Islamic history is replete with examples of the rich cultural contributions to art, science, literature, and architecture that advanced both eastern and western societies.
Every religion is susceptible to minority, extremist control. We saw it with Christianity innumerable times over millennia...the Spanish Civil War, the era of Stalin, the rise of Nazism.
No people should ever be defined by the extremists who use religion as a Trojan Horse to seize power.
True. But citing extremist Christian control (or, for example, uncited Buddhist extremist control plainly on display today in Myanmar, or uncited resurgent Hindu extremist behavior in India) brings up an obvious question, doesn't it? Can any supernaturalist belief really be "Liberal"? Will not any Liberal impulses that it might possess be under constant threat of submersion/suppression by "fundamentalists" who will challenge those views by asserting that the more illiberal views are in fact, "revealed", "originalist", and thus "true"?
And in the case of Islam in particular, how is any of what has been said about its "Liberal" characteristics compatible with a main principle held by an overwhelming majority of the الاُمّة that there is and should not be any difference between ecclesiastical and secular authority?
"Can any supernaturalist belief really be 'liberal'?" is an important question. But what it misses is that this is not an exclusively "supernaturalist" problem. Irreligious perspectives, like atheism or secularism or agnosticism or whatever else, are capacious enough to generate liberal-friendly versions and illiberal versions. So the issue isn't that there is something about "supernaturalism" that makes it susceptible to illiberal capture; it's why it seems to be the case that every comprehensive worldview admits of some illiberal manifestations.
The answer to that is partly given in the article, in my view. The authors point out how religion often maps onto, is layered on top of, is filtered over, a pre-existing set of cultural or individual inclinations. The violent man finds in religion justification for his violence and proceeds accordingly, now emboldened by a divine imprimatur that he didn't have when those inclinations were just raw and unbaptized by religious approval. In a lot of cases where we attribute causal primacy to religion when assessing an individual or people group or culture's characteristics, we're running an ex post facto analysis that doesn't necessarily hold up.
I like to say: wars happen because the lizard brain gets the better of the monkey brain; religion and politics are just the excuses the monkey brain dreams up to justify the war. (Hume said related things more elegantly and abstractly)
So I don't blame religion and politics for war - I just blame humans for lacking the intelligence, foresight and self-control needed for _not_ going to war. And for not having the humility to admit our limitations in this regard.
That said. . .I think the historical evidence shows that tying state and religion together does seem to aggravate the problem.
From my perspective, you're conflating concepts, and making unsupported sweeping generalizations.
The extremism of just the 20th and 21st centuries have primarily been conducted by political entities, in the guise of religious ideology.
There is no precept of religion itself that inevitably gives rise to extremism.
Islam, as I noted has a rich secular history. Many advancements in astronomy and chemistry are directly attributed to ancient Muslim scholars.
I don't know what to make of your last sentence, which is astonishingly broad and unsupported. In fact, it is contradicted in detail by the essay to which you are responding.
I agree with you in noting Islam's tendency to conflate ecclesiastical and secular authority.
However, you, in turn, are conflating religion (or its cosmology) with those who hijack it -- as if your own beliefs (or suppositions) can't themselves be hijacked and subjected to a similar critique.
When you ask (rhetorically), "Can any supernaturalist belief really be 'Liberal?," that's tendentious -- and illiberal -- in its own right.
Will not any Liberal impulses you might possess be extinguished by those asserting that (what you call) "supernaturalism" is contradicted by "empirical evidence" and must be forced into a closet (labeled "ignorance and superstition"), or perhaps even forcibly suppressed?
(Does that happen in the real world, "conducted by political entities"? See "Soviet Union," or "China." Would you like some Uyghurs with that?)
Meanwhile, what if all this (i.e., the world of "empirical evidence") is just a dream? What is (what we call) Time? How do you even know that you exist? That's a matter of epistemology -- which is, in itself, not a science.
Please see my response to Dave Tamanini (elsewhere in this thread), where I elucidate more of a liberal approach.
Wasn't the former IS leader also a graduate in Islamic theology and some claimed even had a PhD in that domain from a university in Baghdad? If such a learned person pored over Islamic texts and became such a notorious leader, then something's still fishy.
Hmm. How about also “No religion can be properly understood based on its most liberal proponents.” Within the last decade, a *majority* of Muslims in Muslim majority countries have endorsed killing apostates. Capital punishment for apostates is the law of the land in 8 Muslim-majority countries. Solid majorities of Muslims believe Sharia is the revealed word of God.
If the interpretation of Islam in this article is the most true interpretation, then the authors have written to the wrong target audience. It is not Westerners that misunderstand Islam, it is the Arab world and other countries where Islam is ascendant.
I’m all for reformation within the Abrahamic religions, but the audience for that needs to be believers, not outsiders.
One of the points of the article is that there is a Western tendency to causally attribute those illiberal practices to *Islam*, as opposed to cultural preoccupations that preceded or are independent of Islam, without doing any of the work to establish that Islam is the driving force behind them.
It would be like assuming, during a time of great emphasis on waging earthly war on behalf of Christ (during Christendom, say), that Christianity is inherently violent, as opposed to the more sober judgment that Christianity is able to be mapped onto cultural preoccupations of the day.
"... as Muslim reformer Shireen Qudosi phrased it in speaking of Islam’s desperate need of reformation, 'either Islam needs to evolve or it needs to die'."
"... philosopher Anthony Flew who justifiably concluded, in his review of Ibn Warraq’s 'Why I’m Not a Muslim', that 'Islam is flatly incompatible with the establishment and maintenance of the equal individual rights and liberties of a liberal, democratic, secular state'. ...."
"[secular? Muslim] Mr. Salim Mansur (Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual): ... ' I would like members to note that I come before you as a practising Muslim who knows out of experience, from the inside, how volatile, how disruptive, how violent, how misogynistic is the culture of Islam today and has been during my lifetime, and how it greatly threatens our liberal democracy that I cherish, since I know what is its opposite' ..."
The people who call Islam secular usually have a cushy job/position in non Muslim countries. I cannot imagine calling other religions equivalent to Islam in a Islamic country.
For eg, When the revolution of 1979 took place in Iran, leftists groups were also against the Persian Shah. But the radical leader took power and gripped the country into hardline conservative mode.
Whenever there is a clash b/w a liberal Islamic follower and hardline one, the latter has always won.
"There is a final reason why it makes little sense to exhort Muslims to their own past: while there are many things that the Islamic world lacks, pride in heritage is not one of them. What is needed in Islam is less self-pride and more self-criticism. Today, self-criticism in Islam is valued only insofar as it is made as an appeal to be more pious and less spiritually corrupt. And yet most criticism in the Muslim world is directed outward, at the West. This prejudice — what Fouad Ajami has called (referring to the Arab world) 'a political tradition of belligerent self-pity' — is undoubtedly one of Islam’s biggest obstacles. It makes information that contradicts orthodox belief irrelevant, and it closes off debate about the nature and history of Islam."
That "rejection of reason" and "belligerent self-pity" seems the crux of the problem.
Odd piece. Would that it were so! But I'm afraid it isn't. Most notably, a religion that specifies the death penalty for those who renounce it cannot be considered liberal. And that's what Islam does.
Where are all the liberal Muslims? Why don't we hear from them? Are they deliberately ignored by the media? We only ever seem to hear from the extremists. Community leaders seem to toe the antisemitic, pro-terrorist line here in the UK. They try and fudge it by saying anti-Zionist but undercover reporting has exposed real hatred not just of Jews but of all non-Muslims.
Yet many Muslims are patriotic, tolerant and liberal. So why do we never hear their voices?
Where are the liberal Muslim online magazines and YouTube channels?
These young women have performed on national TV in Indonesia and are named-dropped by Indonesian politicians and administrators in the government. Note that one of their recent concerts was sponsored by the Ministry of Religious Affairs (whose role I'm not clear on, outside of sponsoring rock concerts:-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c87cDwjUbKU
I think that if every American knew of their existence, Americans would have a very different view of Islam (even if they don't find their music appealing)
This is probably why my Muslim friends were good friends with our local Rabbi and taught each other Hebrew/Arabic. Why oh why can’t we all just get along?
Is Islam compatible with the notion of secular law, and with a distinction between religion and the State? In that context, what is the meaning of the term "Caliphate," and does such a formation (a fusion of religious and political authority) reflect, not merely an historical anomaly, but an approach to values and statecraft at the core of Islam?
How does this work in Indonesia? Is the Indonesian model consistent with Islamic jurisprudence? Conversely, did the Ottoman "millet" system represent the sorts of challenges one encounters when trying to incorporate some semblance of pluralism within an Islamic superstructure?
I'm merely raising these questions as issues that the article doesn't clearly address. They remain legitimate questions (subject to a nuanced understanding, along with an unflinching recognition) even if Islam is OTHERWISE compatible with many liberal values.
With respect, I cannot disagree that Islam, as a personal religion, is what the authors say it is for themselves and other believers. But in my opinion, when he says Islam " is liberal, because there is no inherently controlling or imposing facet to Islam." I must take an exception. Liberalism at its core is the belief that man, in the generic sense, has the inherent right and ability to determine his own personal rules of behavior without reliance on a higher authority for morality. Islam through its belief in divine laws as a guide to personal behavior may very well define virtues which match mankind's age-old discoveries of morals or virtues that lead to societal happiness and peace, and that is a great good for those who follow it as a personal guide to behavior. In this respect it may complement liberalism, but as a public morality it is not liberal nor should it be permitted to define society's morals, rules or laws writ large for the modern state.
Mostly agree with Dave Tamanini's critique, but with an important caveat.
Tamanini writes, "Liberalism at its core is the belief that man, in the generic sense, has the inherent right and ability to determine his own personal rules of behavior without reliance on a higher authority for morality."
That would seem to imply that liberalism is implicitly atheist -- is INcompatible with a belief that one's own personal rules of behavior rely on a higher authority" -- and is inimical to any other understanding of one's own existence or of one's own place in the universe.
Liberalism is NOT a belief (let alone a quasi-religion).
It's an approach to social and political structures that maintains space for each of us to pursue one's own understanding of our existence as the underpinning of one's personal morality, and that allows for us to coexist despite differing beliefs.
In my own posting, I question Islam's willingness to draw a distinction between religion and the State. I would urge Dave to avoid falling into that trap -- in this case, enshrining "science" or "reason" (or even The Law) as a de facto State Religion, and calling that "liberalism."
A liberal society might have a need for lawyers and scientists, but we don't turn to lawyers or scientists as arbiters of morality (which is [and which liberalism recognizes as] a different realm of understanding -- even when some might not recognize that such a realm even exists).
There's a vast (liberal) middle ground between Established Religion and the notion that "free exercise of religion" is ultimately all about superstition and that its purview must be confined to a closet.
On the question of religion and the state in Islam, none other than Edmund Burke wrote that by recognizing a higher power, Islam checked the unlimited and arbitrary power of kings. It separated the personal/civil domain from the political one and divided power between the priests that were in charge of the first and the kings who were in charge of the second in a way that Christianity didn't until
Oddly enough, I've concurred with Burke when debating atheist anarchists who insist that religious belief is implicitly authoritarian -- noting that to any unjust State edict, the Believer can respond, "We answer to a Higher Authority,"
Nonetheless, this begs the question of theocracy. Do the Mullahs keep the Iranian State in check? What's your take on my liberal alternative?
Respectfully, I think Liberalism is a belief; in the supremacy of the individuals to choose form of government democratically in order to set communal parameters (laws) for living peacefully in a chosen society. In this respect, liberalism is non-theistic and not at war with the personal religious beliefs of people of faith, but it must be tolerant where the personal religious morality of the believers does not conflict with the public system of governance chosen democratically, in the manner founders expected us to do in the United States.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! Our difference might only be semantic: what esch of us means by the word "belief."
When I say "Liberalism is not a belief," I'm using the word "belief" to mean what a religious person would call their "faith" -- i.e., I'm saying that liberalism itself is not a religion (nor do I believe that it's a substitute for one). That's what I mean by saying that liberalism operates "in a different realm."
You merely seem to be using the word "belief" more broadly -- so as to include (or to specify) mechanisms and procedures.
In terms oif belief, personally I'm something of a pantheist (also, at that, an agnostic monotheist with a Buddhist toolbox) -- as well as a Jew.
As it happens, this aligns fully with the founders' conception that "We hold these truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Notably, in this formulation (by "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God"), self-determination is inherently an individual (not a collective) right. I have little use for illiberal Statism, or for organized religion. As a Jew, I would never have voted to excommunicate Spinoza -- but, conversely, I'm also inclined to point out that Spinoza was not an atheist (nor must one be an atheist to recognize, as in Buddhism, the pitfalls of ego). FWIW, I'm a spiritual (rather than political) Zionist, in the tradition of Judah Magnes -- but Magnes was driven out of Israel (by terrorists on both sides), and he died in New York of a broken heart.
Or as my grandmother put all this to me, far more succinctly, when I was young: Politics is a dirty business. ;-)
So transparently stupid and simplistic that this article might as well have been written by ChatGPT. Cherry-picking basic Islamic commandments of compassion and then concluding that this means Islam is synonymous with a 17th century secular political philosophy that has been at total odds with Islam since day 1. Can't believe these people are wealthy academics.
The fundamental pillar of every religion is that their religion is the only correct one. As such, it's impossible for any religion to be "liberal". That's not an extremist interpretation. It's the normal, central interpretation of all religion.
Islam is a much more orthodox religion than Christianity. There is, and was ever, only one Quran. My understanding is the oldest copies date from the 7th century. Mohammed's public life spanned decades and his followers included literate people who wrote down things he said. These records were assembled into the Quran by a team of scholars who produced the single version of the Quran that has come down to the present just 20 years after Mohammed's death.
Christianity has as its oldest and most fundamental writings seven letters of Paul (who did not know Jesus in life) and the four Gospel accounts plus Acts that date from 40-70 years after Jesus's death. There also a number of second century writings, some who claim to have been written by Paul or one of the Apostles.
The resulting New Testament contains a large number of documents that say different, contradictory things. There is no true "orthodox" Christianity, just political/theological positions that claim to be orthodox. Thus, Christianity MUST be interpreted, which is why there are hundreds of different kinds of Christianity that say very different (and often contradictory) things.
This makes what Christians believe much more amenable to modification over time than Muslims. For example, Muslims can have a literalist take on the Quran without self-contradiction. Bibilical literalists cannot. Even a simple question like where were Mary and Joseph living when Mary got pregnant with Jesus produces two contradictory answers, Luke says Galilee and Mathew says Judea.
Islam is not liberal. Islam is not conservative. And it doesn’t have to be either. Why?
Because these ontological frames are social constructs created under the specific epistemic frameworks developed in the West. Islam doesn’t have to abide by either. It’s an independent system, with its own epistemological frame and its own concepts of state, society, law, justice, politics, economics.
There is absolutely no need to justify or show Islam as liberal. It is great injustice to Islam. Liberalism has produced the worst possible society in human history. With daily mass shootings, fentanyl and drug addictions, alcoholism, predatory finance, epistemic oppression, family values breakdown, and a total social collapse - why would a system as powerful as Islam sink itself low to the level of liberalism.
No, Islam has nothing to do with liberalism and that is Islam’s greatest strength. And that is why it remains as the last and only hope for human civilization to build a perfect society.
The need to somehow show compatibility and establish false equivalence between Islam and any western models, including liberalism, stems from a deeply rooted immigrant and minority desire to fit in. So people seek these patterns where none exist. The fact that someone has to explain Islam and author articles like this because people in the West view two billion people differently shows that liberalism is a failed model.
Nothing is compatible between the western values and Islam and it doesn’t have to be. Western liberalism can become more humane and more tolerant and more virtuous by adopting Islam. Islam can fix all that’s wrong with liberalism - which is pretty much everything.
For example, it is nothing but liberalism that’s enabling the genocide in Palestine.
A good dose of liberalism might inform you as to how to accept and get along with Jews as individuals, as it might better inform Israelis as to how to accept Muslim individuals as full-fledged citizens. After all, we worship (and live under) the same G-d. Judaism -- having introduced the world to monotheism -- is merely the oldest form of the religion currently known as Islam. And now we've returned home. Can't we all get along?
Yes. Jews and Muslims must live together in peace and love and respect each other. But that will not come from liberalism. Liberalism has shown its true colors now. True faith based Jewish and Muslim communities are far more likely to live in peace together.
Western liberal democracy is founded on oppression. From imperialism to colonialism, it’s all liberalism. Exploiting wealth of weak nations, perpetuating their suffering, dropping drones and bombs, creating economic disasters, and architecting mass destruction are all liberalism. And then, once lives are destroyed, pushing migrants into cages at the border crossings and shoving minorities in inner city ghettos is liberalism. Ensuring that food coupons and social security and gambling and addiction become a way of life for minorities is liberalism.
The evils of Nazism and Communism and Fascism did not rise from Islam or true Judaism. Islam did not create the Taliban or ISIS. Liberalism did. We know who created and supported these organizations.
Look back at the history of the 21st century. Look at wars - and see who’s behind all of those wars? Answer: Liberalism.
Who has created the climate change catastrophe and is unwilling to agree to treaties to combat it? You guessed it right: Liberalism.
Liberalism is a way of life that is more dangerous than western conservatism. That’s because it is deceptive. It gives an appearance of humanity and disguises its evil. Just see how so-called liberals enabled and allowed the Gaza genocide to go on. There is nothing liberal about liberalism.
Liberalism has hurt the United States by destroying faith and values. It has created a deeply psychopathic society with hugely flawed values. The aura of candle lighting spiritualism devoid of human values and mindless mindfulness of nihilism built upon uncontrollable hedonism are the foundational elements of liberalism.
Liberalism is the disease for the world and Islam (along with all other faith based communities) are the cure. The world needs real answers. Islam (and other faiths) are the real answers.
Islam is not liberal - and rightfully so.
And the quote provided from the Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." ….. clarifies that the rights are granted by the Creator. If so, why shouldn’t we let the Creator define what life, liberty, and pursuit of Happiness means. The interpretation of that should come from Bible, Quran, Torah …. and not from Liberalism.
"There is nothing liberal about liberalism"? Huh? If you're using the word "liberal" here (at first) to denote a positive attribute, are you not, in a sense, a liberal yourself, after all?
That quote from the Declaration of Independence -- including, as I've explained, its reference to the Laws of Nature and Nature's God -- is the bedrock of liberalism.
IN THAT CONTEXT, each of us, as an individual, defines what life, liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness means. Let the Creator judge. There's no escaping evolution, or Time itself.
The shortcomings of liberalism that you've mentioned are corruptions of it. They aren't inherent specifically or only to liberalism; they can afflict any society. For some brilliant insight into how these corruptions occur, I'd refer you to Ibn Khaldun. ;-)
PS: Would you love and respect me any less if I told you that I'm not only Jewish, but that I'm also (what we in the West call) gay -- i.e., that I'm attracted to, and have intimate relationships with, other guys? (In Aleppo in 2010, I saw plenty of guys walking arm-in-arm, or holding hands, in mixed public spaces -- more openly and casually, in fact, than is customary in the West.)
PPS: Also please note my reference to Judah Magnes, and to spiritual Zionism. What do you make of that?
Yes. True liberty is freedom from all sorts of oppression. So it is positive. “Liberalism” as in the western liberalism context is nothing but oppression.
Regarding Declaration of Independence… it clearly points to the Creator. I have a different interpretation than yours. Common sense dictates that the one who creates also gives the rules of operation for the creation. That’s why when you buy a Toyota it comes with an operating manual from Toyota. This is true for every creation. Human creation is governed by human nature - as individuals and as societies. And the Creator of humans offers operating manual by architecting rules for human and social conduct i.e. Laws of Nature (as well as all other laws of physics). Human societies therefore should be governed by laws that are designed for their specific nature. That’s why the term Nature’s God. It doesn’t mean a god for national parks or natural habitats. It means a God who created them and understands their true nature.
That’s why human societies should be governed by the laws given to them by the God who created them and who understands their nature.
These laws come from faith. They’re not different from Kabbalah or Islam or the Ten Commandments. One and the same.
Liberalism destroyed these rules by translating the word “nature” as unleashing the animalistic nature of humans - and happiness as hedonism - and life as live and let die - and liberty as sexual freedoms and freedom to engage in sin. There is no way Jefferson would have implied these values in those words.
We obviously disagree, and you've correctly identified the nature of our disagreement. At this apocalyptic moment, humanity is desperately awaiting an updated and corrected edition of the Operator's Manual -- direct from its Source. The old Toyota manual isn't all that much help in fixing a Prius -- unless, of course, you're (metaphorically) suggesting that we need to go back to driving one of Toyota's older models (and live in a less crowded world), where the old manual might suffice.
Evolution is a work-in-progress. Beware idolatry of the Ancient Text. As I've noted before, the Creator will judge.
Thank you for sharing this essay.
Islamic history is replete with examples of the rich cultural contributions to art, science, literature, and architecture that advanced both eastern and western societies.
Every religion is susceptible to minority, extremist control. We saw it with Christianity innumerable times over millennia...the Spanish Civil War, the era of Stalin, the rise of Nazism.
No people should ever be defined by the extremists who use religion as a Trojan Horse to seize power.
True. But citing extremist Christian control (or, for example, uncited Buddhist extremist control plainly on display today in Myanmar, or uncited resurgent Hindu extremist behavior in India) brings up an obvious question, doesn't it? Can any supernaturalist belief really be "Liberal"? Will not any Liberal impulses that it might possess be under constant threat of submersion/suppression by "fundamentalists" who will challenge those views by asserting that the more illiberal views are in fact, "revealed", "originalist", and thus "true"?
And in the case of Islam in particular, how is any of what has been said about its "Liberal" characteristics compatible with a main principle held by an overwhelming majority of the الاُمّة that there is and should not be any difference between ecclesiastical and secular authority?
"Can any supernaturalist belief really be 'liberal'?" is an important question. But what it misses is that this is not an exclusively "supernaturalist" problem. Irreligious perspectives, like atheism or secularism or agnosticism or whatever else, are capacious enough to generate liberal-friendly versions and illiberal versions. So the issue isn't that there is something about "supernaturalism" that makes it susceptible to illiberal capture; it's why it seems to be the case that every comprehensive worldview admits of some illiberal manifestations.
The answer to that is partly given in the article, in my view. The authors point out how religion often maps onto, is layered on top of, is filtered over, a pre-existing set of cultural or individual inclinations. The violent man finds in religion justification for his violence and proceeds accordingly, now emboldened by a divine imprimatur that he didn't have when those inclinations were just raw and unbaptized by religious approval. In a lot of cases where we attribute causal primacy to religion when assessing an individual or people group or culture's characteristics, we're running an ex post facto analysis that doesn't necessarily hold up.
I like to say: wars happen because the lizard brain gets the better of the monkey brain; religion and politics are just the excuses the monkey brain dreams up to justify the war. (Hume said related things more elegantly and abstractly)
So I don't blame religion and politics for war - I just blame humans for lacking the intelligence, foresight and self-control needed for _not_ going to war. And for not having the humility to admit our limitations in this regard.
That said. . .I think the historical evidence shows that tying state and religion together does seem to aggravate the problem.
From my perspective, you're conflating concepts, and making unsupported sweeping generalizations.
The extremism of just the 20th and 21st centuries have primarily been conducted by political entities, in the guise of religious ideology.
There is no precept of religion itself that inevitably gives rise to extremism.
Islam, as I noted has a rich secular history. Many advancements in astronomy and chemistry are directly attributed to ancient Muslim scholars.
I don't know what to make of your last sentence, which is astonishingly broad and unsupported. In fact, it is contradicted in detail by the essay to which you are responding.
Please do, however, cite my conflation of concepts, and especially my "unsupported and sweeping generalizations".
Without doing so, I would argue that you are projecting.
I agree with you in noting Islam's tendency to conflate ecclesiastical and secular authority.
However, you, in turn, are conflating religion (or its cosmology) with those who hijack it -- as if your own beliefs (or suppositions) can't themselves be hijacked and subjected to a similar critique.
When you ask (rhetorically), "Can any supernaturalist belief really be 'Liberal?," that's tendentious -- and illiberal -- in its own right.
Will not any Liberal impulses you might possess be extinguished by those asserting that (what you call) "supernaturalism" is contradicted by "empirical evidence" and must be forced into a closet (labeled "ignorance and superstition"), or perhaps even forcibly suppressed?
(Does that happen in the real world, "conducted by political entities"? See "Soviet Union," or "China." Would you like some Uyghurs with that?)
Meanwhile, what if all this (i.e., the world of "empirical evidence") is just a dream? What is (what we call) Time? How do you even know that you exist? That's a matter of epistemology -- which is, in itself, not a science.
Please see my response to Dave Tamanini (elsewhere in this thread), where I elucidate more of a liberal approach.
This is a great read. Thank you for expanding my heart and mind.
Advancements in astronomy and chemistry are not proof of Liberalism. This is an empty argument.
Indeed! Some of the suicide bombers here in the UK were science graduates and even doctors!
Wasn't the former IS leader also a graduate in Islamic theology and some claimed even had a PhD in that domain from a university in Baghdad? If such a learned person pored over Islamic texts and became such a notorious leader, then something's still fishy.
Hmm. How about also “No religion can be properly understood based on its most liberal proponents.” Within the last decade, a *majority* of Muslims in Muslim majority countries have endorsed killing apostates. Capital punishment for apostates is the law of the land in 8 Muslim-majority countries. Solid majorities of Muslims believe Sharia is the revealed word of God.
If the interpretation of Islam in this article is the most true interpretation, then the authors have written to the wrong target audience. It is not Westerners that misunderstand Islam, it is the Arab world and other countries where Islam is ascendant.
I’m all for reformation within the Abrahamic religions, but the audience for that needs to be believers, not outsiders.
One of the points of the article is that there is a Western tendency to causally attribute those illiberal practices to *Islam*, as opposed to cultural preoccupations that preceded or are independent of Islam, without doing any of the work to establish that Islam is the driving force behind them.
It would be like assuming, during a time of great emphasis on waging earthly war on behalf of Christ (during Christendom, say), that Christianity is inherently violent, as opposed to the more sober judgment that Christianity is able to be mapped onto cultural preoccupations of the day.
"Contrary to Western Understanding, Islam Is a Liberal Faith" 😂🤣
https://web.archive.org/web/20180405214735/https://www.thepostmillennial.com/islam-sharia-secular-democracy/
"... as Muslim reformer Shireen Qudosi phrased it in speaking of Islam’s desperate need of reformation, 'either Islam needs to evolve or it needs to die'."
"... philosopher Anthony Flew who justifiably concluded, in his review of Ibn Warraq’s 'Why I’m Not a Muslim', that 'Islam is flatly incompatible with the establishment and maintenance of the equal individual rights and liberties of a liberal, democratic, secular state'. ...."
"[secular? Muslim] Mr. Salim Mansur (Professor of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual): ... ' I would like members to note that I come before you as a practising Muslim who knows out of experience, from the inside, how volatile, how disruptive, how violent, how misogynistic is the culture of Islam today and has been during my lifetime, and how it greatly threatens our liberal democracy that I cherish, since I know what is its opposite' ..."
https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/41-1/CIMM/meeting-51/evidence#Int-7696927
The people who call Islam secular usually have a cushy job/position in non Muslim countries. I cannot imagine calling other religions equivalent to Islam in a Islamic country.
For eg, When the revolution of 1979 took place in Iran, leftists groups were also against the Persian Shah. But the radical leader took power and gripped the country into hardline conservative mode.
Whenever there is a clash b/w a liberal Islamic follower and hardline one, the latter has always won.
Indeed. ICYMI, you might have some interest in this old post at The New Atlantis:
"Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science: On the lost Golden Age and the rejection of reason"
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science
"There is a final reason why it makes little sense to exhort Muslims to their own past: while there are many things that the Islamic world lacks, pride in heritage is not one of them. What is needed in Islam is less self-pride and more self-criticism. Today, self-criticism in Islam is valued only insofar as it is made as an appeal to be more pious and less spiritually corrupt. And yet most criticism in the Muslim world is directed outward, at the West. This prejudice — what Fouad Ajami has called (referring to the Arab world) 'a political tradition of belligerent self-pity' — is undoubtedly one of Islam’s biggest obstacles. It makes information that contradicts orthodox belief irrelevant, and it closes off debate about the nature and history of Islam."
That "rejection of reason" and "belligerent self-pity" seems the crux of the problem.
Odd piece. Would that it were so! But I'm afraid it isn't. Most notably, a religion that specifies the death penalty for those who renounce it cannot be considered liberal. And that's what Islam does.
Where are all the liberal Muslims? Why don't we hear from them? Are they deliberately ignored by the media? We only ever seem to hear from the extremists. Community leaders seem to toe the antisemitic, pro-terrorist line here in the UK. They try and fudge it by saying anti-Zionist but undercover reporting has exposed real hatred not just of Jews but of all non-Muslims.
Yet many Muslims are patriotic, tolerant and liberal. So why do we never hear their voices?
Where are the liberal Muslim online magazines and YouTube channels?
Hear are some nice, loud, liberal, feminist, pacifist Indonesian Muslim voices (I heard them when they toured the US). https://www.youtube.com/@VoiceofBaceprot
These young women have performed on national TV in Indonesia and are named-dropped by Indonesian politicians and administrators in the government. Note that one of their recent concerts was sponsored by the Ministry of Religious Affairs (whose role I'm not clear on, outside of sponsoring rock concerts:-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c87cDwjUbKU
I think that if every American knew of their existence, Americans would have a very different view of Islam (even if they don't find their music appealing)
This is probably why my Muslim friends were good friends with our local Rabbi and taught each other Hebrew/Arabic. Why oh why can’t we all just get along?
Is Islam compatible with the notion of secular law, and with a distinction between religion and the State? In that context, what is the meaning of the term "Caliphate," and does such a formation (a fusion of religious and political authority) reflect, not merely an historical anomaly, but an approach to values and statecraft at the core of Islam?
How does this work in Indonesia? Is the Indonesian model consistent with Islamic jurisprudence? Conversely, did the Ottoman "millet" system represent the sorts of challenges one encounters when trying to incorporate some semblance of pluralism within an Islamic superstructure?
I'm merely raising these questions as issues that the article doesn't clearly address. They remain legitimate questions (subject to a nuanced understanding, along with an unflinching recognition) even if Islam is OTHERWISE compatible with many liberal values.
With respect, I cannot disagree that Islam, as a personal religion, is what the authors say it is for themselves and other believers. But in my opinion, when he says Islam " is liberal, because there is no inherently controlling or imposing facet to Islam." I must take an exception. Liberalism at its core is the belief that man, in the generic sense, has the inherent right and ability to determine his own personal rules of behavior without reliance on a higher authority for morality. Islam through its belief in divine laws as a guide to personal behavior may very well define virtues which match mankind's age-old discoveries of morals or virtues that lead to societal happiness and peace, and that is a great good for those who follow it as a personal guide to behavior. In this respect it may complement liberalism, but as a public morality it is not liberal nor should it be permitted to define society's morals, rules or laws writ large for the modern state.
Mostly agree with Dave Tamanini's critique, but with an important caveat.
Tamanini writes, "Liberalism at its core is the belief that man, in the generic sense, has the inherent right and ability to determine his own personal rules of behavior without reliance on a higher authority for morality."
That would seem to imply that liberalism is implicitly atheist -- is INcompatible with a belief that one's own personal rules of behavior rely on a higher authority" -- and is inimical to any other understanding of one's own existence or of one's own place in the universe.
Liberalism is NOT a belief (let alone a quasi-religion).
It's an approach to social and political structures that maintains space for each of us to pursue one's own understanding of our existence as the underpinning of one's personal morality, and that allows for us to coexist despite differing beliefs.
In my own posting, I question Islam's willingness to draw a distinction between religion and the State. I would urge Dave to avoid falling into that trap -- in this case, enshrining "science" or "reason" (or even The Law) as a de facto State Religion, and calling that "liberalism."
A liberal society might have a need for lawyers and scientists, but we don't turn to lawyers or scientists as arbiters of morality (which is [and which liberalism recognizes as] a different realm of understanding -- even when some might not recognize that such a realm even exists).
There's a vast (liberal) middle ground between Established Religion and the notion that "free exercise of religion" is ultimately all about superstition and that its purview must be confined to a closet.
On the question of religion and the state in Islam, none other than Edmund Burke wrote that by recognizing a higher power, Islam checked the unlimited and arbitrary power of kings. It separated the personal/civil domain from the political one and divided power between the priests that were in charge of the first and the kings who were in charge of the second in a way that Christianity didn't until
much later. I wrote a brief blog about it here: https://reason.com/2011/08/09/what-poses-a-bigger-threat-to/
Fascinating perspective! Thank you for that link!
Oddly enough, I've concurred with Burke when debating atheist anarchists who insist that religious belief is implicitly authoritarian -- noting that to any unjust State edict, the Believer can respond, "We answer to a Higher Authority,"
Nonetheless, this begs the question of theocracy. Do the Mullahs keep the Iranian State in check? What's your take on my liberal alternative?
Respectfully, I think Liberalism is a belief; in the supremacy of the individuals to choose form of government democratically in order to set communal parameters (laws) for living peacefully in a chosen society. In this respect, liberalism is non-theistic and not at war with the personal religious beliefs of people of faith, but it must be tolerant where the personal religious morality of the believers does not conflict with the public system of governance chosen democratically, in the manner founders expected us to do in the United States.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! Our difference might only be semantic: what esch of us means by the word "belief."
When I say "Liberalism is not a belief," I'm using the word "belief" to mean what a religious person would call their "faith" -- i.e., I'm saying that liberalism itself is not a religion (nor do I believe that it's a substitute for one). That's what I mean by saying that liberalism operates "in a different realm."
You merely seem to be using the word "belief" more broadly -- so as to include (or to specify) mechanisms and procedures.
In terms oif belief, personally I'm something of a pantheist (also, at that, an agnostic monotheist with a Buddhist toolbox) -- as well as a Jew.
As it happens, this aligns fully with the founders' conception that "We hold these truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Notably, in this formulation (by "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God"), self-determination is inherently an individual (not a collective) right. I have little use for illiberal Statism, or for organized religion. As a Jew, I would never have voted to excommunicate Spinoza -- but, conversely, I'm also inclined to point out that Spinoza was not an atheist (nor must one be an atheist to recognize, as in Buddhism, the pitfalls of ego). FWIW, I'm a spiritual (rather than political) Zionist, in the tradition of Judah Magnes -- but Magnes was driven out of Israel (by terrorists on both sides), and he died in New York of a broken heart.
Or as my grandmother put all this to me, far more succinctly, when I was young: Politics is a dirty business. ;-)
Nice talking with you.
So transparently stupid and simplistic that this article might as well have been written by ChatGPT. Cherry-picking basic Islamic commandments of compassion and then concluding that this means Islam is synonymous with a 17th century secular political philosophy that has been at total odds with Islam since day 1. Can't believe these people are wealthy academics.
The fundamental pillar of every religion is that their religion is the only correct one. As such, it's impossible for any religion to be "liberal". That's not an extremist interpretation. It's the normal, central interpretation of all religion.
Islam is a much more orthodox religion than Christianity. There is, and was ever, only one Quran. My understanding is the oldest copies date from the 7th century. Mohammed's public life spanned decades and his followers included literate people who wrote down things he said. These records were assembled into the Quran by a team of scholars who produced the single version of the Quran that has come down to the present just 20 years after Mohammed's death.
Christianity has as its oldest and most fundamental writings seven letters of Paul (who did not know Jesus in life) and the four Gospel accounts plus Acts that date from 40-70 years after Jesus's death. There also a number of second century writings, some who claim to have been written by Paul or one of the Apostles.
The resulting New Testament contains a large number of documents that say different, contradictory things. There is no true "orthodox" Christianity, just political/theological positions that claim to be orthodox. Thus, Christianity MUST be interpreted, which is why there are hundreds of different kinds of Christianity that say very different (and often contradictory) things.
This makes what Christians believe much more amenable to modification over time than Muslims. For example, Muslims can have a literalist take on the Quran without self-contradiction. Bibilical literalists cannot. Even a simple question like where were Mary and Joseph living when Mary got pregnant with Jesus produces two contradictory answers, Luke says Galilee and Mathew says Judea.
Islam is not liberal. Islam is not conservative. And it doesn’t have to be either. Why?
Because these ontological frames are social constructs created under the specific epistemic frameworks developed in the West. Islam doesn’t have to abide by either. It’s an independent system, with its own epistemological frame and its own concepts of state, society, law, justice, politics, economics.
There is absolutely no need to justify or show Islam as liberal. It is great injustice to Islam. Liberalism has produced the worst possible society in human history. With daily mass shootings, fentanyl and drug addictions, alcoholism, predatory finance, epistemic oppression, family values breakdown, and a total social collapse - why would a system as powerful as Islam sink itself low to the level of liberalism.
No, Islam has nothing to do with liberalism and that is Islam’s greatest strength. And that is why it remains as the last and only hope for human civilization to build a perfect society.
The need to somehow show compatibility and establish false equivalence between Islam and any western models, including liberalism, stems from a deeply rooted immigrant and minority desire to fit in. So people seek these patterns where none exist. The fact that someone has to explain Islam and author articles like this because people in the West view two billion people differently shows that liberalism is a failed model.
Nothing is compatible between the western values and Islam and it doesn’t have to be. Western liberalism can become more humane and more tolerant and more virtuous by adopting Islam. Islam can fix all that’s wrong with liberalism - which is pretty much everything.
For example, it is nothing but liberalism that’s enabling the genocide in Palestine.
A good dose of liberalism might inform you as to how to accept and get along with Jews as individuals, as it might better inform Israelis as to how to accept Muslim individuals as full-fledged citizens. After all, we worship (and live under) the same G-d. Judaism -- having introduced the world to monotheism -- is merely the oldest form of the religion currently known as Islam. And now we've returned home. Can't we all get along?
Yes. Jews and Muslims must live together in peace and love and respect each other. But that will not come from liberalism. Liberalism has shown its true colors now. True faith based Jewish and Muslim communities are far more likely to live in peace together.
Western liberal democracy is founded on oppression. From imperialism to colonialism, it’s all liberalism. Exploiting wealth of weak nations, perpetuating their suffering, dropping drones and bombs, creating economic disasters, and architecting mass destruction are all liberalism. And then, once lives are destroyed, pushing migrants into cages at the border crossings and shoving minorities in inner city ghettos is liberalism. Ensuring that food coupons and social security and gambling and addiction become a way of life for minorities is liberalism.
The evils of Nazism and Communism and Fascism did not rise from Islam or true Judaism. Islam did not create the Taliban or ISIS. Liberalism did. We know who created and supported these organizations.
Look back at the history of the 21st century. Look at wars - and see who’s behind all of those wars? Answer: Liberalism.
Who has created the climate change catastrophe and is unwilling to agree to treaties to combat it? You guessed it right: Liberalism.
Liberalism is a way of life that is more dangerous than western conservatism. That’s because it is deceptive. It gives an appearance of humanity and disguises its evil. Just see how so-called liberals enabled and allowed the Gaza genocide to go on. There is nothing liberal about liberalism.
Liberalism has hurt the United States by destroying faith and values. It has created a deeply psychopathic society with hugely flawed values. The aura of candle lighting spiritualism devoid of human values and mindless mindfulness of nihilism built upon uncontrollable hedonism are the foundational elements of liberalism.
Liberalism is the disease for the world and Islam (along with all other faith based communities) are the cure. The world needs real answers. Islam (and other faiths) are the real answers.
Islam is not liberal - and rightfully so.
And the quote provided from the Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." ….. clarifies that the rights are granted by the Creator. If so, why shouldn’t we let the Creator define what life, liberty, and pursuit of Happiness means. The interpretation of that should come from Bible, Quran, Torah …. and not from Liberalism.
Hamas created Hamas. Liberalism did not butcher Jewish children. Whoever you are sir, may God help you.
Obviously your version, Allah, is a Death Demon. So God help you.
Your laundry list of “liberal” horrors is the usual psychopathic projections of your cult.
You choose to feel threatened by ghosts and thus become the very thing you fear.
Antidote. Or poison.
“And One Ring to rule them all.”
Sad.
"There is nothing liberal about liberalism"? Huh? If you're using the word "liberal" here (at first) to denote a positive attribute, are you not, in a sense, a liberal yourself, after all?
That quote from the Declaration of Independence -- including, as I've explained, its reference to the Laws of Nature and Nature's God -- is the bedrock of liberalism.
IN THAT CONTEXT, each of us, as an individual, defines what life, liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness means. Let the Creator judge. There's no escaping evolution, or Time itself.
The shortcomings of liberalism that you've mentioned are corruptions of it. They aren't inherent specifically or only to liberalism; they can afflict any society. For some brilliant insight into how these corruptions occur, I'd refer you to Ibn Khaldun. ;-)
PS: Would you love and respect me any less if I told you that I'm not only Jewish, but that I'm also (what we in the West call) gay -- i.e., that I'm attracted to, and have intimate relationships with, other guys? (In Aleppo in 2010, I saw plenty of guys walking arm-in-arm, or holding hands, in mixed public spaces -- more openly and casually, in fact, than is customary in the West.)
PPS: Also please note my reference to Judah Magnes, and to spiritual Zionism. What do you make of that?
Yes. True liberty is freedom from all sorts of oppression. So it is positive. “Liberalism” as in the western liberalism context is nothing but oppression.
Regarding Declaration of Independence… it clearly points to the Creator. I have a different interpretation than yours. Common sense dictates that the one who creates also gives the rules of operation for the creation. That’s why when you buy a Toyota it comes with an operating manual from Toyota. This is true for every creation. Human creation is governed by human nature - as individuals and as societies. And the Creator of humans offers operating manual by architecting rules for human and social conduct i.e. Laws of Nature (as well as all other laws of physics). Human societies therefore should be governed by laws that are designed for their specific nature. That’s why the term Nature’s God. It doesn’t mean a god for national parks or natural habitats. It means a God who created them and understands their true nature.
That’s why human societies should be governed by the laws given to them by the God who created them and who understands their nature.
These laws come from faith. They’re not different from Kabbalah or Islam or the Ten Commandments. One and the same.
Liberalism destroyed these rules by translating the word “nature” as unleashing the animalistic nature of humans - and happiness as hedonism - and life as live and let die - and liberty as sexual freedoms and freedom to engage in sin. There is no way Jefferson would have implied these values in those words.
That’s the dilemma of our society.
We obviously disagree, and you've correctly identified the nature of our disagreement. At this apocalyptic moment, humanity is desperately awaiting an updated and corrected edition of the Operator's Manual -- direct from its Source. The old Toyota manual isn't all that much help in fixing a Prius -- unless, of course, you're (metaphorically) suggesting that we need to go back to driving one of Toyota's older models (and live in a less crowded world), where the old manual might suffice.
Evolution is a work-in-progress. Beware idolatry of the Ancient Text. As I've noted before, the Creator will judge.