AH challenge: religion of peace

[Midgard]

First, let me prepend this by saying the purpose of this thread is not to create controversy of any kind, nor is it to be intentionally offensive to anyone here. Rather, it is an AH scenario/challenge that deals with potentially controversial issues.

In modern US, Islam generally gets pretty bad rep, and is frequently perceived in very negative light. Indeed, many Americans would first think of terrorists, Palestinian mobs with blood of Israeli soldiers on their hands, OBL, 9/11, and other things of similar nature when Islam is mentioned.

The challenge here is to create a POD within the last 100 years that results in a different popular perception of Islam in the United States, where generally the first thing one thinks of when Islam is mentioned is something positive - be it spirituality, wisdom, or whatnot. Bonus points if you can create a generally positive popular perception of Islam in the US with a POD after WWII. Extra bonus points if you can create such scenario with POD set in 1960s or later - the later the better.

So, is it possible to get Islam viewed by the mainstream US population with the same degree of relative positivism as, say, Buddhism (or anything that does not automatically place the stigma of "terrorist religion" or something along those lines to it in popular perception), with the POD being fairly recent? You decide...

[Leo Caesius]

Sufis are the key. They were once very popular with the transcendental set. What if Emerson were to convert to Sufi Islam?

[Mike Stearns]

Yeah, Midgard, it can be done. If the British, the French and the Russians had entered into the Hussien-McMahon Accords with the intention of actually abiding by them, then Arabs would actually the West and the fundamentalist Islam movement would have much less influence because the nations of Europe and North America would not be seen as agressive imperial powers.

[Hendryk]

I unfortunately know little about the history of Islam and thus can't go into specifics, but I think it might help if the POD included no Salafi revivalism and other such movements in the early decades of the 20th century. Later generations of Islamist radicals drew from those references rather than the more peaceful scholars of Sufism and other comparatively tolerant strains of Islam.
Changing US (and more specifically Western) perceptions of Islam would be nice, but removing the objectively unacceptable elements of Islam so misperceptions don't arise in the first place might be even better. Most Americans know next to nothing about, say, Hinduism, but at least they don't associate it with murderous fanatics; an alternate Islam might be perceived similarly.

[Mike Stearns]

So in other words you're saying that you'd almost have to go back the 600s and give Islam a completely different gestation then what we actually know.

[Leo Caesius]

Most Americans know next to nothing about, say, Hinduism, but at least they don't associate it with murderous fanatics; an alternate Islam might be perceived similarly.That's thanks largely to the Theosophical movement and the Vedanta Society which sprouted to compete with it, and particularly to M.K. Ghandi. Perhaps if a charismatic Muslim leader arises, preaching peaceful opposition to the British and the French, a different perception of Islam might result.

[Hendryk]

So in other words you're saying that you'd almost have to go back the 600s and give Islam a completely different gestation then what we actually know.
I don't think it's necessary to go that far back, and besides, the POD has to be in the last 100 years. Others than me are much more knowledgeable about the history of Islam and could point out it was much better than it's commonly perceived to be for much of its history. I'm not personally taking position about that; to me, all Abrahamic faiths are problematic both in spiritual terms and in terms of tolerance towards other creeds. What I'm suggesting here is that butterflying away certain fundamentalist Muslim ideologues of the first half of the 20th century would go a long way towards making contemporary Islam objectively more peaceful. But I'll leave the last word on the issue to genuine experts like Leo and Abdul. Each to his own area of expertise, and this isn't mine.

[Leo Caesius]

The Salafiyya get a lot of bad press. The truth is that their leading lights, men like Kawakibi and Afghani, were dedicated to religious pluralism, even if they opposed the involvement of the West in the Orient. The people you have to worry about are the Wahhabis.

[Midgard]

Just some thoughts on the matter...

I personally think the hardest part is overcoming what in the West is seen as Muslim tactic of answering everything with violence, frequently self-destructive violence at that. If one were to go back to 600s or so, it is rather hard to see a religion that originally spread through holy war as potentially peaceful - however, if one were to remove the holy war from the original spread of Islam, it probably would have stayed in Arabia, being seen as a weird and heretical sect of Christianity, with most of its focus being in non-Byzantine Africa and spreading into Asia - having much less effect on Europe.

Another hard part is that the nations of Europe, where much of population of the US claims ancestry, partially or fully, had been forged out of the Christianity/Islam conflict that had been going on since Islam's original eruption out of Arabia. While today the conflict is represented in the media as being rather one-sided (i.e. the Crusades are mentioned much more frequently than Jihad, and Western imperialism is given much more attention than things like forcible conversions from other faiths, Eastern isolationism, and occasional bursts of conquest that resulted in Middle East and North Africa, previously not only the birthplace - as in the case of the former, but also the strongholds of Christianity now being only Christian in minority), the truth is that both sides of the story, and both claims to the truth need to be examined.

Thus, in order to come up with completely recognizable Islam, one has to allow it to develop as in OTL, holy wars and whatnot. Otherwise, in a different historical and social context, the world as we know it would likely not exist, and thus be near unrecognizable.

Personally I think the best chance for relatively recent POD would be some time aroud WWI or so, possibly via attempting to preserve the Ottoman Empire, which should have much better ability to direct the development of modern Islam to coincide with, well, the times, as opposed to having Islam partially regress into the Dark Age of its own, politically, culturally, and socially. IMO the mindset that is prevalent in extremist Islam nowadays is very similar to that of the Dark Ages Europe in OTL, and much of the recent hostility is due to the West not really understanding that, expecting XXIst century society, and finding society with wealth and XXIst century technology, but from the social standpoint, frequently stuck in between XIth and XVIth centuries in forms of government, social structures, and such.

The further down the line one gets, the harder it would be to get Islam at large (that is, excluding regions that are already somewhat modernized to begin with, and are able to deal with the modern world on the equal terms - unfortunately, such countries/regions are the minority) to modernize to where it would be able to deal with the modern world without feelings of resentment or hostility on either side.

[Wozza]

In fact many of the radial Islamic thinkers, Mawdudi in particular, took their inspiration from western totalitarian philosophies.
No Sykes Picot treaty would be the best departure point, with a middle east under Hashemite domination inspired by liberal parliamentary philosophy and adapting that to Islamic tradition.
This kingdom gallantly accepted Jewish immigration in the post war period with guaranteed parliamentary representation (note: this was in fact offered by the original King Abdullah of Jordan to the putative Israeli government)
This kingdom was staunchly anti-soviet and now finds common cause with the American Christian right on a range of moral issues

[Leo Caesius]

The question of the identity of Europe vis-a-vis Islam and of the "Holy Wars" of the Arabs (as opposed to other Völkerwanderungen) is certainly a divisive one, but one of fairly recent coinage. Edward Said wrote the book on how the Orient and particularly Islam became the mirror in which "the West" viewed itself. While I view this process as largely inevitable, and agree with you that Islam's conflicted relationship with the European powers plays a huge role in the perception of Islam today, I would still caution mistaking relatively recent interpretations of historical events (Arab conquests as "Holy Wars," the conflict against Islam as the source of European identity, and so on) for the actual events themselves.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it didn't have to be that way. I could easily imagine a scenario in which today we (being scholars of European descent) view the Arab world as part of the "West" in opposition to other regions - say India, or China, or Central Asia. Either construction is informed by historical events but still largely artificial, so I see no reason why we should privilege OTL's perception of Islam, which (under relatively different circumstances) might not obtain. Don't forget that Europe went through a period of Turquoiserie in the 19th century, and the British Empire was famously Islamophilic.

[MerryPrankster]

I like the idea of Emerson becoming a Sufi. Perhaps some Sufi sect largely replaces the Unitarians (Emerson was a Unitarian, wasn't he)?

[Wozza]

I agree with your conclusion but not your logic.

Edward Said is famously full of rubbish. The Orientalists were mostly German from a culture with no recent history of conflict with Islam. The notion of such a monocausal explanation of Western identity, or the existence of western identity at all for a long term is really not thought through.
As it was Turkey was generally a British and/or French ally, and if any country could define its identity from conflict

[Leo Caesius]

Not true. Orientalism basically entered its modern phase with Napoleon and his 155 savants in Egypt. You're also forgetting Silvester de Sacy, Ernst Renan, and the rest. Early on, the French were the leading lights of Orientalism, and the interest in the ME is directly attributable to their colonial ambitions, starting in 1836 when the Dey of Algiers impetuously struck the French ambassador with his fly whisk.

Furthermore, the earliest German Orientalists were actually Austrians, like Joseph Hammer von Purgstall. Later on, many of the chief German Orientalists were Jews, like Mark Lidzbarski and Franz Rosenthal (who only recently passed away). Their interest in the ancient Near East was predicated by their own traditions.

I'll grant that Said's research is generally sloppy, frequently dated, and occasionally erroneous, but that doesn't necessarily undermine his premise.

[Leo Caesius]

At any rate, you haven't actually argued with my logic, you're merely complaining about Said. Those are two different things, you realize.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

The Salafiyya get a lot of bad press. The truth is that their leading lights, men like Kawakibi and Afghani, were dedicated to religious pluralism, even if they opposed the involvement of the West in the Orient. The people you have to worry about are the Wahhabis.

I totally agree. Afghani was a bit erratic, but most of his ilk were opposed to Western DOMINATION of the Muslim world, and were pro-reform; they just felt that Western ideas had to be adapted to the existing culture rather than adopted uncritically.

These movements took on a more fundamentalist bent later not because they were prone to, but rather because of the way the Mid East developed.

The end of WWI is too late for a POD, because even if the Entente had allowed the creation of an Arab kingdom, they had no intention whatoever of allowing it to be independent of Western domination, at the least economic, and I think this would still fuel fundamentalism.

I think you're POD needs to be before WWI. The best result would probably be an Ottoman survival which leads to an eventual independent or federated Arab state, or if the Ottoman government can return to pre-Young Turk policy, maybe even a unitary state.

[Midgard]

I totally agree. Afghani was a bit erratic, but most of his ilk were opposed to Western DOMINATION of the Muslim world, and were pro-reform; they just felt that Western ideas had to be adapted to the existing culture rather than adopted uncritically.

These movements took on a more fundamentalist bent later not because they were prone to, but rather because of the way the Mid East developed.

The end of WWI is too late for a POD, because even if the Entente had allowed the creation of an Arab kingdom, they had no intention whatoever of allowing it to be independent of Western domination, at the least economic, and I think this would still fuel fundamentalism.

I think you're POD needs to be before WWI. The best result would probably be an Ottoman survival which leads to an eventual independent or federated Arab state, or if the Ottoman government can return to pre-Young Turk policy, maybe even a unitary state.

I wonder what would have been the chance of WWI still having the similar outcome, but the Entente powers deciding not to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. What would have been the plausibility of the Ottomans changing sides mid-war or later, or even starting as an Entente power? We could theoretically have weaker Ottomans that have the Western support post-war, maybe due to the fact that the French and the British would see weak Ottomans depending on Entente support but keeping the Middle East relatively stable more valuable (and less costly) than taking control of it themselves... Is it plausible at all?

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Once the Ottomans entered the war, they were doomed. The best bet would be for them to have stayed out. The British in particular had been waiting for decades for a pretext to dismember them, and even changing sides mid-war would have entailed losing most of the Arab provinces and the Straits.

I wonder what would have been the chance of WWI still having the similar outcome, but the Entente powers deciding not to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. What would have been the plausibility of the Ottomans changing sides mid-war or later, or even starting as an Entente power? We could theoretically have weaker Ottomans that have the Western support post-war, maybe due to the fact that the French and the British would see weak Ottomans depending on Entente support but keeping the Middle East relatively stable more valuable (and less costly) than taking control of it themselves... Is it plausible at all?

[Glen]

Here's one thought: POD 1934.

Word of the increasing persecution of Jews becomes more widespread among Palestinians. Several religious and civic leaders are moved by the plight of the Jews in Germany, predominantly Islamic, recall to the faithful that these too are 'People of the Book' and petition the British to allow Jewish refugees to come to Palestine, especially children.

Unlike OTL, a significant amount of Jews escape Germany prior to the outbreak of WWII. Unfortunately, once the war starts Germany herself closes off emigration and the Jews of the nations occupied by the Nazis still suffer the horrors of the Halocaust, along with many other peoples the Nazis persecute.

During the thirties and forties, the tone of relations between Jews and Palastinians has been greatly changed by this singular act of compassion. With the end of WWII, the Palestinians and Jews of Palestine become fully cognizant of the profoundness of this act, in that many hundreds of thousands have been saved from the barbarity of this genocide. While there is still a Zionist movement at the end of WWII, as well as a push for Jews in the displaced persons camp to be brought to Palestine, there is a very important shift. Palestinians take a certain pride in being one of the few peoples of the world to have done something to save significant numbers from the Nazi tyranny. They have also been living with a larger Jewish minority in their midst, one which is grateful to the Palestinian people for pushing for their salvation. There is little popular sentiment for a purely Jewish State in this ATL, since it would be seen as a betrayal of the kindness of the Palestinians. Given the lack of an exclusionary Zionist movement, their rightful pride in their previous act of compassion, and the closer ties engendered to Jews over the 30s and early 40s, Palestinians join with Jews in encouraging the British to allow further settlements of DPs in Palestine.

A large minority of Jews from both the pre- and post- war migrations are established in Palestine, but with the aid rather than fear of the Palestinians. The Palestinians themselves are a mix of Islamics and Christians, and now a large Jewish component has joined them. Post war talks begin regarding independence from being a British Protectorate. As in r/l, they are not always harmonious, but there is a strong sentiment towards a unified, multiethnic, secular nation in this Palestine. Eventually, a deal including a constitution is worked out and the British and UN give their approval to the birth of the State of Canaan (Palestine and Israel are considered too politically charged for names, but Canaan as one of the original names for the region is agreed upon as a compromise) with Jerusalem as its capital. All religious locations are guaranteed to be preserved.

By having a peaceful, pluralistic, unified secular nation in the former British Protectorate of Palestine, the whole dynamic of Mideast and US politics are changed. The Middle East now has a strong model for post colonial reform. Not all will follow it, but it makes incremental differences. There is no longer the scape goats of Israel and their US backers to misdirect the public from corruption within Middle Eastern governments. There will still be coups and dictators and other problems, but less so than in OTL. Without the issue of Palestine, the Islamic (particularly the Arab) world and the US have much better relations. There are no significant episodes of Arab International Terrorism in this ATL). There is never an oil embargo either.

There may still be some form of political turmoil in Iran, but it may develop more into a reform movement than a revolution, and the US will not be seen as an enemy.

Essentially, we get a foreign relations situation which has a fairly normal base, though the US is still very strongly motivated to ensure the flow of oil. Without the Palestinian issue, the politics of the region will possibly be less radical, and will not be as down on the US government (not that there aren't other reasons, but this is the biggest). In turn, the US which has much less friction with the Middle East will never develop this stereotype of the Arab or Islamic terrorist or US haters. Probably the predominant stereotype will be more of the rich Sheik (Yes, we still are inaccurate, but it will not be a fearful or hateful stereotype. I'm certain that people in the Middle East will still think the US is full of Cowboys too).

This I think might be the best POD for this challenge. I could think of a few later, but they become progressively harder to fully change the image. I would say that the latest POD to remove these stereotypes completely would have to occur before Munich. After that, things get progressively worse on a number of fronts, and would likely require multiple PODs.

[Grimm Reaper]

So Leo prefers a Middle East under a Hashemite constitutional monarchy while Abdul favors an Ottoman survival.

Can't you just smell the impending fireworks? :D

Emphasizing a Middle East sans the Sykes-Picot treaty has two obstacles. First lies in the fact that the British, and French to a lesser degree, were promising anything to everyone in the quest for allies. Dropping ONE treaty might not make the difference. Second, it ignores the issue of "I gotta be me" wherein expecting colonial powers NOT to grab more colonies...pardon me, 'mandates'...<cough, cough>...is like expecting Doctor What not to post weird websites.

The Ottoman survival is actually easier to arrange:

1) The two German warships which escaped to Istanbul are captured, easing the tensions and removing a potential German bargaining chip.
2) Realizing the danger of partition the Ottomans decide to preempt the situation by joining the more threatening side. Perhaps they can rewrite some of the losses in the Balkan Wars?
3) The Ottoman Empire, as one of the victorious allied powers, makes its way into the 1920s with the war hero Mutapha Kemal guiding a massive effort to modernize the society. This includes dividing the Arabian Penninsula with Great Britain in the 1920s, removing a minor irritant called Wahabism.

Proceed from there.

[MarkA]

Perhaps the 'mainstream' American people you mention are white middle class? In that case have Cassius Clay and Malcom X convert to Judaism.

They demand US troops out of Vietnam. They demand those troops be sent to Israel and used to defend/expand the state of Israel. They rail against the Arabs as equal persecutors with American whites of their slave ancestors.

This activity influences the American christian fundamentalist right to turn more from the old testament and they begin to formulate their crazy ideas in terms of anti-Semetism rather than anti-Islamism.

I don't believe American troops will withdraw from Vietnam early or go to the middle east, but the calls for them to do so will be enough to engender distrust and fear (how familiar in America) in the middle class white population.

This is fun!

[Cloudy Vortex]

Uh, Mark, the conflict between middle class WASPs and African-American nationalists has very little to do with Occidental anxieties about Dar-Islam. Black Muslims are a sect unto themselves with no more direct ties to any other Islamic denomination than the Latter Day Saints have with any other Christian group. Elijah Mohammad founded a religion of, for, and by black racists. Malcolm X read the Quran, made the hajj, was exposed to more orthodox Islam, challanged Elijah over his abberations, and was assinated for it. Most whites who care to see this sort of thing don't regard Black Muslims as a threat, just someone you don't want to sit next to at lunch if he's going to obnoxious about it. ;)

As for the Occident vs. Dar-Islam mess, it's way too complicated to fix cleanly. It wasn't inevitable, but it doesn't have one cause. I've always believed that the 'hate/feat/distrust that which is different' tendency that people have is a hardcoded instinct that we share with many social animals. (It may be easier to personally redefine different than simply accept differences as 'beneficial'.) That may be the best way to alleviate the conflict both in AH and in real-life: Muslims aren't any different than us. They just want a job and the right to a voice. Ah, the healing hands of democracy and a regulated free market. :D

[MarkA]

Cloudy Vortex, my point was that fundamentalism in the USA got its present boost because of people who were growing up in the sixties. The greatest impacts on society then were: a) the Vietnam War ; b) the Civil Rights Movement and arising Black consciousness and c) the movement for change and theoverthrow of the existing order. Combined they scared the middle class white population terribly.

Hence the growth of fundamentalist christian groups. The black groups who were fundamentalist are of use to the neocons now but were ignored, even shunned, back in the sixties.

[Hendryk]

The Ottoman survival is actually easier to arrange:

1) The two German warships which escaped to Istanbul are captured, easing the tensions and removing a potential German bargaining chip.
2) Realizing the danger of partition the Ottomans decide to preempt the situation by joining the more threatening side. Perhaps they can rewrite some of the losses in the Balkan Wars?
3) The Ottoman Empire, as one of the victorious allied powers, makes its way into the 1920s with the war hero Mutapha Kemal guiding a massive effort to modernize the society. This includes dividing the Arabian Penninsula with Great Britain in the 1920s, removing a minor irritant called Wahabism.

This sounds pretty good. Marginalizing Wahhabism while it's still confined to the Bedouin tribes of Arabia just might work. And Abdul gets another TL with a surviving Ottoman empire :)

[JimmyJimJam]

Religion - humankind = peace.

[zoomar]

I could imagine a fairly recent POD beginning in the 1980's, combining a continuation of the Cold War and the increase in influence of religious fundamentalism in US policy and culture. Common ground might continue between the Mujahadeen (proto Taliban) and US conservative anti-communists in Afghanistan and in fostering rebellions in the various other "-stans" in the muslim parts of the athiest commie Soviet Union. This might be further cemented by a growing cultural alliance among traditionalist catholics, religious-right protestants, and conservative muslims (in fact conservative religious traditions in general) against modernist and secularist values relating to womens rights, human sexuality, entertainment, pornography, etc. Lots would also work against this (including what to do about Israel), but I'm still not sure such an alliance is impossible.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Maybe there could acclaim granted to more peaceful leaders...For instance, what if Yahya Khan (POD c. 1935) , one of the Muslim advocates for nonviolence, and ally of Mohandas Gandhi, calling for a peaceful society between Hindus and Moslems....

Another POD could be the political activism of Muhammad Ali (c.1975). After his fabled fights of "the Rumble in the Jungle" and "the Thrilla in Manila", Muhammad Ali was seen asa powerful voice for change in the African-American community. Unfortunately he was also seduced by such items as Black Flag pesticide commercials, cereal endorsements (e.g. Wheaties ) and comic-book appearences (e.g. Superman V. Muhammad Ali ).