Thursday, May 22, 2014

Lessons About Arab/Muslim Historical Treatment of Their Jews

Sar Shalom













    Islam, like most flavors of Christianity is a triumphalist revelatory religious faith. This means they embrace the fundamental concept that they are the first, last, only and best expression of the word of god. Period. There’s no way around this. If you not Muslim you are not really a human being at best, but more typically you are an evil enemy of god himself. This is basic Muslim theology.
    Secondly or as a consequence to – there has never been the least thing to suggest that Muslims have as a goal, peace itself. Not when confronted by what they themselves call a holy war. There is no expressed or implied desire or objective to NOT utterly smash, kill, enslave, all comers until the whole world is Muslim.

    1. Do you have any reason to believe that the Christian-Arabs, aside from certain pockets like those following Gabriel Naddaf, are any less extreme than the Muslims?

      Aside from that, there is a need to convince the wider public of the Arabs', both the Muslims and the Christians among them, supremacist ideology which is distinct from the need to understand the source of it. Even if there is truth to the theological derivation of this ideology, would it not be worth tamping down discussion of that source if presenting an alternate source for their ideology could make it more acceptable for someone who is paranoid of racism to accept that Arab supremacism exists? For example, could we not characterize their theology as, in the language of the Mishna, a spade with which to dig, in order to justify an a priori racialist ideology?

    2. I don't see it as a debatable point. It simply IS and we're arguing about how strenuously various groups enforce it. In a country where Islam is not pre eminent then they, like any other group in a pluralistic society are beholden to some other law whether they like or not or until they pick arms and kill for whatever they claim to believe. In Muslim nations where Islam is in fact the law of the land, it is THE Law, so it is embraced and enforced to the absolute limits of whomever is charged with that authority.

  2. Sar, an interesting post.

    It seems to me that you are beginning to unravel and discuss the theoretical differences between someone like Raymond Ibrahim, who sees anti-Semitism as essential to Islamic doctrine, and someone like Matthias Küntzel who stresses the Nazi influence.

    Either way, it is not pretty, I think.

    In our previous discussion you seemed to stress that it is unhelpful and unncssary to place Arab supremacism within an Islamic context.

    Am I correct in my understanding of your position in this regard?
