With a community of over 1.5 billion believers stretching across the globe, Islam is the world’s second largest religion, and it has been the subject of intense debate and scrutiny in the West for decades. Besides the centuries of conflict between Christian Europe and the Muslim empires of Arabia, or even more recent memories of Islamic fundamentalists chanting “Death to America” as they stormed the American embassy during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th left a deep distrust, fear, and in some cases overt hatred, of Muslims embedded deep in the American consciousness. In his article “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim”, Mahmood Mamdani argues that this specter of Islamic terrorism is not the reaction
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The truth lies somewhere between these two views. I would argue that the crisis is not a result of Islam, but of extreme interpretations of it. Islam is not modern – no religion is. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam, are all ancient, with each forming over a thousand years ago to create order in disordered societies, and many of their central tenets, beliefs, and practices are reflections of this earlier time. However, when religions adapt from their “purest” form of orthodoxy to incorporate more modern principles like religious tolerance, gender equality, and acceptance of other lifestyles and practices, it is possible for them to exist peacefully and prosper within modern society. Islam, as it exists today, is neither modern nor sustainable. The suffering of Muslims from poverty and violence will continue until Islam is able to reign in its fundamentalist wing and address the political and economic failings that have left so many Muslims so angry and vulnerable to …show more content…
I would argue, in a word, yes. For one, it is important to examine both timing and history. Islam is far younger than its sister, Christianity, by over 600 years, and has therefore had much less time to resolve its differences than other major world religions. As Muslims today are engaged in what may seem like endless and petty sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia, or Muslims against non-Muslims, it is significant to remember that Christians 600 years ago were in a similar boat. The Protestant Reformation led to all-out war between Catholics and Protestants, and Europe burned for decades in the Thirty Years War. The Catholic Inquisition was, in a similar fashion to fundamentalist Islamic movements, anti-modern to the core, targeting, jailing, and torturing scientists, social progressives, and anyone who questioned Church rulings or supremacy. Women did not have any measure of equality, and often those rare few who were educated or outspoken for women’s rights were burned alive as witches. Even the first settlers to America, the bastion of modernity and secularism today, were Puritan fundamentalists whose views on homosexuality, gender roles, and adultery were on par with the some of the strictest forms of sharia espoused by conservative Muslims. In modern times, Christianity still struggles with some of its more radical members, however, for the most part, fundamentalism and extremism have been pushed to the
The truth lies somewhere between these two views. I would argue that the crisis is not a result of Islam, but of extreme interpretations of it. Islam is not modern – no religion is. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam, are all ancient, with each forming over a thousand years ago to create order in disordered societies, and many of their central tenets, beliefs, and practices are reflections of this earlier time. However, when religions adapt from their “purest” form of orthodoxy to incorporate more modern principles like religious tolerance, gender equality, and acceptance of other lifestyles and practices, it is possible for them to exist peacefully and prosper within modern society. Islam, as it exists today, is neither modern nor sustainable. The suffering of Muslims from poverty and violence will continue until Islam is able to reign in its fundamentalist wing and address the political and economic failings that have left so many Muslims so angry and vulnerable to …show more content…
I would argue, in a word, yes. For one, it is important to examine both timing and history. Islam is far younger than its sister, Christianity, by over 600 years, and has therefore had much less time to resolve its differences than other major world religions. As Muslims today are engaged in what may seem like endless and petty sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia, or Muslims against non-Muslims, it is significant to remember that Christians 600 years ago were in a similar boat. The Protestant Reformation led to all-out war between Catholics and Protestants, and Europe burned for decades in the Thirty Years War. The Catholic Inquisition was, in a similar fashion to fundamentalist Islamic movements, anti-modern to the core, targeting, jailing, and torturing scientists, social progressives, and anyone who questioned Church rulings or supremacy. Women did not have any measure of equality, and often those rare few who were educated or outspoken for women’s rights were burned alive as witches. Even the first settlers to America, the bastion of modernity and secularism today, were Puritan fundamentalists whose views on homosexuality, gender roles, and adultery were on par with the some of the strictest forms of sharia espoused by conservative Muslims. In modern times, Christianity still struggles with some of its more radical members, however, for the most part, fundamentalism and extremism have been pushed to the