Wednesday, January 29, 2014

( 16 ) Conclusions Derived From Reviewing " A World Without Islam "


By Sodium

Graham Fuller, author of the book, " A World Without Islam " has divided the content of his fascinating book into the following three categories:

~  Category One: " Heresy And Power "
~  Category Two: " Meeting At The Civilizational Borders Of Islam "
~  Category Three: " The Place Of Islam In The Modern World "

The following conclusions are mainly based on the three categories cited above, ( I may quote Graham Fuller, when and where I may see appropriate ):

~  The world has existed since time immemorial and certainly before the appearance of Islam on the world stage. And the world has been suffering from violence and conflicts before Islam came into existence. Therefore, pointing accusing finger on Islam for the current violence in this world does not really hold water. In short, it is fundamentally the human conditions that have produced violence and so many recorded conflicts, not religion per se. Religions have been used, till present time, to either cover-up achievements of well-defined political agenda, or as profitable instruments for cash-flow by certain " religious " institutions.

~  All three Abrahamic religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are connected by certain and well specified theological facts, based upon their respective and fundamental tenets. Yes, indeed, there are differences, but the similarities are well recognized. Hence, tolerance can be achieved, if the concentrations are directed on the similarities instead of the differences.

~  Both Judaism and Christianity have their own internal and external problems. There is nothing really new for Islam to have its internal and external problems also.

~  Because of so many heresies founded in Christianity due to so many different views on the nature of Jesus Christ, (Christology ), so many different Christian Churches had evolved and developed. Islam has well recognized and well established four main, " Mathahib, "  meaning, " Schools of Thought. "  They are:

               Hanafi School of Thought.
               Maliki School of Thought.
               Shafi'i School of Thought.
               Hanbali School of Thought.
               
~  All three Abrahamic religions have been used by rulers, political leaders and governments to achieve their geopolitical agenda through out human recorded history.

~  On page 139 of the book, " A World Without Islam " Graham Fuller has made the following statements and I quote:

         " Samuel Huntington, in his book, THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, employed the infelicitous phrase " Islam's bloody border."  In a world that is fairly bloody overall, it's worth remembering that it generally takes two to make a border bloody. "

It seems to me that was an extremely brilliant response to Huntington's subjectivity, or, most likely, Huntington's obvious bias against Islam.

~  As Islamic civilization had gradually declined, The Western world's Reformation and Age of Exploration had moved on the world stage, as a potent trend which eventually became a potent force that conquered and colonized the Islamic world. The firm adherence of Muslims to their religion across the globe, including the Muslim minorities that are living within some major countries of the Western World had created the animosity between a declining civilization and a rising one. But this apparent religious animosity has nothing to do with Islam or Christianity as much as with geopolitical struggles. Once more, Graham Fuller makes this point clearer by the following statements of his; and I quote them as they appeared on page 245 of his great book:

      " Religious Muslims tend to agonize over a possible loss of a moral direction in the decline of their civilization, but there are indeed other more objective reasons that must also be cited in the relative decline of the East and the rise of the West. These factors have little to do with Islam and a great deal to do with political and geopolitical changes in the world, as well as other objective external factors. In short, If Islam had not existed, it seems very like that the course of most of these events would not have been significantly different. We witness, for example, civilizational exhaustion in cases like China in the late nineteenth century as well."

Based upon the above quotation, it seems to me that the ruling class in the imperialist West must have a big enemy to keep, what President Dwight Eisenhower called, " The Military Industrial Conflict, " functioning profitably. Communism was the enemy before the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the demise of the Soviet Empire which was considered the " Evil Empire " by the ruling class in the West, a big enough new enemy must be found to replace Communism and its protector, the Soviet Union. As I inspect the map of the globe, I could not see bigger than the Islamic world that qualified to be the new enemy that could match the old enemy, communism and Soviet Empire, in bigness. Hence, the ruling class of the West has decided to make Islam and the Muslim World as the new enemy, for other reasons beside bigness.

 ~  To put it as clearly as possible, it will not serve justice, nor will it serve reality to " Islamize " the current violence the modern world is encountering and making it institutionalized in the Western institutions, while the real and huge violence is currently being committed by certain Western powers against the Muslim World. In short, the West must look in the mirror long and hard before pointing its accusing and bloody fingers, stained with Muslim blood, at Islam and Muslims. The proof is consisted of so many criminal acts of violence that have been committed by certain Western powers against innocent Muslim population across the globe: (A) destruction of Iraq, in 2003, as a functioning human society and a major Arab Muslim country, (B) what Western military powers have been doing to the innocent Afghani people, by the mighty military strikes and especially by the DRONES, military airplanes without pilots, and (C) lastly, but not least, the killing of innocent Muslims, across the globe, has been done in the name of what seems to be an endless War on Terrorism, while the imperialist West is the greatest terrorist of them all.

Final Words:
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The cited conclusions in the foregoing are the main conclusions which one may be able to deduce from reviewing the book. But they are not the only ones that could be derived from the whole book. In fact, the number of possible conclusions that can be derived from the book, as an integrated whole, are almost endless. However,  the intent, here, is mainly to provide the interested readers, who have no access to the book, a degree of understanding of what the book is all about. It is hope that such an intent has been achieved and accomplished.

END.          

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4 comments:

  1. Your reviews of the book ( A World Without Islam ) have been lengthy but done in caring and good intention that kept me interested in following your efforts from beginning till the very end.. I certainly have learned about Christianity more than I could bargain for.

    Thank you, Sodium, for a job well done through your obvious caring and patience. May God bless your genuine efforts to help readers like me who cannot even afford to buy the book. The more I read you,the more I love your writings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mo,

      Am very pleased that you have learned something about Christianity from the whole " lengthy " reviews which I could not possibly make the 16 series of topics shorter, regardless how hard I had tried.

      At any rate, thank you, Mo, for letting me know your opinion and thank you for your kind words.

      I regret the delay in responding.

      Delete
  2. I agree with Mo: "lengthy but interesting" and done "in caring and patience" from the first topic to the last topic of the reviews. Very interesting. Above all, I have learned more about Islam. Many thanks, Sodium.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Warren,

      Could not make the 16 series of different topics of the whole review shorter. It was really impossible to make them shorter, since my basic concern was to provide the readers, who /have no accessibility to the book, a clear comprehension of what the content of the book was all about.

      However, I am very delighted for the fact that you " have learned more about Islam " which has genuinely been my objective from the very beginning, as this website was established three years ago. That is to help readers like you who are interested to learn more about Islam and perhaps about other issues as well.

      Thank you, Warren, for letting me know your opinion and thank you for your kind words. Much appreciated.

      I regret the delay in responding.

      Delete