The Irrationality of Western Ideology & the Blind Faith of Muslim Modernists 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 that remain 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 the society at the time. The one thing Ive noticed, is that most people claim to be skeptical only to ideas they dont 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. Ive 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 - this culture is Western Culture. It is 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 a religious dogma in the West. Most people dont know the philosophical justifications for these ideas, or how they came about - all that people know is, its the MODERN way to do things. However, the big elephant in the room is that 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. 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 into categories that should hold no moral difference or division? Feminism cannot be rationally justified either, as basing rights on gender is either arbitrary at best, or elitist at worst (if men are not also considered in the equation). If men and women should be exactly equal, why not egalitarianism instead of feminism? Secularism cannot be rationally justified, because in essence its posits the absurd notion that mans purpose in life should be separate from consideration of how to manage mans affairs in life. Secularism then results in a materialistic re-interpretation of mans 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 ends up being non-neutral to this central question of purpose, while fooling the people as pretending to be neutral! Human rights [as understood by Liberalism] are arbitrary, prone to change depending on societys current tastes as any given point in time, and lacks any rationalism 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 - then got divorced from it later on! Consequently, rights cant 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 Muslim doesnt question these Western imports. They are perfectly happy to be skeptical on 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 his discussions on [insert name of Western idea] are just wrong or out of kilter or hes a strawmanning the idea, thats not what it means. Ive 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. This reveals something very interesting about the Modernist mindset. As the saying goes you cant reason someone out of something they werent reasoned into, and the Modernist Muslims blind faith in Western ideas is just that, an irrational dogma theyve 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 - its 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 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 technological, military and economic leaders of the world - innovating many new technologies and increasing the boundaries of human knowledge. The fact that Muslims believed in hudud punishments, or having beards, or wearing turbans didnt 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 dont 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! The second biggest assumption made by modernists, is that Western advancement , political stability and economic success is the result of the implementation of democracy, liberalism, secularism and nationalism. However history begs to differ. For most of the last 500 years, technological advancement in the West started, and has mostly occurred, under 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 clergy (e.g. Roger Bacon, Johannes Kepler...) or devout followers of the Catholic and protestant Church - and much scientific literature and institutes of higher education were under patronage by the Catholic 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, people should check their history. Many Liberal and Secular countries today are not the result of continued implementation of Liberalism, but rather they are the second attempt to re-impose Liberalism after a previous attempted failed, which led to civil wars and the collapse into fascist regimes (e.g. the recent modern civil wars and regime changes in 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, Ukraine!]. The West was changed by their interaction with the medieval Islamic civilisation and 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 that theyve existed since the beginning of Western development! If you could take a time machine and go back 100 years, youd see a europe mostly NOT LIBERAL (and in many cases 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 (a modern example is China, fast outpacing USA in inventions and industry, despite being not Liberal and not Democratic!). The task of the Muslim today, is not to change Islam in the hope of imitating the Wests current intellectual follies, but rather to recapture 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? wp.me/p1yZme-1mK
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 02:25:31 +0000
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