This is how muslims worship.
Posted on 11/22/2021 8:21:20 PM PST by Cronos
The Islamist movement, which seeks to apply medieval Islamic laws and build a worldwide caliphate, has expanded massively in the past half-century. But it now faces a significant and growing counter-movement, especially in Muslim-majority countries. Growing numbers of Muslims, spurred by shocks like the fall of Kabul, fear and reject this radical version of Islam. Awareness of the anti-Islamist surge has been largely limited to those directly involved but it deserves to be much better known.
Anti-Islamism comprises four complementary trends. Going from quietest to most radical, they are: moderate Islam, irreligiosity, apostasy, and conversion to other religions. All have an international presence but, for illustrative purposes, I shall focus in each case on a key Middle Eastern country: moderate Islam in Egypt, irreligiosity in Turkey, atheism in Saudi Arabia, and conversion in Iran.
Moderation: Husni Mubarak's 30-year police state so consistently accommodated Islamists that Egyptians dared not oppose them. His fall from power in 2011 finally permitted an open expression of views, which the one-year Islamist rule of Mohamed Morsi further galvanized. The results have been hyperbolically anti-Islamist, as seen by street attacks on Muslim Brotherhood-appearing men, by women discarding the hijab, and the immense popularity of scathingly anti-Islamist figures such as Islam al-Behairy, Ibrahim Issa, Mukhtar Jom'ah, Khaled Montaser, and Abdallah Nasr. Even President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former Islamist sympathizer, has accommodated these moderate sentiments.
Irreligiosity: Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has dominated the country's politics since 2002 with the goal of raising a "pious generation." But younger Turks are adopting non-Islamic ways. Survey research by Volkan Ertit found the sacred having less influence regarding such matters as belief in supernatural beings, clothing that reveals body shape, premarital flirtation, non-marital sex, and homosexuality. A government report documented the appeal of deism among religious school students. A 2012 WIN/Gallup survey found that "Not religious" persons make up 73 percent of Turkey's population (the highest of 57 countries surveyed).
Apostasy: In Saudi Arabia, flat-out rejection of Islam "is spreading like wildfire" says a Saudi refugee. The WIN/Gallup survey found that "convinced atheists" make up 5 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia, the same as in the United States. The monarchy has responded in two ways. First, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman partially acquiesced to such sentiments by opening the country to many modern ways. Second, he promulgated anti-terrorist regulations that punish "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based." Yes, the monarchy fights atheism with anti-terrorist regulations.
Conversion: Shay Khatiri, an analyst, writes about Iran that "Islam is the fastest shrinking religion..., while Christianity is growing the fastest." The Christian Broadcast Network goes further, asserting that "Christianity is growing faster in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in any other country in the world." David Yeghnazar of Elam Ministries finds that "Iranians have become the most open people to the gospel." According to a former Muslim, now an Evangelical priest, "We find ourselves facing what is more than a conversion to the Christian faith," he said. "It's a mass exodus from Islam." Lela Gilbert and Arielle Del Turco report that the mullahs consider Christianity "an existential threat" to their rule. Reza Safa predicts Iran will become the first Muslim-majority country to convert to Christianity. Confirming these trends, the Iranian intelligence minister, Mahmoud Alavi, publicly expressed fears about Muslims converting to Christianity.
Some observations about this anti-Islamist surge:
It appears limited to Muslim-majority countries; among Muslims minorities, especially in the West, Islamism continues to grow.
Conspiracy theories to the contrary, it results almost entirely from internal developments among Muslims; non-Muslim have but a limited supporting role. As ever, Muslims determine their own destiny.
Anti-Islamists almost diametrically oppose Islamists on matters of faith, family, social relations, politics, and beyond. Among other implications, free-thinkers and ex-Muslims tend to be intensely pro-West, pro-America, and pro-Israel.
Expect anti-Islamist surges to appear in Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, for Islamic trends historically begin in the Middle East and migrate outwards.
Thus does Islamism inadvertently drive Muslims away from Islam and potentially shake the very foundations of the faith. One Christian broadcaster even maintains that "the hold of Islam on the Muslim people has crumbled." Radical utopianism has pushed the world's second largest religious community into a concealed but severe crisis with volatile results.
Islam IS Islamism
Only the Muslims themselves can resolve this tug of war issue. All other more established religions would be too inhibited, too ‘civilized’ to apply the sufficient, sustained and uncompromising force needed to produce any real changes.
Islamism is pure Islam. It is the less violent and revolutionary versions that are heretical versions of it
No, heretical Islam cannot survive pure Islam.
No, Islamists are very vocal minority within the Muslim community. But very vocal, everybody else is scared of them.
This article is actually quite accurate. Muslims are falling away from Islam and especially the Islamists. Muslim countries, long given away as impossible mission field are now the best (not really safe, saints are made there as we speak) Christian mission fields.
Exactly. The Hadiths and Quran are so clearly bull..
In contrast, the Gita, the Gathas, Daoist and Buddhist philosophy is not bull... even if we disagree with them.
Taqiyya
Thats what it is
Not neccessarily. I know of Iranians who have converted either to Christianity or Zoroastrianism. And many Indian and Bahraini muslims who are atheists.
According to the EHIS data from 2015, 69.8% of women and girls age 15-49 in the highest wealth quintile in Egypt have experienced FGM in comparison to 94.4% of women and girls in the same age range in the lowest quintile.
(abbreviations: EHIS = Egyptian Health Issues Survey; FGM = female genital mutilation)
I certainly hope Pipes is correct about the trends he postulates in his article, but if Egypt is an example of a trend to moderation in Islam, the information at the head of this comment suggests it’s an odd sort of moderation.
Islam will become the dominant religion because it is the most forceful in its expression and the West is afraid of it and is mostly secularized.
What Islam needs is for some brave soul to nail his 95 theses to the mosque door. Fundamentalist Islam seeks a 6th Century tribal society like in Afghanistan. This by necessity needs a totalitarian government to enforce orthodoxy. However Western ideas have crept in and I believe this article describes exactly how this has driven people away from Islamism.
However if Islam will continue to be a driving religious force it needs both a reformation and an Enlightenment.
Most will not.
It is a system where the mohammedan male only needs to submit to a more powerful mohammedan male.
All the rest of the world is beneath him and should leap to supply his slightest whim. They are not even people.
ISlam will easily survive....and in fact if it looks like it could take over the world they’d all jump on board even if they don’t practice it.
This is how muslims worship.
Every "reformation" - whether Christian or islamic or hindu etc. looks to return to the "core" of the religion - or what they perceive as the core.
Christianity's core is Jesus - just as Buddhism's core is Buddha, etc.
But Islam's core is Muhammad - a warlord who ordered an aged female poet to be killed for mocking him.
Islam has already HAD its reformation - that happened in the late 1700s with the foundation of the Wahabbi movement - the same movement that right now leads Saudi Arabia, Qatar as well as the Taliban, Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabab etc.
It's forcefulness is also a factor against it. Note that in France, among 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims, the levels of irreligiosity is in line with the rest of the population
I think you forget the nationalist tensions in Islam. the Iranians are getting increasingly nationalistic and want the re formation of the Sassanid empire - but they seethe that they were conquered by their former slaves, the Arabs.
They see Islam as the Arab religion.
In Turkey, Islam is taking a second place to Turkishness because the Turks are seeing less acceptance of themselves among Arabs and Iranians.
Even in the Arab world, Morocco is embracing to some extent its Imazigh heritage as is Tunisia, while Algeria is fighting for secular Arabism - as is Syria.
Egypt is seeing a revival of Pharoanism
Oh no, Muslims are the biggest victims of Islamists. There are many sane Muslims, and they are the one which suffer the most, being terrorized by the Islamists.
Unfortunately, there are few pretending, and hard to distinguish. Problem with Islamists are major, but labeling all Muslims that way is not right either.
Like I said, Muslims nowadays are the best missionary field.
But also notice that only a few months after 9/11 the Potus declared that Islam was a religion of peace(because of fear) and we allowed them to flood our country while we fought them overseas and that we have muslim lawmakers in Congress. How many Jihadists do you think we invited in during the Afghan debacle and are still coming in across our Southern border daily? The fact that our enemy is allowed to invade us is an act of treason by itself. It can only result in death and destruction in the future. Yet, we are discouraged to arm ourselves. The country is in a suicide mode.
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