[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Interesting, but the author seems to be making some basic mistakes in confusing Muslims with Arabs. At the very end he corrects / reveals himself by stating that this is about Arabs and not necessarily Islam.

This is my take as well. Islam is not exactly the most peaceful religion, but the way most Indonesians practice it (and I have spent a lot of time there) it is really pretty laid back. Moreover, in stark contradiction to this gentleman’s thesis, Javenese culture puts a very high value on controlling one’s emotions.

Thus, it is perhaps the Arab cultural norms that should be condemned here. As an Arab religion, Islam reflects them, but I would venture to guess that Arabs were like this long before Muhammad talked to Gabriel.

Lastly, the author is also contradicting Muslims and Westerners. This is, for me, a bit of apples and oranges. He seems to want to avoid saying Christianity for some reason but that is the appropriate contrast to Muslims or to use Arabs / Middle Easterners in contrast to Westerners.

Either his thinking is sloppy or he has an agenda that goes beyond this mediocre analysis.

[righttackle44]

Interesting, but the author seems to be making some basic mistakes in confusing Muslims with Arabs.

James Clavell's unfortunately out-of-print novel Whirlwild is a spot-on fictional illustration of your point. The story takes place during the 1979 fall of the Iranian monarchy, and is about a Scottish corporation trying to save it's business and it's assets.

It doesn't deal with Arabian or Arabic Islam, but Iranian--Persian--Islam, and how irrational it is both in the individual Iranian and in Iranian institutionalism. It shows the horror of how women and non-Muslims are treated. The whole body of Islamic men is one huge permanent maelstrom of anger, hatred, condonable murder, bigotry and double-dealing. And it is all permissible in the Islamic zeitgeist. There are one or two mentions of minor Arabic characters as I recall, but the novel deals with Iranians who are Muslim.

[Cronos]

you are correct about Indonesians -- their culture dates from the Hindu kingdom of Srivijaya

however note that the radical Islamists in Indonesia tend to ape Arabs, down to the rage...