the fight for the soul of islam. part 1 the war from the east session 1.1 is this war? session 1.2...
TRANSCRIPT
The Fight for the Soul of Islam
Part 1 The War from the East
• Session 1.1 Is This War?• Session 1.2 Islam – One of the Great
Monotheistic Religions• Session 1.3 The Fight for the Soul of Islam• Session 1.4 Dar al-Islam – The House of War• Session 1.5 The Global Caliphate• Session 1.6 Islam – Religion of Peace?• Session 1.7 The History of the Conflict• Session 1.8 Poverty in Islamic Nations
Outline
• Introduction
• Five Conflicting “Schools”
• Before and After Medina
• Tensions within the Quran
• Islam’s Golden Age
• The Battle for Islam
Introduction
“Titles”
• Moderates– Secularists– Reformers
• Faith & Reason
• Enter the future
• Reconstructionists
• Enlightened
• Extremists– Jihadists– “Islamists”
• Faith w/out reason
• Return to the past
• Restorationists
• Strident
A Set of Truisms
• Most Muslims are not fundamentalists.
• Most fundamentalist Muslims are not terrorists.
• Today, most terrorists are Muslims.
Five Conflicting “Schools”
The Five Elements
• The Pragmatists
• The Reformers
• The Secularists
• The Fundamentalists
• The Jihadists
The Pragmatists
• Revelation (without reason?)• The ‘silent’ majority• Just want to live their lives and raise their
families• “Go along to get along!”• Faith is for the private life, not the public arena• They have a vague understanding that Islam
and Modernity are not in conflict• Like many Evangelical Gnostic Christians
The Reformers
• Revelation and Reason
• See Islam as a progressive, rational and reforming faith
• Islam needs to be related to the real world (not necessarily accommodating Modernism)
• Followers of Mohammed in Mecca
• Perhaps a small minority of Muslims
• Natural allies of other reasoning monotheists – Jews and Christians
The Reformer
• Prof. Akbar Ahmed• Pakistani high
commissioner to Britain• Prof: Harvard, Princeton,
Cambridge• Chair of Islamic Studies at
American University
The Secularists
• Reason without Revelation• Operating consciously or unconsciously
from an atheistic set of assumptions• Muslims by birth, name and historic
background only• Reject Islam as a religion• Function from secular materialistic value
system• Corresponding to liberal Christians
The Secularist
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Member of Dutch Parliament
• Author: The Infidel
• Intellectual Refugee
• Fellow American Enterprise Institute
The Fundamentalists
• Revelation (without reason?)• Thoughtfully faithful Muslims• Consider that the problems of Muslims
stem from too much modernization• Restorationists – return Islam and the
world to the glorious past• Most are not violent • Corresponding to fundamentalist
Christians
The Jihadists
• Revelation without Reason
• Restorationists – return Islam and the world to the glorious past
• A minority of fundamentalists
• Followers of Mohammed in Medina
• Faith is to relate to every area of life including social, economic and political institutions
The Jihadist
• Founder Al-Qaeda• Declared war on the
USA• Planned 9/11• Committed to the
restoration of a global Muslim Empire
Before and After Medina
Mecca to Medina
Tensions within the Quran
Reflect Mecca and Medina
Tensions in the Quran
• Mecca• Christians and Jews are
“people of the book”• Convert through
persuasion • Enlightened • Roots of the Reformers• Pluralism in society• Freedom
• Medina• Christians and Jews
are “infidels”
• Conquer or kill them
• Strident• Roots of the Jihadists• Uniformity in society• Tyranny
Ijtihad – Concept of Reasoning• Fundamentalist Muslims: “a narrow, legalistic notion of
it as a process of juristic reasoning….” – Reflects Medina– Legal Ijtihad
• Reformist Muslims: “freedom of thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth through an epistemology covering science, rationalism, human experience, critical thinking …”– Reflects Mecca– “independent thinking”– Led to the Golden Age of Islam
Reason and Revelation
REASON
NON-REASON
REVELATION NO REVELATION
− Jews
− Christians
− (moderate) Muslims -IJTIHAD
− Atheism
− Pagan humanism
− Muslims (Jihadists)-narrow view ijtihad
− Some Christians− Some traditional
religions
− Pagan Animism
− New Age
Islam’s Golden Age
Ijtihad
Ijtihad
• IJTIHAD: For Freedom of thought and independent thinking among Muslims everywhere
• http://www.ijtihad.org/
• Dr. Muqtedar Khan Associate Professor Political Science and International Relations University of Delaware
Caliphate of Cordoba Andalusia
Impact on Christianity• Ijtihad – “independent thinking” in
Andalusia brought Jewish and Christian scholars to “think together” with Muslims.
• Much of the dialog dealt with the relationship between faith (being people of the Book) and reason (the contribution of the Greek scholars).
• The work done by Arab scholars was translated into Hebrew and Latin to impact Judaism and Christianity.
Achievements of the Golden Age
• Architecture
• The Arts
• Literature
• Medicine
• Philosophy
• Mathematics
• Science and technology
Architecture
• Moorish architecture in Spain
• The Taj Mahal in India
The Arts
Literature
Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine
Mathematics
• Arabic numerals• Concept of “zero”• Algebra• Algorithms
Science
• Contributed to:– Experimental Physics– Optics– Experimental
psychology– Astronomy– Chemistry (Jabir ibn
Hayyan- “father of chemistry”)
Death of the Golden Age
• Ibn Taymiya from Syria
• 1263-1328 AD
• Sunni Islamic scholar
• Led movement to return to the fundamentalist understanding
• Ended the Golden Age
• The father of Islamic Fascism
Moderates vs. Jihadists
• Mecca• Christians and Jews are
“people of the book”• Ijtihad – Freedom of
thought• Persuade • Enlightened • Reformers• Pluralism in society• Freedom
• Medina• Christians and Jews are
“infidels”• “Ijtihad law”
• Conquer• Strident• Jihadists• Uniformity in society• Tyranny
The Battle for Islam