What POD is needed to prevent or lessen Islamic terrorism

Why would that stop terrorism? ISIS and the like are Salafists/Sunnis, not Shias. The Saudis are the main sponsors of terrorism.

Islamism is a political mechanism for power - the religious beliefs of the groups themselves are meaningless and only matter in so far as which side of a particular conflict they are trying to cater to.
In fact, because Islamists can indeed come from Shia or Sunni camps proves this.

Removing several of the main reasons why Islamism got so big as a viable tool for political action in the middle east would butterfly much of what we're dealing with today.
 
Last edited:
That requires a VERY early POD, which would butterfly humanity...
Or a war which ends with oil wells filled with cement (like during WW2 in USSR). Saudi Arabia and Qatar collapse on a economical and social point of view (since the oil revenues are used to buy social peace in those countries), Islamism just loses one of its main fiancial supports for decades. Problem: Europe needs to find another energy policy (France can go full nuclear but the others, I dunno) and China will perhaps face some troubles.
 
That requires a VERY early POD, which would butterfly humanity...
It's a geologic POD, which would generally be considered ASB.

Why would that stop terrorism? ISIS and the like are Salafists/Sunnis, not Shias. The Saudis are the main sponsors of terrorism.
"Islamic" terrorism is political, not religious. It's primarily a response to Amercan and European colonialism.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
IMO islamistic terror or "islamism" at all has its roots in the lack of education. In general as well in what the islamic world HAD actually achieved in the past : not "militarily" or on grounds of "ruling power" but on science and culture (btw : when did the islamic world started its decline and when became this an avalanche ?).

To prevent the rise of islamism in modern times ... maybe keep the Ottoman Empire neutral - all or most over the Great War, won by the CP (however you might 'arrange' that).

With the "Young Turks" (alike Atatürk) keeping control of most of the region they start a huge develpment campaign with all the oil at their hand in Mesopotamia, maybe also of Aserbaidschan (?), strongly supported by the germans (keen to get their share of the oil), who also start to "help" the Ottoman Empire to develop education, management, civil services, the whole administration along "prussian virtues". With it the/a middle class, as we understand it grows, in numbers as well as in influence, a middle class mostly interested in calm, slow, economic florishing.
The slow turning of a feudal, agrarian society into a civilian more urban (or to start with ... "townish") society.
And with its growing wealth it could become paramount for other country adjacent (Persia, Afghanistan, the turanian states/countries, that might exist now)

Such a development would IMO be the best way to avoid any growing ground for the islamism, we know today.
 

Archibald

Banned
On top of my head
- don't screw Palestine / Israel in 1948
- no 1956, 1967, 1973 wars...
- don't screw Iran in 1953
- no 1979 Iranian revolution, obviously (albeit the Shah was an authoritian idiot)
- also this happened in 1979 and was a major turning point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure
- don't invade Iraq in 2003
- don't invade iraq in 2003
- don't forget, do not invade iraq in 2003


This documentary is a startling descriptions of all the mistakes made between 1979 and 2001. It sounds like some kind of ASB islamist-wank all the way.
https://www.google.fr/search?q="Les+routes+de+la+terreur"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=_fc2WaWsBMSBaILngdAC
 
Sayyid Qutb falls in love with an American woman during his exchange year and resettles there permanently to lead a simple life. ;-)

You'd have to go back at least to pre-1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which enabled the Mujaheddin emerging as a transnational militant movement), and the occupation of the Grand Mosque in Saudi-Arabia by Islamists (after which the Kingdom turned more and more fundamentalist). Two further important events at that time were the start of the civil war in Lebanon and General Zia's coup in Pakistan (under whose regime the building of madrassas exploded).

Islamism as an ideology started in the early 20th century, so to prevent it becoming a major force, you'd need either Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna to remain obscure outsiders, or their followers somehow mellowing down. In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood must become an apolitical secret society, or even something of a dangerous, proselytising cult condemned by leading Muslim preachers - bear in mind here that in the 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood were still considered by bit of a laughing stock (see this speech by Nasser). Partially, Islamism was also championed by rulers like Hafez al-Assad in Syria or Anwar al-Sadat in Egypt, who both partially implemented Sharia law and courted the Muslim Brotherhood as a counterbalance to left-wing opposition (Assad later crushed them when they become too strong and turned against him).

My idea would be to make the reform kingdoms in Afghanistan and the Persian Constitutional Revolution, both in the early 20th century, a permanent success. Both would emerge as reformed, secular monarchies and might become a role model for other Muslim countries to adopt. That might prevent the rise of Arab nationalism (which eventually bore the autocracies that helped fuelling the Islamist fire).
 
Nope. It has never been a political force of any consequence, any where. Do not take my word for it, ask those who actually follow these things closely.

That wasn't a real question.
Sufism is a serious religio-aestectic movement and for some a way of resisting against dominering socio-religious dogma in the middle east
 

longsword14

Banned
That wasn't a serious question.
Sufism is a serious religious movement and for some a way of resistance against dominering socio-religious dogma in the middle east
Sufism is not significant. It has no political backing nor does it have the numbers. People often tend to latch on to the first thing that satisfies their criteria of 'good'.
In places like India where you would expect it to have some grip, but it does not, forget the ME.
 
Islamism is a political mechanism for power - the religious beliefs of the groups themselves are meaningless and only matter in so far as which side of a particular conflict they are trying to cater to.
In fact, because Islamists can indeed come from Shia or Sunni camps proves this.

Removing several of the main reasons why Islamism got so big as a viable tool for political action in the middle east would butterfly much of what we're dealing with today.

Iran is opposed to ISIS. Although Saudi Arabia might not sponsor ISIS directly, it does so indirectly by sponsoring radical Sunni Islam.

Or a war which ends with oil wells filled with cement (like during WW2 in USSR). Saudi Arabia and Qatar collapse on a economical and social point of view (since the oil revenues are used to buy social peace in those countries), Islamism just loses one of its main fiancial supports for decades. Problem: Europe needs to find another energy policy (France can go full nuclear but the others, I dunno) and China will perhaps face some troubles.

A lot more likely would be the winners from the war cutting up the area in smaller states so that they can put a puppet in charge in the oil rich areas. Actually, it is strange that this has not been done.

In that case: no state of Israel. The whole problem started there and escalated...

Obviously, if there are no humans, there is no Israel.

It's a geologic POD, which would generally be considered ASB.


"Islamic" terrorism is political, not religious. It's primarily a response to Amercan and European colonialism.

The term itselfs shows that it is also religious. It is based on an extreme interpretation of the religion. Religion and politics do not exclude each others.
 
Sufism is not significant. It has no political backing nor does it have the numbers. People often tend to latch on to the first thing that satisfies their criteria of 'good'.
In places like India where you would expect it to have some grip, but it does not, forget the ME.
In terms of muslim religious culture, sufism represented the VAST majority of the muslim world until the 1930's. The ulemas of Al-Azhar still had a lot of influence and began to lose that influence in the 1960's-1970's (and those men were against Al-Qutb). So an Islam dominated by sufism is very likely if the interwar years are better managed. The caliphate not being abolished would be a good start since it created a huge void within the muslim (see Saudi Arabia trying to gain support to have the caliphate in 1926, that's the beginning of their ambition to expand their vision of islam).
 
Sufism is not significant. It has no political backing nor does it have the numbers. People often tend to latch on to the first thing that satisfies their criteria of 'good'.
In places like India where you would expect it to have some grip, but it does not, forget the ME.
Don't be obtuse.
You know your offering up a myopic interpretation of "significant" - and in this case, shear numbers and political backing is what determines value? The problem with this notion when it comes to a spiritualism like Sufism is that the movement were talking about exists within the existing structure of Islam - not separate from it. Therefore there's no hard concrete numbers of "practicing adherents" to judge it by, nor is it possible to separate it as its own political movement to "back".
However that doesn't mean it's not significant - to argue otherwise shows a lack of comprehension of what Sufism is.
 
Last edited:
Iran is opposed to ISIS. Although Saudi Arabia might not sponsor ISIS directly, it does so indirectly by sponsoring radical Sunni Islam.

That has nothing to do with what I responded with.

The term itselfs shows that it is also religious. It is based on an extreme interpretation of the religion. Religion and politics do not exclude each others.

Bud..you need to read some more on the subject matter.
1) Islam is a religion
2) Islamism is a political movement through which it is believed good governance can be derived from Islam.

However many Islamists, Salafist, etc are not practicing Muslims - in fact, many just use the cultural affinity provided by the significance of Islam to cajole the populace into support their otherwise RealPolitik causes.

A perfect example would be the Ottoman Sultan recreating the title if Caliph during WW1 as a means to pull support for the war.
It was a Islamist political action, but that doesn't mean it was derived from a morally religious place.
The same can be said for the group's committing politically Islamist acts today.
 
That has nothing to do with what I responded with.



Bud..you need to read some more on the subject matter.
1) Islam is a religion
2) Islamism is a political movement through which it is believed good governance can be derived from Islam.

However many Islamists, Salafist, etc are not practicing Muslims - in fact, many just use the cultural affinity provided by the significance of Islam to cajole the populace into support their otherwise RealPolitik causes.

A perfect example would be the Ottoman Sultan recreating the title if Caliph during WW1 as a means to pull support for the war.
It was a Islamist political action, but that doesn't mean it was derived from a morally religious place.
The same can be said for the group's committing politically Islamist acts today.

The political ideology as such is based on Wahhabism, that does not necessarily mean that everyone supporting the movement takes the ideology seriously.

Anyway, the main reasons "why Islamism got so big as a viable tool" is that states like Saudi Arabia supports extreme version of Islam. ISIS and the like is based on Wahhabism, the same version that the Saudi regime supports. Iran is strongly opposed to ISIS, as Iran is allied with Assad.
 
Top