UKC

 TobyA 31 May 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> It's a conservative movement, a return to basics muslim style. But you know that, shirley?

No, you misunderstand it rather fundamentally. It was revolutionary not conservative, because it rejected the structures of Sunni Islamic practice as they existed a century and a half or so ago, that the leading figures saw as weighed down with cultural and political baggage of those who ruled over Muslim countries. The early Islamist thinkers were actually 'liberal' in some ways but felt purity in religion would be the way to lead Muslims out of western domination and into modernity within their own terms. In some ways the revolutionary questioning of the structures of power and the religious puritanism remained as the 'liberal' aspects dropped away, but I'm sure Gudrun will be happy to hear you can probably blame western imperialism for that.

Al-Afghani didn't actually nail any theses to the doors of al-Azhar, but short of that I would imagine the parallels are pretty bloody clear.

 Bruce Hooker 31 May 2013

In reply to TobyA:

It's still basically a backward looking movement, a return to mythical purer times, in no way can it be seen as a progressive trend towards a more liberal interpretation of islam, considering the founding texts to be just a basis shaped by the values of the time and moving forward towards more liberal, modern values... so not a reformation, a reactionary movement.

I've seen reforming muslims and they have written numerous books but at present just staying alive for them is tricky in their own countries and in exile they have few followers. I can't give any names, they just come on TV from time to time, usually when they've written a new book, but however well intentioned they may be I don't, myself, see the point, islam is so rotten in it's basic texts that reforming it seems a waste of time, better drop it altogether.

 TobyA 31 May 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> so not a reformation, a reactionary movement.

How can a reformation not be reactionary? Just as Luther was reacting against complacency and corruption within the Catholic church, so were thinkers like al-Afghani, Rida and Abduh reacting against and wanting to reform the mainstream Sunni Islam of their time. If you don't understand this you can't understand how it mutated through people like Qutb into the revolutionary idea it has become for some like al Qaeda.

 Bruce Hooker 01 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> If you don't understand this you can't understand...

See, you're up to it again, trying to blind us with your science, but missing by a mile. Obviously you can put any meaning you want on a word if that's what turns you on but it's a dishonest method of arguing. "Reactionary" means reacting back against something but is normally used to describe backward, conservative movements to forward progressive changes. Again what is backward of forward depends on your point of view but there are majority views on this.

The French Revolution is usually seen as progressive in historical terms, as is the progression to republicanism and democracy, in such a context the "reaction" refers to conservative attempts to restore the old regime, the power of the church etc. In Britain the fall of the monarchy and the Civil War which saw the victory of Parliamentary forces is usually seen as progressive - it led to the world's first major democratic country, the establishment of a parliamentary system. What some call the "Glorious Revolution" was a reactionary, conservative move to restore the monarchy, which didn't stop people calling it a revolution even though it was not historically progressive. History being history the overall result was outside these clichés and although the form was reactionary, backward the underlying movement to democracy was not lost and most would say the overall result was progress.

So although a revolution is usually progressive it can also be used to mean any major social change, a form of spin - another example is the "Islamic Revolution" in Iran, a major change but to impose what many of us would see as a conservative move, on the other hand the complexity of history also allows others to see behind the apparent, and real, backward nature of the regime that followed there is also the progressive movement that Iran breaking with it's neo-colonial domination - as personified by the Shah.

Words can be used in various ways but it's not the word that counts it's the sense of the events being considered, and failure to "understand" is not the same as having a different opinion. Your opinions are clear, you should have listened more to your Mother, nowadays you support forces which are not progressive whereas she, and you apparently back then, did the opposite in the days of the anti-apartheid movement... It's not that you don't "understand", it's that you have changed your political opinions.

As Syria is in the news at present I wonder if you will have your road to Damascus one day, for your Mother's sake, "Toby, why art thou kicking against the pricks?"

 TobyA 02 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker: that was a jolly long post just to throw out some personal insults. But it is notable that you don't engage on the actual issue. Seriously, just read a good book on the history of Islamism and you'll see what I mean.

 dale1968 02 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> (In reply to TobyA)
>

>islam is so rotten in it's basic texts that reforming it seems a waste of time, better drop it altogether.
You might have a bit of support here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10094007/Tony-Bl...

 Bimble 02 Jun 2013

In reply to dale1968:

>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10094007/Tony-Bl...

I'm sure his illegal armed forays into Muslim countries really helped reduce radicalisation. Oh...

 dale1968 02 Jun 2013

In reply to TryfAndy: He did send in the troops to save Muslims from Christians, all conveniently forgotten...

Pan Ron 02 Jun 2013

In reply to dale1968:

Its pretty easy to forget, if not ignore, in light of Iraq.

 Coel Hellier 02 Jun 2013

In reply to dale1968:

Blair: "there is a problem within Islam - from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be honest about it ... at the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists ... by and large we don't admit it".

It would have been helpful if Blair had said such things while in power, instead of parroting the "nothing to do with Islam" line at every terrorist attack. It would also have been better if he had not pursued an open-door policy to any Islamic radicals who could claim "persecution" elsewhere, plus a visa policy that gave preference to anyone (e.g., from Pakistan) coming here to preach Islam (leading to many radical preachers coming here), plus a policy of giving government funding to quite extreme Islamic groups (on the grounds that engagement with them was the best policy).

Then of course there was his promotion of "faith" schools, the idea that it's good to segregate British children according to the religion of their parents. And that's without mentioning the effects of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 Bruce Hooker 02 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> (In reply to Bruce Hooker) that was a jolly long post just to throw out some personal insults. But it is notable that you don't engage on the actual issue. Seriously, just read a good book on the history of Islamism and you'll see what I mean.

No insults there, although I realise that disagreeing with you already counts in your book... as for reading books about the history of islam, I've read several, and I'm reading one now.... I notice that you don't "engage the actual issue" either, just take Donald's line that if one disagrees with you it's down to ignorance.

 TobyA 02 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker: you said I was "dishonest", and accused me of trying to "blind you with science" for actually talking about the issues under discussion. And I suggested a book about Islamism, not Islam, there's a difference you know. Going back, you said Islamism is a conservative philosophy, I was trying to explain that it actually began as a revolutionary reaction to the mainstream so the opposite to conservative. You don't seem to believe this though, more it would seem because you don't like to admit you don't know everything than anything else. And please feel free to take that as insult if you wish.

 Coel Hellier 02 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> Going back, you said Islamism is a conservative philosophy, I was trying to explain that it actually began
> as a revolutionary reaction to the mainstream so the opposite to conservative.

I think you're reading too much into loosely defined words in arguing that. The words "Islamism", "conservative", "revolutionary", "reactionary" and "mainstream" are all somewhat vague, and I don't agree that anything that is a "reaction" to a "mainstream" cannot also be "conservative". I think I'll agree with Bruce that you're using a word smokescreen to avoid the main issues.

 TobyA 02 Jun 2013

In reply to Coel Hellier:

> and I don't agree that anything that is a "reaction" to a "mainstream" cannot also be "conservative".

I think you are mixing the politics of European/N. American "conservative parties" with the rather self explanatory meaning of the adjective "conservative". Of course a reaction to the mainstream, even something revolutionary, can be right-wing, but what is being conserved or alternatively challenged by an ideology is obviously context specific. Early protestants might have been fundamentalist Christians in some ways, but they obviously weren't conservative in any way for Catholicism.

Bruce said there "there has been no muslim reformation", I said that this is to completely misunderstand Islamism and Salafism. It's just the facts of what happened - who wrote what, when. It doesn't make current Islamist practice and parties any less anti-women, anti-gay, anti-minorities etc. The fact remains that al-Afghani, Rida and the other writers who founded modern Islamism were reacting against mainstream Sunni Islam at the time. They wanted revolutionary reform in their societies. In Shia Islam the nearest intellectual comparison is of course Khomenei, and he was arguably more successful as a revolutionary!

 Bruce Hooker 02 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> (In reply to Bruce Hooker) you said I was "dishonest",

That's not an insult, it's a statement of fact concerning some of your posts - hoodwinking, confusing and bamboozling is dishonest.

> And I suggested a book about Islamism, not Islam, there's a difference you know.

And the history of islam doesn't include the history of Islamism, and Islamism is a word that is clearly defined and used in the same way by all?

> Going back, you said Islamism is a conservative philosophy,

It is, it's a return to the original spirit of islam, in the minds of it's fans anyway.

> I was trying to explain that it actually began as a revolutionary reaction to the mainstream so the opposite to conservative.

Which is inexact for the reasons I've given twice now (at least).

> You don't seem to believe this though,

I don't because it's an erroneous political interpretation.

> more it would seem because you don't like to admit you don't know everything than anything else.

I don't know everything, I just give opinions, I don't claim to bring enlightenment from anywhere.

> And please feel free to take that as insult if you wish.

I don't take it as an insult, and wouldn't even if it were true, you are welcome to your opinions but it's a pity you don't realise that they are opinions, and often rather dubious ones too.

 TobyA 02 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> hoodwinking, confusing and bamboozling is dishonest.

It's called the facts. I've given you the names of some well respected academic authors who have written about this. This is just something I happen to know about having studied it a lot in the past. I'm sorry if you find it bamboozling - here's a good brief intro to the characters involved and their ideas http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2010/02/modern-islamic-muhammad-steps

Tim Chappell 03 Jun 2013

I'm only going to comment on this thread once.

I have to say I find it a bit distasteful that this unpleasant murder has been seized on by the usual UKC zealots as evidence for their pet theories.

Lunatics have always abounded. Once upon a time they justified their atrocious behaviour by reference to socialist ideology; nowadays they do it by reference to Islamist ideology.

This doesn't show that religion itself is either true or false, good or bad, beneficial or pernicious. (How could it? "Religion itself" is none of those things; different versions of religion are all of them.)

The really sad thing about Lee Rigby's murder, if you ask me, is not how much it proves, but how little.

 Gudrun 03 Jun 2013

In reply to off-duty:

Q1 o you think they would have done it if we had not been casually murdering
Muslims the world over?

> We have not been "casually murdering Muslims".

A million dead in recent years,we invade,bomb,use drones,terrorize,massacre,gang rape,blockade medicine if that is not significant then i dont know WT_ is!

> We have certainly not been doing it "the world over".

Oh right yeah just in Libya,Iraq,Afghanistan,Pakistan,Yemen,Somalia as well as all the other indirect cases.

> Do I think that crass oversimplifications of a number of conflicts coupled with a facile link to the religion of the victims being a factor has contributed to this incident?
> Yes - that's how radicalisation works.

Unbelievable rubbish!

> The alleged murderer was clearly self identifying as a Muslim, as well as suggesting that British foreign policy was targetting "his" religion and hence this was his retaliation.

He said nothing of the sort he said they were killing Muslims not attacking their religion.

> I daresay that their selection of a white soldier was likely to be to avoid targetting a Muslim, a similar lazy stereotyping as that practiced by the EDL.

Bullocks!
They attacked a British soldier because of our murder of Muslims in their own contries by the hundred thousands.

Look can't you get it into your head that when a certain axis of countries goes anywhere and commits all sorts of horrific crimes continuously, doing what it wants because it *is* the law,accountable to no one.Then victim nations and peoples will look to alternative ways to do something to stop this mob from doing what they want.If extremist Islamism is all there is left to fight the invaders and murderers then what on gods earth do you expect them to do?it's simple...
We drive people to extremist Islamism and horrific acts like the tragic death of this young man.
When a crime is committed and the criminals are free to keep doing it,over and over and over again without being held to account then no justice is done.When no justice is done by so called international law then it becomes a sham,of no use to the victims.Where can they then find justice?
Who will stand up against the axis that continually bombs and attacks Muslim countries for oil and geopolitical shenanigans that are nothing to do with them.
How terrified would you be if your village or nieghbours were bombed by a drone?That is terrorism,in fact as Chomsky said at least Bush tortured and imprisoned people,Obama doesn't waste time with that he just has them murdered with no trial or anything.What sort of radical extremism is that called?
Oh and i acknowledged the tradgedy of the soldiers death further up although what that has to do with you i don't know,or is this in your On-Duty mode now,policing UKC are we?

 MJ 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Gudrun:

Question to you and maybe others: -

If Osama Bin Laden was still alive today, would he in retrospect think the 911 attacks were a good thing or not?

KevinD 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Gudrun:

> A million dead in recent years,we invade,bomb,use drones,terrorize,massacre,gang rape,blockade medicine if that is not significant then i dont know WT_ is!

The problem with this argument is the vast majority have been killed by other Muslims from competing sects.

 Bruce Hooker 03 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> I've given you the names of some well respected academic authors who have written about this.

But why don't you try giving your own arguments in your own words? Quoting, linking, copying and pasting has it's uses but also it's limits.

 Bruce Hooker 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Tim Chappell:

> Lunatics have always abounded. Once upon a time they justified their atrocious behaviour by reference to Christianity, socialist ideology; nowadays they do it by reference to Islamist ideology.

Funny how you always forget the most obvious one

Secondly, just calling them lunatics is not particularly useful if we want to deal with the situation. For normal people all criminals, especially violent ones, seem like lunatics but most legal systems make a difference between them.

 Bruce Hooker 03 Jun 2013

In reply to MJ:

> (In reply to Gudrun)
>
> Question to you and maybe others: -
>
> If Osama Bin Laden was still alive today, would he in retrospect think the 911 attacks were a good thing or not?

I think he would consider them to have been a success beyond his wildest dreams.... Ever since the "war between civilisations" has been thriving and there's hardly a country in the Middle East or the N Africa which is just quietly beavering away to create a happy and prosperous way of life for it's inhabitants, everywhere is war, conflict and polarisation around radical islam. What better could he have expected from a single act?

 TobyA 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> But why don't you try giving your own arguments in your own words?

I don't have an "argument" just like I don't have an "argument" on who holds the world record in the high jump, or which planet is closest to the earth.

I tried explaining the well known historical facts to you, but you accused me of trying to 'blind you with science' and 'bamboozle' you. Hence I suggested you read a good book which can hopefully explain it better than I can.

 Coel Hellier 03 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> I think you are mixing the politics of European/N. American "conservative parties" with the rather
> self explanatory meaning of the adjective "conservative".

And words can mean quite a bit more than their literal meaning, and I think you're taking way too narrow an interpretation of that one. "Opposed to any and all change" might fit the literal word, but is not what "conservative" actually means.

And reactionary responses to mainstream liberalisation can quite properly be called "conservative".

 Coel Hellier 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Tim Chappell:

> Lunatics have always abounded. Once upon a time they justified their atrocious behaviour by
> reference to socialist ideology; nowadays they do it by reference to Islamist ideology.

Yet another person trying to downplay the role of religion. You are entirely right that other ideologies -- any ideology that places itself above all other considerations -- can be just as bad. Some religious sects are good examples, so are totalitarian communist ideologies (or totalitarian anything ideologies).

None of that avoids the fact that currently radical Islamism is one of those totalitarian ideologies that need opposing.

> This doesn't show that religion itself is either true or false, good or bad, beneficial or pernicious.
> (How could it? "Religion itself" is none of those things; different versions of religion are all of them.)

Good, you accept that some versions of religion can be bad and pernicious. That has been my main point on this thread, countering the widespread notion that religion is always good, and thus anything bad is "not religion" or "nor true religion".

One symptom of the "religion is always good" meme is that religions get "charitable" tax exemption, even the bad and pernicious ones.

 TobyA 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Coel Hellier:

> And reactionary responses to mainstream liberalisation can quite properly be called "conservative".

Yes, I completely agree - but again that's contextual. We were discussing a very particular intellectual movement here; and what Islamism and Salafism are today is a result of how they began - as a completely new attempt at changing and reforming Islam.

 Coel Hellier 03 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> We were discussing a very particular intellectual movement here; and what Islamism and Salafism are
> today is a result of how they began - as a completely new attempt at changing and reforming Islam.

On Salafism yes, but not so sure on Islamism. It seems to me that "Islamism" is a Western-created word that applies to several different strands within Islam, and is not associated only with one specific strand of Islam. For example there are both Shia and Sunni factions that can be called "Islamist".

 TobyA 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Coel Hellier:

> For example there are both Shia and Sunni factions that can be called "Islamist".

Yes, although if I remember correctly Khomeini was close to Maududi (checking in Wikipedia, it actually says the former translated the latter's works into Persian!). I don't know a lot about political developments within modern Shi'ism, but it seems that the political dimension of the Islamic (as opposed to the Marxist) side of the Iranian revolution must have been significantly influenced by the anti-colonialism of (Sunni) Islamism, particularly if Khomeini and Maududi were close.

 Bruce Hooker 03 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> I tried explaining the well known historical facts to you..

Well no, you didn't, you gave your opinion, which I countered with arguments and examples, then you just fell back on giving names of people you say said the same thing as you... it's true these are not really arguments, as I could give you the name of a book I'm reading at present which doesn't see things as you do, it's by Albert Hourani, which isn't an argument either.

You are simply insisting that a movement which is essentially backward looking is revolutionary, and that's it - it's more about abusing words then discussing the subject seriously.

> which can hopefully explain it better than I can.

They certainly couldn't do worse, you don't even try to explain and justify your point of view, you take the somewhat arrogant position that your views are "facts" so need no defending. It might do in front of a group of young students you lectured (maybe) but it won't do on a discussion forum.

 TobyA 03 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> of a book I'm reading at present which doesn't see things as you do, it's by Albert Hourani, which isn't an argument either.

Which one? "A History of the Arab Peoples"?

> You are simply insisting that a movement which is essentially backward looking is revolutionary, and that's it - it's more about abusing words then discussing the subject seriously.

If so, go to pages 304 to 308 (faber and faber 2005 edition) and read the section "The culture of reform" in Chp 18, about Afghani, Abduh and Rida. Hourani makes exactly the point I was trying to recount above.

 Bruce Hooker 03 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> If so, go to pages 304 to 308 (faber and faber 2005 edition) and read the section "The culture of reform" in Chp 18, about Afghani, Abduh and Rida. Hourani makes exactly the point I was trying to recount above.

Yes it's that book, and a recommendable cheap one from Amazon too, but the only similarity in Chapter 18 to this discussion is the word "reform"! It is about the way Islamic scholars and politicians tried to come to terms with the decline of the Islamic world, in particular the Ottoman empire, compared to the West... in other places in the book he refers to the efforts of some to return to earlier Islamic values, Wahhabism and salifism, although he doesn't actually use the word, he explains it's origins - the term "salafiyya", the "pious ancestors" who are said to have transmitted the essential doctrines of Islam (P308).

Any movement, even one which at that time hadn't perhaps become such a reality as they have now, which makes references to such a return to old values is hardly the same as a reformation which enabled the emergence of the enlightenment, humanism and modern secularism as the Christian reformation did. It was an attempt at changing the ways in Muslim society of the times but in a conservative way, it didn't in any way challenge the basic tenants and often called for a return to sharia law. Not exactly progress. These movements were against those who proposed adopting Western methods and values, democracy, industrialisation, nationalism in an attempt to reverse the decline of the Ottoman empire.

 TobyA 04 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> Any movement, even one which at that time hadn't perhaps become such a reality as they have now, which makes references to such a return to old values is hardly the same as a reformation which enabled the emergence of the enlightenment, humanism and modern secularism as the Christian reformation did.

The European reformation also led to over 100 years of religious wars, massacre and persecution.

> These movements were against those who proposed adopting Western methods and values, democracy, industrialisation, nationalism in an attempt to reverse the decline of the Ottoman empire.

They were against Western colonialism; but not necessarily against all other western ideals - Afghani got called a "liberal" when he was studying in Britain after all.

Just like Luther saw the Catholic church as corrupted and straying from the 'pure' religion of Christianity, so did the early Islamists with Islam. They believed that by looking to the salaf - those first generations of followers, they could strip away all the superstition and custom that had accumulated around the religion. And from that 'pure' vision they could then rebuild it in order for muslims to be part of the modern world. The revolutionary idea was (like Luther) that they, and all Muslims, could interpret their religion for themselves (ijtihad) - that attacked the authority of the established clergy, not so dissimilar from the translation of the bible into English or other local languages. But it also sowed the seeds for modern revolutionary or jihadi salafism, because the ultimate outcome is that bin Laden could argue that his world view was valid, and people would follow him.

 winhill 04 Jun 2013

In reply to Coel Hellier:

> (In reply to dale1968)
>
> Blair: "there is a problem within Islam - from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be honest about it ... at the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists ... by and large we don't admit it".

This has been his line for quite a long time, perhaps more explict, not that different to Cameron saying it's a 'betrayal of Islam'.

The problems go way further back than Blair though, the first wave of large scale jihadi immigration goes back to 1971 after the Bangladesh war of Independence - the same guys who are in the news now for war crimes in that conflict. Coincidentally, followers of Maududi and Jamaat e Islami and now running the Islamic Forum of Europe and Tower Hamlets.

The Islamic revolution in Iran inspired a new generation who went off to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Rushdie affair further consolidated them (unopposed under Thatcher's watch) and the nascent Islamic identity politics, then other hotspots around europe in the 1990s.

Iraq and Afghanistan only moved the UK up the jihadists target play list but they'd been operating in the UK for over 30 years by then.

Most of the players of the Rushdie affair who moved onto the IFE and MCB distance themselves from the actual events now but not the rise in islamist identity politcs, when the most marked change after Rushdie was a huge rise in islamist attacks on Jewish targets in the UK.

In fact the islamists moved onto the attack, after years of attacks the jews formed the Community Security Trust in 1994 to protect themselves from the violence, the islamists replied by introducing the notion of Islamophobia via the Runnymede Commission in 1997. Thus ignoring the violence they were causing and claiming victimhood, just as the narrative now is that UK muslims are somehow victims of foreign policy and therefore justified in attacking the UK.

 TobyA 04 Jun 2013

In reply to winhill:

> the islamists replied by introducing the notion of Islamophobia via the Runnymede Commission in 1997.

How exactly? It's some time since I read the report and I don't have my own copy - but that's a strong claim.

 Rob Exile Ward 04 Jun 2013

In reply to winhill: This is entirely anecdotal and I'm frustrated that I can't remember more details, but I remember a friend of my Dad's - a child pyschologist associated with the Midlands education service - saying that his fear for the future was the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, though he may not have called it that at the time. Being a good lefty/hippy I dismissed his concerns as vaguely racist.

That would have been in 1971 - 72, something like that.

 Bruce Hooker 04 Jun 2013

In reply to TobyA:

> The European reformation also led to over 100 years of religious wars, massacre and persecution.

No one said that history was a smooth road to progress, and in the case of the religious wars wasn't it the Catholic church using violence to supress change rather than the other way around? Certainly concerning Britain it was the Pope who called on "all Christian countries" to invade "heretic England", both during the reign of Henry VIII and Elisabeth I, then even under James I and the gunpowder plot... an aggressivity that was returned later on admittedly.

Maybe the ideas in the head of the founders of Salifism and Wahhabism didn't have this in mind - who knows what's in someone's head? - but the resulting movements can hardly be seen as progressive, can they? They may have challenged the existing dominant order in the Muslim world, this was already in a state of crisis and decline anyway, but they did this in a way which returned to the much older ways, not in proposing a form of Islam that would fit in to the progress that humanity outside Islam has achieved. All change is not for the better.

Concerning the "Reformation", I'm not a defender of Protestantism or the C of E as such but it's hard to deny that the result of the changes that have taken place has taken the Western world from the Inquisition and burning heretics at the stake and also divine right monarchy and centralised feudal sates to the industrial revolution and the scientific progress that gave us the world we have today. In the Islamic world no such progress has taken place (overall before you cite Singapore or similar) and despite the billions of petro-dollars available the Middle East and the Muslim world in general is hardly a haven of prosperity, peace and scientific and cultural innovation for most of it's peoples.

 TobyA 04 Jun 2013

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

> No one said that history was a smooth road to progress, and in the case of the religious wars wasn't it the Catholic church using violence to supress change rather than the other way around?

Not in the case of the German Peasant War, they went beyond what Luther believed if I remember correctly - but anyway of course it was about politics, power and class as well as religion.

> Maybe the ideas in the head of the founders of Salifism and Wahhabism

Wahhabism is a very different issue to the early Salafists and Islamists. Wahhab was a cleric who just hitched his wagon very successfully to the rising house of Saud and basically had his ultra-conservative and repressive view of Islam made into the state religion of Saudi Arabia.

 Coel Hellier 04 Jun 2013

In reply to the thread:

More evidence that this crime had nothing at all to do with religion:

"Michael Adebolajo appeared in court ... held the Koran throughout ... held his hands aloft and closed his eyes before kissing the Koran."

"... instructed the court to address him as Mujahid Abu Hamza." ("mujahid" = "one who struggles for the sake of Allah and Islam")

Anjem Choudary:

"I knew him [Adebolajo] for a number of years. Mujahid was a very nice man in fact. He attended lectures, went to demonstrations. "

"As far as they are concerned, I believe they were doing what they believed to be Islamically correct. ..."

"“Allah said very clearly in the Koran ‘Don’t feel sorry for the non-Muslims.’

“So as an adult non-Muslim, whether he is part of the Army or not part of the Army, if he [Lee Rigby] dies in a state of disbelief then he is going to go to the hellfire. That’s what I believe so I’m not going to feel sorry for non-Muslims.”