Babbling About Islam
Or at least, that's what this Tech Central Station essay amounts to. Ideofact has commented on it here and here, and I promised to refute the third-to-last paragraph. The offending text:
"One consequence of all this is that there is no mechanism in Islam, as there is in Catholicism, for an application of the principles of an ongoing Tradition to new circumstances -- be they social, political, scientific, or technological -- by drawing out heretofore implicit consequences. That is, there is no broad and complex body of teaching of which its sacred book forms but a part, and thus no resources as authoritative as the text itself to appeal to in applying it to the modern world. There is simply a dead letter, revealed once and for all centuries ago, and presupposing a historical context to which one must, in obeying the revelation, strive constantly to return. Hence if modern science and liberal democracy seem foreign to the world of the Koran, so much the worse for them."
Like so much that is written about Islam these days, there's no room for real discussion of this paragraph - it is simply wrong. Most of Islamic theology did not exist until a couple of centuries after Muhammad. Islamic law is not so much a set law code as a field of inquiry with different schools of thought, all of which most Muslims recognize as valid. True, Muslims trace much of this back to The Beginning, but as in all religions which claim to guard unchanging truths, they are, shall we say, in error.
Muslims throughout history have never had a problem adapting to modern science, and in many cases have advanced it. Because everyone acknowledges the Islamic world was a scientific leader 1000 years ago, to claim simultaneously that Islam is eternally unchanging and inherently a barrier to scientific achievement is an inconsistency which the proponents of that line never really address. Even today, when Muslim fundamentalists ban TV, they're doing it because of the programming and cultural implications, not because it's a new technology. Ayatollah Khomeini's sermons were smuggled into Iran on audio cassettes. And the final statement that Muhammad would be closer to Wahhabi than liberal Islam because he was not a multiculturalist is really odd. My Muslim readers can probably provide details, but I think he taught that the world's diversity was a sign of God's glory, and the statement "There is no compulsion in religion" is as vital a strain of Islamic tradition as anything else.
At some point I need to write a series of "About Islam" posts I can point to for these sorts of things. As a question of comparative history, looking at different periods of Islam in relatio to different periods of Christianity is fine. But you need to get a handle on your subject before you can go anywhere.
UPDATE: Anthony deJesus has more.
"One consequence of all this is that there is no mechanism in Islam, as there is in Catholicism, for an application of the principles of an ongoing Tradition to new circumstances -- be they social, political, scientific, or technological -- by drawing out heretofore implicit consequences. That is, there is no broad and complex body of teaching of which its sacred book forms but a part, and thus no resources as authoritative as the text itself to appeal to in applying it to the modern world. There is simply a dead letter, revealed once and for all centuries ago, and presupposing a historical context to which one must, in obeying the revelation, strive constantly to return. Hence if modern science and liberal democracy seem foreign to the world of the Koran, so much the worse for them."
Like so much that is written about Islam these days, there's no room for real discussion of this paragraph - it is simply wrong. Most of Islamic theology did not exist until a couple of centuries after Muhammad. Islamic law is not so much a set law code as a field of inquiry with different schools of thought, all of which most Muslims recognize as valid. True, Muslims trace much of this back to The Beginning, but as in all religions which claim to guard unchanging truths, they are, shall we say, in error.
Muslims throughout history have never had a problem adapting to modern science, and in many cases have advanced it. Because everyone acknowledges the Islamic world was a scientific leader 1000 years ago, to claim simultaneously that Islam is eternally unchanging and inherently a barrier to scientific achievement is an inconsistency which the proponents of that line never really address. Even today, when Muslim fundamentalists ban TV, they're doing it because of the programming and cultural implications, not because it's a new technology. Ayatollah Khomeini's sermons were smuggled into Iran on audio cassettes. And the final statement that Muhammad would be closer to Wahhabi than liberal Islam because he was not a multiculturalist is really odd. My Muslim readers can probably provide details, but I think he taught that the world's diversity was a sign of God's glory, and the statement "There is no compulsion in religion" is as vital a strain of Islamic tradition as anything else.
At some point I need to write a series of "About Islam" posts I can point to for these sorts of things. As a question of comparative history, looking at different periods of Islam in relatio to different periods of Christianity is fine. But you need to get a handle on your subject before you can go anywhere.
UPDATE: Anthony deJesus has more.
posted by Brian Ulrich at
10:21 PM
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