Comments on: The Church teaches Muslims evolution?

By: Tod

Tod — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:20:23 +0000

There might be something new to you on the relevant demographics here http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/demography/

By: DDeden

DDeden — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:48:02 +0000

… mostly simply a tool to control the population
that’s all it’s ever been. Box of rocks (corral) and tending the flocks (domestication), religion is software, biology is hardware, that’s the human ecosystem within the greater ecology of nature.

By: razib

razib — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:05:46 +0000

All four insist that apostasy is a crime, blasphemy is a crime, Dhimmis have inferior status, women have a subordinate status, and so on.
i’ve looked at apostasy and dhimmi laws. an N=4 isn’t enough for a regression i’d suspect, but most historians argue that there’s a reason that the hanafi school is so dominant in the turkic and south asian world. specifically, large numbers of non-muslims, and the hanafi had more wiggle room for easy accommodation.

By: omar ali

omar ali — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:58:55 +0000

Razib, The four canonical schools are a good example of what I was saying though: All four insist that apostasy is a crime, blasphemy is a crime, Dhimmis have inferior status, women have a subordinate status, and so on. IF they are to be taken seriously (and they are usually NOT taken seriously in practice even in pakistan, though almost every single mosque prayer leader swears by one of them or by some slightly modernized version derived from them) by a community, then that community has a hard-er time establishing anything resembling a tolerant society by modern standards. I am not saying every other country or religion will easily establish such a society, but this adds a new layer of difficulty on top of an already difficult job.
Again, its not that Pakistan is a shariah bound society. Just that the modern constitution and legal code (near-secular even when its given islamic sounding names)is always open to attack from those who base their opposition on the shariah, and this opposition is very hard to counter directly because opposition to shariah will bring charges of apostasy or blasphemy, which can lead to practical consequences…and so on. I guess I am saying the mountain you have to climb is higher in Pakistan than it is in India or Sri-lanka, both of which have their own problems, but not THIS problem on top of all the “other problems” that are standard for the subcontinent..The argument would then be if these problems are somehow actually equivalent in all these countries, just given different names? but that could be answered with some hard data. I dont know, i am giving you subjective impressions, maybe you have the data?

By: razib

razib — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:54:35 +0000

These two may be special cases, but man, what cases….
well, i would weight by numbers. pakistan i give more weight than saudi arabia. OTOH, the $$$ gives saudi arabia some major weight…but, look over the sharia. of the 4 sunni schools 2 were started by ethnic persians. but remember that indonesia and sub-saharan african both have more muslims than pakistan now (though not south asia as a whole).
instead of constricting 1+ billion into an “ideal type” from which they deviate i think it there is more ROI in conceiving the phenomenon as inhabiting a parameter space and describing the clusters with said space.

By: Omar ali

Omar ali — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:01:34 +0000

Razib, I bow to your superior knowledge; my claims were carelessly generalized from my experience and knowledge of just two societies (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). These two may be special cases, but man, what cases….

By: Tod

Tod — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:46:20 +0000

Well the article is a translation into English; I got it from “A Continent of Losers”. Census data is not collected on such matters in France, the number of Moslems who are there is the subject of heated debate. Some demogaphers insist the figure is higher
Heinsohn seems to be fairly well regarded in Germany having been awarded a lifetime professorship, which he wouldn’t be if he was a wingnut, German professors have to watch what they say, they are employed by the Goverment.

By: razib

razib — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:54:18 +0000

is there an english language cite for that claim? i tried to find some detailed report of that guy’s methods but it seems most of the scholarship is in german.

By: Tod

Tod — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:54:06 +0000

One vital difference between Algeria and France is that France, (like Germany, and Britain) does reward big families with welfare.
Gunnar Heinsohn says in France of every five newborns two are already Arabic or African.

By: razib

razib — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:21:44 +0000

We can split hairs till kingdom come, but something makes Punjabi muslims in UK much more illiberal than Punjabi Sikhs
this is perhaps the best case to study. unfortunately i haven’t been able to find much quantitative scholarly work here. in any case:
and all of it is not due to “theology” but its not all independent of their religion either.
i’m a little confused here. theology is not religion. it is a particular characteristic of religion. consider for example this difference between sikhs and muslims which is religious: muslims come from a region where they are far larger majority (to the point of near exclusive majority) than sikhs, who have to deal with a very large hindu minority, and also are integrated into a state where they are only a small minority (albeit, arguably a well integrated one seeing as how the current prime minister is a sikh). one could make the case then that one problem that muslims have is that they are used to coming from societies where islam and religion are synonymous and pluralism is not something muslims have to grapple with in any serious manner. in contrast, punjabi sikhs, hindus or christians do have to grapple with pluralism in india because there are circumstances where all groups are a minority (christians always so).
this has nothing to do with theology or their holy books, and everything to do with some simple social conditions. muslims in the former russian empire have a large body of scholarship as to how to relate with non-muslim authorities because they have been under non-muslim authorites for nearly 250 years. muslims in india on the other hand at the elite level grappled with how to rule over non-muslim majorities. finally, muslims in much of the middle east only had to grapple with non-muslim minorities, sometimes to the point of irrelevance. all of these groups could conceivably be, for example, hanafi sunnis (most in south asia and the russian federation are, for example, and a substantial number in a few parts of the middle east). but local conditions drove them off into separate directions.
so ultimately it’s not about splitting hairs. muslims and jews for example are both orthopraxic religions who often have a large literature on how to deal with unbelievers. believe it or not, when these groups are in a minority they have a very different take than when they are in a majority. and, believe it or not, their theologies really aren’t fundamentally different in both cases. of course, you wouldn’t know this if you didn’t know much. but i don’t have that problem
so yes, i might agree with on the outcomes X, Y and Z. but, i will still object if i think the manner in which you come to the outcomes are predicated on false premises and implausible dynamics. why? because false premises eventually lead to false conclusions most of the time. everyone in science has experienced getting the “right number” out of an equation by making two errors which “cancel” out. that doesn’t mean you actually *know* anything at the end of the process, despite being “right.”

By: omar ali

omar ali — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:17:26 +0000

Razib, OK, you have clearly researched this in greater depth than I have. But I think I am still correct in my assumption that there will be an especially violent resistance in Muslim communities because of several intersecting factors (including the illiberal heritage of orthodox Islam, the political inantilism of Arab societies, the influence of Arab extremists and their ability to exploit pre-existing features of Islamist ideology…features not necessarily that “militant” when they were first put down in books, but that are now available for use to modern ideologues with a distinctly modern fascist agenda, and so on). The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We can split hairs till kingdom come, but something makes Punjabi muslims in UK much more illiberal than Punjabi Sikhs and makes Bengali muslims much more resistant to “British values” than Bengali Hindus…and all of it is not due to “theology” but its not all independent of their religion either.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:53:52 +0000

but as a fellow citizen myself I am keen to appeal to the best instincts and reason in everyone.
i suspect that mr. ahmad simply doesn’t share your presuppositions as to your equality before the law. creatures like him generally feel free to use liberal platitudes toward furthering whatever ends they hold dear. that’s why i think it important to make a positive assertion about the nature of barbarism. politeness only encourages because the creatures believe that we’ll play fair while they can play dirty. the polls mr. ahmad alludes to suggest that a substantial number of british muslims who are not immigrants adhere to barbaric presuppositions, as evidenced for example by the nihilistic behavior of 7/7.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:48:15 +0000

Can you honestly tell me that you can move to BD, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Sudan etc. etc.
your half-approximation is too coarse. south asia is between indonesia and the arab-muslim-turkic world. even in pakistan there is a non-trivial, if small, christian minority which came out of muslims (michael nazir ali is a product of this). in the middle east this doesn’t really exist, because the christian communities are basically ethno-culture. OTOH, i have found evidence that there was a non-trivial shift of elite sunni muslim families to maronite christianity in lebanon; which surprised me.
look, you talk about reform of buddhism and how easy it is. but this needs to be controlled for conditions. in north-east asia and vietnam buddhism was not a religion at the center of the public culture, it was mass populist cult. even in japan where the tokugawa integrated it into their governance, it was mostly simply a tool to control the population and suppress christianity. so the lack of religious discord in buddhist reformation in northeast asia is probably just do to the weak role of religion in public life.
so we need to move to south and southeast asia (excluding vietnam, which was more chinese inflected). i grant that in cambodia and thailand buddhism has had a rather smooth transition to being a “normal” public religion. OTOH, both these areas have very small populations of religious minorities historically. even muslims in thai areas come to the buddhist temples for public functions because they serve secular roles.
it is in burma and sri lanka that “violent” buddhism is more of an issue. why? in burma there are large muslim and christian minorities, and these minorities are also correlated with ethnic differences. there have been attempts by the government in burma to sponsor conversion programs to buddhism among the christian tribes of the northeast. why? because it would assimilate these groups to the majority burman/bamar identity (this tends to happen with buddhist karens). in sri lanka there was a “buddhist reformation” in the 19th century which connected the religion with sinhalese nationalism; this “reformation” resulted in the reconversion of many sinhalese among the elite from protestantism, and today is closely associated with right-wing nationalism and anti-tamil sentiment.
IOW, buddhist quietism must be explained in the context of particular social historical conditions. much the same applies with islam. it may be that there are structural theological reasons that islam is more illiberal; i suspect there is some. that being said, i’m pretty skeptical that these sorts of things aren’t malleable, as even “fundamentalist” muslims have shown when they justify the killing of muslims or suicide bombings by women on rather thin grounds and logic-chopping.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:41:39 +0000

I actually do feel quite offended by Mr. Ahmad’s comments (offence alone being a common currency in British debate alas), but as a fellow citizen myself I am keen to appeal to the best instincts and reason in everyone. I should perhaps be more forthcoming and say that I find the cultural pointers in Mr. Ahmad’s piece indicative of far from liberal (broadest-sense) practices and incompatible with the caricature of enlightenment values contained in his tendentious inalienable rights claim (why not aim to reduce bullying in general and if many state schools are majority Muslim is it not possible that Muslims bully each other?). But since these were not fleshed out except in the case of out-group exclusion I chose my words carefully.

By: omar ali

omar ali — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:36:50 +0000

Razib, in any email communication, misunderstanding and attribution of positions (“emphasis on theology is a big give away”) that the other person does not hold is a given.
But if we meet in person, we may communicate more effectively. Meanwhile, lets take blasphemy and apostasy as two simple examples of what I am saying. You are claiming that conversion away from Islam (apostasy) is common and (by implication) accepted in Indonesia and Africa. Even if this is granted, I would argue that there is a very large central region from Morrocco to Bangladesh where this is NOT acceptable and remains potentially fatal. While the actual executioners may be in a minority, the great majority will express understanding of the act and will blame the apostate for not having the sense to keep his beliefs private. And if pockets of tolerance do exist, they are vulnerable to “conversion to pure islam” after contact with Saudis and other standard bearers of “true Islam”. Can you honestly tell me that you can move to BD, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Sudan etc. etc. and take public positions that announce your apostate and blasphemous status? I assure you, that will be a very very foolhardy act indeed. If the fact of multiple interpretations and mutual tolerance is already established, then why this difficulty?
Having said that, I actually do agree with your basic thesis. I just think you (seem to) imply that social mores (lets not focus on theology) will change more or less as a matter of course and I think they will change, but the change will be resisted with extraordinary violence for many years to come….

By: razib

razib — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:17:37 +0000

If you can’t educate you kid in the faith yourself, why should your fellow citizen pay to do it?
you’re not a fellow citizen to him, you’re a kuffar. you exists as a means toward his ends. he’ll have no problem bleeding you dry to satisfy his ends. there’s a reason i use the word barbarian people who come from savage societies, or whose ancestors do, need to be civilized. they won’t be full citizens unless people demand it of them.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:15:51 +0000

So I hope, with all due respect and sincerity, that if religious schools are expanded this is borne in mind and nobody excluded on the grounds of religion.
that’s the stipulation in french catholic schools (at least those who receive gov. subsidy). as for the rest of your comment, it bespeaks liberal assumptions with the barbarians do not grant. i.e., children are the property of their parents to manage and utilize in whatever manner satisfies the lineage. and of course most of these barbarians look at western women as nothing but exploitable holes because “obviously” they have no “honor” (“honor” being for example physically assaulting or killing a female relative for some perceived transgression; in bizarro-world upside down is up!).

By: tvoh

tvoh — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:15:17 +0000

Fine, Iftikhar for Britain. Here in the USA, you have no right to a faith education unless you pay for it. Separation of church and state is the rule.
If you can’t educate you kid in the faith yourself, why should your fellow citizen pay to do it?
Education isn’t really about a comfort zone. Trite, but no pain no gain.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:12:50 +0000

It took Christian Europe around two or three centuries to figure out religious wars over territory were daft yes. also, let's put a special focus on the thirty years war (1618-1648 for those of you who don't know when, and who have an aversion to using the internet for research). that was the turning point. Are there any measurable stats on whether the European muslims are growing any more moderate? the only data i've seen are comparisons of americans of various religions, euro-muslims and europeans in regards to gay issues. the euro-muslims were similar to (on the order of) american social conservatives. this to me suggests they are more moderate because american social conservatism is on average on the liberal end of the spectrum in the home countries. i couldn't find it via google in 1 minute, so i'll leave the exercise to you (they had british, french and german muslims in the samples). The idea that Muslims are as varied or even more varied than Christians or Jews and therefore will easily adapt to a liberal vision of multiple interpretations of central theological issues is silly, and is either promoted by ignorant Western liberals i'm not a liberal or ignorant or a muslim, but it's way more complicated than this. i don't have the time or inclination to correct you, but i do want readers to know that though your assertions are not totally wrong, they're too approximate and indicate a lack of deep knowledge as well as theoretical weaknesses (the emphasis on theology is a big give-away). for example, re: apostasy, conversion to non-muslim religions is common in indonesia and much of africa. iftikhar ahmad, yours is the sort of barbarism at the gates we need to defend against. i hope that consciousness will be raised in terms of the pervasiveness of the primitive opinions your kind hold.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:04:39 +0000

Certainly a radical challenge to religious group cohesion is presented by open societies and largely inwardly directed violence to enforce group norms seems the result. Religious schools, or at least the rationale for their founding, seem to me an example of this. Parents do not own their children but they owe them a passport to broad opportunity within the wider society (which may have something to answer for, fair enough). So I hope, with all due respect and sincerity, that if religious schools are expanded this is borne in mind and nobody excluded on the grounds of religion.