Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, launched a trenchant attack on Islamic culture, saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving. The report was carried on the front page of the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the United Kingdom. [Read the article] . I was going to comment on Carey’s statement, but then I came across a response to the same article in the Muslims Under Progress blog. The section is entitled “Is Carey right?”. In fact all of the postings here are quite good except for the fact that the poster[?] seems to think that suicide bombers are martyrs if they are in a war morally justified. The problem is that any war can be morally justified. It depends what side you are on. Smart guy, good writer, some faulty justification.
Related Posts
Two Takes on Hanukah
Richard, at Tikun Olam, has a piece up entitled Hanukah: Holiday of Spiritual Renewal or Jewish Nationalism? This summation is, I think, a good review of what Hanukah is becoming. Growing up I only knew the miracle story from my friends. The nationalist aspect is new to me, even now. Muslim holidays have been politicized, albeit in a different way, for quite some time. The celebration of the Prophet’s birthday is a touchstone of Wahabbi ideology. To recognize the uniqueness of the Prophet in any way is to commit a sin in their worldview. The Hajj has always been a good time…
WakeUp! Come to the best of all deeds!
So, our friends over at Muslim WakeUp! have instituted a new activity, a WakeUp! Call. Their first one is directed to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA is supporting a temperance society that believes the only way to salvation is through Jesus and all immigration should be stopped lest the hordes run us over. But the good news is, they will bring back prohibition. Didn’t we learn anything from the 2000 election? A single issue, at the ignorance [yes, I know it’s not the correct use of the word, but it really is a willful ignorance] of all…
Is this for real? or an April Fool’s joke
Read the following two articles from Campaign Desk: Article 1 Article 2 Does the White House really need to lie about this sort of thing? I mean it is incredibly easy to verify. Has lying become so ingrained in this administration that everything must make them look good? I’m utterly at a loss. With a track record like this, how can we believe anything about the prisoners at Guantanamo? or Iraqi WMD? The sad thing is, that they are losing credibility and that means our intelligence gathering abilities continue to suffer. Do they honestly think by denying a 14-year-old boy…
3 thoughts on “The contributions of Muslim civilisations”
Comments are closed.
Salaam!
“The problem is that any war can be morally justified.”
Do you believe that is really the case? Can _any_ war be morally justified? I’m not sure.
In any case, I would make a clear distinction as to who the targets of war. Pakistani soldiers reportedly throwing themselves at Indian tanks is not evil; I think that is a justified cause. Palestinians attacking a pizzaria full of children must be condemdned with no exceptions.
I do not think that War is morally justified, however, I do believe that any side in a given conflict can easily justify their participation in that conflict as moral. Again, it depends on what side you are on. Do you think that al-Qaeda does not feel justified in their crimes? Pol Pot and his followers most probably felt the same. There have been very few instances in history where the doers of bad deeds have said “I know this is wrong, but we are going to do this anyway”. I know of none. Do you?
Maybe we’re arguing over words?
Perhaps I should have phrased it better. But ‘war’, a physical struggle, can become morally justified. An example is fighting a hostile invader – that’s a ‘war’ in my eyes.
As to Pol Pot, al-Qa’ida et al.: sure in their eyes their actions are ‘moral’. But what is the justification? Power-grabbing? Ethnic hatred? A “holy” cause? A fuzzy feeling?
Unless we’re all Abraham’s with sacrificial sons, I don’t think _anything_ can be morally justified.