I found a link on John Walker’s blog When Islam Breaks Down to by Theodore Dalrymple. John Walker called it “one of the clearest statements of the inherent problems of Islam in adapting to modernity.”
Intrigued, I started reading. It was quite good at first. Then I started wondering. His description of the plight of girls and women in a conservative, patriarchial, and Muslim community is moving. But I found that some of his conclusions were not warranted by the arguments he put forth.
In the example above, what would be the girl’s greatest problem:
1. Her father being conservative, not wanting to abandon his old ways?
2. Her father being a strong patriarch who will not see his will denied?
3. Her father being a Muslim?
It seems to me that there is little cause to suspect her father’s *religion* to be the source of the problem.
Here’s another sort of jump he makes:
Muhammad unfortunately bequeathed no institutional arrangements by which his successors in the role of omnicompetent ruler could be chosen (and, of course, a schism occurred immediately after the Prophet’s death, with some—today’s Sunnites—following his father-in-law, and some—today’s Shi’ites—his son-in-law). Compounding this difficulty, the legitimacy of temporal power could always be challenged by those who, citing Muhammad’s spiritual role, claimed greater religious purity or authority; the fanatic in Islam is always at a moral advantage vis-à-vis the moderate. Moreover, Islam—in which the mosque is a meetinghouse, not an institutional church—has no established, anointed ecclesiastical hierarchy to decide such claims authoritatively. With political power constantly liable to challenge from the pious, or the allegedly pious, tyranny becomes the only guarantor of stability, and assassination the only means of reform. Hence the Saudi time bomb: sooner or later, religious revolt will depose a dynasty founded upon its supposed piety but long since corrupted by the ways of the world.
Here’s how I read it:
1. Muhammad didn’t build an institution that could pick a competent successor.
2. Thus resultet strife and schism.
3. Plus people claiming moral superiority have kept challenging the rulers using the prophet as an example.
4. The first jump: Thus, fanatics in Islam are always at a moral advantage. How does that follow? Everything said before is just as true for Christianity. And certainly some Christian fanatics seem to have enough followers of their own. So the issue of fanatics gathering fools around them seems to be a universal problem, independent of religion.
5. Next, the church doesn’t have a power structure that could decide claims to power. I don’t see how the catholic power structure has helped much, since there was certainly enough strife and warfare with the power structure in place.
6. Second jump: Since there always holier-than-thou fanatics, tyranny becomes the only guarantor of stability. Huh? How about solving the social and economic problems instead of resorting to tyranny? How come we’ve been able to deal with holier-than-thou fanatics without resorting to tyranny?
7. The rest is just weird: Assassination as the only means of reform. Well, maybe if the tyranny is a given. But even then, there is sometimes reform.
8. How the “Saudi time bomb” follows in any way from anything he said before, I don’t understand.
I’m not impressed.
There’s more crap about Christians and the Renaissance, ignoring the age of religious tolerance and scientific progress in moorish times.
There’s random association between the death penalty and religion, claims about Islam and “free inquiry”, etc.
#Islam