Heresy and History

The American Spectator ^ | 5/14/2004 | Angelo M. Codevilla

[AlbionGirl]

Hopefully this isn't a duplicate post. I checked under 'Heresy' and found nothing.

[CWOJackson]

I printed this out to read, but I have to say, your comment broke me up: "I checked under 'Heresy' and found nothing."

[lancer]

I haven't seen it before but I thank you for posting it. Looks interesting.

[AlbionGirl]

You're welcome. It's unbelievably good. Author (good fellow Italian that he is!) has produced an erudite work.

House of Saud comes out looking like a big old piece of trouble indeed.

[Cicero]

It's an interesting question. IS Wahabism heretical? I wouldn't be too sure. What, specifically is heretical about it?

It's not enough merely to point out that Wahabism is intense and zealous. You can be orthodox and zealous too. Only secular scholars mistake zealotry for heresy.

The various Christian heresies that are named are demonstrably heretical. But in what regard is Wahabism heretical?

Frankly, from what little I know of it, the Qran is an extremely confusing book. Parts of it say that Christians and Jews should be tolerated as People of the Book, but other parts of it suggest that they should be killed or enslaved unless they convert to Islam. It depends which parts you consider more authoritative. Certainly Muhammed himself didn't treat the Jews very kindly.

I think this article involves a lot of wishful thinking about the nature of "orthodox" Islam.

[evad]

I'll be honest..I don't know the difference between hereseed and cherry seed, nor do I have a clue what "orthodox islam" is. But, I do know this. There's only one bunch of crazy son-a-biches out there that's flying planes into buildings, suicide bombing innocents and generally screwing up everything they touch.

That's these crazy a$$ed radical muslims and here's what they understand..
"They humiliated him, tortured him, beheaded him, and threw his body to the dogs"

That's what I'd do to every one I could catch.

[JimSEA]

thanks for posting

[AlbionGirl]

You're welcome.

[AlbionGirl]

That's what I'd do to every one I could catch.

Well, good hunting, I guess.

[ken5050]

A well reasoned, and written piece...However, I'd wager that 95% of the American people think that "Wahabi" is a Japanese horseradish.."

[tet68]

Interesting read.
Thanks.

[tiamat]

That's good stuff, and thanks for sharing it.

;-)

[Just Lori]

I'm adding this to my education pages, but just a note.... Even this author, it seems, is blaming America for the whole thing. I'm getting tired of that.

[Just Lori]

P.S. Last paragraph.

[Agent Smith]

Only 95%? BUMP for a great article.

[lainde]

bump for reference...Thanks for posting an informative article!

[AlbionGirl]

I don't think he's blaming America at all, he's just saying that we didn't understand the region when we took over stewardship from the Brits. I think his analysis is excellent, but to be honest w/you I don't see the Moslems, worldwide, being able to clean their own house. I hope I'm wrong though.

They're hoping it'll go away or we'll do just enough damage to scare the bejeepers out of those zealots this author is referring to. However, as the Berg butchery shows, these people aren't that easy to scare and have absolutely no interest in peace.

[AlbionGirl]

To my way of thinking, it would be heretical in the same way as a present day Christian sect adopting The Book of Leviticus at full value.

The differnce between the past Christian heresies he refers to in the article, and present day Islam heresies is that it's practitioners have the scope and means of destruction that Christian heretics, in the context of this article, never had, and that is what makes the difference so stark and the solutiion so timely and vital.

[A. Pole]

The American policy-makers who took over stewardship of the region from Britain never understood the problem. The intelligence office of the oil company ARAMCO is said to have explained Wahabism as the Muslim equivalent of Unitarianism. Insofar as the U.S. government understood Wahabism it expected the power of the Saudi family to restrain its extremism.

Interesting article.

[ninenot]

Thanks for the post. A nice summary, implying (correctly) that the State Department is not too useful, nor is ARAMCO.

Stuff we NEVER would have guessed, right??