Is Islamic History to Blame for Muslims 'Violent Mentality'?
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Absolutely great posts from Lost Philosopher, Pheonix1, BOOST, Tay and Ironsky enforcing that human beings are human beings are human beings, I was going to put this in my previous post but I didn?t want to come across too forward, but in light of this
No one does not have bias and I realise I too am often biased toward particular issues. However, never I think that my opinion is the absolute truth. All Im doing is presenting my observation and expecting others to correct my opinion should it be mistaken. I think it is good to voice our thought even no matter how biased it is if the result is that we and myself in particular could have better understanding.
I don?t think its correct to voice a definite opinion on EVERY issue, it would be much better to simply say that ones opinion does not hold much weight because of a lack of information on a particular subject. I myself added what I knew on the issue (new information) to the circumcision thread yesterday but stated that I hadn?t really given the subject due justice in order to say ?Circumcision is RIGHT? or ?Circumcision is WRONG? so I could not say I had an opinion. For me to say that Circumcision is WRONG when I haven?t looked into it the same way I have done other subjects would be very unjust of me, just because the majority on the thread may state it is wrong (regardless of whether they have given the subject due intellectual justice) is no green light for me begin my own dogmatic statements.
I think we all need to be very careful to approach a subject only AFTER we have read the history or looked up all the Quranic statements (if its a religious practise) so as to have at least the most basic grounding in the facts relating to the particular topic. In terms of some people here at Free Minds being shocked that the first terrorists in Palestine were Jewish then being told the history by people like Samia or Arnold, this would never have happened if the individuals simply picked up a history book, these are not hidden facts or conspiracies, these are the result of people simply reading up on the history of the subject.
It is unfortunate a lot of time is wasted by a few members of the forum having to enlighten other members who have taken it upon themselves to add their unfounded opinions to certain topics, this time would be have been much more progressive if the less informed individuals took it upon themselves to read up on the issues at hand and then offer their opinion when it holds some worth. Sometimes entire topics are started without the proper grounding in knowledge, and instead of the topic saying 'What do you think of this?' it would instead infer a incorrect statement based on misconceptions and then an unfortunate conclusion, this seems to me, the opposite of guidance.
EDIT Started making the post before I read Arnolds, so Arnold please don't think I'm leaving you out of the first sentence! lol
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Peace be upon you,
In my opinion (and this is only my singular opinion so you can take it or leave it) perhaps you and Angel would benefit from a thorough read of history books, the history of religions, peoples and places and I think you will see that no one group of people are any more or less violent than any other and if people wish to be violent they can twist whatever ideology they want to suit their needs.
Yes I would be interested. yay
So can you please recommend me some good books? handshake Coz I just don?t know where to start. confused
peace
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Of course friend,
For starters Wikipedia is something fantastic, so for the basic grounding on many issues you can simply look up on that.
In terms of Arab history my wife got me a book called 'A History of the Arab Peoples' by Albert Hourani a few years back, it was more of a token present than anything else as it mostly contained stuff I already knew but was nevertheless an informative reference because it takes a more secular approach to traditional Arabic Arab history one reads. I can image it would be ideal for those who have little prior grounding on this topic. One particular thing to note is you'll find a lot in there regarding the mentality of traditionalists especially the ideas and the mentality of Imam Shafi'i as opposed to the more rationalist thinking of people like Ibn Khaldun.
It even talks about a movement of individuals who wanted to throw everything Islamic civilization had learnt from medicine out of the window in favour of something called 'Prophetic Medicine'! These morons were literally going to build up an entire medicinal system out of what a religious prophet said and did! This is what gives me respect for the more rational of the Medieval time such as Ibn Khaldun in light of such moronic imbeciles.
If you go onto Amazon or Ebay I can image you can purchase this book, however if you don't wish to or can't do this you're sure to find just as much historical information such as Prophetic Medicine and the history of Palestine in referenced sources on the internet.
I hope this helps )
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Peace Angel
if you want a book specifically on the history of / palestine / israel there is one by ilan halevi. In french the titel is "sous israel la palestine" (under israel - palestine), dont know if it has been translated. May be in english it is "A History of the Jews ,Ancient and Modern" by Ilan Halevi. Am not sure though - can anyone confirm ?
Elke
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Salaam,
I must agree partialy with Boost that I have seen Jankren say this many times that the Muslism were violent and forced Islam upon the world. Well many historians will completely disagree with you on this. Although the Secterian Islam allowed many wrong things, their moral was also very high and developed through the Quran.
I NEVER said that Islam was spread through forced conversions. I only said in the Middle East it was INTRODUCED through conquests.
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It is not so illogical I presumed you meant this. But that is only one sentence in a long post.
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What's to blame for that 'violent mentality'?
Human mentality is a violent mentality.
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I'm saying that its human nature to fight, we would probably have some bigger problems if people didn't fight. History is just one of the causes, sometimes peace does overcome human nature. As does times where logic and reasoning overcome ignorance, but when anger and war piles up and grows it lets itself loose harming many.
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I think it was more imperialism, because all the European nations were doing it. After WW2 we stopped doing it directly.
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'Is Islamic History to Blame for Muslims 'Violent Mentality'?
I think most if not all human history is violent. Christian, American, Indonesian, Chinese history it's all violent. Ancient human history is violent too Aztecs, Romans, its full of many wars, suffering, slavery, blood and gore. What does our human history really say about mankind? Regardless of faith, we are violent creatures. It is also not confined to a specific people and their history, like you seem to be suggesting. Atrocities are committed now and in recent history regardless of how advanced or civilized humanity has become, under many different banners and notions such as Imperialism, Maoism but still all pretty violent.
I've lived in Bosnia, seen Srebrenica. You want to see how violent people are, visit these places where men have killed each other just because they were different, the wrong ethnicity or religion. Visit 9/11 towers, visit Rwandan, Cambodian killing fields. They are all a striking reminder and portrait of mankind, irrespective of beliefs.