ISLAM'S FUTURE

New York Post ^ | 8/13/02 | DANIEL PIPES

[kattracks]

August 13, 2002 -- 'I AM surprised at your lack of courage, Mr. Pipes," one reader scolded me. "Your point of view is for people who believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus," opined another. "You really dropped the ball on this one!" "I hope you are not beginning to lose your nerve." "Totally wrong." Or, more charitably: "Maybe your hope is overshadowing your understanding of the truth."

[goldstategop]

The problem with Pipes' approach is that Islam is par excellence a religion of the sword. It has subjugated, destroyed and smashed into oblivion pre-Islamic cultures wherever it conquered. And afterwards any peoples not forcibly converted to Islam where treated as minorities complelled to live in a state of humiliation and degradation whose lives were in ever present threat of extinction and to whom anything could be done by their Muslim overlords. If Islam had its equivalent of the Reformation, the above unpleasant facts would not matter, but since it is unreformed, hostile, xenophobic and totalitarian and willing to employ even the most extreme means of disposing of its adversaries the above facts about the religion are central to confronting it. An important correction to Pipes' treatment of Islam can be found in Bat Yeor's Islam And Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. Only if Islam's dark side is apprehended will it be possible to convert a savage foe into a civilized culture capable of dwelling in harmony with the rest of the world.

[TheConservator]

Islam is more or less exactly where Christianity was 1350 years after its founding.

[goldstategop]

Yup. Its still more or less in the Middle Ages.

[RightOnline]

"The religion must adapt to modern mores."

Why is that, Mr. Pipes? Why indeed?

They've had over a dozen centuries to "modernize"; hasn't happened yet.

To what do you attribute this belief that they must adapt? All I see from the Muslim world is an intense desire to remain in the 7th century and kill anyone who doesn't share their views.

At the rate they're going, the only thing they'll "adapt" to is annihilation.

[Darheel]

No, it isn't. Jesus never uttered the earthly hatred and strife contained in the Koran, the two are incomparable.

[bluester]

Conversely, if one sees Islam as irredeemably evil, what comes next? This approach turns all Muslims - even moderates fleeing the horrors of militant Islam - into eternal enemies. And it leaves one with zero policy options. My approach has the benefit of offering a realistic policy to deal with a major global problem.

Finally a more reasonable approach to be heard.

[wretchard]

Christianity, as an organized religion, came into being as an afterthought. The Gospels weren't written down until nearly 80 years had passed. The Nicene Creed, which was the first "official" statement of doctrine, was adopted 400 years after Christ walked the earth. It was the powers and principalities of the world, notably the Roman and Byzantine empires, which gave Christianity its outward forms. The indictments against Christianity are rarely indictments against Christ; they are usually against people with names like Borgia.

Mohammed, on the other hand, packaged Islam ready to franchise from the git-go. It had a source of funds, the Haj. It had a military arm, the Companions. It had a form of government, the Caliphate. It had a legal system, sharia. And a body of written scripture. You can argue that Osama Bin Laden is practicing Islam right out the box. Mohammed would have done Colonel Sanders proud.

Pipes is arguing, not that Islam isn't so, but that it need not remain so. The alternative is a war of extinction. Perhaps he is right; Turkey being the counterexample to the proposition that all Muslims must die. But the task of learning to live in peace with people like Osama is so alike to all-out war as to defy distinction.

Yet if we hold ourselves Christians and warriors too, we must accept that losing one's life is not the only thing that can happen on the battlefield. We must emerge with our souls intact too to make it worth the candle. Pipes may be right: there is another road, but it is also a hard one.

[KeyWest]

bttt

[CatoRenasci]

....if one sees Islam as irredeemably evil, what comes next? This approach turns all Muslims - even moderates fleeing the horrors of militant Islam - into eternal enemies. And it leaves one with zero policy options.

The light dawns. But, it is too frightening for Pipes to contemplate.

My approach has the benefit of offering a realistic policy to deal with a major global problem.

The triumph of fear and appeasement over judgement.

In conclusion, a reflection: Americans have acquired an impressive knowledge of Islam. Contrary to the incessant bleating by apologists for militant Islam about American ignorance of this topic, my readers know what they are talking about. Their critiques are sometimes erudite .... sometimes eloquent .....

These readers, surely, are not typical of American opinion, but their informed antagonism to Islam bears remarking. It is likely to have a larger political role as Islam ever-more becomes central a topic of discussion in the West.

As the Germans say Wissen ist Macht -- knowledge is power.

[fporretto]

Allow me to ring in on this.

Islam's past and present are horrifying, almost too awful to contemplate. Despite what some have said here and elsewhere, it presents no parallel with Christianity, which never animated a program of continental conquest. The Inquisition was a fleeting blot on Christianity's escutcheon, and is regretted universally today. The Crusades were a response to the Muslim penetration of Eastern Europe, a matter which Dr. Pipes would appreciate. That that response was overenthusiastically endorsed by temporal rulers anxious to export their domestic brigands to some faraway place has nothing to do with the religious matter.

Dr. Pipes would have us judge Islam not on its past or present, but on its potential future. Yet the events and trends of the day give us no reason to believe that Islam will become anything other than what it currently is: a brutal, misogynistic, totalitarian code that explicitly obstructs both material and political progress.

Either Islam is impeding the development of the cultures it dominates, or it provides a rationale under which they can refuse to accept their backwardness. In either case, it stands in the way. As practiced and interpreted from its sacred documents, neither of these influences can be corrected. Therefore, the question before us is not whether Islam can be reformed, but whether it can be replaced.

What would replace it?

Whatever religion might supplant present-day Islam -- and it might go by that name -- to make it fit for human consumption, it would have to share the fundamental moral underpinnings of Judaism and Christianity: basically, the Ten Commandments. It would have to inform its adherents that they are not superior to non-adherents, nor possessed of superior rights, simply because they accept it. To become the full moral equal of the other great faiths, it would have to incorporate the ethic of benevolence, the desire to see good in and do good to all men, provided only that they respond in kind: Christ's version of the Golden Rule.

Have I said that it must become Christianity? Not quite. Christianity incorporates certain doctrinal requirements about the divinity of Christ and His purpose in becoming a man. Though illuminating and inspiring, these tenets are not necessary to the detoxification of Islam. (In fact, the Trinitarian assertion was the entering wedge by which Mohammed established his new creed, since the Monophysite Christians among whom he preached did not accept the triune nature of God as proclaimed by orthodox Christianity.) Christ did not come to Earth to proclaim a new Law, but to remind us of the old one. He said so Himself: "I come not to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it."

If Dr. Pipes envisions some other transformation of Islam that would render it a safe neighbor for us of the Judeo-Christian West, he'd better make it explicit. For my part, I doubt that any other satisfactory evolution is possible.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[tictoc]

Dr. Pipes,

How do we get there from here?

How do we and the moderate Muslims beat back the Islamists?

You cite Turkey as a civilized example, and rightly so. A modern republican form of government was imposed by Atatürk nearly a century ago and continues to be enforced with the help of the military. But it seems that the Turkish example is not transferable to elsewhere in the Muslim world, especially not to Arab countries.

Take Algeria as an example, where the government has its back against the wall in a desperate war with the Islamists. The Algerian government is not lacking in resolve. But no matter how harshly it cracks down on the Islamists, they always manage to reach new levels of atrocity. And they could not do so without the support of broad segments of society who think as they do.

So it is not useful to point to Turkey as an example of how Islam can be modernized. The prescription must fit the disease, and it is most virulent in the Arab countries, where all attempts at a "Turkish solution" have failed.

[Jackie222]

It was the powers and principalities of the world, notably the Roman and Byzantine empires, which gave Christianity its outward forms.

I agree."We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Those evil powers have used earthly powers to 'form' Christianity and most of it is man-made religious organization. systems of activity that come from man with the help of evil forces.

The Father did not have this in mind for the Church. The Church is governed by the Holy Spirit....HIS Holy Spirit and we are doing a poor job today of listening to Him.

[kapn kuek]

These readers, surely, are not typical of American opinion, but their informed antagonism to Islam bears remarking. It is likely to have a larger political role as Islam ever-more becomes central a topic of discussion in the West.

I hope so!

[texson66]

My response, however, is that no matter what Islam is now or was in the past, it will be something different in the future. The religion must adapt to modern mores.

Well, islam has not changed in 1300 years! Why would it change now? To protect the "feelings" of teary-eyed, bleeding-heart, left-wing liberals and modern mores?

NOT A CHANCE!

[crystalk]

Islam is just a violent bloody death cult. It must be totally extirpated from the world.

Christianity was not really founded or intended by ANYbody on Earth, it seems. It just came to be because it was needed so badly. It is a spontaneous growth becuase Greco-Roman, European culture needed a religion so badly, and so does it now, for that matter, and had better get back to its foundation.

America without Christianity is something that the Jews who have been willing that, will not like to see, let us hope they do a 180 in time.

[elcaudillo]

Hardly.

A cursory examination of Spanish history under the scimitars of the muslim slavemasters will enlighten you otherwise.

Screwing female children (ala the prophet Mohammed) wasn't a part of Christian culture. (Priests screwing male children is a sinister manifestation of Vatican II-and to the delight of the proponents of a homosexual agenda- when the Church heirarchy conspired with satan to make sweeping changes that included allowing gaggles of homosexuals into the priesthood.) Islam and the homosexuals belong in the same category.

Your statement is, in total, false.

[hchutch]

Perhaps we will have to impose the republic ourselves, meaning that an American Empire will have to exist for the speace of 50-100 years.

[dennisw]

[driftless]

I know this runs counter to many of the posters on this forum's ideas about Muslims, but because I had a Muslim professor (from Bangladesh), I realize that not all Muslims are the same. He was an excellent teacher (climatology) and expressly wished to disassociate himself from the murderous Mideast nuts who slaughter Israelis and westerners. Pipes is correct...not all Muslims are savage fiends. My professor even invited the class to his apartment for dinner and to meet his wife and thoroughly westernized son.

Islam can be reformed, but tough love may be needed. When many of the Islamist maniacs who are killing innocents now are hunted down and destroyed, you might see a modernization of other Muslim societies. It won't be easy, but I refuse to believe that all Muslims are evil. If you knew my ex-professor, you'd know that to be true.