Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam

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- billy
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Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
OP - July 03, 2009, 11:59 AM

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, if not could a moderator advise me as to the best forum to place it in.

I have a few basic observations on Islam that I have found my way to. And one of them is that Imperialism is a basic pillar, perhaps the most basic pillar of Islam.

It always makes me wince when I hear Muslims discussing Islam as some kind of benign force with 'anti-Imperialist' impulses.

Islam seems to me to have been an imperialist mission from its inception.

And it thinks of itself very much as an imperialistic creed, and normal day-to-day and default attitudes of Muslims are very much imperialistic.

There is the conception of the world as territory either conquered or un-conquered by Islam.

There is the primacy of dawah to bring people to Islam.

There is the relegation of non-Muslims to the status of lesser people.

There is the priveliging of Islamic and specifically Arab mores and precepts over all others. Instead of the old colonial 'white man's burden' attitude there is 'the muslims man's burden'.

Islam is asserted to be very much a civilising mission, and non Muslims are very much inferior, often posited as products of a savagery and corrupt societies.

Conversions to Islam are celebrated with the fervour of a warlord greeting defecting troops.

And most horrifically, dissenters from Islam, and 'apostates', are considered sub-human, and traitors who are worthy of death.....and this persists even in England amongst Muslims, in an open and free society. No other religion visits such calumny on 'traitors', because Imperialistic mission is so hard-wired into Islam and the practise of its adherents.

I have come to these conclusions over years of studying Islam, of talking to Muslims. And yet, it is an elephant in the room. Nobody, least of all Muslims, wants to talk about this imperialistic sensibility that is hardwired and rooted into the religion.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #1 - July 03, 2009, 02:41 PM

Of course. Its the most brilliant ideological memeplex in existance.

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #2 - July 03, 2009, 02:48 PM

I posted this a while ago, perhaps before you joined:

Quote
Phil Stahl, 'Mind Viruses and Memes'

"Their infectious power can be assessed on the basis of three main attributes:

1) Performance value: What change does the meme or meme complex bring about in behaviours? (For the person or group that adopts it.)

2) Propagation value: How far and wide is the meme spread, and what means are employed to achieve this? (i.e., Islam in the past has used beheading of infidels and other punishments; Christians have burned heretics.)

3) Infectious value: How easy is it to infect other brains? What attributes of the meme facilitate this infection?

Stahl's article then proceeds to argue:

In the case of the faith meme, part of its appeal resides in automatically warding off too close rational scrutiny. It achieves this by either insisting reason is 'inferior to faith' or that any scintilla of doubt must emanate from Satan the ultimate unbeliever.

The tactic used here is the straw-man fallacy. Specifically, Stahl constructs a 'straw man', a supposed proponent of faith who rejects all rational scrutiny, resorting instead to characterizing rational scrutiny as 'emanating from Satan'

Since we already have relatively satisfying naturalistic hypotheses on everything from the origin of the cosmos to the origin of life to whatever order we see all supernatural hypotheses become redundant. It is incumbent upon the religious believer to demonstrate why his particular version merits being an exception."

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #3 - July 03, 2009, 02:51 PM

Yeah. So many Muslims try to justify Islam based on anti-imperialist rhetoric stolen from the Left, whereas Islam itself is a ruthlessly imperialistic cult.

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- osmanthus
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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #4 - July 03, 2009, 10:57 PM

Quote from: billy on July 03, 2009, 11:59 AM
There is the priveliging of Islamic and specifically Arab mores and precepts over all others. Instead of the old colonial 'white man's burden' attitude there is 'the muslims man's burden'.

Islam is asserted to be very much a civilising mission, and non Muslims are very much inferior, often posited as products of a savagery and corrupt societies.

Imperialism? Colonialism? No. Surely not.

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #5 - July 03, 2009, 11:02 PM

True - but most Muslims living now have only known colonialism - so their perception is skewed.
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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #6 - July 03, 2009, 11:04 PM

Yes but they are well aware of the "Golden Age of Islamic Imperialism" and bang on about it at every opportunity.

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #7 - July 03, 2009, 11:09 PM

Again, true, but Muslims - like most people - have a selective memory when it suits them.
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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #8 - July 04, 2009, 12:14 PM

Quote from: Hassan on July 03, 2009, 11:02 PM
True - but most Muslims living now have only known colonialism - so their perception is skewed.

Muslims have seen ample violence and tyranny from Islamists, not to mention a good number of corrupt and ineffective despots. Yet a Muslim condemning Islamists is something of a marvel.

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #9 - July 04, 2009, 03:32 PM

Hassan you make a good point about the inability of Muslims to critically scrutinise their history because of defensiveness due to colonialism. But it wasn't only Muslims who experienced the colonial pain --- Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, animists and pagans also were victims of western colonialism.

Muslims tend to glorify periods in history in which non Muslims felt the lash of Islamic imperialism. There is no excuse for that these days. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian writer and Nobel Prize winner, talks about this in his treatise 'The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness'.

The crusades are always held up as an example of the unique evil of Europe and 'Christendom', but in the modern world western societies are self critical and examine those aspects of their history. But Islam spread with force, there were Islamic crusades. Where is the scrutiny of them? We have to face up to this.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
God is Love.
Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #10 - July 04, 2009, 03:39 PM

Quote from: billy on July 04, 2009, 03:32 PM
The crusades are always held up as an example of the unique evil of Europe and 'Christendom', but in the modern world western societies are self critical and examine those aspects of their history. But Islam spread with force, there were Islamic crusades. Where is the scrutiny of them? We have to face up to this.

There has been scrutiny, and it is seen as positive, as they were spreading Gods word amongst the infidels. In effect they were doing everyone a favour, by teaching them a better life and giving them an option of going to heaven.

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #11 - July 04, 2009, 08:00 PM

Exactly. The scrutiny turns out to be hagiography and justification. And this leads to the idea that anything done in the name of the religion of Islam can be justified, that anything it does that can be rendered to be for the 'greater good' is OK. It doesn't take much to stretch that into apologia for contemporary events.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
God is Love.
Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #12 - July 04, 2009, 09:09 PM

Yep, you've got it. Personally I've always thought the whole Islamic attitude to the Crusades was major hypocrisy. Not that I'm a huge fan of the Crusaders but on the other hand I don't think they were much, if any, worse than the Islamic armies that invaded the middle east to start with. I mean from the point of view of Christianity the Crusades were wars of liberation against an imperialist and colonialist oppressor, namely the Islam which had forcibly invaded previously Christian lands some time earlier.

Now whether or not you agree with everything the Crusaders did (and I think most people would not) the fact remains that if anything they had more justification for their position than Islam did, because they were trying to restore the situation before Islam invaded. In other words, a modern but Islamically-distasteful comparison would be the Palestinian situation. I mean if you think the Palestinians should have their land back and self-determination then how can you argue against the same for middle eastern Christians in the middle ages?

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Re: Imperialism is the central pillar of Islam
Reply #13 - July 05, 2009, 12:55 AM

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