Originally posted by Ray K
Simply that any government that derives its legal system from a religion is necessarily combining church and state.
As I pointed out to you, at least two of the forms of sharia are derived from the Napoleonic code and the British legal system. This is a holdover from colonial times. When it came time for these newly-independent countries to create a national law framework, it was easier to simply continue the law system that the European colonial power had put in place. So what they did was make a half-hearted attempt to call this "sharia", but they reverse-engineered the justification for the laws. So for example, a law against drug trafficking existed as a result of the Napoleonic code. After independence, Iraqi legates started with that conclusion, and worked backwards to find some Koranic verse or legal principle, no matter how obscure, that they could claim was the sharia underpinning that point of law. But in reality, it was the Napoleonic code.
I read a while back that Turkey was the only Muslim (or maybe Arab) country with a constitutional separation of church and state.
1. It isn't the only Muslim country with separation of C/S, as we have discussed here.
2. It can't be the only Arab country with separation of C/S, since Turkey isn't an
Arab country at all.
I don't understand why Afghanistan is exempt. They implemented sharia and many Muslims I've spoken to argued that it was the truest implementation of Islamic law (this was before the fall of the Taliban)
You're getting lost in the argument again. Once more:
1. You made the claim that "prosletyzing Muslims are CONSTITUTIONALLY ALLOWED to convert non-Muslims. They are not expelled from the country for conversion",
2. I said "you are wrong, except for Afghanistan". I exempt Taliban-era Afghanistan because that govt, and its laws,
do not exist anymore.
3. So in order for your statement to be true in the PRESENT, you need to show me countries where this claim still holds.
As for your point that Muslims have claimed that Taliban-era Afghanistan was the truest form of sharia - I have seen and read scholars who claimed that the Taliban had actually betrayed sharia, and were imposing their opinions on the people. Here's an excellent article from the Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0920/p1s3-wosc.html
And here is a book by a Pakistani journalist that details how the Taliban were hypocrites in their own application of sharia:
http://www.epinions.com/content_36171452036
You list 3 points, but gloss over the fact that points 1 & 3 are about Islam. 1) American support for Israel is a religious issue to many Muslims (well, from reading their comments).
American foreign policy in the Mideast? No; that's not a religious issue. For one thing, it spans far more than just the Israeli issue. It also includes Americna intervention in Beirut, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, etc. And it also includes the complex issues of petroleum politics. It's primarily a political issue, with some religious overtones when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian topic.
But even when discussing the ISR-PAL issue, these people are far more upset over the loss of territory, homes, businesses, and the marginalization of several million Palestinians than they are about the religious factor.
2) the stationing of US forces in Arabia is described as "infidels in the Holy Land"
By some on the fringe, yes this is true.
It may not be about Islam as you see it, but it was certainly about Islam to the Muslims who were involved in
the attack.
So? That doesn't make it about Islam. Rationalizations are easy to find; people have sprayed graffiti and tried to defend themselves by saing "it's about free speech". The truth is that it was vandalism, pure and simple.
Just because the 50 or so people involved in the attack saw it as an Islamic issue DOES NOT MAKE IT AN ISLAMIC ISSUE for the entire body of believers. Nor does it make it an Islamic issue for Muslims in general.
Do not assume that your conception of Islam is the one that all Muslims share.
My conception of Islam is
far closer to the general mainstream, than the conception of Islam held by the 50 or so al-Quaeda attackers.
Your mistake is in assuming that they hold the mainstream view - they categorically do not. Your view is analogous to saying that Fred Phelps and his band of anti-gay bigots are the mainstream of christianity.
Because it collapsed into religious fundamentalism? You tell me what you think. All I know is that significant attacks are being made on U.S. soil, Muslim terrorists are trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and there is no widespread condemnation of these attacks from the majority of Muslims.
"All you know is..."
Then let me suggest that your problem is a serious lack of exposure. After the 9/11 attack, every Arab embassy in the world sent condolences to the USA. Moreover, opinion polls in these countries show that the majority of citizens simultaneously reject the terrorism and teh attempt to connect to Islam, but at the same time expressing rage at American foreign policy.
Here are some small examples:
http://islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0206-443
http://www.al-islam.org/begin/index.html
A link to a Muslim jurist who categorically rejects the use of force as being founded in sharia:
http://www.muslim-lawyers.net/news/index.php3?aktion=show&number=78
And here is a page with 37 separate links and references to moderate voices in the Arab world, including those who have criticized the Taliban:
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/nineeleven.html
My opinion is because they abandoned Greek thought.
OK, I admit that this totally absolutely confuses me.
It is your claim that the Islamic empires waned not because of:
a. improved technology of the west;
b. European expansion of trade into the New world;
c. the industrial revolution in the West;
d. the Age of Enlightenment;
e. superior European military technology;
But because they
abandoned Greek thought? Would you care to elaborate and substantiate that point?
Muslim "liberators". The classic example of the victors writing the history.
Again: you don't know enough of the history here to be making such sweeping statements. What makes you think that, on a comparative scale, life under a Muslim rule might not be preferable for some cities/peoples?
Wouldn't that depend,
a priori, on how bad life was for them in the first place?
And it's entirely inconceivable to you, I suppose, that a particular population that had been ruled by Byzantium, or by the Sasanid Persians, might prefer life under the Muslims?
How did Indian Hindus feel about their Muslim "liberators"? What about the European
Christians?
I did not say that the example of Muslims-as-liberators was how things were *everywhere*, so your strawman here isn't working. In fact, I believe I pointed out several conditions/reactions to the conquest.
My opinion is also that the West is too powerful now. However, my concern is that the West does not recognize the potential for real problems and keeps pretending that Islam is somehow compatible with Western ideals. At this point, I have seen nothing to indicate that it is.
Your argument presents a false dichotomy. Islam can be different from the west, without being a mutually exclusive incompatibility.
And, for the record, I am not convinced that it Islam is incompatible in the sense you obviously mean here; i.e., that it is something that the west should be afraid of.
To put this another way: 99% of the Muslims in the world wouldn't care less about the US, if the three things I mentioned before were rectified:
1. American foreign policy in the Mideast;
2. US support of the corrupt Saudi regime, and
3. the stationing of US military forces on Saudi soil.
You are engaged in blaming the victim here, when you blame the Muslims for responding to these three items. Bluntly, if the US doesn't like the reaction, then the US should cease from taking the initial actions that caused the reaction.
Are these the prominent individuals like Salman Rushdie who have a death sentence hanging over their heads, or people like Ibn Warraq that are forced to write anonymously?
As I mentioned - you are vastly underinformed about the state of Islamic thought and dissidence on these matters. You know a half-dozen facts about Islam, and from those facts have hobbled together a crippled viewpoint that has been systematically shown to be flatly wrong.
That's a cop-out. It is very common for the defenders of a religion to characterize violence from their religion as coming from a distorted "fringe" element, or that the violence has nothing to do with the religoin.
Your position is ridiculous. When a particular viewpoint is only held by 1% of the people, it is BY DEFINITION a fringe viewpoint. Period.
So when someone says that viewpoint XYZ doesn't represent the mainstream thought of that religion, it is not a cop-out. It is a
statistical fact.
Poppycock. If you want to absolve Islam of the massacre of Christians, then you must absolve Christianity of its atrocities against other religions.
Red herring again. I am not absolving anyone. I am providing useful context and background information. Which, as we have seen from the holes in even your own arguments, is sorely needed.
Are you willing to pretend that all religious persecution in history is better explained by other motivations?
All? No. Most persecution? I would say so. I think people use religion as a rationalization to do the things they want to do anyhow - but cannot find the proper moral grounds to carry out. If they can somehow wrap their hatred in the cloak of religion, it lends an air of morality to it, and removes the need to question the motivations from a truly critical standpoint.
Instead of acknowledging problems with Islam or directly refuting the charges on Falwell.com, you are instead counter-attacking Christianity. That is the misdirection I am talking about.
As I indicated - it's not misdirection. I am providing sorely needed background info, to a country that is in the throes of near-hysteria over Muslims.
Did the Prophet Muhammed marry a 9-year-old girl? Yes or no.
Did he have more wives than the Q'ran permits? Yes or no.
Answered in another post.