First of all, I suspect that this version of history is a little too kind to Islam. After all, the early history of Islam is a history of endless civil warfare (the fitnas–I forget how many there were). Islam only found peace by embracing the somewhat cynical Sunni doctrine that whoever could build the strongest power base was by definition that one Allah had chosen as the rightful caliph. Even then there were frequent Shi’a uprisings.
These were themselves political disputes, and though it’s true these societies had problems with division and civil war, they were still able to function and develop economic and culturally. The comparison to the equivalent periods in the west shows us a society that destroyed most of the learning from its imperial past, and that was stuck in a rut of ragtag fiefdoms for centuries.
And the greatest age of peace Islam ever knew was the (extremely despotic) heyday of the Abbasids, which lasted for about 200 years. That’s pretty impressive, I grant you.
This is a good example of the way that Islam leads people to adapt to the times and find solutions to the problems of governance and civil society that incorporate Islamic teaching. Was it as good as a modern western european country in terms of rights and benefits? Of course not.
But given the limitations of the time, these systems were very good at providing something approaching social justice, and most importantly in today’s context, respecting differences within the religious tradition and defining the rights of religious minorities.
Hodgson (who is extremely sympathetic to Islam) says that this resulted from the nature of Islam–the idea that Allah’s favor rested on no fixed institution but on whoever proved himself to be the better candidate for the job (generally by defeating all the others).
Again, this is one example of the functionalism that Islam brought to the region.
I think perhaps I was not clear enough in my first post. By religious government, I did not mean any single fixed institution. I meant a government and society that recognize Islamic teaching as the organizing principle of the society, and that measure their achievements by the basic religious standards provided to them. In that respect, Islam has a history of adapting to the times to institute its principles, and it did so very well…without wiping out every other religion in its domain, and without having endless wars for orthodoxy.
If you were right–which I don’t think you are–it would tell me what I already knew, that Islam sees divine favor in success and worldly power, while Christianity (as a whole) does not.
This demonstrably not true, in that Muslims certainly: a) don’t recognize divine favor for the currently governing regimes in their holy lands and b) certainly did not accept the various colonial invasions, nor the mongol invasions, as a sign of divine favor.
It would be more true to say that Islam judges the legitimacy of a worldly power by its adherence to Islamic teachings, but does not demand that any specific entity hold power.
I think you are too hasty in your association of the current problems in the middle east with Islam and its tendencies. One key fact is that the rise of terrorism in the name of Islam is a recent phenomenon. It is literally about a half century old, and was not terribly active until the 1980’s. That is a powerful indicator that the practices of terrorists are more akin to a modern heresy within the tradition than a natural outgrowth.
In addition, you cite examples of violence which were in fact not religious in the way that violence in the Christian world has been decidedly religious. The ruthless quest for orthodoxy that finally tired Europe from any association between power and christianity has no parallel in the Islamic world.
Similarly, I think you do not focus the treatment of non-Muslims in Muslim lands in comparison to the Christian treatment of non-Muslims. It is good evidence that, despite the existence of political problems (as in any society), the Muslim tradition was not fanatically concerned with an absolutist Muslim vision. Forced conversion was not the rule, as it was for Christians. The Christian world has been so intolerant in its history that where it went and dominated for any period of time, there is almost no trace of a pre-Christian religion.
Our way is the way of the Cross. We don’t do well with power. But human beings in general don’t do well with power.
Thanks for the tip. I’d be happy to read it and will check it out.
