I've been hearing this a lot in relation to to ISIS and current events:

I've been hearing this a lot in relation to to ISIS and current events:

"Islam is a newer religion, it just hasn't had its enlightenment yet"

What do they mean by this?

People don't know anything about the history of Islam or the history of Christianity but try to make superficial connections anyway.

Like when stupid people say ISIS is conservative/ old school Islam. They don't know what they're talking about.

That's bullshit from people who don't understand the cycles of history.

Islam belongs to a civilisation that is a thousand years older than ours, and it's a purist reform, not the founding religion of its civilisation. It would be analogous to puritanism in the West, if puritanism had succeeded in taking over all of Western Europe.

In fact if anything the Islamic world is worse now than it's ever been. Compare the liberal Muslims of the 10th/11th centuries (who were only liberal because they had a more relaxed attitude towards their own religion) with Islam now that Saudi Wahhabism has taken it over.

Islamism actually had its age of "enlightenment" or whatever you call it really early on, and was relatively enlightened up until the 13th century when the mongols and turks destroyed everything. There were philosophers, religious pluralism, even atheists and secularist philosophers.

The thing is, the Ottoman Empire really held the entire region back for 500 years so by the time the ottoman emprie fell, the region had a lot of catching up to do.

In the decolonisation era, around the 50's, 60's, and 70's, the Arab world was incredibly secular and modern. However around the same period there was the rise of Islamist fanatic movements.

These were supported mostly by western governments who opposed the secular socialist regimes (i.e. Nasser, Saddam, Assad, etc.) and with the defeat of the soviet union, the secular socialist movements took a massive hit. western backed islamism gained the upper hand, and with backing of Saudi Arabia has hyper mutated into some ultra-radical extremist genocidal form, like we see in ISIS today.

ISIS is basically wahabism on steroids. Wahabism is a relatively new ideology that started in the Nejd desert in the 19th century, it basically seeks to destroy everything and return everything to a primitive and "pure" state, thats why its ultimately destructive in everything.

Wahabism descends from the same khawarij which appeared in early islam. Basically these are the same people originated from the Nejd desert who rejected the authority of the early caliphates because they hated their disruption to their way of life, they just wanted to stay primitive and backwards in the desert and wanted to destroy or take down anything that tried to change that. All they want is their very primitive desert life and they want to destroy everything back to that "pure" state, its all they've ever wanted.

The west exploits this to prevent modernisation in the region, to keep it backwards, undeveloped, and exploitable.

Interesting.

I guess I never thought about the time between the Islamic golden age and the secularization of the cold war.

Check out this book pretty good intro over the broader timeline. Fairly neutral.

Yeah fucking Turks ruined everything. Same reason the Roman Empire fell. Not from outside invasion but from internal factional disputes and people bringing in millions of slave races to fight their wars, slave races end up taking control, empire breaks apart further. By the time the capital is conquered, its a powerless rump state

Region proceed to be ruled by Turks for the next 500 years who made no successful social progress and let the entire region stagnate and stay in the middle ages.

I gues you could argue that Islam is in somtething like the the reformation, and Whabbists are the evqivilent of puritans. It would fit with parralels the thrity years war and the wars of religon. So if it holds up w'll be in for a century long shitfest before Islam reaches the elightenment any the turn into selular rationalists like the west.

>people say ISIS is conservative/ old school Islam.
Isn't that what wahabbism is about?

Basically that it has not been neutered by secularism and laicism, and as such the religion hampered the progress of society into anything useful.

Wahhabism is the reform. Puritanical is a more accurate term to describe it. The Khawarij are the only realy analogue for ISIS in the early year of Islam and they were despised by everyone and nearly wiped out.

They believe Islam was corrupted nearly since the beginning and want to strip most of the things that were debated about and (mostly) settled back in the 11th/12th centuries when these things were actively debated about. They hold Hadith above the Koran and mostly use those to justify themselves.

For hundreds of years the Khawarij continued to be a source of insurrection against the Caliphate.[3] and they aroused condemnation by mainstream scholars such as 14th-century Muslim Ismail ibn Kathir who wrote, "If they ever gained strength, they would surely corrupt the whole of the Earth, Iraq and Shaam – they would not leave a baby, male or female, neither a man or a woman, because as far as they are concerned the people have caused corruption, a corruption that cannot be rectified except by mass killing."[5] In a similar vein, the 10th century Islamic scholar Abu Bakr al-Ajurri said, "None of the scholars, in either past or recent times, ever disagreed that the Khawarij are an evil group, disobedient to Allah Almighty and to His Messenger - Peace Be Upon Him. Even if they pray, fast, or strive in worship, it does not benefit them, and even if they openly enjoin good and forbid evil it does not benefit them, as they are a people who interpret the Quran according to their desire."[13]

relevant

>Wahhabism is the reform.
No, it is a restauration, not a reform.

Restoration of what.

Mainstream Islam was never like it. Even now it's a minority of a minority.

it's dumb white kids who think islam can and will follow the Christian path of irrelevancy

>Mainstream Islam was never like it.
Maybe it was in the first 50 years of its existence, and thats where they want to go back to.

It wasn't though. What are you smoking.

Memery. It is not like religion is like a customized car and Islam just hasn't gotten around to installing a turbocharger yet.

Then, the western world only took off when Religion was pushed back. Secularism is what made us the dominant culture.

>It is not like religion is like a customized car

Then, Christian beliefes are essentially tailor made syncretism where you can literally pick what you want. Islam is much more absolute and dogmatic, this might cause many problems for a societies progress into secularism.

The Turks aren't completely to blame. The period of relative tolerance ended well before the 13th. By the Almoravids, radicalism had already gained a very strong position. Al Ghazali's Tahafut al-Falasifa in 1095 can be considered the turning point. The guy is basically the closest thing to a saint salafis have.

I think he refers to the iconoclasm and extreme violence of early Islam. Muhammad had a whole people, the Banu Qurayza, genocided, which is not something that would happen (out of religious reasons that is) again for centuries after that.

You now realise that from the time of the fall of Rome in the seventh century and to the rise of the human sciences beginning in the thirteenth century, the monasteries were pretty much the only people who knew how to read, write and study.

The monks were dedicated to knowledge. To them, the greatest act of devotion to their god was the study of the world they had gifted them.

Well apart from some protestant sects, most Christian denominations consider that the bible is merely man made, while the Qur'an is held as the infallible and uncreated word of God. Of course that makes Islam a lot less flexible.

So what? Europe was backwards during that time. The western civilization kicked off when religion was in demise. You can still see in Europe what influence the stronger catholic religion had, all catholic countries are economically less developed and poorer than their protestant neighbors where religion was weak earlier.

I think you're forgetting something...

Western civilization became great once religion and state separated, not before.
Before that, they where just a player amongst others, and the Turks, the Persians and the Mughals eclipsed them in most fields.

It wasn't as romantic as all that. They altered things all the time to fit christian narratives and destroyed things they couldn't twist.

>I guess I never thought about the time between the Islamic golden age and the secularization of the cold war.

US assistance to the Taliban might be the most infamous, but this sort of thing happened in every Muslim majority country that had an Anglo overlord.

>Positivism
Why can't Retards understand that some People actually LIKE traditional lifestyles and hierarchies?
Its not like "Muh Individualism" is perfect

Saddam wasn't secular.

Imagine if Martin met Jesus

They mean that Islam has a comparitively short, but not by much, history and time dictates social progress. Of course it is a cruelly naive view as history shows.

Those guys are right. Wahhabis are largely a result of the same ideas that the European reformation was. People tend to think of the protestants through a modern lens, as basically the more lenient, malleable version of Christianity that gives you good work ethic and not much else.

But some early strains were really puritannical and hell-bent on "return" to the faith as it was supposedly practiced by first Christians. Enter Oliver Cromwell banning Christmas or purging congregations that kneeled during Mass. Or the American Pilgrims who didn't really flee persecution as much as they wanted to found their own club where they wouldn't have to interact with other sects.

Also both largely rely on city populations and the merits of reading and analysing the holy text for yourself - with Wahhabis it comes in the form of doing away with established jurisprudence (the five accepted madhabs) and going back to early discourse.

I mean, it was entertaining when the Funny-Fake-News-Show-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named had that extended bit where they described the history of Abrahamic religion in terms of three people going through puberty and coming of age, but I don't think that's a very helpful way to actually look at political science.

They are too busy with resisting U.S. imperialism to have an "enlightenment" period.

The flag in the middle is completely the wrong color

Got a link?

People fell for the Spengler meme and believe that civilisations are on rails. Even bigger retards who probably can't read take it even further and say that events in one civilisation are clear analogues for others. Then absolute irredeeemables assume the future.

Absolutely fucking retarded.

Protip: if you hear someone talking about "cycles of history", "history repeating itself" etc. etc. just punch them in the face.

>Isn't that what wahabbism is about?
No, Wahabbism is more like an autistic protestant reform

>dude religious authorities, hermeneutics and tradition don't matter lmao what could go wrong

I specifically remember the clip being in the [spoiler]Daily Show with Jon Stewart[/spoiler] archives, but I can't possibly find it. This was many years ago.

Ultimately, if I remember correctly, Judaism was overly hormonal and horny, sticking parts of itself everywhere, Christianity got overly violent and shiftless for a while, but got over it some years ago, and Islam is still in its angry phase.

I have not heard this before but this must be said by people who don't understand jackshit about history and religion in general
Kick every single person you hear saying this in the head

>Oliver Cromwell banning Christmas
Cromwell enforced a puritan law put in place banning Christmas.
He didn't ban it himself.

>They hold Hadith above the Koran
Can you give some examples?

They basically believe in Whig history, that history is a linear path of "progress"