{"id":17705,"date":"2015-07-13T08:06:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T07:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=17705"},"modified":"2015-07-13T08:06:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T07:06:31","slug":"the-challenge-of-islamic-extremism-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=17705","title":{"rendered":"The challenge of Islamic extremism (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend, I attended a one-day course entitled <em>&#8220;Hope And History: A Short Introduction To Contemporary Issues In Muslim Contexts&#8221; <\/em>run by a\u00a0lecturer called Dr Farid Panjwani.<\/p>\n<p>A major theme of the course was the clash between the historical experience of Islam and the colonial take-over of Muslim societies:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Christianity was not a state religion until the Roman Emperor\u00a0Constantine adopted the religion in the early 4th century.<\/li>\n<li>However, in the Muslim context, religion and politics came together immediately with Mecca as a mini state ruled by Muhammed.<\/li>\n<li>During the period of Muslim empires, there were great cultural achievements which made these societies the most advanced in the world at the time.<\/li>\n<li>But the decline of the political power of Muslim societies in the face of European colonialism led to a decline in religious power.<\/li>\n<li>Colonialism meant not just that another empire was in control, but that a more advanced or modern empire was dominant.<\/li>\n<li>Among Muslim societies, there are difference responses to modernity and different attitudes to the West.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Dr Panjwani explained the major consequences of colonialism and modernity for Muslim societies:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A displacement from political power with the fall of old,\u00a0long-standing<span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">\u00a0 empires<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The marginalisation of the Islamic legal tradition \u00a0governing largely personal matters (sharia law)<\/li>\n<li>A challenge to social structures with new occupations and new gender roles<\/li>\n<li>Social conditions such as the power of political elites and high levels of unemployment that nurture rage and a sense of injustice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He defined modernity as involving the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">A belief in science and the power to control nature<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The privatisation of religion leading to secularisation<\/li>\n<li>An economic system based on free markets and growth<\/li>\n<li>A theoretical emphasis on equality<\/li>\n<li>The notion of the nation state and the supra-state<\/li>\n<li>An emphasis on individuality<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Dr Panjwani explained that a key question for most Muslims around the world is: &#8220;How does one remain true to one&#8217;s religion while living a successful modern life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend, I attended a one-day course entitled &#8220;Hope And History: A Short Introduction To Contemporary Issues In Muslim Contexts&#8221; run by a\u00a0lecturer called Dr Farid Panjwani. A major theme of the course was the clash between the historical experience of Islam and the colonial take-over of Muslim societies: Christianity was not a state religion [&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-17705","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\/17705","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=17705"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17752,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17705\/revisions\/17752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}