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Apologia Report 14:38
October 15, 2009
Subject: New sources on the direction of contemporary Islam
In this issue:
ATHEISM - non-conservative responds to the New Atheists
ISLAM - new book defends The Muslim Brothers in Europe
+ "the all but endless misery of the Muslim world"
+ seminary in Beirut responds to worldwide letter sent by 138 Muslim
scholars to all Christian churches
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ATHEISM
The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion, by
Tina Beattie [1] -- another interesting opportunity to study the
non-conservative perspective in action. In this review, Theo Hobson
describes the "polemic" writing of popular atheists with words like
"crudely dismissive," "rudeness," "self-serving evasions," and
"intellectual dishonesty." His only example of the latter is to merely
report Christopher Hitchens' "claims that Martin Luther King was only
a nominal Christian, using biblical imagery to secular ends." That's
it. End of argument. Even to say such a thing!
However, Hobson is also critical of the author. "Instead of
sticking to close reading of her subjects, Beattie offers extensive
historical context: a sort of introduction to modern religious
thought, with a liberal-feminist bent. She insists that religion has
more to do with art, and story-telling, than with rationality.
"In my opinion, the atheists ought primarily to be attacked on
semantic and conceptual grounds. It should be shown that they don't
know what they mean by 'religion.' Beattie touches on this early on,
but it slips out of sight. I'd like to see the point driven home:
these people are actually constructing something called religion in
order to demonize it. They need to believe that the world would be
better off without this thing, so they need to believe in its
existence. It must be explained to the atheists that 'religion' is a
leaky category, that it bleeds into every other cultural department,
so that none of us knows what is meant by it. They need to be weaned
off their cliched abstractions and told to take a look at the cultural
world around them. In other words, let them read Wittgenstein. In the
meantime, let them shut up." Theology, May/Jun '09, pp228-229. [7]
ISLAM
The Muslim Brothers in Europe: Roots and Discourse, by Brigitte
Marechal [2] -- reviewer Davide Tacchini finds that the book "presents
a detailed and updated study of the Society of the Muslim Brothers in
Europe, based mainly on the direct witness of members or sympathizers.
The author starts [part one] with a necessary introduction to the
history and main ideology of the 'original' Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood and an interesting presentation of the various ways in
which branches of the movement were structured in several countries of
the Arab world. Then she moves towards an overview of the contemporary
Brotherhood in the Muslim world after 1971. In the second chapter she
analyzes some geographical areas in which the ideas of the Brothers
were present...."
Tacchini notes that the Brothers' first organized structure was "a
modest student group created in Belgium in 1964. ...
"The author aims to clarify that the perception of the Brothers as
troublemakers, often easy to find in Western European media, is
basically wrong. ..."
"Part two, is focused on those historical figures who have been and
are used as references for militants within the movement today [too
many to name here in AR]."
Tacchini portrays the diversity of the movement, its challenges and
internal debates. "Islam as a way of life, support for gradual reform,
and Muslim unity are three pillars of European members. ...
"Public superiority of Islam is presented mainly from the
perspective of the decline of the West and Christianity, in light of
the most common 20th century apologetics and polemic. There is a new
tool, however: Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, perfect to attack the
Catholic Church. Sadly, these easy, cheap apologetics are still quite
popular among the masses, even in Europe. Some Brothers, privately,
speak of the incompatibilities of these approaches with European
reality. This shows that an optimistic view of the future of Islam is
almost unanimously shared. ...
"Practically speaking, Muslims in Europe became aware of the fact
that they are there to stay; this allows them to plan long-term
political participation at any level. This has led to a
marginalization of themes such as the Islamic State and the Islamic
Revolution. The idea of the Caliphate, which had marked Hasan al-Banna
[an early pillar of the movement] so deeply, is still in the minds of
many members, though it may be a fairly abstract concept. Still, as
far as most of the themes regarding Muslims in Europe and also simply
about the nature and attitude of society are concerned, there is no
unanimity and, actually, a wide range of positions is active within
the Brotherhood. ...
"Considering the scholarship in the 20th century about the Muslim
Brotherhood, all focused on its pristine ideology or seeking
connection with the so called 'Islamic terror,' a book which considers
the topic from a different perspective and with different targets was
highly needed. Even though we may have expected something more
scholarly accurate [Tacchini notes many basic editorial problems such
as spelling, grammar, translation, and redundancy], Dr. Marechal's
work fills the vacuum."
Tacchini concludes that "the schematic and clear analysis of the
hottest themes for European Muslims is appreciable. The book is
particularly effective in showing the dynamism, the domestic struggle
and the turmoil that is currently going on within the Society of the
Muslim Brothers in Europe (and in the bigger family of Euro-Muslims)
during a stage that will be crucial for the future of religious
pluralism in the old continent." Muslim World, 99:3 - 2009, pp553-560.
[5]
Of related interest: "The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe"
by Lorenzo Vidino (Middle East Quarterly, Wtr '05, pp25-34
The Crisis of Islamic Civilization, by Ali A. Allawi [3] -- Peter
Heinegg's review notes that Allawi, a former Iraqi government
minister, refers to "the all but endless misery of the Muslim world:
tyrannical, dysfunctional governments; anemic economies (Muslims make
up 22 percent of the earth's population, but produce only 6 percent of
its wealth); wretched educational systems; confusion and anomie.
"Allawi pulls no punches and spares no one, from Al Qaeda and
Taliban terrorists to rigid religious conservatives to westernizing
liberal elites. While he blames the dreadful legacy of colonialism, he
acknowledges that Islamic civilization was in trouble long before the
Europeans and Americans arrived."
In summary, Allawi has no answers, few questions, and lots of
complaints. "Still scarred by his up-close-and-personal experience of
Saddam's Baathist nightmare and the sectarian bloodbath that followed,
Allawi is not at all confident that the culture he loves can be saved.
...
"He is fond of Sufism and Muslim mysticism generally; but how could
that esoteric doctrine become a faith for the masses? ...
"For non-Muslims, Allawi's insistence on 'the textual certainty of
the Qur'an as the unaltered and unalterable world of God' creates
further headaches. ...
"In the end, Allawi is oddly reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's narrator
in The Waste Land: He throws up his hands in horror at the hideous
conditions prevalent in the soulless secular status quo; yet he
catches glimpses of salvation rooted in the oldest and apparently
abandoned wellsprings of belief." America, Jul 20 '09, pp37-39. [4]
The Near East School of Theology (NEST), based in Beirut, Lebanon, has
produced "a discussion of the Letter sent by 138 Muslim scholars to
the leaders of all the Christian Churches in the world and entitled 'A
Common Word Between Us and You.' Since the Letter appeared in 2007,
there have been many responses to it from Christian churches,
organizations and scholars. The overwhelming majority of those
responses came from western Christian sources. ...
"The Letter itself is published here in English and Arabic. [It
begins with a list of all those to whom it was sent.] A brief
introduction to the Letter is given by Muhammad Sammak, a Lebanese
signatory of the Letter. ... It was not intended as a scholarly
article for publication, but we thought it would help introduce the
Letter from a Muslim personality who not only signed it but who also
had a role in conceiving and promoting it.
"Jon Hoover offers a detailed discussion of the background and
genesis of the Letter and presents a thorough analysis of its
structure and content, ending with his own assessment of it. Johnny
Awwad discusses and critiques the Letter mainly from the perspective
of its self-understanding of Christianity. George Sabra attempts to
place the Letter in the context of Christian-Muslim dialog and raises
some questions about its content and its reception among Muslims. ...
"The NEST is not hereby presenting a unified response from the
institution as a whole. We have asked individual members of the
faculty to formulate their own response independently of each other
and from whatever perspective they chose. The contributors did not
coordinate with each other nor did they read each other's contribution
before publication." Theological Review, 30:1 - 2009, (entire issue
devoted). [6]
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion,
by Tina Beattie (Orbis, 2008, paperback, 209 pages)
2 - The Muslim Brothers in Europe: Roots and Discourse, by Brigitte
Marechal (Brill, 2008, hardcover, 353 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/ykmjutf>
3 - The Crisis of Islamic Civilization, by Ali A. Allawi (Yale Univ
Prs, 2009, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yhvuf5d>
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