It will be interesting to see if this initiative can possibly succeed. For what can the "well-educated mullahs" learn and teach that will really blunt the force of Qur'anic literalism? If they do succeed, they will have something that the whole world needs.
But the "traditional Islam" mentioned in this article is more of a cultural than a theological construct, and as such I wonder if it has the vitality to stand up to the "Wahhabi" literalist challenge. In a rather uncomprehending 2000 article published in the Center for Political and Strategic Studies essay collection Islam and Central Asia, the Orthodox Archbishop Vladimir of Bishkek gives some indication (without appearing to realize the implications of what he is saying) of how far Central Asian Islam has strayed from Qur'anic, traditional and historical Islam. To give just one example, he asserts that "Modern-day Islam [in Central Asia] does not strive to expand its domain."
Would the warrior prophet Muhammad recognize a non-expansionist Islam as the one he preached? Will the "well-educated mullahs" of Nizhny Novgorod be able to convince young Muslims who read the Qur'an that their Islam should not be expansionist as well?
From the Moscow Times, with thanks to None:
Finding it difficult to compete with the fiery rhetoric of radical Islamic teachers in winning the attention and respect of young people, Muslim clergy young and old are heading back to school.Crash courses in divinity, anti-extremist propaganda, history, philosophy and sociology are being offered to all imams and muezzins in Nizhny Novgorod under a program set up by the regional Muslim spiritual board.
The intensive two-week program is mandatory for all Muslim spiritual leaders in the region, and classes are taught by professors at Nizhny Novgorod State University.
"Wahhabis look stronger when they take on self-learners," Damir Mukhetdinov, the deputy head of the regional spiritual board, said, referring to the radical strain of Islam that has spread like wildfire across parts of the country, particularly the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus.
"Trust me, it will be a different picture when Wahhabis will face well-educated mullahs," he said.
Mukhetdinov, himself a political science lecturer in the back-to-school program, said Muslim clergymen are also being trained how to distinguish religious extremists in a crowd and how to use dialogue to convince them to embrace more traditional Islamic views. "We don't betray them to the FSB," he said of the Federal Security Service. "To fight ideology, we try to use ideology, not violence."
This school of thought is rare outside Nizhny Novgorod, where Muslims are in a minority. In largely Muslim-populated regions where Islam carries a lot of weight in local politics, homegrown traditionalists and radical fundamentalists are often at one another's throats -- quite literally.Traditional Muslim clergy have largely failed to adapt to new challenges such as the spread of Wahhabism and continue to follow a route inherited from Soviet times, when spiritual life was tightly controlled by the authorities, said Alexei Malashenko, an Islam expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
"The traditionalists are losing Muslims to Wahhabis, and not only because they are younger and better-trained in rhetoric," he said. "Most clergymen have gotten used to state support and have forgotten to bury themselves in their books. They are not preachers, and they have always circumvented honest polemics."
This isn't going to work any more than French or Dutch attempts to control Muslim Clerics. Young Muslim men [often unemployed and unemployable] delight in pleasures of Jihad; they can throw acid in the faces of women who are not veiled, rape mutilate and kill as 'Holy Warriors.'There are usually drugs available as well as bomb making and AK47's. Also facilities for doing your own home videos of torturing prisoners before
beheading 'em - what fun!! After all, Mohammed did
this sort of thing [apart from videos] and he was
THE PERFECT MAN!!
I don't know what Robert Spencer is talking about here. Are there any alternatives to "Qur'anic literalism"?
I think Robert is mistaken here if he think that Qur'anic non-literalism would be any better. How are we to interpret the texts, if not literally, especially when what is written is very clear and precise?
If we are to say that the Qur'an is a blank book and that we can read anything we like from it then, we can read jihad from it still. It is no solution. In fact we can even make a more extreme reading out of it, since it is up to the reader to make up whatever they want out of it.
The only solution is to stick with literalist reading of the Qur'an and come to the conclusion that this Muhammadeanism is a fascist movent and try to eradicate it. Nothing else will do.
Cosmetic surgery on Islam that Robert seems to favour will not solve anything.
Who is "None"?
Is "None" the alias of someone or does it mean no one?
If no one then, it means that Robert came across this article himself. But in that case Robert is not "no one". He is someone.
Robert or someone at Jihadwatch.org wrote
"From the Moscow Times, with thanks to None:"
My dear "Informed Christian,"
I do not favor "cosmetic surgery on Islam." I have repeatedly made clear my position on the Qur'anic roots of jihad violence; for the fullest exposition of it, see my book "Onward Muslim Soldiers."
My position on Islamic reform is and always has been that it is most likely impossible, and only possible if Muslims forthrightly acknowledge and repudiate, in an effective way, the roots of jihad violence in the Qur'an and Sunnah. There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. My position on this has been quite viciously mischaracterized by a pseudo-scholarly, unscrupulous, self-righteous, arrogant, self-aggrandizing huckster who selectively edited my private correspondence in order to make me appear as bad as possible; if you are basing your assumptions on his work, I would advise you: caveat emptor.
As for "None," he or she is a real person, although I do not know who he or she is. Several links came in with "None" marked as the sender, and I used them.
Cordially,
Robert Spencer
"Informed Christian"? You gotta be kidding me. You sound like a Chick tract on crack. What is with the bold type?
Anyhow, it seems quite obvious to me how to interpret texts non-literally, and if you have trouble doing so, perhaps a good community college class in adult literacy is in order.
Informed Christian:
You really SHOULD pick up a copy of "Onward Muslim Soldiers". As Bat Ye'or states, it really is "an indispensable companion for reference, understanding and knowledge of a most crucial subject of our time."
Check out the other reviews:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/books/
BTW, I think these courses are a great idea, but expecting proficiency in ANY of these fields in two weeks is just plain unrealistic. Let's train these folks in a manner that gives them a chance to succeed - do you think the Wahhabis they're up against have only 2 weeks of training under their belts?
Maybe this could work if there are attitude adjustment and behavior modification classes along side these new style theology classes ... just maybe, a small chance, we can always hope, can't we? If we aren't murdered in our beds before then?
My G-d, what is this world coming to, Mr. RS, Mr. HH?
Dare to have a Happy New Year!
Well I didn't know that anyone (except a few of my vitiriolic detractors) let alone Robert himself read my posts here (not that I care too much whether many people read my posts or not).
Well I am honoured that Robert bothered to make a reply.
My apologies, if I made some inadvertent comments concerning Robert. I shall take note of what you said here.
Now the "Cosmetic surgery on Islam" comment that I made earlier is in a way related to what I like to call the "Moderate Muslim Myth".
Now the term "moderate Muslim" is in a dilemma since it either has to be (as I see it anyway) nonsensical and hence a misnomer or it faces semantic paradoxes. The reasons for my saying so are as follows.
You said here that
"My position on Islamic reform is and always has been that it is most likely impossible, and only possible if Muslims forthrightly acknowledge and repudiate, in an effective way, the roots of jihad violence in the Qur'an and Sunnah."
I would now like to concetrate specifically on the word "repudiate". This would lead us to the first dilemma.
My question is how could a Muslim or in fact any adherent of any religion, but especially more so of Muslims, "repudiate" any part of their scripture? As Ali Sina put it to those the anti-Hadith people, roughly, "who are we to repudate anything and on what authority and ground?"
Now on the very first page (after the first introductory chapeter)of the Qur'an there is a passage which clearly said that "this book is not to be doubted". And also elsewhere in the Qur'an it said not to discard or supress some parts of the Qur'an. Muhammad probably foresaw the would-be repudators and it seems that he took measure against it by reciting these verses. It also said in the Qur'an to do what is allowed and not to intefere whith those doing what is allowed (I presume jihad, polygamy, stonings, etc.)
My main point then is that given these Islam is like a house of cards or like a line of dominos standing up. If you start taking away some parts the the whole will collapse.
If you can repudate one then why not the other and indeed why not all, depending on your whim?
So in this case the whole house would collapse and there would probably be no Islam left or worse the Qur'an would become an "open book" that I talked about earlier.
If there is no Islam then there could be no "moderates" to be Muslims. (i.e. non-sensical)
Alternatively if the Qur'an is to be made an open book then everything and anything would then become Islam, a strange scenario.
But the hardest part would be to justify any repuditaion at all to start with.
I do not believe that religious texts are meant to be tampered with, be it in Islam or some other religions such as Christianity, to accomodate and conform to the prevailing modes of thought at the time.
Now the second part concerns the term "Muslim."
Who is a Muslim?
How much of the Qur'an and Sunnah does one have to believe in order for one to be regarded as a Muslim?
I for example believe in a considerably large amount of what is in those two sources.
For example I believe that "rain falls from the sky" and that infant girls should not be buried alive and that people shouldn't cheat or steal and that the Lord Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and so on.
Since I believe in quite a lot of what is in the Qur'an, although I disagree with even more of what is in it, am I then entitled to call myself a Muslim? Can I not just repudate the parts that I disagree with?
This is the semantic paradox. What does the word Muslim mean and who are the Muslims? Is everyone a Muslim? Where does the boundary stop?
I apologise for this article being not too clear. I had the ideas for this aritcle a few hours ago but as I write them now I kind of seem to have lost some of my ideas and seems to be a bit confused. Also I rushed a bit. Anyway this is it for now, although not as clear as I would have liked it to be.
"I do not believe that religious texts are meant to be tampered with, be it in Islam or some other religions such as Christianity, to accommodate and conform to the prevailing modes of thought at the time."
You may not believe it but it is unavoidable. Religious texts are always filtered through an interpretive tradition. Always. The most ardent advocate of sola scriptura is reading his Good Book through a filter of his own religious traditions and his own cultural assumptions. Maybe he can't see how he does that, but he does.
It is pretty clear what a moderate Muslim is, and that there are lots of them. A moderate Muslim is not devoted to the text of his religion, but rather to his local traditions and culture, and who lives in a culture which has developed a more or less live and let live approach toward religion. How many times have you Muslims speak of the greater jihad being the challenge of self control and the lesser jihad being literal fighting? That’s not just smoke and mirrors. They mean it.
A moderate Muslim would say, for example, that he accomplishes the lesser jihad by defending his country, i.e. that his religion does not teach pacifism. That would include the Muslim Arabs in the IDF who are defending their country, Israel.
The problem is not just the violence of the core texts of Islam. That alone would be no big deal. What hurts is the concomitant violent tradition of Islam.
Many people around the world experience religion in a non-textual way. They are only able to understand the Arabic, Sanskrit, Hebrew, old church Slavonic, Greek, and even until recently Latin, with a lot of study which not everyone engages in. Their religious experience precedes their rational understanding.
Today the glorious Walker Percy is quote liberally in Marvin Olasky’s column.
(Personal to Informed Christian: How do you like being on the receiving end of bold text? Maybe they don’t revile you because your’re Christian- maybe they revile you because you’re obnoxious.)
My replies to "Miss Moneypenney" (http://profile.typekey.com/Shhhhh)
First to what you wrote here (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004484.php#c63212)
" "Informed Christian"? You gotta be kidding me. You sound like a Chick tract on crack. What is with the bold type? "
Not sure what you are trying to say here Moneypenney. It seems like just an insult.
" "Informed Christian"? "
That is what I am aiming to become. An informed or more informed Christian. I debate with people so they can point it out to me if I am not-informed. If you think that I am uninformed then please point it out. You are more than welcome to. Throwing insults only is not going to help. Try to show why I am not informed, if you think that I am being uninformed.
"You gotta be kidding me."
No kidding Miss. I am serious. I wasn't kidding.
"What is with the bold type? "
What about it? I don't know, maybe I like to make some words bold for emphasis! It is neither a sin nor a crime (Maybe if you ruled the world you would make it a capital offence???). So I am free to make my writings appear in any way that I please, be it bold or not. You do not have to like my style of course and I don't mind you don't. I do however wish that you would not try to impose your preferences on me though.
" Anyhow, it seems quite obvious to me how to interpret texts non-literally, and if you have trouble doing so, perhaps a good community college class in adult literacy is in order. "
Hmm. Interesting. Now how do I interpret this? Literally "non-literally" or non-literally "non-literally" ?
How about this interpretation?
" it seems quite obvious to me how" = I, Miss Moneypenny, with arrogant self-righteousness presumptuously presume and claim to know how
"to interpret texts non-literally" = to pervert, supress and discard the straight and the true intended meaning of texts and twist and turn what is written in texts to extact any meaning whatsoer I want
"and if you have trouble doing so" = if you, the supposedly "Informed Christian" simpleton who only thinks straight and honestly, are so stupid that you don't know how to do this cunnigly wicked and perveted twisting trick
" perhaps a good community college class in adult literacy is in order" = then you should go and do some course on reading and writing somewhere. The reason for your doing this course is this. If you want to pervert language then you should learn language first. This is plain and simple. Look at the lawyers who learn law so they can search for loopholes and know how to pervert justice and the professors who learn the discipline only so they can pervert it from within. Its the same with language. Do it if you want to pervert and corrupt texts.
The complete translation/interpretation.
I, Miss Moneypenny, with arrogant self-righteousness presumptuously presume and claim to know how to pervert, supress and discard the straight and the true intended meaning of texts and twist and turn what is written in texts to extact any meaning whatsoever I want. If you, the supposedly "Informed Christian" simpleton who only thinks straight and honestly, are so stupid that you don't know how to do this cunnigly wicked and perveted twisting trick, then you should go and do some course on reading and writing somewhere. The reason for your doing this course is this. If you want to pervert language then you should learn language first. This is plain and simple. Look at the lawyers who learn law so they can search for loopholes and know how to pervert justice and the professors who learn the discipline only so they can pervert it from within. Its the same with language. Do it if you want to pervert and corrupt texts.
Another short and simple translation could be
I, Miss Moneypenny, am a bad person. (sorry, really its just for emphasis. Just pointing it out. I don't really know if you are a bad person or not)
There are lots of other ways to translate as well but I think that this is enough for now.
Replies to what was written here
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004484.php#c63365
"Religious texts are always filtered through an interpretive tradition."
Yes and that tradition is the literalist tradition. That has always been the case and that should still be the case, never mind what perverts want. Those who wrote the original texts meant and intended their works (or preachings) to be interpreted literally.
Look at Robert even. See how he dislikes it when someone tried to interpreted his texts ("personal correspondence") non-literally, by repudating some bits and painting Robert out to be what that person wated to be, instead of what Robert intended it to be?
"religious traditions and his own cultural assumptions."
Yes, and these are the original cultural traditions in which the text arose. We should not interpret them in light of our own cultrual tradition but in the original cultural tradition. That's why I said
"I do not believe that religious texts are meant to be tampered with, be it in Islam or some other religions such as Christianity, to accommodate and conform to the prevailing modes of thought at the time."
" a moderate Muslim "
Here we go again. Let me put it this way.
" There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. " Robert Spencer
A Muslim is someone who believes in Islam.
Which means that
A muslim is someone who is not moderate. (How can someone be a moderate if they believes in something that is " itself not moderate".)
So "a moderate Muslim" is like saying
"A MODERATE PERSON WHO BELIEVES IN IMMODERATION"
A moderate who isn't.
A moderate who is not a moderate.
A contradiction in terms.
" A moderate Muslim is not devoted to the text of his religion, but rather to his local traditions and culture "
Oh please this is childish stuff.
Osama bin Laden is a moderate Muslim then!
Osama (not totally sure but quite sure, if not Osama then use someone else who is) grew up in a "local tradition and culture" that is not moderate and teaches jihad terrorism (Wahabbism). Since he is devoted to this local tradition and culture he is by definition a moderate.
So those Nazi Muslims are also moderates too I suppose since they were devoted to the Nazi culture.
" What hurts is the concomitant violent tradition of Islam. "
This was the tradition in which Islam first arose and formed and which is part of Islam and is approved by it. Go read about how sadistically violent Muhammad himself was. Like I said before this is the tradition in which we must interpret the text. Wahabbis are correct in a way because they want to return to the ways of the very first Muslims (the salafis) who unfortunately were some of the most violent terrorists. But hey thats Islam.
Also read my previous point just above this, especially about Osama and what you said there about tradition.
You are contradicting yourself.
First you say that we should follow tradition and not text.
Then now here you go on and blame the tradition.
"Many people around the world experience religion in a non-textual way. "
They are all heretics. Actually they are all apostates. You don't just make things up in religion Miss. You sounds like someone who actually is an atheist but mistakenly believes themselves to still belong to some religion.
This is religion (those that concern me anyway, maybe not all religions).
God gives us the sacred texts as guidence and we follow what it teaches.
This is atheism.
Believe in whatever you want and do whatever you want.
" How do you like being on the receiving end of bold text? "
I don't care at all about bold text. You write however you want to and I will too. I don't even consider myself "on the receiving end". I don't care for style too much. Its the substance that counts.
" Maybe they don’t revile you because your’re Christian- maybe they revile you because you’re obnoxious. "
What the ...?
Maybe this is whay Allah said "beat your wife" ?
Not that I believe in it. (Sarcasm)
"obnoxious" = I don't like or agree with you for irrational and emotional (not rational) reasons so I am going to insult you. I have got nothing better.
Your nasty little abuse tell all about you and nothing about me.
Finally don't take things personally. We just argue and debate freely and openly here. Don't be a cry baby.
Happy New Year Everyone!
(including Muslims. Hopefully one day you will all see the light and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, leaving your cult behind)
My apologies for not quoting Miss Moneypenney fully in my reply to here above. It was an honest mistake. I was rushing and also was trying to make the qoute short. So I ended up cutting it too short.
This is the full qoute that I should have used
"A moderate Muslim is not devoted to the text of his religion, but rather to his local traditions and culture, and who lives in a culture which has developed a more or less live and let live approach toward religion."
However quoting her in full would not make here position any better though.
What she said was not very clear.
"She should have said that a local culture or tradition which has developed a more or less live and let live approach toward religion."
That is to say not just any local culture but live and let live cultures only.
In that case the religion of the person concerned is live and let live culture and not the Islam.
Culture worship as opposed to Allah worship.
Could go on this point but maybe some other time.
Just go and read my "blank book" argument above if you want to get some reply.
Briefly on other matters.
Repudiate - translate to - Renounce the religion.
Not know the language such as Latin or Greek or whatever agrument.
Search jihadwatch or dhimmiwatch and read the articel "How to debate a Muslim, Part I" and read the part about not knowing Aramaic.
Also even if I don't know the language myself, it is okay as long as some other people know it and they translate it for me correctly.
Greater/Lesser jihad?
Search jihadwatch or ask Robert politely about it.(He would be annoyed if you told him that. He is just sick of this tired old taqiyya.)
Informed Christian,
Who elected you Pope of the Musselmen?
I'm dying to know who you think is a Jew. (Jews themselves enjoy debating it. Question: Say, why does a Jew always answer a question with a question. Answer: A Jew shouldn't answer a question with a question?)
You have decided who is a Muslim. Heck, you have decided what is religion and that most people around the world are heretics and apostates. Umm, yeah, sure. Only that guy in the corner with his King James Bible and dog eared copy of The Late Great Planet Earth are the true believers.
Advice to Miss Moneypenney: Please read what I have written again, this time with a bit more care(if you have even read it at all in full)
I could ask the same of you. Who elected you Pope of the Musselmen? By the way I never claimed to be the "Pope" of anything. That was just your baseless allegation.
Maybe its the supposed Jewish "god" that needs to take adult literacy classes since it seems, according to you he doesn't know how to express his wills clearly? What do you think? What kind of a god expresses his wishes in such a confuses and imprecise way that his followers are left in confusion about what they really are?
Well kind of. I argued for a certain way of identifying who is a Muslim and who is not and so on. So in a way yes.
So what if I have decided? Maybe its a good decision. Just because I have decided it doesn't mean that its wrong. If you think my decision is wrong then tell me why it is wrong.
You sound like that snake in the garden of Eden who told Eve to interpret "don't eat that forbidden fruit" no-literally.
Are you a female? Here is a question. What does "NO" mean? Women say that "NO means NO" but some men interpret "No" in a non-literally and they end up being charged with rape.
Finally, don't get angry and start insulting me. We are just talking and discussing. Maybe I make a bit of fun at you but hey can't you take a joke? I made a bit of fun but I never insulted you. In fact it was you who started all of this by insulting me first.
I never insult anyone, not even the Muslims or Atheists, to begin with. I make a bit of fun but thats just humor. But if they insult me then I sometimes get back. But only sometimes.
I am not trying to put you or anyone down. We are just sharing thoughts and comparing ideas. So relax.
Actually I am having a great deal of fun. I can't imagine why you think otherwise.
To any poor soul so unfortunate as to still be reading this thread:
makes perfect sense to me and seems perfectly unobjectionable.I admire Robert Spencer’s work because he understands religious desire as part of the human make up. He sees Islam as a religious problem, not a social science problem.
One thing that can be a hindrance in studying religions is ignorance- oops, sorry. That can be a hindrance in anything.
A broad understanding of how man’s religious desire has played out in other places in times will help us probe for weaknesses in the jihad threat.
There are at least 4000 Christian denominations. Catholics read the Christian Gospel and find support for the Pope and Transubstantiation. Southern Baptists read the same Gospel and find that they shouldn’t drink, smoke or dance.
Reform Jews read the Torah and find that there is no reason to maintain prohibitions against pork and shellfish. Orthodox Jews read Torah and find that they should not use cars on the Sabbath.
I object to the quaint deconstructionist ideas that words have no meaning at all. However, it is quite clear that things have multiple meanings. What one finds in a sacred book depends a great deal on how one has been taught to approach it.
Mr. Spencer has said repeatedly that there are plenty of moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. His statement
While I appreciate the breathtaking arrogance of simply dismissing religions that don’t come with their own set of scriptures, again I would point out that many people around the world experience religion in a non-textual way—that is, American Evangelicalism is not the only model for how humans experience religion. Given this, there is hope that Muslims will be less poisonous in living than their book commands them to be. Still, it would be very helpful if there were a compelling moderate Muslim theology, and I know of none.