By Abdullah Al Andalusi

The most important thing for a person who seeks truth is to remain objective and be skeptical of so-called ‘given truths’ – especially ideas that are in fashion in his/her day and age. In every age and time, there were always ideas that were fashionable, accepted as given, and taken for granted that they were true – but later rejected as false – even laughed at.

The best approach for the rational mind, is to withdraw oneself from the society and time period one inhabits and look at the ideas around oneself for what they are. Many thinkers and philosophers have done this and have written great books whose content mostly remains timeless. The reason for this, is that they have successfully removed themselves from their times and cultures and used their minds to assess the ideas based purely on their evidence and merit, and come to conclusions of truth, no matter how unpopular or odd they seem to their society at the time.

However, the one thing I’ve noticed, is that most people claim to be skeptical only to ideas they don’t like, or which is not in line with the accepted culture or fashion of their times. Many such people even claim that they are ‘rational’ and want people to ‘think for themselves’, but really they just want people to ‘think’ their way into conformity with popular trends and the dominant fashions.

I’ve always urged Muslims to be skeptical, even of their own beliefs, in order that they can reach certainty and depart from blindly following their parents religion and culture. But unfortunately there is another culture that influences some Muslims and is blindly followed by many of them due to their inability to detach themselves from their society and time and look at the world from a rational and detached perspective – the culture of Western Civilisation.

It is taken as ‘accepted’ in this day and age that religion is a retrograde force, and that only Secularism or Liberalism can bring progress. It is also accepted ‘wisdom’ that the development and technological progression of the West is due to their democratic systems of ruling, and their liberal secular values. The concept of ‘democracy’, ‘nationalism’, ‘feminism’, ‘secularism’ and [the Liberal conception of] ‘human rights’ is taken as given ‘truths’ to the degree that they have attained the level of an unquestioned religious dogma. Most people don’t know how to philosophically justify these ideas, or how they came about – all that people know is, ‘it’s the MODERN way to do things’.

However, just like the proverbial big elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring, these ideas lack any rational justification or intellectual basis. For example, Democracy is impossible, people will always be ruled by one leader or small group of leaders – usually the elites of their society. This was something both Plato, and the classical Muslim philosopher Al Farabi realised and wrote about.

Nationalism cannot be justified, as there is no clear way to delineate one nation from another [is it common language? Then is USA, Australia and South Africa all one nation?]. Secondly, why should humans be separated and discriminated into categories that should hold no moral difference or division?

Feminism cannot be rationally justified either, as basing rights on gender is either arbitrary and unholistic at best, or elitist and sectarian at worst (if men are not also considered equally in the equation). If men and women should be exactly equal in everything, as Feminism claims, then why not egalitarianism instead of feminism?

Secularism cannot be rationally justified, because in essence it posits the absurd notion that man’s purpose in life should be separate from man’s affairs in life. Secularism then results in a materialistic re-interpretation of man’s purpose of life, and the imposition of this purpose in place of a former non-materialistic purpose – with no conclusive reason why one is superior to another. Secularism then naturally ends up being non-neutral to this central question of human purpose, while fooling the people as pretending to be neutral!

‘Human rights’ [as understood by Liberalism] are arbitrary, prone to change depending on society’s current tastes at any given point in time, and lacks any rational justification for where rights even come from in the first place. The irony of Liberalism is, while pretending to be materialistic, it borrowed a lot of its rights from Christianity and theology (which is where the term ‘God given rights’ comes from) then quietly divorced from it later on when it wanted to claim ‘universality’ to the world. Consequently, ‘rights’ can’t be justified. For example, if humans have rights merely for being human, then why are criminals denied the ‘right to freedom’ when they are put in jails? Surely they are still human, and therefore deserving of their full ‘human rights’? Apparently not.

However, the Modernist ‘Muslims’ doesn’t question these Western imports. They are perfectly happy to be skeptical against all Islamic laws, beliefs and traditions, but never to be skeptical on the Western ideas they blindly follow and adore. Modernists can only defend these borrowed Western ideas with emotional arguments, usually either brushing off the criticism as ‘just wrong’ or ‘out of kilter’ or claim the criticism is just ‘a strawman’ of their beliefs – without providing any evidence to show why its a strawman. I’ve yet to hear a rational argument from a modernist other than merely playing down criticism of Western ideas as merely ‘the ramblings of Islamist fundamentalism’ – which is the equivalent of the dismissive saying ‘you are just haters’.

This reveals something very interesting about the Modernist mindset. As the saying goes ‘you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into’, and the Modernist ‘Muslim’s’ blind faith in Western ideas is just that, an irrational dogma they’ve adopted blindly. But this leads us to the question ‘what made them believe these ideas in the first place?, why are they so alluring?’. The answer is quite simple, ‘might makes right’. The West, though declining, still retains a degree of cultural, technological, economic and military superiority over the Muslim world. The Muslim world, for reasons of social and historical circumstances is currently in a ignorant and declined state – it’s simply human nature for the weak to look up to the strong, just like the Barbarian tribes of europe looked up to Roman culture before and adopted their habits and language.

The are two main problems with this modernist logic. They have made two faulty assumptions, and this leads them to their error.

The first assumption is that Muslim decline is due to the ‘traditional Muslim understanding of Islam. This is easily refuted when we consider that during the first 500 years of ‘traditional Islam’ Muslims were technologically, militarily and economically the most advanced in the world – innovating many new technologies and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge. The fact that Muslims believed in hudud punishments, the traditional family, or wearing turbans and having beards didn’t limit their cultural advancement in the slightest. This demonstrates that the spirit of technological progress and knowledge development has NOTHING to do with the ‘traditional’ Islamic law system, and everything to do with the Muslim state of mind. Consequently, the main problem of the Muslim world is not getting rid of ‘medieval laws’ but to rediscover of the same spirit and state of mind that motivated our ancestors to advance in all spheres of life. The Islamic political system is not limited to only being implemented using medieval technology, but can be implemented using modern technology! Systems don’t change, technology changes. Democracy is 1000 years older than Islam, yet no one believes that implementing it will send people back to the age of wearing togas and worshipping Zeus! Political systems are timeless, because they merely describe a set of relationships between humans, not a technological tool or piece of equipment.

The second biggest assumption made by modernists, is that religion is a retrograde force, and that Western advancement , political stability and economic success is the result of leaving religion and implementation of democracy, liberalism, secularism and nationalism. However history begs to differ.

Christianity was never the reason for the European dark ages, but rather the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of barbarian tribes is the most glaringly obvious reason. Historians are generally agreed that the last great ancient, or classical period philosopher before the fall into the dark ages was the Christian thinker St Augustine! However, since Christianity can only exist in the minds of humans, if the humans carrying it are ignorant, shallow thinkers, then their understanding and practice of Christianity will also be ignorant and shallow. To believe the dark ages was the cause of the Catholic clergy’s behaviour during this period is to confuse the symptom with the problem.

For most of the last 500 years, technological advancement in the West started, and has mostly occurred, under highly religious non-democratic european monarchies and empires. The Liberal Democratic Europe we see today mostly emerged only in the last century! [1900-1999]. The vast majority of pioneering Western scientists were not Atheists, nor did they live under Secularism, but rather they were devout Catholics and even clergy (e.g. Roger Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Copernicus, Descartes, Pascal, Boyle and even the recent George Lemaitre, discoverer of the ‘big bang theory’…) or protestant Church (e.g. Newton) – and much scientific literature and almost ALL institutes of higher education and research were under patronage by the Catholic [and later Anglican] Church!

Economic success in the West started with colonialism (and continued with neo-colonialism to this day)- but now is seriously declining COINCIDENTALLY with the rise of countries powerful enough to be outside Western control (e.g. india, china, Iran, brazil etc).

As for political stability, it is mostly due to wealth – but even then people should check their history. Many Liberal and Secular countries today are not the result of an unbroken continued implementation of Liberalism, but rather many currently Liberal countries are the results of a second attempt to re-impose Liberalism after a previous attempt failed, which led to civil wars and the collapse into fascist or autocratic regimes (e.g. Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Japan, Greece etc…over the last 150 years). And the future looks like Liberalism is collapsing again in a number of Western countries, with fascism rising again ‘coincidentally’ as these same countries get poorer [recent example, Greece, Ukraine!].

What took the West out of the Dark Ages, was the change induced by their interaction with the medieval Islamic civilisation which developed a spirit and state of mind that led to the beginning of technological development and the advancement of human knowledge LONG before Liberalism, Secularism, Nationalism were invented [and Democracy re-implemented since Ancient Greek times]. These ideas did not begin the Western intellectual renaissance, but were rather the RECENT PRODUCTS of it [along with Communism and Fascism]. Oh how human memory is short to believe those ideas have existed since the beginning of Western development! If you could take a time machine and go back 100 years, you’d see a europe mostly NOT LIBERAL and 150 years back mostly not secular. Technically, UK is still not a Secular country! The head of state is the head of the national Church – a relic of the not-so-distant past).

In the end, Western development came from a state of mind and spirit, not from an ideology or set of ideas (just look at the modern example of China, a country fast outpacing USA in inventions and industry, despite being not Liberal and not Democratic!).

In contrast, the Arabs developed and advanced not when they removed religion from their life’s affairs (like the pagan Quraysh had been doing for centuries) but change only happened after they CONNECTED religion with their life’s affairs – Islam. It was only then that the Arabs then rose at an intellectually and technologically alarming rate, eventually surpassing all the empires around them in achievements.

What changed the Arabs was not contact with another civilisation, but rather the introduction of Islam – which spread beyond the Arabs, creating a new ‘nation’ (the Muslim Ummah) and assimilation different races and cultures into itself. The ideal that spurred the early Muslims to excel in civilisation, and to expand human knowledge and condition, was the ideal of ihsan – the attainment of the perfection of the Worship of Allah (swt). Unlike the secular understanding of this in the current Muslim dark age, the classical understanding of Ihsan was the perfection not just of praying, and dhikr, nor just morals and conduct, but the perfection of wisdom, knowledge of God’s creation [the universe] and the worship of him through the highest degree of philanthropy to our fellow human beings – creating hospitals, medicines, mental therapies, sewage systems, health care and technologies that provide ease. The obligation to prayer alone, viewed today as a purely private spiritual affair, created in the medieval Islamic world, the material and knowledge advancements in city planning, street lighting, acoustics, astronomy, navigation, water provision to cities, even domestic plumbing [yes, all that from just the Islamic obligation of the Salah!].

The task of the Muslim today, is not to change Islam in the hope of imitating the West’s current intellectual follies, but rather to recapture the state of mind and spirit that made our medieval ancestors excel in civilisation.

And to our Modernist friends, with the decline of the West, and the social, economic and political problems rising in its societies, perhaps we should ask them this searching question ‘why do you want to imitate the most recent ideas produced by a declining civilisation?’

Perhaps because love is blind…

I'm coming to read this interesting stuff.

Interesting.

if only "rational" Muslims will heed, and stop judging Islam by the standard of what the west deem to be right...

Junk.

Being rational has nothing to do with the west, it is when you reason.

A very brilliant article on the current predicament of the Muslim Ummah, although the author tried to focus on modernists, I'll say it is also applicable to all, we have lost the plot as Muslims, while the modernist or "rationalist" have their skepticism about the traditional and fundamentals of Islam, those of us who claim fundamentalism, and holding on to the traditional teachings of the religion seem only to be paying lip service, we haven't been able to exemplify the earliest Muslims who happened to be pioneers of intellectual advancement in the world today. Paraphrasing Prof. Bidmus in one of his recent Khutbah at Unilag, he said, present day Muslim scholars are good at researching the medieval scholars who invented this and that and boasting about these past achievements, but what are we doing to also be like them and make great impact in our societies, he later stated that what helped these scholars was holding on strongly to the legacy of the Prophet (SAW) which is Education.

Most of us are not educated, I mean we are not "Islamically" educated, even in western education, we also fail woefully, no wonder we are were we are in the world today.

Solution? We need to seek spirituality first, not do's and don'ts, we need to know Allah (SWT) i.e "Tawheed"! The author talked about "Ihsan", which he said the earlier Muslims used not only in salah and other religious activities, but also in helping their societies, and knowing/learning about Ihsan, is part of learning Tawheed!

May Allah assist us in attaining the true Islamic teachings, that which helped the earlier Muslims achieve grate fit in the world. Ameen.

A very interesting article with good insights. I am usually astounded by the way the 'modern Muslim' looks scornfully at his origins and ancestors (Sahabahs, tabieins etc). While he glorifies Tue western idols.

The average modern Muslim is only aware of names of great Muslim scientists, inventors and engineers but fail to seek how or why they attained knowledge and clarity in their chosen field.

Iman enlightens the mind, the Quran is the most complete oasis of knowledge, but has been relegated to domestic affairs.

When a child looses touch with its roots, it is on the pathway to extinction.

KingJB:
A very interesting article with good insights. I am usually astounded by the way the 'modern Muslim' looks scornfully at his origins and ancestors (Sahabahs, tabieins etc). While he glorifies Tue western idols.

The average modern Muslim is only aware of names of great Muslim scientists, inventors and engineers but fail to seek how or why they attained knowledge and clarity in their chosen field.

Iman enlightens the mind, the Quran is the most complete oasis of knowledge, but has been relegated to domestic affairs.

When a child looses touch with its roots, it is on the pathway to extinction.

@bolded, so what's your root?

tintingz:
@bolded, so what's your root?

the bolded is analogy in the light of what he said about Qur'an. Truly, Quran is reduced to domestic affairs or even worst. Some reduced it to only madrasa and has no contributions in their lives.

Empiree:
the bolded is analogy in the light of what he said about Qur'an. Truly, Quran is reduced to domestic affairs or even worst. Some reduced it to only madrasa and has no contributions in their lives.

Ok.

The bolded quote sound hypocritical tho.

tintingz:
Ok.

The bolded quote sound hypocritical tho.

How?

Empiree:
How?

Don't worry sir.

tintingz:
Junk.

Being rational has nothing to do with the west, it is when you reason.

You should have atleast refute it before calling it junk. And please it is not an argument about being logical and following the west it is about logically following the west by simply put if you find the western ideology good can you actually prove logically that such western ideology is actually good and better when compared to Islam.

I can help you refute it but you know what it will cost.... about....

tintingz:
Junk.
Being rational has nothing to do with the west, it is when you reason.

u never disappoint at all....

RABIUSHILE04:


u never disappoint at all....

Why you always pestering me around, must you quote me.

Stalwert:


You should have atleast refute it before calling it junk. And please it is not an argument about being logical and following the west it is about logically following the west by simply put if you find the western ideology good can you actually prove logically that such western ideology is actually good and better when compared to Islam.

I can help you refute it but you know what it will cost.... about....

To refute that hypocritical article? Who knows if it was Imam Shekau that wrote the article.

- firstly, I'm not a pro-western ideologist.

- The writer of the article gave the west credit for modernist being rational, which is irrational, there is something called philosophy of environment, philosophy of social science and human evolution. You study this you know how humans evolve with time.

- The middle East knows all this studies i mentioned above and for them to improve in their civilization they made friend with the west E.g Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar. Mixing the west ideology/culture with their sharia law.

- Even looking around us we can see the good the west as done, no one is saying the west ideology are all perfect, there are disadvantages. Comparing the west and Islam is a waste of time as there are other existing religion, religion itself has bad effect on people.

Thanks, I can refute it myself.

tintingz:
Why you always pestering me around, must you quote me.

To refute that hypocritical article? Who knows if it was Imam Shekau that wrote the article.

- firstly, I'm not a pro-western ideologist.

- The writer of the article gave the west credit for modernist being rational, which is irrational, there is something called philosophy of environment, philosophy of social science and human evolution. You study this you know how humans evolve with time.

- The middle East knows all this studies i mentioned above and for them to improve in their civilization they made friend with the west E.g Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar. Mixing the west ideology/culture with their sharia law.

- Even looking around us we can see the good the west as done, no one is saying the west ideology are all perfect, there are disadvantages. Comparing the west and Islam is a waste of time as there are other existing religion, religion itself has bad effect on people.

Thanks, I can refute it myself.

@bolded, what are religion effects on people..?

Nafizzey:
@bolded, what are religion effects on people..?

The bad effects is much but this are A list.

- Discrimination

- Hatred

- Terrorism

- Laziness

There are good effects also.

tintingz:

Why you always pestering me around, must you quote me.

To refute that hypocritical article? Who knows if it was Imam Shekau that wrote the article.

So? Shouldn't that be more reason to refute him?

tintingz:

- firstly, I'm not a pro-western ideologist.

I don't know what that means!

tintingz:

- The writer of the article gave the west credit for modernist being rational, which is irrational, there is something called philosophy of environment, philosophy of social science and human evolution. You study this you know how humans evolve with time.

I cannot recall where the writer said that. Humans evolve to become gay? abortionist? Drunks? Liars?

tintingz:

- The middle East knows all this studies i mentioned above and for them to improve in their civilization they made friend with the west E.g Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar. Mixing the west ideology/culture with their sharia law.

But all this countries didn't adopt western ideology to improve their countries, Womens rights seems dismal, no democracy, absence of liberalism and other things. In fact these countries simply just managed their economy better without turning western.

tintingz:

- Even looking around us we can see the good the west as done, no one is saying the west ideology are all perfect, there are disadvantages. Comparing the west and Islam is a waste of time as there are other existing religion, religion itself has bad effect on people.

Thanks, I can refute it myself.

No, you either don't know what a modernist muslim is or worse confusing the modernization with western ideology. It is not a comparison between the west that is the substance of the article but Muslims calling for the adoption of western values in place of Islamic ones because they think these values automatically confers progress. I agree with you the west is performing well but that isn't what is in contention it is more of their values.

That is why refuting the article is better rather than an emotional response.

Empiree :
the bolded is analogy in the light of what he said about Qur'an. Truly, Quran is reduced to domestic affairs or even worst. Some reduced it to only madrasa and has no contributions in their lives.

lol I can't believe you can type this

Here is the same person being asked to use Islamic insight to contribute to a discussion,
show the practical application of Islam this was the question asked:

Stalwert:


Please brothers help me empiree, is he ashamed of Islam that he has consistently refused to answer the question regarding its position on war, how it is to be fought and how to treat civilians? Please help me ask why all this pivot to right akin to talking about the Gestation period of elephant? Empiree why can't you use Islam as the criterion to judge Assad's actions? Let frame the question as follows:

1. Does Islam permits killing people who questions the way you are ruling them or demand their rights?

2. What is Islam Position on Fighting Wars with regards to the rights of civilians?

2. What does Islam says targeting civilians?

3. Does Islam support the use of Chemical weapons, indiscriminate bombings of civilians, starving civilians, burning them etc?

4. Does Islam permit the support of terrorist organizations like al qaeda, which we learn Assad did during US occupation of Iraq?

4. Does you the Assad regime which you are more favorably dispose to adhere to these Islamic principles?

let me stop here, brothers please help me beg Empiree to answer the question and not bore us with red herrings

Here is mr. use Islam in our lives response:

Empiree:
I am sorry brother. If my two posts i re-quoted did not clear my stance on this, I wont bother myself. You're focusing too much on Assad, the same thing you said, Shias could say the same of Sunni regime elsewhere. I hope you reason. Islamic rules of engagement of war is crystal clear. So I dont know why you asking me. So please read my first post and the second one. And please stop selling me propaganda about his chemical weapons nonsense. Cant believe you would spread that propaganda that was confuted.

I pray we learn to practice what we preach the same individual who used a hadith of the prophet to defend Assad behavior found it impossible to use Islamic principles on war to judge Assad. ... it was only good enough to JUSTIFY ASSAD NOT JUDGE ASSAD. smh

Stalwert:


lol I can't believe you can type this

Here is the same person being asked to use Islamic insight to contribute to a discussion,
show the practical application of Islam this was the question asked:



Here is mr. use Islam in our lives response:



I pray we learn to practice what we preach the same individual who used a hadith of the prophet to defend Assad behavior found it impossible to use Islamic principles on war to judge Assad. ... it was only good enough to JUSTIFY ASSAD NOT JUDGE ASSAD. smh

I can't help you, sir. My post was clear enough. If you dont understand it, that's your palava.

Empiree:
I can't help you, sir. My post was clear enough. If you dont understand it, that's your palava.

lol sir help yourself first and practice what you preach. atleast the madrasa you talked about use the religion in their domestic affairs not when it seems convenient

Learn how to quote properly, you gave me work quoting you.

Stalwert:


I don't know what that means!

Anything relating to the western countries.

I cannot recall where the writer said that. Humans evolve to become gay? abortionist? Drunks? Liars?

Again I said the writer gave the west credit for modernist being rational.

Here is what he said:

I’ve yet to hear a rational argument from a modernist other than merely playing down criticism of Western ideas as merely ‘the ramblings of Islamist fundamentalism’ – which is the equivalent of the dismissive saying ‘you are just haters’.

Must a rational argument be of western ideas, are the west the founder of rationality? This is what the writer was claiming.

But all this countries didn't adopt western ideology to improve their countries, Womens rights seems dismal, no democracy, absence of liberalism and other things. In fact these countries simply just managed their economy better without turning western.

One question, if the middle east countries improve their countries on their own why are they making friends with the western countries?

And I've stated that sharia law still function in these countries but they have mixed with the west, go to YouTube and search UAE and see yourself.

The Muslim countries that didn't made friend with the west are not well developed. E.g Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc.

No, you either don't know what a modernist muslim is or worse confusing the modernization with western ideology. It is not a comparison between the west that is the substance of the article but Muslims calling for the adoption of western values in place of Islamic ones because they think these values automatically confers progress.

Still editing

Go read my post again, I called the article junk because the writer thinks being rational or modern was a result of having western ideology.

I gave some studies that can make someone have rational mind and not depending on western ideas.

Lastly, there are different categories of modernist Muslims.

Stalwert:


lol sir help yourself first and practice what you preach. atleast the madrasa you talked about use the religion in their domestic affairs not when it seems convenient

I don't understand how you think. You need to understand that this is public forum and folks read and understood my point from Aleepo thread you brought here but you don't. That's just sad

tintingz:
The bad effects is much but this are A list.

- Discrimination

- Hatred

- Terrorism

- Laziness

There are good effects also.

While I agreed with you with that critical look of the article, I simply don't agree that Islam as a religion brought all those highlighted points above rather "Muslims" brought them.

# For example, historically we will be lying to ourselves if we say "Islam" was not spread via sword and war. Obviously not the Islam of Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa ahli. The Islam of Nabi was never spread by sword, war or violence. This is a fact without any aiota of doubt.

However, "Islam" of for example Umar ibn al-khattab, Muhammad bin Abdulwahab, Uthman Dan fodio et al were historically spread via sword, war and violence. Too many blood were shed in the name of Islam. Countries like Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, et al weren't Arab or Islamic countries at birth. They were subdued violently to surrender their culture, language, religion etc to that of Arabs.

I can go on and on but my conclusion is "Islam did not brought all those junks, followers did with their interpretations, ideology and ego".

tintingz:


The Muslim countries that didn't made friend with the west are not well developed. E.g Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc.

I dont know your intention about this but if you meant bcuz they are not friends with the west was the reason for their "backwardness", i would disagree with that. You do not measure progress by materialism. That's external reality. But from internal or implicit view, measuring 'progress' by of highrise building and these beautiful things you seemed to described above are simply material reality and there are prophecies against this.

AlBaqir:


While I agreed with you with that critical look of the article, I simply don't agree that Islam as a religion brought all those highlighted points above rather "Muslims" brought them.

# For example, historically we will be lying to ourselves if we say "Islam" was not spread via sword and war. Obviously not the Islam of Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa ahli. The Islam of Nabi was never spread by sword, war or violence. This is a fact without any aiota of doubt.

However, "Islam" of for example Umar ibn al-khattab, Muhammad bin Abdulwahab, Uthman Dan fodio et al were historically spread via sword, war and violence. Too many blood were shed in the name of Islam. Countries like Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, et al weren't Arab or Islamic countries at birth. They were subdued violently to surrender their culture, language, religion etc to that of Arabs.

I can go on and on but my conclusion is "Islam did not brought all those junks, followers did with their interpretations, ideology and ego".

You have a valid point.

I will still said that religion is still the bedrock of some human behavior, people use religion to carry out their desires. People like Uthman Dan fodio used it, the british used it to colonize. Thats why i said religion also has bad effect on people or maybe i didn't put the word right.

Like some people say, nothing comes from nothing.

And Longest time brother.

Empiree:
I dont know your intention about this but if you meant bcuz they are not friends with the west was the reason for their "backwardness", i would disagree with that. You do not measure progress by materialism. That's external reality. But from internal or implicit view, measuring 'progress' by of highrise building and these beautiful things you seemed to described above are simply material reality and there are prophecies against this.

The thing about we humans is we want enjoy life and the Quran didn't go against that but restrict us from doing some things.

Saudi Arabia knows humans are to enjoy life that's why their country is well developed just that some of their laws are not favoring some gender.

tintingz:
The thing about we humans is we want enjoy life and the Quran didn't go against that but restrict us from doing some things.

Saudi Arabia knows humans are to enjoy life that's why their country is well developed just that some of their laws are not favoring some gender.

Absolutely those beautiful edifices in developed ME countries are not haram. They are mere Signs Of Last Age

Empiree:
I don't understand how you think. You need to understand that this is public forum and folks read and understood my point from Aleepo thread you brought here but you don't. That's just sad

No it is a private forum When ones words is at odds with each other it is called a lie and when words are odds with action it is called hypocrisy. Instead of being sad practice what you preach. That's all. Anything further is a story to assuage your conscience.

tintingz:
Learn how to quote properly, you gave me work quoting you.

ok sir

tintingz:

Anything relating to the western countries.

ok

tintingz:

Again I said the writer gave the west credit for modernist being rational.

Here is what he said:

I’ve yet to hear a rational argument from a modernist other than merely playing down criticism of Western ideas as merely ‘the ramblings of Islamist fundamentalism’ – which is the equivalent of the dismissive saying ‘you are just haters’.

Must a rational argument be of western ideas, are the west the founder of rationality? This is what the writer was claiming.

Sir read the statement a second time, he never made this claims of yours. In fact he said mordernist Muslims reaction to criticism of western ideas merely states that the questioner is acting out fundamentalism instead of properly articulating a good refutation.

tintingz:

One question, if the middle east countries improve their countries on their own why are they making friends with the western countries?

mostly seems like a security arrangement. ... and please does being friends with someone means he takes credit for your achievements?

tintingz:

And I've stated that sharia law still function in these countries but they have mixed with the west, go to YouTube and search UAE and see yourself.

I doubt it. Have you noticed you are you doing exactly the same thing you falsely accuse the author of? Crediting the west with the progress made in countries in the MIddle East instead of assuming these people used their common sense to move forward?

tintingz:

The Muslim countries that didn't made friend with the west are not well developed. E.g Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc.

Sorry how many countries are friends with the West that are currently in shambles? And you say Pakistan is not developed? A country that is a nuclear power and produces Fighter jets a feat only a few countries achieved? Please stop attributing things that are you simply do not know are the cause of other things. Please remind me how Iraq got to where it is today?

tintingz:


Go read my post again, I called the article junk because the writer thinks being rational or modern was a result of having western ideology.

Sir you have failed to prove that the article is junk.... rather you have avoided refuting it and seem to serially misunderstand the point the author said which clearly indicated that muslims who are in love with western ideology fails to make a logical defense of their position but instead wave aside all criticisms.

tintingz:

I gave some studies that can make someone have rational mind and not depending on western ideas.

If you are studying philosophy let's know ... the write up isn't about having a rational mind it is about rationally defending western ideals if you accept them.

tintingz:


Lastly, there are different categories of modernist Muslims.

That isn't the question asked but no wahala