[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Abraham

@ Skybird & The Avon Lady:
I would consider the mind frame, the outlook - or lack of it - to the world, of the Saoudi government "primitive", just as local rule in great parts of Pakistan, just as the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, just as the regime in Somalia or Jemen.
Modern minded Muslim countries like Egypth, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunesia, United Arab Emirates and others 'don't know these punishment and consequently the great majority of Muslims have nothing to do with those extreme forms of Sharia, still consider themselves to be devote Muslims.
That was the only point I was making.

Knowing egpt and jordan a bit I must correct you in so far, that, as in turkey, it makes a difference if you talk of the city population, or the population outside the cities, living in small villages only. Additionally, different to turkey, both countries are constantly travelled by beduin-like tribes, many of which are not that much Islamic at all. Even muhammad let them do as they want, to a certain degree, as long as they payed their taxes, for it was to difficult to keep them under control and make them submit to islam to the same degree as the settlements usually did. some of these tribes can be very proud people, I espeically think of the Tuaregs. Control of cities and settlements, while allowing some more loose rules for nomades is a pattern you can find in islam's history of expansion time and again. In a way it did like the maritime empires, that also concentrated their presence on regional hotspots and strategically important harbours and centers of economical interest, mostly never occupied the whole territory of a country, but sticking to the coastlines (Portugese, Spanish, Dutch, British, USA). By that I do not want to say that Islam IS a maritime empire. but it copies some behavioral patterns from these.

And there are other forms of Islamic behvior that I would describe as primitve, too. not only executions and Sharia. the role of women, beeing subject to enforced marriage at ridiculously low ages (currently a matter that is more and more urgently discussed in Germany, with regard to the Turks; muhammad himself has married a girl at the age of 9 or 10, I think, and insisted oin her sharing his bed); that public life excludes women (whom with marriage usually end imprisoned in their houses and households that they are not allowed to leave for the rest of their lifes - this is true to varying degrees, but it is practiced in ALL Islamic countries. Circumcision, while also true for male Jews, in Islam this affects little girls. And in several countries, especially the "far middle East", and north africa, this is done under very barbaric conditions, with tin-cans, without anesthetization, in most cases it leads to life-long traumatization, and often it leads to blood-poisening that kills or cripples the victim.
I do not go into theology here, but I indicate that there also is a lot of things that I would have no higher opinion of as what I stated in this thread.

Tolerance and beeing balanced is a nice thing, Abraham, but it must have limits. Islam sees no need for evolution, for it is the fulfillment of evolution. It does not develoep0e and forbids and supresses every tradition (philospophy, science, art, whatever) that could lead to change, and growth. That'S why it is stuck in the medieval. and thus I label it as primitive, compared to what has been acchieved in the West. What they have gained in using technology, scientific results, administrative and value things, did not come by their own effort. they copied it from the West, they bought it from the West, sometimes they steal it from the West. It is no result of their own effort and cultural developement. they are lacking the cultural basis for foriming such traditoions that led to the West'S superiroity in all these fields. Nevertheless now they claim the right of wanting to possess the benefits from it.

That argument includes: I doubt that they have the mental and moral ripeness of understanding the responsebility the possession of modern scietific and technolgical tools wpould mean. Even the West itself has problems with that. And isn't the West'S quarrel with Iran'S nuclear program exactly about this, in the end?


In how far a Muslim rejecting major parts of the scriptures and traditon can be called a Muslim is soemthing that I have discussed several times in past months. you cannot compare Islam to the church here. And on that we also had threads days and weeks ago. there are some reports of apostacies on that site that describe the experiences that made them change their minds, and memories describing how seriously distorted and hypocritical Muslims communites tend to be when describing their own feeling of identity - and I have complained about that as well. they can tell you one thing, and do the total opposite at the same time.