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Islamic Culture(s) Thread

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TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#1: Jul 2nd 2017 at 5:14:31 PM

EDIT: It might be appropriate to rename this "Islamic Cultures and Societies Thread"

Fourteen centuries. Over one billion people. From Northwest Africa to the Pacific. From Chechinya to Sudan. Not accounting for the Diasporah, all the countries where Muslims are a minority. Since Colonialism happened, fears of loss of cultural identity, of corruption by the decadent values of the dominant powers ("the West") have shaken these societies even as they transformed, in imitation or opposition to a world that seemed to demand that they change or die.

While those who live in hyper-productive Western(-style) societies (let's call them Richlands) suffer from many alienating problems,

some Muslims seem more concerned with things like gender desegregation, which from where I stand sounds like a strange thing to worry about.

In fact, I wonder what Islamic scholars all over the world have to say about this sort of thing, if they've given it any thought at all. The seemingly easy answer, that I know of, is that dedicating your life to anything other than Worshipping God and obeying His Command is idolatrynote , that one should not fetishize money, success, status, love, material goods, or anything else, and only behave in a way meant to satisfy The One God, rather than all those "gods". And it is their job to help us figure out what that is.

I think there's a very interesting discussion to be had about whether an ideal/observant Islamic society would look like, whether it's a place people could sustain, and want to live in, and whether it would not get outcompeted into irrelevance or extinction by success-worshipping Richlands.

Another, similar discussion could be had about emotionally-intelligent societies where people love themselves and each other and leave healthy, fulfilling, meaningful lives at a sustainable pace, and how much overlap, if any, would there be with Islamic societies, and whether Richlands would out-compete those as well.

Islamic historians, for obvious reasons, tend to have a very dark (if romanticised) view of pre-Islamic society, while having a very positive view of Islamic society under Muhammad and the Four Righteous Caliphs: Islam was "done right", everyone was devoted to the Cause and the Lord, and conflicts were solved with eminent wisdom by humble and selfless leaders, who were obeyed by devoted, honest followers. No poverty, no unfairness, no alienation: one Umma, under God, with Justice for All.

Western and Muslim-Liberal historians tend to focus on the Abbaside Caliphate in Baghdad and the Umawi Caliphate in Al Andalus as the Golden Age: ethnically and culturally diverse societies where the arts and sciences flourished, where artists and intellectuals had a lot of freedom to speculate and create, and where living standards were relatively high across all sociey.

Rich and interesting as those periods were, there's a much wider range of Islamic societies over space and time, examples of what "Islam" meant to different people in different circumstances, and, perhaps, a few hints of what Islam might mean today and in the future.

There's the potential for a lot of Flame Bait, so let's try extra hard to keep things civil. In particular, showing amusement, contempt, or any other kind of sneer at other people's struggles, confusions, hypocrisies, frustrations, and tragedies, shall be highly frowned-upon, especially when you would not expect the people in question to be as courteous as we wish to be here. Stay compassionate, stay respectful, stay civil. The purpose of this thread is to understand, not judge.

Now, as for opening questions:

edited 3rd Jul '17 4:59:51 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#2: Aug 24th 2017 at 12:13:44 PM

Opening this. Imma just comment that I've constructed a setting which is a super-soft Muslim country. Spent several centuries with religious war between Muslims and non-Muslims and eventually a Grand Compromise which allowed Islam to become the largest religion but forever stipulated that religion has no place whatsoever in politics, government or anything related to them. Not even in religion-inspired legislation.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Grafite Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: Less than three
#3: Aug 24th 2017 at 1:19:56 PM

I do think one of the problems in most islamic ideologies is the fervor to which they adhere to their faith, almost like football team fans, which results in sectarian violence (Shias vs Sunnis). Salafism is the worst from what I heard.

That is something that has to go away in order for the religion to grow and assure peacefulness between everyone. Interesting thread by the way, not too many new ones come up these days.

edited 24th Aug '17 1:22:09 PM by Grafite

Life is unfair...
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#4: Aug 24th 2017 at 9:38:10 PM

The assumption that I see embedded within the Idolatry principle is that everyone must idolize something, and therefore the only acceptable object of such veneration is God. There is a lot of room for intellectual abuse if one assumes that "idolize" must mean "construct your entire life around this one thing to the exclusion of all else", which seems a recipe for mandatory extremism.

Mind you, it isn't just Islam that has this problem- Chinese and Soviet Communism had it too, among many, many other examples.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
SantosLHalper Since: Aug, 2009
#5: Oct 12th 2017 at 12:26:10 PM

I didn't know many Chams had converted to Islam before I took a course on Vietnamese history. I vaguely remember reading that the Chams had converted to Hinduism in the Middle Ages, but my knowledge of them didn't go much further than that.

eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#7: Oct 26th 2017 at 7:25:33 AM

Ooh, I've been on a bit of a reading binge on this very subject lately. Bugis culture is a pretty fascinating subject in general - they're a wide-ranging seafaring people with a seriously interesting political history, a very advanced financial system for their time, and one of the largest repositories of pre-modern written literature in the South Pacific. The pre-Islamic creation myth La Galigo is one of the world's longest literary works, and likely won't be fully translated for another five years or so. On top of that, they gave the Dutch one of the hardest fights of their colonial conquests in the Makassar War, which saw the VOC allying with the rebellious Bone state to overthrow the Bugis Sultanate of Gowa-Tallo on a years-long campaign on land and sea. And finally, their writing system just looks plain cool.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#8: Dec 9th 2017 at 12:20:02 PM

The assumption that I see embedded within the Idolatry principle is that everyone must idolize something, and therefore the only acceptable object of such veneration is God. There is a lot of room for intellectual abuse if one assumes that "idolize" must mean "construct your entire life around this one thing to the exclusion of all else", which seems a recipe for mandatory extremism.

It's effectively a recipe for mandatory fundamentalism/totalitarianism. You could say that the Scriptures' injuctions imply all Muslims should functionally be monks and nuns with an imperative to found families and perform productive work, who should still frame every aspect of their earthly existence in terms of what furthers their spiritual eternal futurepleases the LORD. So, not unlike the more devout kinds of Calvinists or certain types of Orthodox and Conservative Jews.

However, a totalitarian way of life does not need to be an extremist way of life. Just because you think you have to ask yourself "what would God want me to do?" at each and every point of your daily routine does not mean that the answers you come up with (or, more likely, that you trust some expert authority scholar erudite to come up with) are going to be 'extreme'.

Although of course one man's extreme is another man's tame, so that can be debatable.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#9: Dec 9th 2017 at 1:26:13 PM

Its a question, I think, of a rejection of increasing social complexity. There is a very large faction (not, however, a majority) of people who passionately desire a simple set of social roles and expectations that apply to everyone all the time. Authoritarianism and Autocracy have been the go-to institutional solutions to this desire for thousands of years. Very naturally, given the influence and importance of faith to so many people (a very large majority), this often takes the form of some kind of theocracy, either as a lifestyle choice, a governing structure, or both.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#10: Dec 9th 2017 at 1:52:19 PM

To be fair "what should I do" is an extremely frustrating question, and it can be nice to have an Infallible Father (or an interpreter thereof) dictating the Right Thing to you when your actual father turns out to have been another fallible mortal all along. Not that you'd ever admit this out loud if you're a pious son, but you'd know it in your gut all the same.

Heck, secular Philosophers have been attempting to reduce morality to something neat and consistent that you could derive from First Principles for a very long time. Often as part of a full-fledged Encyclopedic Categorical System of Everything.

However, religious and secular folks together have usually failed to follow through with these ideas with consistency. Early Islamic society was allegedly this righteous utopia where everyone got along just fine, but given how quickly things fell apart after Muhammad's death, I have my doubts about that narrative.

edited 9th Dec '17 1:54:45 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#11: Dec 10th 2017 at 4:27:05 PM

You should. The failure of theocracies to suppress nonconformity (or even to survive in the face of it) is matched only by the failure of secular political philosophies to do the same thing.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
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