French church attacked by terrorists

[Belz...]

Well, it started as a Jewish spinoff sect, and its major figure was Jewish and heavily quoted Jewish scriptures.

I know. I was just being facetious. Only having the New Testament sure would've saved a lot of trouble, though.

 

[metacristi]

Lewis doesn't deny it, he just thinks it took a different form (he addresses this directly in his book What Went Wrong?).

And the fact that actual Islamic scholarship contains a range of opinions, from Goitein's to Esposito's, kind of punctures your claim that it's all a slave to Saidism.

He defintely agrrees with the widespread view that the islamic antisemitism does not have a religious dimension. It has I'm afraid. Just watch the salafi sheiks on youtube explaining (entirely based on the Quran and Hadith) why the Jews are the eternal ennemies of muslims. And it manifested also in the past as well (although of course the situation was better, not much better, in the islamic lands). Secondly I have never said that 'it s all a slave to Saidism'. I only argued that the advent of Saidism was a disaster and that even some of the mainstream theses existent in Academia prior to 'Said's splash' are not that strong as some think.

As Betts pointed out, even Ye'or's own book on the subject doesn't support that assertion, with Muslims remaining the minority in Egypt for half a millennia after the Islamic conquests (and not becoming an overwhelming majority until the fourteenth century, nearly a thousand years after the conquest of Egypt), and Ye'or herself admitted that the Catholic-Orthodox schism and the resultant intra-religious conflicts probably had as much to do with the non-European Christian communities' decline after the eleventh century as Islam did.

The muslim chronicler Baladhuri (or Makrizi) reports that already in the 9th century (paraphrased) 'We broke the backbone of the Copts (in the cities)', this following the important coptic revolts against the high taxation (the fact that muslim taxation was 'merciless' is not a factor outside the impact of the dhimma I'm afraid, some arab peasants revolted as well but the copts bore the brunt of revenge, they never recovered from this blow). After that the Copts avoided large scale revolts, their leaders preferring to collaborate closely with their masters along sharia lines (which brought privileges to a small religious elite) followed by a steady process of dwindling in number which transformed the copts in a minority already in the 10 century ('hypothecating' the future of the dhimmi communities on long term this time anyways).

This is entirely consistent with Bat Ye'or's approach (which acknowledgers the existence of somehow better times), the attempt to speculate that other factors may be at work in the serious shrinking of the dhimmi populations does not make her hypothesis less legitimate (at least at this moment in time). Anyways we have speedier cases where the negative impact of dhimma (taxation, dhimmis made to feel that they were beyond the pale and so on) is clearer. Also the attempts to show that dhimmis used the Ottoman sharia courts and sometimes even won against a muslim are too sketchy to deserve to generalize in the way some are doing today, at best this is an example of somehow better times.

Finally the dhimma, never abrogated before the strong pressure of the European Powers, is still the outcome of jihad against the infidels and could be revoked at the whim of the muslim masters. This is definitely not an example of something positive giving rights to 'religious minorities'. It is at best a Mafia approach.

The "historical context" is that he deliberately butchered the Mècheroutiette article he was citing, combining the words of multiple people and pretending they were all said by one person while not acknowledging that those words were actually quoted and criticised within the article itself (or, indeed, that the article was actually written by someone other who he cited it to).

Yes, when you say things like "The intelligence of an Arab rises as high as the faculty of imitation. Put him on a motor-car or a locomotive engine, and after a certain time of apprenticeship, they will be able to drive it; but if the machine should get out of order, he will be quite incapable of repairing it, and still less could he make a new one", no amount of whining about "historical, colonialist context" and how it's just "criticism of the muslim individual" will make you not appear racist. And that applies to Winston Churchill as well.

I don't think I'm wrong if you understand that in the larger context in which Servier made that assertion. For he also wrote:

The deadening influence of Islam is well demonstrated by the way in which the Musulman comports himself at different stages of his life. In his early childhood, when the religion has not as yet impregnated his brain, he shows a very lively intelligence and remarkably open mind, accessible to ideas of every kind; but, in proportion as he grows up, and as, through the system of his education, Islam lays hold of him and envelops him, his brain seems to shut up, his judgment to become atrophied, and his intelligence to be stricken by paralysis and irremediable degeneration.”

I don't see the 'racism' here. It's a variation the standard colonial argument against islam as a barrier to progress (having justification by the way, although not necessarily that of Servier). You are guilty here of the same 'butchering of the text'. The big difference is that unlike you Bostom did change rather few in the original argument.

Is now Chruchill 'racist'? I don't think so since he recognizes the individual value of a muslim, being cirtical only of the islamic ideology which conditions him. The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (who do not make any distinction between the minds of 'savages' and westerners by the way) once wrote unapologetically:

This religion is based less on evidence of a revelation than on the inability to forge links outside itself…Muslims do not always seek brutality to bring the other to share their truth, yet they are unable to bear the existence of others as others”.

With some justification, I'd say. Churchill is definitely better than him.

You've been strawmanning my position on that for years, falsely accusing me of having a "honey and milk" view when I've flat-out told you before that my own position is "Non-Muslims were not treated anywhere close to equals, but they were still treated better than non-Christians (especially Jews) were in Europe" (which is precisely the position articulated by both Goitein and Lewis).

Evaluating islam and its history means much more than the views on dhimma. As far as I remember you consistemntly condemned Lewis for being an 'Orientalist' (in the pejorative, Saidist, sense for his sharper criticisms of islam, and he has many), denied the centrality of jihad in classical islam, told us what is not 'islamophobia' (usually paleative 'criticisms' of no real use), branded many critics of islam, rational in my view, as 'bigots' and 'islamophobes', are obsessed with details about critics of islam outside the argument discussed and so on. Now you may not think of you as a Saidist, unfortuantely the methodology you use to defend islam betray you as one.

 

[A'isha]

He defintely agrrees with the widespread view that the islamic antisemitism does not have a religious dimension.

True.

Just watch the salafi sheiks on youtube explaining

See, there's your problem.

The muslim chronicler Baladhuri reports that already in the 9th century (paraphrased) 'We broke the backbone of the Copts (in the cities)', this following the important coptic revolts against the high taxation (the fact that muslim taxation was 'merciless' is not a factor outside the impact of the dhimma I'm afraid). After that the Copts avoided large scale revolts, their leaders preferring to collaborate closely with their masters strictly along sharia lines (which brought privileges to a small religious elite) followed by a steady process of dwindling in number which transformed the copts in a minority already in the 12 century (this 'hypothecated' the future of the dhimmi communities on long term).

Taxation, particularly in Egypt, was oppressive to Copt and Muslim alike, and both Copts and Muslims periodically revolted against it. In the 13th Century, for instance, Hisn al-Din ibn Taghlab led a revolt of Arab Muslim peasant tribesmen against the Turkish Mamluk rulers of Egypt, preventing the collection of the agricultural taxes levied on them until the Mamluks crushed the revolt and put the Arab rebels to the sword (which didn't prevent it from happening again several more times over the next century). The overtaxed peasant nature of the revolt was recorded by al-Nuwayri, who reported that all the Arab prisoners taken by the Mamluk armies were "all cultivators of the land" (la-hum filaihat wa-zuru), and after the 1301 revolt, he noted that "the fallahs [Arab Muslim peasants] were subjugated, and handed over the kharaj [land] taxes".

These kharaj taxes crushingly outweighed the jizya poll taxes. Yossef Rapoport notes that, based on the contemporary tax survey of al-Nabulusi, one medium-sized village in Egypt, Saylah, had to pay in tax 730 dirhams for their livestock, and 25,000 to 37,500 dirhams for their roughly 1500 acres of cultivated land (paid in kind, the equivalent of about 12,000 bushels of grain - in medieval Europe at the time, each acre produced 8-12 bushels of grain on average, meaning if these villagers were consistently producing the top of that range, they were paying 2/3 of their agricultural output in taxes. If they had a "bad" year and only produced the lower end of that average, they were paying all of their grain in taxes, leaving them nothing to eat).

The jizya paid by the ten non-Muslims in that village was 20 dinars. [EDIT: At the lowest wage I could find mentioned in Goitein's Mediterranean Society, one dirham a day (the wage of a scribe, described as half the pay of an unskilled laborer - Vol. 2, p. 238), that's 27 days (or about a month's) wages per man.]

This is entirely consistent with Bat Ye'or's approach (which acknowledgers the existence of somehow better times), the attempt to speculate that other factors may be at work does not make her hypothesis less legitimate

When those other factors directly contradict her stated thesis, it does.

I don't think I'm wrong if you understand that in the larger context in which Servier made that assertion. For he also wrote:

Yes, after he also wrote a bunch of stuff like

There were certain general causes, connected with the Arab temperament and mentality, and resulting from the natural shortcomings of the Arab, from his customs, from the conditions of his existence during centuries in a special milieu — the desert.

Then there were secondary causes, consequent upon the mistakes committed by the Arabs as conquerors.

Taking first the general causes, we find that the Arabs were never a political people, capable of great aims and of patient effort in view of their realization. They were a nomadic people, primitive, simple beings, not very far removed from animalism, obeying their instincts, unable to curb their passions or to control their desires. Powerless to conceive a higher interest, to cherish a lofty ideal, they have always lived a life of indiscipline. Subject to chronic anarchy, the Arab has never been able to subordinate his individual egoism to the pursuit of any great collective task, to the realization of any national ambition.

[...]

Incapable of invention, they have copied, but have never been able to create. Incapable of progress, they tolerated the forms of government they found in existence in the lands they conquered, but they could never improve upon those forms, nor replace them by any other.

A homely illustration will explain our meaning.

"The intelligence of an Arab rises as high as the faculty of imitation. Put him on a motor-car or a locomotive engine, and after a certain time of apprenticeship, they will be able to drive it; but if the machine should get out of order, he will be quite incapable of repairing it, and still less could he make a new one.”

[...]

The Arab is a barbarian. Up to the time of Mohammed, Arabia was inhabited by shepherds and robbers; there is no evidence of the existence of a society, of any collective organization or intellectual movement. When these primitive beings, solely preoccupied by the satisfaction of material desires, sprang forward to the conquest of the world and fell into the midst of nations far advanced in civilization, they became rapidly corrupted. When the Bedouin, brought up to the rough life of the desert, accustomed to privation and suffering, was transplanted to Damascus or Bagdad, to Cordova or to Alexandria, he soon became a prey to all the vices of civilization; the half-starved creature was ready to burst with indigestion; the Spartan, by necessity, hitherto, became at once a Sybarite.

Unable to restrain his instincts, he entered into the enjoyment of an easy life and became perverted. Coarse and ignorant, he succumbed to the influence of subordinates more civilized than himself. He never had any authority but that of physical force; and when that passed from him by reason of his debasement, he forfeited all power. When foreign assistance was withdrawn, he became himself again — the Bedouin Arab.

Considering most of that garbage is about how the Arabs were supposedly like that since before Muhammad's time, it's even more of a "butchering" of his text to try and claim he was merely talking about how Islam was bad, and not that he was making racial judgments that have nothing to do with Islam.

Evaluating islam and its history means much more than the views on dhimma. As far as I remember you consistemntly condemned Lewis for being an 'Orientalist' (in the pejorative, Saidist, sense for his sharper criticisms of islam, and he has many),

I've only ever used it in the same sense he himself does, in the pre-Saidan sense. And even then it was to highlight the fact that someone as old-school and untainted by Saidism and the pernicious Islamophilia of modern academia as him disagrees with you.

denied the centrality of jihad in classical islam,

I've cited for you plenty of sources by actual historians and experts to consult instead of your motley collection of liars, lunatics, and polemicists if you really wanted to learn about the role and development of jihad in Islamic history.

told us what is not 'islamophobia' (usually paleative 'criticisms' of no real use), branded many critics of islam, rational in my view, as 'bigots' and 'islamophobes',

Telling a critic from an Islamophobe

You don't cite critics, you cite loons, crackpots, conspiracy theorists, and Christian polemicists. Of the two people you've regularly cited who are actual historians and could be called critics, one didn't actually believe what you claim he believed, and the other you denigrate as an Islamophile because, despite his curmudgeonly, conservative, defiantly anti-Saidist ways, he doesn't go far enough for you in his criticism and so you label him "guilty sometimes of unreasonable islamophilia".

So I submit to you that your perspective on what constitutes an actual "critic of Islam" is more than a little skewed.

are obsessed with details about critics of islam outside the argument discussed and so on.

I've criticised both their specific arguments, and their credibility in general (which is, for the ones you've cited, almost invariably atrocious).

 

[McHrozni]

When you're done crowing about how you totally beat up the strawmen you've been arguing with inside your head, please, feel free to address the actual posts I've made.

I would, but I don't consider your incessant whining of "but, but but ... Christians did evil tooo!!!!111" as an argument for Islam being peaceful or tolerant or whatever, so I have nothing to address.

Sue me.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

See, there's your problem.

Can you define what makes a cleric "Muslim" please?

It would be nice to know what religion is that you're talking about. You previously said that Wahhabis aren't Muslims if I recall correctly, so clearly there is a disconnect between what you think makes a person a Muslim and what the term is generally agreed to mean.

McHrozni

 

[A'isha]

Can you define what makes a cleric "Muslim" please?

The same thing that makes anyone else "Muslim" - reciting the shahada and following the Pillars.

You previously said that Wahhabis aren't Muslims if I recall correctly

I certainly don't remember saying anything like that.

 

[metacristi]

True.

See, there's your problem.

There is one indeed. A big one. The religiously inbuilt Islamic anti Semitism. Especially in the modern context when the muslims are no more the masters. Otherwise it is unlikely that the rampant Nazi style anti Semitism could have stuck so well even today in the muslim psyche.

Taxation, particularly in Egypt, was oppressive to Copt and Muslim alike, and both Copts and Muslims periodically revolted against it. , and handed over the kharaj [land] taxes".

The land tax was paid also by the dhimmis (jizya was additional to land tax at least from some point on). Anyways no matter what 'kharaj' meant in the Islamic history overall they paid more than the muslims as far as I know (double). In an economy of subsistence this created huge problems for the dhimmis, often forced to leave, be enslaved, or convert to Islam given the harsh punishments implied by the Islamic law in the case of failure to pay Jizya. Ultimately Jizya remains at base the price paid by non muslims to be left alive following jihad and a punishment for not having the 'right' religion.

When those other factors directly contradict her stated thesis, it does.

I don't think much 'contradict' her hypotheses, usually we deal with the same overrated* claims regarding the alleged 'huge' progresses made by the 'classical islam' and how beneficial sharia can be (apart from claiming that the dhimma worked well just because the situation was worse in the Christendom, large scale persecutions being less widespread in the Islamic lands). I agree that such arguments should be addressed (something which Bat Ye'or does less) but this in no way discredit her approach. Ultimately only foreign pressure moved the Islamic world in the modern era and this says everything.

Finally tell Christians, and others, under ISIS rule that the re imposition of Jizya is 'tolerance'. The fact that ISIS in Libya even killed some Ethiopian Christians for not being able to pay the Jizya is not at all a fluke.


* almost on the same level in my view with the claims of Saliba et altri that Islam gave us the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment (nonsense, we would probably still be in the Middle Ages if muslims managed to conquer Europe and Chinese still not able to go beyond the parts of their tradition blocking important progress)

]Yes, after he also wrote a bunch of stuff like

I do not want to defend Servier, he definitely pushed way too far the 'white man's burden' colonial argument. Yet this does not mean that arguing that some cultures are better than others is automatically 'racist' (as progressives of today act). Churchill for example was definitely not 'racist'.

Anyways this was only a peripheral point, the mere fact that there are plenty in the Islamic world still defending at least parts of what is written in that passage quoted from Servier about non muslims tells much about the nature of this religion.

I've cited for you plenty of sources by actual historians and experts to consult instead of your motley collection of liars, lunatics, and polemicists if you really wanted to learn about the role and development of jihad in Islamic history.

And yet Islamism is not a modern invention. The Islamism of the classical islam is its daddy.

Telling a critic from an Islamophobe

You don't cite critics, you cite loons, crackpots, conspiracy theorists, and Christian polemicists. Of the two people you've regularly cited who are actual historians and could be called critics, one didn't actually believe what you claim he believed, and the other you denigrate as an Islamophile because, despite his curmudgeonly, conservative, defiantly anti-Saidist ways, he doesn't go far enough for you in his criticism and so you label him "guilty sometimes of unreasonable islamophilia".

Loonies are those who haven't heard yet that there is no moderate islam. islam is islam as Erdogan said. Incompatible at the core with Modernity if left in the forms we see today. There are more modern muslims indeed but the problem is that muslims moderate in the Western sense of the word are far fewer than the traditionalists. That's why discrimination is rampant in the Islamic countries. The future does not look bright I'm afraid, important returns toward the past very likely.

I've criticised both their specific arguments, and their credibility in general (which is, for the ones you've cited, almost invariably atrocious).

Focus to the argument and you'll be credible. Usually your ad hominem detours from the argument discussed fail to change something regarding its validity.

 

[McHrozni]

The same thing that makes anyone else "Muslim" - reciting the shahada and following the Pillars.

So Shahada plus prayer, fasting on Ramandan, paying Zakat and pilgrimage to Mecca. Good.

Just to make sure I got this correct - members of ISIS are Muslims. True or false?

McHrozni

 

[metacristi]

Aisha: "When those other factors directly contradict her stated thesis, it does."

metacristi: I don't think much 'contradict' her hypotheses, usually we deal with the same overrated* claims regarding the alleged 'huge' progresses made by the 'classical islam' and how beneficial sharia can be (apart from claiming that the dhimma worked well just because the situation was worse in the Christendom, large scale persecutions being less widespread in the Islamic lands). I agree that such arguments should be addressed (something which Bat Ye'or does less) but this in no way discredit her approach. Ultimately only foreign pressure moved the Islamic world in the modern era and this says everything.

It is worth nothing here that the conclusions drawn by the pre WW2 scholars regarding the impact of the dhimma are quite different not only from those of today (completely Saidist*, cultural relativist, largely fiction) but also from those of the post war Academia before the advent of Saidism (roughly between 1945 and 1980). Basically the same facts were accepted but the conclusions were significantly different. Tritton for example is fair to show how the reality was better at certain times than what the sharia laws on dhimmis stipulated yet he never underestimated the negative impact of dhimma:

One feels that if events had been governed by logic, Islam would have swallowed up the subject religions; but they survive, vigorous though battered.

...................................................................................................................

At this time many of the Egyptians fled from their holdings. It is safe to assume that one reason for their doing so was the burden of taxation. It is obvious that there are serious discrepancies between the account given by the lawyers [i.e. in Sharia rulings] and that of the papyri. The latter prove the existence of taxes which are not even hinted at by the legal system.

..........................................................................................................................

Mu'tasim bought the monastery at Samarra that stood where he wanted to build his palace. Other caliphs destroyed churches to obtain material for their buildings, and the mob was always ready to pillage churches and monasteries. Though dhimmis might enjoy great prosperity, yet always they lived on sufferance, exposed to the caprices of the ruler and the passions of the mob.

..........................................................................................................................

The episode of al Hakim must be regarded as the freak of a mad man, and not typical of Islam. But in later times the position of the dhimmis did change for the worse. They were much more liable to suffer from the violence of the crowd, and the popular fanaticism was accompanied by an increasing strictness among the educated. The spiritual isolation of Islam was accomplished. The world was divided into two classes, Muslims and others, and only Islam counted. There were brilliant exceptions, but the general statement is true. If a Muslim gave any help to the religion of a dhimmi, he was to be summoned thrice to repentance, and then, if obdurate, he was to be put to death.1 Indeed, the general feeling was that the leavings of the Muslims were good enough for the dhimmis.

Contrary to what some claim Bat Ye'or hypothesis (dhimmitude hypothesis, Jews and Christians did not 'thrive' under muslim rule) is at least a legitimate direction of research and in a sane world it would not be anathema in Academia. The fact that it is not so only shows once more that pure ideology not truth is behind the mainstream views of today. Unfortunately for them dhimma returned in force in the last 40 years (at least in modern, more attenuated, forms) and the policy of denying that jihad is central to the islam taught and lived by Muhammad (was definitely central to the classical Islamic civilization) + that there is a direct link from basic Islamic traditions to Jew hatred + that islam is totalitarian in nature cannot explain the observed facts. Dhimmitude can.

As others observed well (and I pointed myself that before in other posts), the fact that basically all Islamic states adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam is a clear sign that 'something is rotten in Denmark' with the rosy views that this religion, as it is today, is a 'melting pot' factor. In reality all we can expect if islam ever gains political power are at least 'Islamic hybrids' in the West of the type we see everywhere in the Islamic world (sharia at least a source of the laws, soon probably even in Turkey) and a 'tail' of violent jihadists which has always existed in islam. And I'm afraid History hints quite clearly that there is no way back, entirely from inside, toward the freedoms we enjoy today if muslims ever become majorities in a country.

No chance to create a 'cosmic society' with 'tails' like the islam of today (among others, we need a healthy worldview based on truth for that, shared by a majority of humans). Finally even if nothing bad happens that will not be because the postmodernist / cultural relativist / 'post colonial' views are the correct way ahead but either because other factors will make islamization impossible (for example the demographic factor) or the blunt truth about islam will be said. Finally if we want an Europeanised islam we have to leave aside the dhimmi behaviour, self imposed this time, of talking soft about this religion (doing exactly what sharia requires from dhimmis is never a good idea). I'm afraid only a strong, yet fair, criticism of islam can produce long term solutions.


* the old school of Orientalists was baselessly and viciously attacked by Said and his academic followers, Bernard Lewis included

 

[A'isha]

There is one indeed. A big one.

Citing Salafists as the determiners of "true Islam" is like citing these guys as the determiners of "true Judaism".

land tax was paid also by the dhimmis (jizya was additional to land tax at least from some point on). Anyways no matter what 'kharaj' meant in the Islamic history overall they paid more than the muslims as far as I know (double).

Not in the Egyptian village of Saylah in 1301 it wasn't. There, the jizyah was a tiny fraction of the kharaj.

And yet Islamism is not a modern invention. The Islamism of the classical islam is its daddy.

As I pointed out to you the last time you brought up this book, even Daniel Pipes thought it was "mar[red] through overstatement" and "adopts an overly narrow view of European aggression [and] ignore...the vast and enormously important phenomenon of modern European imperialism".

Focus to the argument and you'll be credible. Usually your ad hominem detours from the argument discussed fail to change something regarding its validity.

That's pretty funny coming from the guy who said Bernard Lewis is "guilty sometimes of unreasonable islamophilia" and wondered "what 'fellow traveller' organization" I was a part of after showing how your source (and that source's source) lied.

It is worth nothing here that the conclusions drawn by the pre WW2 scholars regarding the impact of the dhimma are quite different not only from those of today (completely Saidist*, cultural relativist, largely fiction) but also from those of the post war Academia before the advent of Saidism (roughly between 1945 and 1980). Basically the same facts were accepted but the conclusions were significantly different. Tritton for example is fair to show how the reality was better at certain times than what the sharia laws on dhimmis stipulated yet he never underestimated the negative impact of dhimma:

[...]

* the old school of Orientalists was baselessly and viciously attacked by Said and his academic followers, Bernard Lewis included

The utter falsity of your statement is shown by the fact that Lewis, the very same old school Orientalist scholar you say was subjected to such vicious attacks by the Saidists, shares the same views on the dhimma as those Saidists. In fact, it's people like you and Bostom who baselessly and viciously attack Lewis these days, precisely because he disagrees with you about the dhimma.

Your statement, in other words, appears to be a whole lot of projection.

Unfortunately for them dhimma returned in force in the last 40 years

An article written by an Anglican pastor with a degree in linguistics, citing Bat Ye'or, published at the same website where you found Emmet "The years 614 to 911 AD are all a hoax and never happened" Scott, and whose examples of supposed "dhimmitude" include Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK saying "The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use in times gone by of torture to force conversion to Christianity represented the teachings of Christ" and President Sarkozy of France calling Islam "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilisations the world has known"? And that's what you're putting up against Bernard Lewis on the subject of dhimma?

 

[A'isha]

So Shahada plus prayer, fasting on Ramandan, paying Zakat and pilgrimage to Mecca. Good.

Just to make sure I got this correct - members of ISIS are Muslims. True or false?

McHrozni

Yes, members of ISIS are no less Muslim than Zayn Malik of One Direction.

 

[McHrozni]

Yes, members of ISIS are no less Muslim than Zayn Malik of One Direction.

Good.

Now for the next question - what makes an organization or a doctrine "Islamic", according to you.

McHrozni

 

[metacristi]

Citing Salafists as the determiners of "true Islam" is like citing these guys as the determiners of "true Judaism".

I think is obvious for anyone rational that the Salafists quote the Quran and the Hadith and this argument was accepted also by the classical Islamic scholars. There is a direct link between Jew hatred and basic Islamic traditions. q.e.d. Something not at all clear in Christianity by the way, indeed the idea that ALL Jews are guilty of deicide does not appear in the canonical gospels. The fact that large persecutions of the Jews were rarer in Islam than in Christendom during the Middle Ages did not make the Jew hatred inexistent (as Goitein showed), it was simply more latent as much the Jews remained dhimmis but it spiked today when the Jews 'forfeited' the dhimma.

Not in the Egyptian village of Saylah in 1301 it wasn't. There, the jizyah was a tiny fraction of the kharaj.

The kind of argument that muslims make usually, the dhimmis even lived somehow better. The problem is that this may have been an exception or maybe those non muslims did not have land etc. Usually the dhimmis paid also the land tax (Jizya was extra) and overall paid more. I could easily use the same Saidist tactics with 'being selective' by replacing 'picking only what was worst in islam' with 'picking only what was best in islam'.

As I pointed out to you the last time you brought up this book, even Daniel Pipes thought it was "mar[red] through overstatement" and "adopts an overly narrow view of European aggression [and] ignore...the vast and enormously important phenomenon of modern European imperialism".

I don't think Pipes denies the existence of Jihad and its negative impact over the non muslims (be it in a more mainstream form). True, as Karsh, he tries to argue that we dealt mainly with an non religious imperialism via downplaying the religious aspect of the problem (jihad was not primarily to bring all world under the Islamic law, dhimma worked rather 'well' albeit the dhimmis were second hand citizens etc). The problem is of course that Muhammad, the 'right guided' caliphs and many Islamic scholars of the middle Ages said something very different*, the Umayyads were far from being 'quasi-secular' in spite of preserving some pre-islam characteristics, and generally in the middle Ages faith was very important.

Maybe Jihad was used primarily as a pretext for conquests and violence in the Islamic history (as Saddam for example did even if he did not believe in the Islamic tenets) but unfortunately there is little proof for this happenning in the pre modern era. Some of those rulers naturally inclined toward violence would have anyways pursued the way of conquests but indoctrination with islam made this much more natural, the idea of rightful 'booty' and islam coming in the same 'package', there are good reasons to think that the more 'secular' reasons for conquest of Karsh were not primary, at least in the pre modern era. Finally even many potentially good people were lead astray given that they read in the holy book that killing infidels for booty is something not only permissible but a must to go to paradise. One main feature of islam is still that it makes very easy to transform good people in monsters.

Pipes marches ultimately the same argument with the 'big evolution' of the 'classical islam' in the Middle Ages (probably to show that he's nonetheless 'mainstream'), the problem is that without the foreign intervention it is much more probable that islam would still be in the Middle Ages today. And yes the re-apparition of dhimma today has everything to do with a religious jihad aiming to extend the islamic law all over the world.


*it is doubtful that the large conquests would have happened without Muhammad's invention of 'jihad in the path of allah'

The utter falsity of your statement is shown by the fact that Lewis, the very same old school Orientalist scholar you say was subjected to such vicious attacks by the Saidists, shares the same views on the dhimma as those Saidists. In fact, it's people like you and Bostom who baselessly and viciously attack Lewis these days, precisely because he disagrees with you about the dhimma.

Maybe you should read more carefully your past posts abut Bernard Lewis? Do not cherry pick only what you like. The same Bernard Lewis who talked about the fact that by the end of this century Europe will become an appendix of the middle east, that islam is sensibly different from Christianity and Judaism (the latter 2 allowing much more fallibilism), that we deal with a clash of civilizations and that the most important causes for our problems with islam should be sought in the islamic culture? You overestimate your stance I'm afraid. Even if only unconsciously you definitely carry much more Saidist baggage. If we look at the whole picture is not difficult to see that Saidists disagree almost in totality with Bernard Lewis (some creating also the myth of equal rights given to dhimmis at least in Andalusia and so on).

On the other hand my disagreements with Bernard Lewis are far fewer and stem primarily from the fact that he does not dare to push his arguments till their logical conclusions (or maybe he wants to remain 'mainstream' by marching the same shaky arguments already existent in Academia after WW2 that the dhimma worked well, the dhimmis 'thrived', there is no theological dimension for the Jew hatred in islam or that islam is not totalitarian in nature and so on). Negating the Armenian genocide is definitely not his only big mistake.

An article written by an Anglican pastor with a degree in linguistics, citing Bat Ye'or, published at the same website where you found Emmet "The years 614 to 911 AD are all a hoax and never happened" Scott, and whose examples of supposed "dhimmitude" include Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK saying "The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use in times gone by of torture to force conversion to Christianity represented the teachings of Christ" and President Sarkozy of France calling Islam "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilisations the world has known"? And that's what you're putting up against Bernard Lewis on the subject of dhimma?

The same smoke screen all over (Emmet is something entirely different, let's discuss him elsewhere). I'm afraid the article is a decent one, with a clear argumentation. And the argument is ultimately all that counts. You may not agree with some points but the rational way of disagreeing is definitely not what you wrote above. Saidist tactics are never a good idea.



This will be my last answer to you on this thread, as I already said there is no point to continue this polemic ad infinitum, finally facts will make the difference. The problem with islam comes from the past. From the good beginning in fact. Ultimately I'm afraid we need much more than your sand castles to solve this problem once and forever.

 

[Craig B]

... This will be my last answer to you on this thread, as I already said there is no point to continue this polemic ad infinitum, finally facts will make the difference. The problem with islam comes from the past. From the good beginning in fact. Ultimately I'm afraid we need much more than your sand castles to solve this problem once and forever.

It is unfortunate that you should bail out without informing us what you mean by a "once and forever solution" of "the problem with Islam".

If this is desirable and available, you are under a moral obligation to share it with us.

 

[McHrozni]

It is unfortunate that you should bail out without informing us what you mean by a "once and forever solution" of "the problem with Islam".

I think he means you, A'isha and others would be welcome to help finding the solution, rather than keep searching for increasingly desperate and illogical excuses as to why Islam is not a problem. A'isha gave up after I explained that no, problems with another religion are not an excuse for Islam. You should too.

If this is desirable and available, you are under a moral obligation to share it with us.

Your strategy of stalling is leading us towards a conclusion that is undesirable for all and can be described perfectly using nothing but names of three villages in Poland. Some of us would like to avoid that. Pointing out there are no other known solutions in no way furthers this agenda. You were told this at least once before. Got dementia?

McHrozni

 

[A'isha]

A'isha gave up after I explained that no, problems with another religion are not an excuse for Islam.

Actually, you refused to address my points and then kept trying to change the subject.

EDIT: Oh, and to answer your last dumb attempt at the Socratic method, it's a self-applied label, with no vetting body to judge who uses it and why (not unlike "skeptic").

 

[metacristi]

It is unfortunate that you should bail out without informing us what you mean by a "once and forever solution" of "the problem with Islam".

If this is desirable and available, you are under a moral obligation to share it with us.

I think I repeated this many times before. I will do it again. The basic idea is that Al Qaida, IS, Boko Haram, al Shabab and so on may be defeated soon but the religion itself will continue to produce such organizations in other historical contexts, which could even become mainstream in better circumstances, for example if the West declines and / or if the influence of the Islamic world grows. Even the traditional interpretations of islam are not much better since they too retain much of the old problems with the classical islam, being prone to important returns toward the past (for example Pakistan began from offering some important secular freedoms, legacy of colonialism, and ended where it is today, too much islam in people's lives). Ultimately some basic tenets of islam are the problem (some of them, like jihad, are in the background currently indeed but they can be revived at all times since much of the old infrastructure of islam is still with us, the postmodernist reinterpretations of islam, retaining the infallibilism of the quran, cannot change anything here I'm afraid). The solution to our problem is rather this.

Sure this involves renouncing at a good chunk of what is considered today 'science' in the Islamic studies but I think this is a necessity. First because there are very good reasons to adopt such a stance given the observed facts. Secondly, probably much more important, there is now almost a century of being very magnanimous with islam (in the hope that things will go much better in the future) and the situation, instead of improving, worsened significantly. Unfortunately there are ideologies which just cannot be improved much by being generous with them and I'm afraid islam proves plenty of being one. While I am usually very tolerant toward religions* and New Age ideas** (albeit being critical overall, some grain of truth may be nonetheless still there***) I think islam is in another league and this should be recognized as such (it has a very negative political dimension not existent elsewhere). Contrary to those who see 'racists' and 'bigots' everywhere among the critics of islam I am not one, I'm sorry to disappoint them.

Finally had not been this systematic campaign of defaming ALL those who criticize islam I would have only told my point of view and that would have been all. Unfortunately this is not the case, even legitimate directions of research are brutally repressed. This censorship is not conducive to a better world I'm afraid. All those rational should oppose it actively. For in reality there is a perfectly sound, secular, argument against islam and the mere fact that the 'extreme right' and so on use large parts cannot by itself invalidate it.

To be sure myth, at least at the beginning, can lead sometimes to a better world, unfortunately this is not the case with islam. Only truth can set us all free here.



* also my philosophy, of science included, is strongly fallibilist, never underestimate the 'underdog' for seemingly metaphysical assumptions now can very well become the science of tomorrow, yet this does not mean to renounce the pursuit of truth (via cautious steps)

** for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD7Dg3_dfZU , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVzefZPVyRo

***possibly along these lines, there may even exist a natural 'field of consciousness'

 

[McHrozni]

Actually, you refused to address my points and then kept trying to change the subject.

No, I actually pointed out to you that consistently screaming and whining "Christianity was evil too!!!111" is not a point at all, regardless of the points' accuracy. You're free to disagree with that, but that doesn't mean I didn't address your point with more care than it ever deserved.

Can you please define what makes an organization or institution "Islamic" already? It seems like it's something not entirely clear in these debates.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Finally had not been this systematic campaign of defaming ALL those who criticize islam I would have only told my point of view and that would have been all. Unfortunately this is not the case, even legitimate directions of research are brutally repressed. This censorship is not conducive to a better world I'm afraid. All those rational should oppose it actively. For in reality there is a perfectly sound, secular, argument against islam and the mere fact that the 'extreme right' and so on use large parts cannot by itself invalidate it.

This, I think, is one of the most disgusting aspects of the problem. Islam is a supremacist ideology. Accommodating it won't fix that, silencing it's critics won't improve it. We are drifting towards a clash of civilizations, and those who would silence the critics of Islam are the instrumental tool of that.

McHrozin