Is it worth it?

[Faux Real]

I have been interested in learning the Muslim religion, and was wondering if any of it is worth studying or looking into, just for kicks. Is it? If so why? Or why not?

[Publius]

Yeah.

I read Reza Aslan's book No god but God, and I found it interesting and entertaining.

But that's probably near the amount of studying I plan on doing any time soon.

[Omar]

Islam is worth knowing about, seeing as it is a major part of modern politics. I'd recommend reading a biography of Muhammad, preferably by a non-muslim, its much more likely to be objective.

[Mariam]

John Esposito's books on Islam would be a great pick for a start.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 06:47 am
John Esposito's books on Islam would be a great pick for a start.
Thanks for the author recommendation! I forgot to ask about that...


"Islam: The Straight Path" (1st edition: 1988, 3rd edition: 2004)
"Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam" (2002)
"What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam" (2002)
"Women in Muslim Family Law", coauthored with Natana J. Delong-Bas (2nd edition: 2002)
"Makers of Contemporary Islam", coauthored John Voll (2001)
"The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?" (3rd edition: 1999)
"Political Islam: Radicalism, Revolution or Reform" (1997)

Which one of these would be best to start with in your opinion?

[Severian]

I've read part of the Koran, and a couple other books....it's far from the most important thing you could be reading up on, but it can be worth something to know about different religions.

The striking thing about the Koran, to me, was the similarity to the Bible. The differences seemed relatively minor.

If you want to know about the religion, pick up any general comparative-religion type book, and read the Koran if you want to get deeper into it.

If you want to get into current politics-in-the-name-of-Islam, Ahmed Rashid's got a couple good books about Afghanistan and Central Asia. And probably read something about the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, since they originated most "political Islam" ideology.


Originally posted by Omar
I'd recommend reading a biography of Muhammad, preferably by a non-muslim

Nobody knows anything about Mohammed or his life, all there is to read about is traditional Muslim belief about Mohammed's life. If you want to get into the origins of the religion, I recommend a couple collections of articles, edited by Ibn Warraq: "The Quest for the Historical Mohammed" and "The Origins of the Koran". OK, I've only read the first of those.

[Faux Real]

I'll read up on the political aspect as well. Would reading about the political side first be like learning about the "Conservative Christian" agenda before learning Christianity before hand though?


The striking thing about the Koran, to me, was the similarity to the Bible. The differences seemed relatively minor.

Yeah, for example surprising how many Christians will believe they don't behold the same god as theirs.

[xskater11x]

I find the similarities relatively unsurprising as all religions do seem to have split from some sort of common belief system. If you read up on the history of religion, certain splits created different religions, mostly over dispute of practices, like how Martin Luther created the Protestant religion off of the Catholic Church because he did not like the way they handled tithing, and then from that sprang dozens of other religions. All of them use a common religious book for the most part, I am sure you can trace the Koran the the bible back to some sort of split early in modern development.

I myself find the Koran more interesting then the bible though.

As for learning the religious politics first, I would disagree on that, I'd learn about the religion before its different views, like someone should learn about the basic principals and ideas of a political ideology before choosing a specific ideology to put their self behind.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 11:14 pm
Would reading about the political side first be like learning about the "Conservative Christian" agenda before learning Christianity before hand though?
Yes.

But that's not necessarily an awful thing. I don't think you're necessarily obligated to read up on general Muslim theology in order to understand political developments in majority-Muslim countries.

It probably helps to know about the religion, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary.

The biggest theological thing which I find myself thinking about in relation to current politics is the difference between Shi'a and Sunnis....

The thing is, political Islam/Islamism/Islamic fundamentalism is not a branch of the religion, Islam. It's a political movement, like the "Christian Right". (Meaning groups like the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, etc., plus people who generally sympathize with their goals.)

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 12:25 am
I find the similarities relatively unsurprising as all religions do seem to have split from some sort of common belief system....All of them use a common religious book for the most part, I am sure you can trace the Koran the the bible back to some sort of split early in modern development.
That's basically what a lot of scholarship has been pointing towards, like the stuff in the collections I mentioned earlier, edited by Ibn Warraq. Islam seems to have begun as a synthesis of older religions of the region, including Judaism, Christianity, Samaritanism, maybe a bit of Zoroastrianism and Sabeanism.

The Koran took its present canonical form sometime after the Arab conquests of the region's major civilizations. It may have been compiled from a number of older Arabic-language monotheistic texts.

[ECD Hollis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:17 am
I have been interested in learning the Muslim religion, and was wondering if any of it is worth studying or looking into, just for kicks. Is it? If so why? Or why not?
I will be studying Islam in college so I can make it into the CIA or FBI.

[colorlessman]

I am interested in this subject too.

For those who read about Islam:

What can you learn from the Quran and Islam?
what have you learned by reading the Quran?

Is it worth reading the Quran?

What did Malcolm X see in Islam?

[EwokUtopia]

Probably the least bullshit of all Abrahamic religions, go for it!

The downer is that you dont get to drink the alcoholic blood of your godman.

[Mariam]

Rev0lt. try a book called The Muslim Mind by Chais Waddy.
The straight Path and Political Islam are good too.
thought you might be interested in reading Bernard Lewis' book The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (I'll be doing it soon myself)

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 03:02 pm
Rev0lt. try a book called The Muslim Mind by Chais Waddy.
The straight Path and Political Islam are good too.
thought you might be interested in reading Bernard Lewis' book The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (I'll be doing it soon myself)
Thank you for the recommendations Mariam, gonna go out and buy Lewis' book tomorrow!

[Dean]

Are you interested in historical Islam or current Islam?

If it's current Islam, it's probably not worth much attention. As a factor in what decides how people act etc., it's more a drug than a real political force. It just happens to be invoked a lot more because of linguistic reasons than distinctions between fantasy and empirical reality.

If it's historical Islam, I think you might have a lot of knowledge you can gain about how society has changed in the Muslim world, etc., but its applications to present fact are limited of course. But by examining its changes, you can tell more about ideological statements across the ages and maybe why things are how they are today.

In any case, I think middle east politics would tell you a lot more than just reading about the religion itself; but the Koran for instance is a very good book - it's one of the 50 I'm reading right now :P.

[Faux Real]

I'm interested in both, as I have read snippets and a few summaries of the Qur'an and eventually plan reading all of it.

Yeah current political Islam is as twisted as the West's perception of what democracy is. Its worth studying as I want to separate fact from fiction and fantasy from reality, as you said, and help other people make that distinction. Getting people's preconceived biases of Islam and political Islam can be fun too! :lol:

[Mariam]

I'd have to agree with Dean that the so called current Islam wont be of great help.
(After all every other sect would proclaim itself as true Islam and it has been getting worst as time goes by)
The more you go back to historical Islam the more insider knowledge of the "ideology" you'll get.

[RHIZOMES]

No God But God by Reza Aslan as recommended earlier, is a great book. It's by a Muslim but it's objective in the fact when something is probably not true he tells you instead of parroting mainstream scholars. It's pretty much the entire history of Islam, how political Islam happened and how terrorism is unIslamic.

And I agree with the earlier poster, Islam is the least bullshit of the Abrahamic religions! A religion founded on a guy who invented the first welfare state and encourages you to rise up against oppressors can't be all that bad.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 11:04 am
And I agree with the earlier poster, Islam is the least bullshit of the Abrahamic religions! A religion founded on a guy who invented the first welfare state and encourages you to rise up against oppressors can't be all that bad.
Can't you say the same about Moses and Israel? And Jesus too.. both Christianity and Judaism have some clear egalitarian ideas in them.

[RHIZOMES]

Originally posted by Dean+July 24, 2007 09:10 pm--> (Dean @ July 24, 2007 09:10 pm)
[email protected] 24, 2007 11:04 am
And I agree with the earlier poster, Islam is the least bullshit of the Abrahamic religions! A religion founded on a guy who invented the first welfare state and encourages you to rise up against oppressors can't be all that bad.
Can't you say the same about Moses and Israel? And Jesus too.. both Christianity and Judaism have some clear egalitarian ideas in them. [/b]
Hmm yes good point.

[PigmerikanMao]

I've been reading Irshad Manji's The Trouble with Islam Today, and have found it quite informative about the lack of tolerance in the mainstream. I find this troubling seeing as how most leftists try to criticize Christians more than Muslims who seem to be far more anti-gay and anti-semitic.

[RHIZOMES]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 03:07 am
I've been reading Irshad Manji's The Trouble with Islam Today, and have found it quite informative about the lack of tolerance in the mainstream. I find this troubling seeing as how most leftists try to criticize Christians more than Muslims who seem to be far more anti-gay and anti-semitic.
Irshad Manji is known for her over-generalizations and misinformation.

A good book to read would definitely be Reza Aslan's "No god But God". Excellent book. Explains how Islam is not an inherently violent or evil religion at it's core (Depends on interpretation) but it admits why it's become so reactionary over the past few centuries and how he believes by current trends there is currently an internal war in Islam between the reactionary extremists and the moderates allied with the liberals.

I think Muslims are only anti-semitic these days because of Israel. Muslims and Jews got along just fine before that zionist mess came into being. Ever heard of Muslim Spain (9-14th century)? While the rest of Europe was killing and persecuting Jews, they fled to Spain and got along just fine with everyone else. It was like a Muslim/Jewish/Christian melting pot. There were even Jews in the government.

Muhammad gave rights to women and religious minorities (Except pagans, but you've got to take in context the type of pagans Muhammad saw, who had a sort of proto-Objectivist philosophy and suppressed women, slaves and poor people and who killed female babies for honour-related reasons =P) that the rest of the world didn't get until the 18th century.

I am similiar to the Christian Socialists in the fact that I interpret Islam from it's original core, not the reactionary orthodox state Islam is in today.

[peaccenicked]

As a young man, I am now 47, I was fascinated by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism Sufism. The writer Idries Shah brought it alive for me, and it was coincidental with my studies of Hegels major works and Marx's Grundisse.
There is much in Sufism which holds ideas that are seminal to many Marxist writers,most noticeably Plekhanov. Even the connection maybe tenuous there are very similar notions. I think it was with Plekhanov's "The role of the individual in History" that I saw the deepest similarities the most.


One of the ideas that Shah promoted was that sufism was at the core of all religions and that the dogmas of established religion was merely a shell. He saw this as Sufism as the wine and what Lenin called the 'copy book' rules of religion as the grape. That put me off studying the Koran itself which like the Bible would put you off reading itself. At least the begining of the Koran is as Draconian as the old Testamount, in my eyes.

There is no doubt that Sufism a major influence on culture in general, though much of it maybe hidden on the face of things.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 03:07 am
I've been reading Irshad Manji's The Trouble with Islam Today, and have found it quite informative about the lack of tolerance in the mainstream. I find this troubling seeing as how most leftists try to criticize Christians more than Muslims who seem to be far more anti-gay and anti-semitic.
Muslims are defended for more than one reason... first off, they are being actively persecuted and massacred, and the media encourages us to ignore the death toll of MidEast civilians, many of which are Muslim.

Secondly, many Islamic movements seek liberation from imperialist forces... Hizb Allah is a good example. Nasrallah has even tried to maintain an un-bigotted stance on Jews, which is a lot to say for the PR of an anti-Israeli organization in the region.

Islam has terrible elements which are pracised by a minority, and the same holds true for people of all religions. But their reasoning is different. While a conservative in the U.S. would talk of women's dress as a political issue, the Islamic language integrates the concept of Allah (Arabic for God if anyone is unaware) and Jihad to worldviews and struggles. So the issue is not so much Islam itself, but the backwards nature of certain societies of Muslims.

It may surprise some, but I agree with this outlook. I think that if people looked at the concepts of god and theology as no seperate from theories of nature and ideology, the idiocy of the God concept would become clear. If I was to consider facts and worldviews altogether, without itemizing some to give social respect to their theological roots, falsehoods would stick out like sore thumbs.

Why this hasn't happened in the Islamic world is no surprise: destitution leads to desperate beliefs and measures, and the mass hallucination that is God is quite powerful. Nonetheless, Muslim nations have surprisingly high percentages of atheists despite the obvious draw to religion as a "spirit for a spiritless world."

[RHIZOMES]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 04:58 am
Despite the obvious draw to religion as a "spirit for a spiritless world."
That is why I am religious. I won't let it take over my reasoning (Evolution, abortion, etc) but the rules give me a nice disciplinary backing that I lacked before.