I tend to agree about fragility, though the challenge is getting people to *acknowledge* truth (see your post about evolution :-).
It is true that Islam is in massive denial about a great many things, which means that a properly disruptive truth could create a revolution. Billy, *this* is the sort of case where I actually think your scandal theory might have merit... -- Ernie P. On Aug 24, 2011, at 12:37 PM, [email protected] wrote: > from the site : > The Catholic Thing > > > On the Fragility of Islam > > By : James V. Schall, SJ > > > Tuesday, 23 August 2011 > On the Fragility of Islam > By James V. Schall, S. J. > Islam is the longest-lasting, closed, unchanging socio-religious culture to > appear among men. Its very idea is that everyone worships Allah over time in > the same way, with the same simple doctrine. The major change Islam looks to > is not modernization or objective truth but, in a stable world, the > submission to Allah of all men under a caliphate wherein no non-believers are > found. > > We still look back at communism, at least the non-oriental variety, with some > astonishment in this regard. Almost no one thought it could “fall” without a > major military encounter. That it disintegrated so quickly and so completely > seems incomprehensible to anyone but a John Paul II. He understood its > frailty, its failure to understand the human soul and its origins. > > Islam is far older than Marxism. In the seventh century of our era, Islam > appeared suddenly almost out of nowhere. It rapidly spread, mostly by > military conquest. Its immediate victims were the Byzantine Christian lands > and the Persian Empire. Both proved incapable of rising to their own defense. > Islamic armies eventually conquered North Africa, the Mediterranean islands, > much of Spain, the Balkans, the Near East, the vast land area from southern > Russia to India and Afghanistan and even parts of China. Indonesia was a more > commercial conquest. > > Later efforts of Europe to regain some of these conquered lands worked for a > while. The Crusades ultimately failed though they indirectly prevented > further Muslim conquest of the rest of Europe. Spain, Greece, and parts of > the Balkans managed to regain their lands. But the control of the Muslim > lands by European powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made > little real inroads into Islam itself. Islam was exposed to western power and > science, but that did not effect any significant inner conversion, except > perhaps for Muslim confusion about its own lack of science and technology. > > The Muslim conversion of former Christian lands seems to be permanent. What > few Christians are left in these lands are second-class citizens. They are > under severe pressure to convert or emigrate. Many forces within Islam desire > a complete enclosure of Islam that would exclude any foreign power or > religion. The Muslim world is divided into the area of peace and the area of > war; the latter is what Islam does not yet control. > > So with this background, why talk of the “fragility” of Islam? This > instability arises from the status of the text of the Koran as an historical > document. The Koran is said to have been dictated directly in Arabic by > Allah. It has, as it were, no prehistory, even though it did not come into > existence until a century or so after Mohammed. > > Scholars, mostly German, have been working quietly for many decades to > produce a critical edition of the Koran that takes into consideration the > “pre-history” of the Koran. Due to the Muslim belief that any effort to > question the Koran’s text is blasphemy, the enterprise is fraught with > personal risk to the researchers. The idea that the text cannot be > investigated, of course, only feeds suspicion that even Muslims worry about > its integrity. > > Much of the philosophy within Islam, as we know, had roots in scholars who > were originally Christian or Persian. This is well recorded in Robert > Reilly’s The Closing of the Muslim Mind. But even more, the Koran itself > seems to be composed of many elements from Christian or Hebrew scripture. The > very word Koran has roots in liturgical books. > > The systematic denial in the Koran itself of the Trinity and the Incarnation, > the reducing of Christ from the Messiah to another prophet, force us to > inquire about the connection between the Koran and Judaeo-Christian > Scriptures. The broader claim that Mohammed’s “revelation” rewrote and made > obsolete the earlier revelation needs direct confrontation. > > The ecumenical movement has limited relations to Islam pretty much to areas > of mutual agreement. This is well enough. But one cannot ignore the issue of > truth about a text and the grounds on which it is based. > > Religion or faith, even in Islam through Averroes, has been conceived as a > myth designed to keep the people quiet. The scholars could quietly let the > caliphs and the imams rule if the intelligentsia were left free to pursue > philosophy, which was conceived to be anti-Koranic in the sense that the > Koran did not hold up under scrutiny about its claims. > > The fragility of Islam, as I see it, lies in a sudden realization of the > ambiguity of the text of the Koran. Is it what it claims to be? Islam is weak > militarily. It is strong in social cohesion, often using severe moral and > physical sanctions. But the grounding and unity of its basic document are > highly suspect. Once this becomes clear, Islam may be as fragile as > communism. > > > > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
