AHC "Reform Islam"

Turkey under Kemal Ataturk was the only Muslim country which was genuinely secular and progressive. Turkey under AKP appears to be moving away from this path. Indonesia is democratic and it has some secular traditions different from the Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslim countries. There also the tentacles of the Jihadi Islam are making their ugly appearance.

The Bahai Religion is an independent religion, I suppose. It has originated from Iran, but its followers do not consider themselves as Muslims.

The Ismailis are a sect in Islam. They are not fundamentalists or fanatics like the Wahabis. But secular and progressive? Doubtful! Different from the mainstream like the Shi'ites from the Sunnis.
 
Nassirisimo

I’m talking about Religious rather than Cultural core, which is relevant to this thread and it can be argued the advancement and knowledge of the muslim world was really built on the backs of the conquered non-muslim peoples living as helots / dhimmis under Islamic rule (e.g. Arabic numerals were created from Hindu numerals) despite some prattling about various “golden ages” (it’s a matter of perceptive).

Having said that, the Islamic world had a unique opportunity to make use of the advances and knowledge of the conquered non-muslims peoples via the Mutazilites prior to the European enlightenment and it can be argued that the decline of the mutazilites in the face of increasing rabid anti-rationalist fundamentalism ultimately coincided with the eventual decline of the Islamic world.

European colonialism in the Middle East was not limited to "binning the dhimma system" and resulted in huge economic and political effects that are still felt to this day. Please, quit whitewashing one of the most significant (and arguably negative) phenomenons of the past 200 years.

The discarding of the Dhimma system is as significant and positive as the abolition of slavery in Western World along with other abominable practises like Suttee (in India by the British) even if it was not of the Islamic world’s own accord (akin to the CSA's opposition to banning slavery), so for all of European Colonialism's many flaws when seen in that light cannot really be compared to the imperialism of the early caliphates (or the slave raids by groups like the Barbary pirates that reputedly kidnapped and enslaved roughly 1 + million Europeans), especially when it was within the Europeans power during the colonialist period to do the same.

The Spanish reclaiming their land is no different to the Algerians kicking the French out, you cite the Russians and what happened to the Turks yet you fail to mention the slave raids / caliphate imperialism into Europe as well as the destructive Ottoman occupation of parts of Europe preceding it that prompted such a reaction and it could have turned out a hell of a lot worse than it already OTL when the roles were finally reversed.

Arguably, it could be said that the biggest cultural losses were the destruction of the libraries of Alexandria and Nalanda (that is not to deny Baghdad's place as a key institution and intellectual hub) though I'm not about to get into a contest on who suffered worse.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
 
And why can't a Reform / Secular Islam come about in a scenario similar to how the Jewish people were completely, decisively and utterly devastated like in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest and Roman-Jewish wars?

I find it hard to believe that it's impossible for Islam to adopt more liberal practices without dropping its 'triumphalism' (what does this even mean?). There are surely other ways it can liberalize without having Mecca or Medina sacked. People don't grow more open-minded when they experience something like the sack of Baghdad (as has been pointed out in this thread); they turn inwards and it was arguably the final straw that broke the camel's back in regards to the gates being closed on itijihad. Rabbi Geiger was thousands of years removed from the Jewish diaspora, anyway. The circumstances between those two times aren't comparable.

...it can be argued the advancement and knowledge of the muslim world was really built on the backs of the conquered non-muslim peoples living as helots / dhimmis under Islamic rule (e.g. Arabic numerals were created from Hindu numerals) despite some prattling about various “golden ages” (it’s a matter of perceptive).

So, uh, if I'm reading you write: Muslims didn't figure out anything for themselves and stole the ideas of the places and people that they took over? Because if you didn't mean that, it certainly looks like what you wrote.
 
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I find it hard to believe that it's impossible for Islam to adopt more liberal practices without dropping its 'triumphalism' (what does this even mean?). There are surely other ways it can liberalize without having Mecca or Medina sacked. People don't grow more open-minded when hey experience something like the sack of Baghdad (as has been pointed out in this thread); they turn inwards and it was arguably the final straw that broke the camel's back in regards to the gates being closed on itijihad. Rabbi Geiger was thousands of years removed from the Jewish diaspora, anyway. The circumstances between those two times aren't comparable.



So, uh, if I'm reading you write: Muslims didn't figure out anything for themselves and stole the ideas of the places and people that they took over? Because if you didn't mean that, it certainly looks like what you wrote.

However, the lack of Jewish political and religious independence (not being allowed to fully practise their religion along with limited to no access to their own holy places like the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs, etc.) that resulted from the Roman-Jewish wars was enough of a factor to enable Reform Judaism to appear soon after the Jewish emancipation in Europe allowed for such an opportunity.

The conquests of other peoples placed the early caliphates in a unique position to build upon the ideas and knowledge of other peoples (when they were not periodically burning books that contradicted Islamic texts), the Mutazilites themselves drew upon Greek thought and that was ultimately what allowed the rabid fundamentalists to successfully brand the Mutazilites has heretics (which caused the Islamic world to decline from then on).

As for the last part there is the fact that Islam at times prohibited non-Arabs/non-Muslims from converting to Islam along with some the early caliphates even discriminating and levying excessive taxes on mawalis (non-Arab Muslims) in order to prevent the loss of wealth the early Islamic rulers derived from non-muslims via the jizyah / tribute.
 
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Admittedly, that's our fault. We ignored Islam in the 50's to 70's in favor of "revolutionary" Socialism, and didn't really try and fix it. When the 80's cam around, Socialism was discredited, but Islam was in the hands of the radicals and nutcases. So now we had the Wahabites trying to run roughshod over everything.

I don't know. I tend to be of the old-fashioned view that people are responsible for their own behaviour, even if they've been legitimately wronged.

The bit about Muslims not allowed to leave Islam is generally held to be apostasy. Weren't Christians who abandoned Christianity considered to be heretics at one point?

Yes, at one point. Then it reformed. My challenge is for Islam to have undergone the same process.

Actually, Ataturk wanted a secular state. He outlawed many aspects of Islam, including wearing the veil and such. His reasoning that he needed Turkey to be secular in order to survive the coming century.

In fact, Ataturk was a Muslim privately, but very much anti-Islamic politically. He wanted to remove Turkey as far away as possible from the old Ottoman Empire.

Exactly. Ataturk's philosophy was about political secularism. It wasn't about how religion should conduct itself in the religious sphere.
 
That aside, I do feel that Islam can be made a power for moderatism. It was just badly ignored until it was too late.

Actually, Ataturk wanted a secular state. He outlawed many aspects of Islam, including wearing the veil and such. His reasoning that he needed Turkey to be secular in order to survive the coming century.

In fact, Ataturk was a Muslim privately, but very much anti-Islamic politically. He wanted to remove Turkey as far away as possible from the old Ottoman Empire.

Turkey under Kemal Ataturk was the only Muslim country which was genuinely secular and progressive. Turkey under AKP appears to be moving away from this path

Except that Kemal's secularism was over the top and enforced in authoritarian way. This was perhaps a greater factor behind modern Islamic atavism then even western imperialism, especially since this model spread to other parts of Islamic world, including Egypt and Iran. Look at where they are now.

That's the thing with Kemalism : it provided a model attractive to leaders and palatable to people everywhere: benevolent dictatorship. All the benefits of fascism without the negatives... except lack of democratic development is always a negative.

How many times have we heard people say "Ataturk was a dictator because he had to be." Why did he have to be? He thought he knew what was best, and imposed it from above, like a good Ottoman.

He's admired because he defeated the colonial powers and "turned the face of Turkey away from the barbarism of the east toward the True Light of European civilization." But his accomplishment against the imperial powers was military, not political, and his "transformation" of society was too rapid, and therefore shallow, bottling up forces that have come back to bite everyone on the ass.

What he should have done was democratize, and that would have defeated the reactionary forces that he opposed. Ironically, it was his followers that devolved over time into reactionaries. The Ottoman Empire before him was more liberal. Abdul Hamid II, while froze democracy at the center, developed it on the local level, something that Kemal (and also the Europeans over their mandates) later reversed.

Secularism should be lack of state support for any one religion, not the oppression of religious practice. By doing the latter, the Kemalists gave Islamists political impetus. What would be the point of Erdogan's party if the majority of the population didn't feel alienated by the Kemalist elite?

Basically, Kemalism had bared a consequence exactly the opposite of what it was intended for. Islam was reforming, but it was halted under Kemalism, and now modernism means you should stop being muslim. And even after Ottoman Empire, Turkey didn't just cease to be role model for muslim world over night, and this model was copied elsewhere in the muslim world, soldifying antagonization between Islam and progressivism like never before.
 
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