{"id":13457,"date":"2014-01-16T12:36:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T11:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=13457"},"modified":"2015-03-10T21:42:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T20:42:30","slug":"the-real-battle-is-within-islam-rather-than-between-islam-and-other-faiths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=13457","title":{"rendered":"The real battle is within Islam rather than between Islam and other faiths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>My friend felt that Islam is a forcefully proselytising\u00a0religion 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,\u00a0the higher birth rate of Muslims, and the\u00a0strong religious practice of Muslims all mean that the UK would increasingly become an Islamic-influenced country.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8216;true&#8217; version of the faith. We are very familiar with the conflict &#8211; bloody in many Islamic countries &#8211; between the Sunni and Shia traditions but, within both traditions, there are major and bitter rivalries.<\/p>\n<p>In today&#8217;s &#8220;Guardian&#8221;, there is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/jan\/15\/islam-pakistan-barelvi-saudi-wahhabi\">an article<\/a> about the religious battle in Pakistan where two branches of the Sunni tradition &#8211; the Sufi-influenced tradition of Barelvism\u00a0versus Saudi-funded Wahhabism\u00a0&#8211; 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.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u00a0religion and that its fundamentalist adherents want not just an Islamic caliphate but an Islamic world. He feared that, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13457"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16877,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13457\/revisions\/16877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}