Nothing. The Catholic hierarchy demanded conformity to its catechism or it was excommunication city for you. It took the Renaissance to introduce skepticism as a method and the requirement that assertions be proven.

Jasra Jedi: “…And then, my dear, perhaps it will become obvious to you that the discerning factor is not the religion per se but the socio-economic-cultural-political framework that surrounds it that does not promote questioning and reinforces rote learning and a blind obedience to authority. Of the male kind, may I add. Usually a much much older male who is out of touch with the problems of the youth of today.”

If I may translate Jasra: Men are the root of all evil.

Jasra, Jasra, Jasra, if only you knew how evil women could be.

You do have a grip on something with this socio-economic-cultural-political framework idea. Irshad Manji makes the same point in a different way when she talks about the Arabization of Islam, in that Islam is being used to carry Arab values and imposing them on other cultures by conflating them with Koranic values.

But there is a chicken and egg thing here in that the literal interpretation of the Koran favored by the fundamentalist hammerheads reinforces the cultural orthodoxy which reinforces the fundamentalist interpretation and so on and so on, round and round, tighter and tighter.

Steve

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Thats right. He just holds them responsible for murdering 3000+ people on Sep11th Ethan. LOL

-Ibn

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Whoa, there cowboy. I don’t wish ill on the Muslim world. I’m for getting along with everyone. My threshhold of tolerance is passed when Muslims do violence to further their religion. When Muslims slaughter Americans by the thousands in our own home and then cheer it across all of Muslim-Land, that inspires my contempt and relentless opposition and criticism. However, should Muslims decide to live and let live, I’d be happy to change my opinion, give up my opposition, and give praise where praise is due.

Steve

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You missed my sentence on the subject!

I stand by my sentiment. I don’t think that Islam, in general, promotes the kind of learning that requires questioning one’s own tenets. Maybe Sufism. Christianity has the same problem in many of the more fundamentalist sects.

Post-enlightenment Christianity has been far less of a bother in terms of intellectual repression. As I said, there are sects that do promote it, especially here in the US. The Pat Robertson crowd, AS WELL AS some of the more super liberal churches who suffer from that Leftist ‘stuck on stupid’ disease. At least I know that neither of those are wholly representative of Christianity. The fundies stick to the Old Testament dogmatism/literalism/rules and the super liberal ones can’t comprehend anything but a strictly pacifist Jesus, even to the extent of selling their soul to accomodate murderers. (See: The Anglican Church)

As for the African Christian, a lot of it has to do with experiences. Most European Christians have been inundated with books, movies and a culture that challenges their beliefs. It’s harder to be a devout Christian in Europe than a devout Muslim, really. Euopeans don’t fear mocking Christians. (Maybe because they don’t threaten to kill people).

On the other hand, you’re right about the male-dominated society. Arab (and in general, Middle Eastern) societies are tribal in nature. Always have been. Mohammed’s Islam was in a sense aneffort to create a ‘supertribe’, where everyone was a member and in general, there was equality. The only inequalities were between the tribe and the not-tribe. But there was nothing to prevent anyone from joining the tribe, so why would anyone want to be part of the not-tribe? (Except perhaps that some may find the practices of the tribe hypocritical.)

In any case, I think that if anything, the primary problem facing the Muslim world today is hypocracy saddled with endemic corruption. It’s a cocktail of problems that cannot easily be solved without a major liberalizing change in the environment. And an Islamist ‘enlightenment’ is not the right way (though it could be an slow, indirect, and dangerous to the rest of the world method to make the people sick of religion in polity)

Education will help, as would someone telling Saudi to stop crushing Islamic History. If there were honest studies of Islamic Archaeology (such as Biblical Archaeology is) that would be a breath of fresh air into an ossified and dogmatic religion as Islam has been since the 10th century when the doors of itjihad were closed. One of the best examples of this are the early Korans that were discovred in Yemen. They were not the same as the modern Koran, showing that there WAS textual development prior to the Othmanic reclension. If that’s true, then that, if NOTHING else, historicalizes the Koran as the Bible has been.

Don’t get me wrong, Jasra. I, unlike Steve, don’t wish ill on the Muslim world. I do, however dislike Islam strongly. I can safely say that I dislike most organized religions, but there’s always something to keep from each. I have found nothing like that in Islam, because everything that Islam has seems to have been plagiarized from Gnosticism, Christianity and Judaism, and taken to the extreme to show an appearance of piety over substance.

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Please explain to me what it is about Christainity or Judaism that ‘promotes quesitoning one’s own tenets?’ vis a vis Islam? (And if you are going to use people like the 9/11 bombers, then have the decency to compare them to the settler hassidic jews, and not to someone like Elie Weisel)

And then, explain to me why an African Christian (Ehtiopia, Egypt) is significantly less comfortable questioning his/her own belief system than a WASP from New England.

And then, my dear, perhaps it will become obvious to you that the discerning factor is not the religion per se but the socio-economic-cultural-political framework that surrounds it that does not promote questioning and reinforces rote learning and a blind obedience to authority. Of the male kind, may I add. Usually a much much older male who is out of touch with the problems of the youth of today.

Ethan .. you are a very intelligent and well read person. And beleive you me, we both want to live in a world where crazy jihadists can leave us both alone. You as (i am assuming a white american male) and me as a moslem arab woman. So, my adivce to you is to pick your arguments and battles very wisely.

Islam does have a concpet of ijtihad. Which was killed off. The problem is not really as much of Islamic jurisprudence as it is of a deeper cultural problem which explains why the Arab world failed so miserably in all and any of the metrics in the Arab UNDP Report.

Fix the underlying problem whish is the socio-economic make up of society, and you fix alot of other things. And no, I dont know how to do that. I know that more people need to speak out. But, I am unsure that your methodology actually helps, because I think you are just trying to lambast Islam. Which is funny, because you generated a response from me, even though I am hardly a die hard Moslem by any stretch of the imagination. So …

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Could it simply be that as developing countries what we need is the “real science” to go forward rather than the arts and philosophy?

Generalisations again you two…

Now now, Mahmood. I’m not saying anything about the arts. I’m talking from a hard science perspective. Only one of the many muslims I have ever met has been in a hard science; A7med did his research on stars in galaxies. (And he was a rather devout Palestinian, who got married to a nice Jordanian girl. I think they’re in Jordan now, though we lost contact.)

ANYWAY.. I was pointing out that there are more Muslims in the applied engineering fields – the sciences that are useless for R&D. But they are also the sciences that don’t challeneg one’s beliefs. It’s a matter of doing repetitive equations of things that have been solved, and not looking for new things.

I stand by my sentiment. I don’t think that Islam, in general, promotes the kind of learning that requires questioning one’s own tenets. Maybe Sufism. Christianity has the same problem in many of the more fundamentalist sects.

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Mahmood, could you explain to me and any other stray Americans what those levels mean? I’ve heard them referenced before but the whole Great Britain-based educational system is a mystery to me.

Mahmood: “Her selection of subject and her choice of studies to pursue in university is “teen psychology” as a specialisation.”

Mahmood, did you keep a straight face when she told you her major? Be honest. Did you and the wife not bust out laughing in private at some point? Did you both not consider that you already had the equivalent of degrees in teen psychology?

Speaking as your educational counselor, I recommend against a psych degree for Amna. I’ve got a Psych BS and look at the mess it’s made of me. You can’t get a decent job in the psychology racket unless you have a master’s, although an undergrad degree is splendid preparation for making interesting small talk in the unemployment line.

My advice to you is to tell Amna that if she wants a degree in teen psych, she has to be engaged by the time she graduates so that she’ll have a means of support.

Mahmood: “This is a virtually unheard of field where we are.”

There might be a good reason for that, Mahmood.

Mahmood: I understand that a lot of her compatriots are choosing similar streams, and I am encouraging her in her choice and not insisting on any particular discipline other than cautioning her that when she comes back (if she chooses to that is) she might not get a job if her choice is very vertical.”

You might ask her to consider minoring in Comp Sci. Whatever field she enters, a knowledge of computers will make her more capable in it. And if it doesn’t work out in her main field, she has a backup plan for another field.

Mahmood: “Hanan, my middle daughter seems to be treading the path of art and I suspect that she will go to university to study art. I have no idea what Arif wants to do yet as he’s too young to decide fully yet.”

Art is not a bad field. You actually learn to make something for which people will pay. It’s not like history or sociology, which give you no specific job skill.

OK, I’ve had a little fun with you, Mahmood, but I take your point.

Steve

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