The real battle is within Islam rather than between Islam and other faiths
I recently had dinner with a friend who had just returned from a holiday in Tunisia and we were debating the role of islam in the modern world.
My friend felt that Islam is a forcefully proselytising religion and that its fundamentalist adherents want not just an Islamic caliphate but an Islamic world. He feared that, especially in Britain, the immigration of those of Muslim faith, the higher birth rate of Muslims, and the strong religious practice of Muslims all mean that the UK would increasingly become an Islamic-influenced country.
I took a different view. I think that large-scale immigration to Britain from Muslim countries is over, the birth rates of Muslim families in the UK will fall, and that over a couple of generations the intensity of religious practice will also decline as rising education levels and living standards exercise a secularising influence.
I see no evidence worldwide of Muslims seeking to convert non-Muslims on any great scale. Rather I see a battle within Islam over the ‘true’ version of the faith. We are very familiar with the conflict – bloody in many Islamic countries – between the Sunni and Shia traditions but, within both traditions, there are major and bitter rivalries.
In today’s “Guardian”, there is an article about the religious battle in Pakistan where two branches of the Sunni tradition – the Sufi-influenced tradition of Barelvism versus Saudi-funded Wahhabism – are battling it out. This, I think, supports my argument that Muslims are not seeking to convert non-Muslims on any scale; the real problem is extreme Islamists seeking to convert more moderate followers of Islam to their brand of Islam.
What do you think?
January 19th, 2014 at 4:06 pm
Roger,
I just had this discussion with my (non-practicing) Muslim wife. The bitter thing about both Christianity and Islam is that they both were attempts to reverse a very questionable reformation of Judaism. The pharisaic (and modern orthodox Jewish) approach of Old Testament interpretation was badly needed, but caused a lot of resistance, among others, from Christ and Mohammad. Islam went to the opposite extreme of Judaism by prohibiting any change in the holy scripture, even translation. IMO, this initially bright and straightforward religion became very hard to adapt to the changing life circumstances. Once Muslims figure out how to do it without violating the foundations of Islam, I’m sure there will be a lot more following.
Christianity, particularly Protestantism, demonstrated a lot more agility over the centuries. However, to my taste, it’s still overloaded with dogma stemming from poor interpretation of Christ’s words. Also both Catholic and Orthodox churches demonstrate too much corrupt practice to univocally win over the intellectual population.
A couple of years ago I stumbled across the following lecture, which gives a great logical connection between the religions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tddCNY6U77Y
Alexei