This is not a thread on extremism, but modernity and its relation to how we think about religion.
There is a strong correlation between development and modernization. In the rare exceptions to the rule, tradition is enforced through harsh repressive means (one could argue that Saudi Arabia has developed by some measures without becoming modern).
Emerging societies have aimed to synthesize the dominant form of modernization i.e. westernization, with traditional culture. But religion might have a harder time coping.
Whether you adopt an aspect of modern thought into your religion, or you actively rationalize religious reasons to reject it, today’s Muslims, particularly on this site, are fundamentally trying to reconcile two very different systems of though. The resolution of these conflicts may produce interesting results, but they wont really be pure Islamic thought, they will always be coloured by a modern, western context, they will be frequently in english, use tools of thinking and systems of reasoning that have developed recently. And even if the writers themselves somehow escape their social context, the audience will interpret what they read in terms of a modern social outlook.
So, do traditional, pre-modern societies such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, underdeveloped parts of Pakistan hold the vestiges of ‘pure’ Islamic thought (regardless of whether we view such purity as desirable or not).
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
Question of modernity V religion concerns Islam more than the other religions due to its emphasis on all aspects (including personal and social) of human life. Generally, liberal minded people have condemned religion for they call it rigid and stagnant by nature and thus incompatible with science & invention which by nature is always changing and looking for the better alternatives. From my own study of the my religion I have found its laws open to progression as they carry enough to adopt to different societies and situations. On the other hand we also have the biddah brigade and I will wait and see what other people have to say about this.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
so you are saying religion can adapt to non-religious/secular progress (implying some measure of synthesis). i dont deny that, but I wouldnt call that an exercise in pure Islamic thought, its reactive, adapting, synthesizing.
to convey my question in kindof cartoon terms, suppose it were possible to isolate Islam before modernity from the rest of the world. the development and thinking that was a result from such a society I think would be very different from the one we see in societies where religion is almost always rationalized and interpreted by modern eyes. dont want to go into which is better etc.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
Why does progress have to be non religious or secular?
Religion & progressiveness can be partners and its an experiment that needs to be sincerely tried. Iran is a good case study as they have been able to synthesise the two.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
So, do traditional, pre-modern societies such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, underdeveloped parts of Pakistan hold the vestiges of 'pure' Islamic thought (regardless of whether we view such purity as desirable or not).
there is a huge difference between jahiliyat and islamization. None of the above countries are even close to being Islamic states. KSA may look like one but for a pure islamic state, you need the rulers to be pure momins too, not whiskey drinking, gay f*king, slave beating jackasses.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
I avoided using the word progress as it is somewhat subjective. Modernity and development are both somewhat empirical terms, whereas progress I guess depends on where you start. I wouldnt qualify Iran as either modern or developed (nor do I regard it as progressive for that matter).
Lets begin with some definitions:
Modernity typically denotes “a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period”, in particular, one marked by progress from agrarianism via the rise of industrialism, capitalism, secularization, the nation-state, and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance (Barker 2005, 444). …
Modernization typically involves a rationalization of society’s functions (as opposed to motivations based in religion or tradition). The bolded parts in the above definition are also reasons why religion is usually having to respond to the pressures of modernization. Whether your adapt, or reject, your intellectual output will be coloured by modernization, and it wont be the same as the fictional Islamic society mentioned in my last post.
Development is again a measurable quantity. Iran does OK, it is ranked 70th out of 160 countries, basically about midway. Without incurring argument, it is clear that some measure of suppression is required in keeping modernity at bay, as evidenced by the recurring protests.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
^ TLK is right on this one.
Besides modernism and Islam have no clash whatsoever in fact were it not for Islam many of the things we take for granted today would not even exist... if you dotn believe that look up 1001 inventions.
Anyway Islam is a very progressive faith, the only reason in modern times it seems to be seen as backwards is due to propaganda and becuase of the natural reaction of some Muslims to soul search and start blaming any new thing as being the reason why they are going down.
I think Islam in it's purest form is a revolutionary and very liberating faith were it not so then it would never have spread so easily.
Another point to consider is that for a long time Islam was technologically and in most other aspects far advanced than the rest of the world, though technically it's being ripped by internal and external threats and thus we see this shadow of former glory.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
there is a huge difference between jahiliyat and islamization. None of the above countries are even close to being Islamic states. KSA may look like one but for a pure islamic state, you need the rulers to be pure momins too, not whiskey drinking, gay f*king, slave beating jackasses.
true. I didnt mean it to be a compliment. nevertheless it is a Muslim society, one that is not modern, and one that is atleast somewhat developed.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
I will try to come back to the modernity debate later.
Just a side note about Iran & its scientific progress.
According to the New Scientist magazine, Iran is the fastest growing country in the world in terms of science.
In areas of medical science such as rheumatology, hematology, and bone marrow trasplantation, Iranian medical scientists are among the world leaders. Their academics contribute an amazing proportion of the contemporary research in the fields such as Chemistry, Physics, and Biology and is among all science producing countries. Iran ranked 15th in 2009 in the field of nanotechnology in terms of presenting articles. Take a look at this: Science and technology in Iran - Wikipedia
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
Islam is a progressive religion too. If you look at the history how Medinah developed during Prophet's SAW life and later on how development occured during Khilafat-e-Rashida in terms of govt, treasury, military, education, mail system, police, welfare system etc etc. During later periods how Baghdad, Dumascus, Cairo and Spain evolved into great university towns, a lot of research and development occurred over the next several centuries. Its only when Muslims started ignoring basic teachings of Islam (remember the first word Gabriel uttered to Prophet was "Learn!") including education thats where power and money got their heads and they were defeated and concurred from all corners. So the era of propariety in Islam is an undisputed fact and prove that Islam is a progressive religion.
There are fundamental difference in current world's defination of progressiveness. Islam has some rules to abide by, today's highlights of progressiveness includes Interest based economy, lack of morality and greed (instead of containment) that does not gel very well with Islamic teachings. Unfortunately there is no current example that can be given because of post-colonial dictatorship across the Muslim countries, but Malaysia can be a relatively close example of what a Muslim society should look like. Not only prospariety, but it comes with decent life style, self sufficient economy, Islam compatible constitution, tolerance and human rights. If Middle-East was not taken by the viceroys from West, and we had good forward looking leadership with ethical dicipline the story would have been different. A lot of disputes could have been resolved with dialogues and give n' take rule with neighbors including Isreal and India. But its not in the interest of some big guns in the world. Oil has become curse than a blessing.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
Yes, only in the sense that the vistages of Islamic traditions untainted by colonial experiences exist within these places, to a certain degree. There is a continuity of tradition, and an interest in maintaining it. Purity in this sense is that the intellectual tradition was (presumably) internalized and reconciled by a Muslim society without major conflict.
I will not say originated within Muslim society, as the number of external influnces, (Greece/Syrian/Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, Turkic/Mongol empires, etc) on Islamic thought on secular matters dating right back to the time of Sahaba makes me question the relevancy of “purity”, never mind the desirability .
Note that this is entirely independent of how one defines modernity…
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
I will respond to folks in detail tomorrow, but I think the closest to what I am talking about has been picoico. my issue is not the degree of compatibility or conflict between these two intellectual paradigms, but whether those of us who live in a modern context must produce intellectual output that cannot be compared to the purer intellectual tradition mentioned by picoico, that can only exist in countries and cultures that are not modern yet (either because they are underdeveloped, or because of state suppression/religious police or even lack of colonization..though that is a slightly different topic, but pretty related).
imagine if you were a librarian looking at books being produced by people of our background on the one hand, and those living in pre-modern society. what do you say about the concerns and outlooks of these two sets of people. whether you adapt or reject modernity, our immersion in it means that it has to be a significant if not dominant part of our intellectual effort, i think. do you feel that the subject matter, the arguments, the outlooks between the two will be very different, regardless of which one is better or worse.
from my observation, Muslims in modern contexts tend to think in two terms, religious and modern, and then attempt to reconcile them. that is a very different thought process i would think.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
Hmm...also...tradition being enforced by harsh means? Harsh only for those who don't want to see it last, perhaps? Within western societies, we are begining to see a backlash against Islam...I contend this is just a start. Hijab bans, mineret bans, and a conceivable ban on the religion itself...(a remote possibility...but still possible)...not to mention the blanket approval of the draconian enforcement of Turkey's secularism by Western nations, institutions, and intellectuals...we should perhaps reserve our judgement on how harsh a liberal and modern society will go to protect it's values. And I think I've just scratched the surface...the irony is, those who identify as 'conservatives' in the West are perhaps most hawkish on how far to go to protect western liberal values. But let there be no mistake...from the perspective of Islamic societies, they're all liberal...and *militantly *so....
Anyhow, the point of the ramblings above is that I think the harshness is more a function of how a tradition is perceived to be under threat from outside *forces. I don't think it's unique to Islam, but that's a different topic. And this leads me to the 'inside forces'...ie. to notions of authenticity of an intellectual tradition...many Muslims are definitely guilty of "ain't built here" kind of thinking. If a Muslim didn't think of it, or if it can't be spun with an 'Islamic' prefix (Islamic science, Islamic democracy, Islamic economics, etc)...then it must necessarily suck. This demand for authenticity is perhaps the root of *contemporary muslim notions of 'purity'. I would just point out that this mentality is evident even in developed, and relatively free environments....
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
Ravage Modernity means developing easy life style for people such as machines which make a job to be performed easily or making better cars beds and also make sure they are affordable for most people so this research can be done by keeping beards or wearing Hijab but promblem is the liberals which also call them muslims have limited the concept of modernity to getting nude and promoting illegal sexula acts
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
if you define 'modernization' as positive gains civilization has made as a result of increased human knowledge then such modernization is a great blessing and anybody who says otherwise wud be called a fool.........
'modernization' as explained by the Western folks (as worded by Wikipedia in the page linked by ravage) has no place in Islam.........to start of with secularization and certain founding aspects of capitalism go completely opposite to Islam because Islamic governmental structure does not separate religion from political authority and socially its emphasis is on things such as equity, equality and being chartable..........
Now to answer the original question given we take the first definition of modernization (i.e. positive natural development of humanity).........then level of modernization has nothing to do with the level of Islami-ness of a society............for Islam is a set of fixed principles and dynamic social laws that are open to interpretion at all times (ijtehad)............whichever society is close to those fixed principles and has implemented the social laws wud be close to being called a society that is 'pure'............
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
So, do traditional, pre-modern societies such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, underdeveloped parts of Pakistan hold the vestiges of 'pure' Islamic thought (regardless of whether we view such purity as desirable or not).
What Islamic thought? You are hardly allowed to think independently in these societies!
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
I thought the developed welfare societies, specially in south and west Europe were following more closely the 'Islamic Thought' than many of the so-called Islamic states.
It is just one of those cycles in human history where the countries which host most of the world's Muslims are 'under developed'. At different points in time, Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Persians, Mongols, British etc where considered 'super powers' and developed. It doesn't necessarily mean that other cultures or traditions were inferior to the one in power at that time.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
ravage, you're linking illiteracy with Islam unintentionally. Islam encourages its followers to get education. If education is spread in all those regions that you mentioned and given freedom of speech, you will find very refined and vibrant societies (-minus vulgarity that came with the development to the most of the world unfortunately). There will be no honor killings, abuse of women and other human rights issue. I see colonial era and post colonial brown viceroys as the prime (not the only) reason for the current misery in Islamic countries.
Re: Can pure Islamic thinking only exist in underdeveloped or repressive environments
lets set aside the question of inferior/superior. when I say modern, i am referring to a society with the following properties: a market economy with relations of capital that is industrialized, where the nation-state is a meaningful concept, where power is based on democracy, where religious figures do not have formal power and the state's function is secular in nature (it is not carrying out responsibilities in service of God but the people that elected it. It has been a long time since any country sent a letter to a neighbouring country asking it to convert to its religion and accept its authority for example). An age where authority is decentralized and state functions are rationalized, and science/empirical measures are used to advocate for responsibilities of the state, and religion is diminished into a way of thinking. It is these phenomena that are positively correlated with development; countries with higher HDI type indicators tend to have more of these properties than others.
Consider this forum. When the question of gay marriage comes up, you have many arguing for or against it. Where did this question come from? What arguments do they use? Lets consider the question of stoning that was in PA. Most would not participate it in themselves. Some say they dont because they are not convinced that the person is guilty, a very modern notion of your place in society vis a vis the qazi. You have a few people arguing for such penalties with the notion that it deters crime. That seems to me a modern, utilitarian defence of a religiously mandated punishment. People will similarly say that such punishments apply only to people who have basically had public sex (4 witnesses), and Islam doesnt want public indecency. Others will characterize irtidad penaties as treason. You have some Muslims saying lets allow alcohol but tax it very highly so that it discourages people from drinking it. Consider this forum itself! You have **a* religion forum suggesting that religion has its place, you have many others such as politics, life and relationships etc etc where religiously based opinion is only one, usually marginal form of input*.
These are modern rationalizations of religion, and symptomatic of the two ways of thinking most Muslims in modernity have. When confronted with any given issue or news event they will think in two ways. They will think of it in a rational/secular light and they will think of it in a religious light. One side or the other might win, or they may try to reconcile these two. But this two sided thinking will happen in some order to some degree.
All I am doing is asking whether you agree that those of us who live in modern countries or in cities in Pakistan (more developed, more modern) have these two ways of thinking, which I am contrasting with Muslim thought process in earlier times, or Muslim thought process in underdeveloped countries/regions. I am not saying that earlier times were illiterate or they abused women etc, nor am I (atleast as yet :)) putting down people who live in underdeveloped parts of the Muslim world.