, there were forty-five
> thousand Christians living in peace, in Baghdad

And how would you rate their freedom of religion in the last few decades? Or freedom of religion for the Kurds in Iraq before the Americans arrived? Or thier freedom in Turkey? Or Syria?

Not long ago there were hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Islamic countries. Why do you suppose they left?

How many Jews do you think live in Saudi Arabia? (Hint: It's a government-enforced round number.)

Posted by Roger Strong at April 13, 2006 02:20 PM

I'd also like to see a citation; ["tenth century" OR "10th century" baghdad "forty-five thousand Christians" OR "45,000 Christians"] yields no hits.

A good reading of Spencer and Ye’or reveals that most of what people think they know about the so-called "Golden Age of Islam" is taqiyya propaganda.

Posted by Mike Scneider at April 13, 2006 02:34 PM

Hi Beck:

"Living in Peace" = Living in slavery.

Posted by 100 Bucks Says at April 13, 2006 02:58 PM

"And how would you rate their freedom of religion in the last few decades?"

The truth? I wouldn't rate it too much damned worse than Americans' regard for freedom in general, lately.

Well, okay... that might be a little harsh, but perhaps I can make the point that, sometimes, the name doth not the thing make. Sometimes, a thing is going wrongly named or even unnamed even while everyone's talking about it. Let me try to point out a thing, here.

There is some indignation about some Muslims doing nothing while other Muslims blow shit up. I would point out to you that, while it is certainly true that Islam fuses religion and state when the state is available, the most important thing about Islam in this context is that it does not require a state in order to exist. It's a lot like Judaism is this aspect. So, when people complain about the religion's adherents being "objectively" behind this or that state policy, they're generalizing the blame where they quite really ought not. Observe that Roger's list of crimes have been perpetrated by states. (Hint: the essence of this is in the hyphenation in Roger's final parenthetical.)

Michael: I don't blame you for asking, but you know I've got the goods when I say something like this. I wouldn't know from "hits" on this one, mate. This is real book work.

"As orthodoxy triumphed, toleration waned. From Harun al-Rashid on, the so-called 'Ordinance of Omar,' formerly ignored, was increasingly observed. Theoretically, though not always in practice, non-Moslems were now required to wear distinguishing yellow stripes on their clothing; they were forbidden to ride on horseback, but might use an ass or mule; they were not to build new churches or synagogues, but might repair old ones; no cross was to be displayed outside a church, no church bell should ring; non-Moslem children were not to be admitted to Moslem schools, but could have schools of their own: this is still the letter of the law -- not always enforced -- in Islam. Nevertheless there were 45,000 Christians in tenth-century Baghdad; Christian funeral processions passed unharmed through the streets; and Moslem protests continued against the employment of Christians and Jews in high office."

Will Durant: "The Story Of Civilization", Vol. IV ("The Age Of Faith -- A History of Medieval Civilization -- Christian, Islamic, and Judaic -- From Constantine to Dante: A.D. 325-1300"), p. 333. Immediately on the end of the sentence containing the figure of 45,000, there is a footnote (one of three in that whole quoted passage), charging the reader to one Sir T. W. Arnold, "Painting In Islam", Oxford, 1928.

Which one of us is going to go run it down?

Posted by Billy Beck at April 13, 2006 07:05 PM

> Observe that Roger's list of crimes have been
> perpetrated by states.

Fair enough. Change "United States" to Christianity, and my arguement still works.

Even the Soviet Union for all it's evils had plenty of scientific and engineering triumphs to show for itself.

Posted by Roger Strong at April 13, 2006 07:26 PM

Billy,

That's like judging all socialists by reference to Hitchens. The situation you cited was due to a few enlightened and cosmopolitan leaders, whose influence was ultimately rejected in favor of the Islamic traditions that Mike mentions.

Here's a cite I got off the web that you can confirm in your Durant, since I don't have one at hand right now:

"The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within." (Story of Civilization, vol.1, Our Oriental Heritage, New York 1972, p.459)

Posted by Ernest Brown at April 13, 2006 08:09 PM

Billy,

"the most important thing about Islam in this context is that it does not require a state in order to exist"

But it does believe in the initiation of force against others (jihad) in order to effect conversion (whether or not a formal state exists), which it practiced incessently throughout its history.

I second Mike's recommendation to check out the early history of jihad and dhimmitude in Ye'or.

Posted by Ernest Brown at April 13, 2006 08:17 PM

"The Koranic verse which dictates this fundamental character for dhimmitude is Sura 9:29:

"Fight against those who do not believe in Allah nor in the Last Day, and do not make forbidden what Allah and His Messenger have made forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, of those who have been given the Book [i.e. Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya [head tax] readily and are humbled."

Within the Islamic state, all non-Muslims who are not objects of war are considered to be dhimmis - communities who are allowed to exist within the Dar al-Islam by virtue of surrender under the conditions of a dhimmi pact. These are the permanently conquered peoples of Islam.

The historian Bat Ye'or has documented the social, political, economic and religious conditions of dhimmi communities - Jews and Christians - in the Middle East. It is a sad history of dispossession and decline. Legal provisions applying to dhimmis ensured their humiliation and inferiority, and to this was added the often crippling taxes which were allocated to support the Muslim community. Under conditions of dhimmitude there was also a constant risk of jihad conditions being reinvoked - of massacre and dispossession - if the dhimmi community is considered to have failed to live up to the conditions of their pact. History records many examples where dhimmis were attacked by their fellow Muslim citizens on such grounds, for example the massacres of the Jews of Granada in 1066, and of the Christians of Damascus in 1860.

Like sexism and racism, dhimmitude is not only manifested in legal and social structures, but in a psychology of inferiority, a will to serve, which the dominated community adopts in self-preservation.

"The law required from dhimmis a humble demeanor, eyes lowered, a hurried pace. They had to give way to Muslims in the street, remain standing in their presence and keep silent, only speaking to them when given permission. They were forbidden to defend themselves if attacked, or to raise a hand against a Muslim on pain of having it amputated. Any criticism of the Koran or Islamic law annuled the protection pact. In addition the dhimmi was duty-bound to be grateful, since it was Islamic law that spared his life."

http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/dhimmitude%20of%20the%20west%20aug02.html

Posted by Ernest Brown at April 13, 2006 08:24 PM

...the most important thing about Islam in this context is that it does not require a state in order to exist...

Under Shari'ah, state and religion are one and the same.

Posted by Mike Scneider at April 13, 2006 11:46 PM

Will Durant: "The Story Of Civilization", Vol. IV ("The Age Of Faith -- A History of Medieval Civilization -- Christian, Islamic, and Judaic -- From Constantine to Dante: A.D. 325-1300"), p. 333. Immediately on the end of the sentence containing the figure of 45,000, there is a footnote (one of three in that whole quoted passage), charging the reader to one Sir T. W. Arnold, "Painting In Islam", Oxford, 1928.

Which one of us is going to go run it down?

I suspect you'll have a lot better luck than I would finding an eighty-year-old book.

I'd certainly like to know who Arnold's source was.

Posted by Mike Schneider at April 14, 2006 12:07 AM

Mike,

Even enemies of Islam like the author below admit that there were brief exceptions to -jihad.-

"There have been times when some Muslim lands were fit for a civilized man to live in. Baghdad under Harun ar-Rashid in the eighth and early ninth centuries or Cordova under Abd ar-Rahman in the tenth come to mind, but these brief periods of civilization were based on the readiness to borrow from earlier cultures, to compile, translate, learn, and absorb--a bit like America before the closing of its mind. These cultural awakenings happened in spite of the spirit of Islam, which--unable to engender interesting ideas of its own--rejected others as a threat."

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/February1999/0299Trifkovic.htm

As I said earlier, it's like judging all socialists by the pre-2002 Hitchens, or like looking at Soviet history solely through the lens of the NEP. Islam founded itself and spread itself through the world via the INITIATION of force, and its followers are PROUD of that fact.

Posted by Ernest Brown at April 14, 2006 05:36 AM

Ernest --

"...a bit like America before the closing of its mind."

Yes, this is what I see. An old goodie on my shelves for a long time has been Henry Grady Weaver's "Mainspring Of Human Liberty" (1947), which sometimes almost glows in its analysis of Saracen culture. I've had cause (if not actual impetus) in recent years to go over it again for detailed historical referents, wondering how tightly he used the term "Saracen" (strictly pre-Islamic?). Knowing virtualy nothing about Islam, my political understanding of the thing has become rather moderately important since 9/11. That's because there are elements of it that I can live with at least as well as Christianity, for whatever that's worth from an atheist.

Looks, folx: this is just one of those matters of essentials that drives me nuts. And based on my looks at history, I'm pretty sure I see a lot of people -- everywhere & everyway -- talking about things that they really don't understand. A practical touchstone for me is the Paki guy who ran the convenience store down the street from me in Atlanta and prayed five times a day. This was the religion without the apprehensions of the state, not uncommon at all, and quite beyond all the indictments that I see in too many of these discussions.

What I see in these times is not fundamentally a matter of Islam, anymore than what we saw in prevailing twentieth century American politics was fundamentally American. I think what we have is twentieth century international revolutionary politics in neurotic Muslim dress (that would be something like: more specially neurotic than the classic Muslim neuroses), appealing to particular political mass-neuroses throughout the region, including things like un-resolved nationalisms (e.g., Kurds) and the general cultural lag in the region. Essentially, these people wanna be somebody, in the state.

Now look: this is very different from the Paki guy who comes here to run a convenience store for me. Like: the guy who was aghast on 9/11.

See what I mean?

Posted by Billy Beck at April 14, 2006 07:38 AM

Billy,

Your Pakistani friend is a self-selected emigre, who is here presumably because he was disgusted with the state of things back at home and wanted to improve himself. I'm not saying that he's a "good" or a "bad" Muslim, that's not my place, but I am saying that in the -overall- historical and conceptual scheme of Islam, propagation of the faith by violence is a dominant concept. (with the noted and ironic exception of the world's largest Islamic country, Indonesia)

Regardless of the truth value of religious beliefs, there IS a difference in the way that, say, Christianity and Islam were spread in the first 3 centuries of their existence, and there are reasons for that difference. No one is saying that most of the Muslims in this country are psychopaths on the level of Atta & Co, or that they can't be good Americans by choice. What -I- am saying is that the idea of Dar-al-harb vs. Dar al Islam is very real, and despite your friend's PARTICULAR rejection of it, it remains an important part of the conceptual apparatus of the Islamic world as a whole. This is why it is such a particularly fertile field for the "international revolutionary politics" (both Naziism and socialism) of resentment and superiority that you mention.

I think a more important question to ask is (as you noted in passing) why does Muhammed the Moderate Muslim have to risk his own life and the lives of his family to speak out against the moon-goons in an "altruistic" defense of free speech? Our free-thinking and fearless fourth estate, which presumably has a profession interest in the matter, is clamming up like Barry Bonds at a preliminary hearing.

"...appealing to particular political mass-neuroses throughout the region, including things like un-resolved nationalisms..."

You might want to check out the review here by Markam Pyle:

http://www.epinions.com/content_62998744708

and we deal with some intemperate lefties in the comments field:

Posted by Ernest Brown at April 14, 2006 09:24 PM

I think what we have is twentieth century international revolutionary politics in neurotic Muslim dress (that would be something like: more specially neurotic than the classic Muslim neuroses), appealing to particular political mass-neuroses throughout the region

Wahhabism and Iranian mullah-preferred brands of ultra-strict Sharia aren't twentieth century inventions; other than the fact that technologies like television spread the news of the latest fatwas and beheadings more quickly, none of the behavior is unfathomable to anyone who's read "The Iranian" (pub. 1908, prior to the advent of mass-communication, and therefore mob politics, in the middle-east).

including things like un-resolved nationalisms (e.g., Kurds) and the general cultural lag in the region. Essentially, these people wanna be somebody, in the state.

If L. Ron Hubbard invented Scientology merely as a lark to see how rich he could get fleecing credulous morons, Muhammad invented Islam as a vehicle for Arab domination and justification of murder, theft, slavery and rape as the will of God.

Now look: this is very different from the Paki guy who comes here to run a convenience store for me. Like: the guy who was aghast on 9/11. See what I mean?

The fundamentalists would merely retort (and this is a very common utterance): "He is not a real Muslim" -- and they're right. Your friendly Paki convenience store clerk's religion, and the religion of Muhammad, are two completely different things -- It's like seeing "gay" is the titles of a 50's MGM musical and a 70's brown-bag videotape. Islam is not presently a live-and-let-live religion, and it never was.

I could call myself a cardinal or a pope, mount up a horse in plate-mail and urge "onward, Christian soldiers!" while sacking heathen cities for gold -- but a Franciscan friar would vehemantly disagree that my faith in practice bore any resemblence to the teachings of Jesus.

- - - - -

"Will the Internet Slay Islam?"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/010828.php

Posted by Mike Schneider at April 15, 2006 01:43 AM

"The truth? I wouldn't rate it too much damned worse than Americans' regard for freedom in general, lately."

BING! Troll alert!

Yeeeah, Billy. All those stonings, beheadings, tortures and murders of Baptists in America just stick out like a sore thumb, don't they? Not to mention the genocidal destruction of Salt Lake City via nerve gas...

If things really were one TENTH as bad in America as you would have them be, so tha you can equate America with Islamofascism, then you wouldn't be posting here: you'd either be tugging your forelock like a good little serf... or you'd be dead.

Small loss either way.

Posted by DaveP. at April 16, 2006 09:03 AM

No sooner have I name-dropped Ye'or, when this little item appears on dhimmiwatch:

OSU librarian slapped with “sexual harassment” charge for recommending Eurabia by Bat Ye'or

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/011051.php

Posted by Mike Schneider at April 16, 2006 05:00 PM

Which one of us is going to go run it down? I suspect you'll have a lot better luck than I would finding an eighty-year-old book.

Actually, Amazon.com indicates Painting in Islam was reprinted as recently as 2004. But my public library down the road has a copy of the 1928 edition.

On page 54, Arnold writes "In the tenth century there were between 40,000 and 50,000 Christians in the city of Baghdad[2], and many other cities in the empire contained flourishing Christian communities."

Footnote 2 points to "A. Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams, p. 35 (Heidelberg, 1922)." Which of course only pushes the sources question back another step.

Citing the same source, Arnold writes two pages later "In the reign of the Madhi (775-785) a church was erected in Baghdad merely for the use of the Christian prisoners who had been taken captive in the constant campaigns against the Roman empire, and the fact that they needed a church of their own would seem to suggested that they belonged to the Orthodox Church, since there were Jacobite and Nestorian churches in abundance in Baghdad, and monasteries in almost every quarter of the city."

Posted by Andrew Rogers at April 17, 2006 01:18 PM

"Yeeeah, Billy. All those stonings, beheadings, tortures and murders of Baptists in America just stick out like a sore thumb, don't they?"

Let me explain something to you, you insipid little twit:

I expect things like that from a bunch of pre-modern savages who have never in all of fourteen hundred years known a rational culture of liberty, without any of its intellectual underpinnings. What I expect from a culture with generations of experience of those things does not include things like putting up with the outright forcible theft of about half what they produce in order to pay for things like goddamned SWAT teams blowing their doors down in the middle of the night, or bureaubots mandating what price an American can demand for his gallon of milk. Do you understand, punk? I could do this all day long: marshall the facts of non-liberty for you to ignore just so you can think you're better than a bunch of pre-modern savages, when the only difference between you and them is the details of force that you endorse over others' lives.

Now: go ahead and ask me how I know this about you.

Get out of my sight.

Posted by Billy Beck at April 18, 2006 09:26 AM

Billy, you did bring up comparisons first; and, despite how incensed you, me, and everyone else sensible are over the generally advanced state of rot in America, it's still nowhere close to anything resembling Sharia.

Posted by Mike Schneider at April 19, 2006 07:08 AM

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