#da'esh

Both horrific and amazing. I’m  hugely conflicted about this news - on the one hand, Da’esh (to give them their Arabic name, which the members of Da’esh feel is derogatory), and on the other hand, a wonderful find that wouldn’t have been uncovered otherwise. As I say, conflicted. (I think it’s debatable. though, that the Assyrians were the ‘world’s first empire’. They took over from the Babylonians and the Babylonians had taken over from the Sumerians [and by ‘taken over’, I mean, of course, ‘ravaged, pillaged, and destroyed the civilisations of’]. The Egyptians started about 3500 BCE and never really quit, so IMHO THEY’RE the world’s first empire. Not that I’m biased or anything... )

Yes, they're bad, but they're literally not the same, not because of semantics, but for the real reason that your mistaken understanding of how extremism works is the reason they'll always come back.

See, the thing right-wing commentators call “hardline Islamism” (versus, I don't know, I suppose the kind of Islam that Erdogan, Mubarak and Najib espouse, which is basically tyranny and theft unchecked) is that it is predicated in the following assumption:

That there is only one True Form of Islam.

That it is a very specific form of Sunni Islam1, and deviating from it means you are lost and forsaken.

That it comes from God, and Muslims have no say on how it is defined or interpreted.

That The Right Kind of Muslim Scholar™ are the only ones who are allowed to interpret it.

That this form of Islam™ is the purest — i.e. it has been pared down from “innovations” and “culture”, which are bad things and detract from all the above.

That if you do this Islam™ correctly, true justice and peace will be the end result.

In all honesty, had the original adherents followed through these principles, they'd have gone the way of the Essenes (this book, literally, treats the Essenes the very same way that Muslim historians treat the Hunafā', i.e. heroes who maintain the pure light of monotheism in the darkness of ignorance and paganism) — i.e. they'd be extinct and we wouldn't be having this problem.

But they didn't. The first major breakout success for this movement — there was a notable one previously, but they keep getting exterminated, more or less — managed to not only survive but thrive by allying with a powerful state power, especiallly one that was bankrolled by the #1 colonial power at the time.

And that's the problem, right there. Because nowhere in the six principles above there do you see “get support from warlords and oppressors” in the principles, and warlords and oppressors, once they have you in their grasp, reward you with worldly riches and power. And, to be honest, if you've spent your time honing your religious practice and never even once consider anything outside of your narrow ideology… you're going to fuck it up. You're going to be seduced by wealth, you don't know how to use your power effectively. What you'll do is you'll double down on spreading your ideology as far and as hard as possible. You've got the money to do it. So you'll use it to teach entire generations of Muslims that you should focus on the purest form of Islam, one that brooks no distractions, that cannot tolerate difference, because there is no difference, only what pleases God and what angers Him.

So you'll get generations of people who get very good at internalizing these values… and then noticing the corruption and rot that ibn Abdul Wahab wrought when he allied with the Sauds. That the scholars of Al-Alzhar got when they allied with Nasser (not that they much of a choice). And everyone wanted a piece of the action, so Muslim authorities around the world took the funding and took in the lessons and internalized these values…

…and they they returned and took a look at the system that spawned them and revolted.

Because what we have right now? It isn't just. It isn't peaceful. It isn't even right. It is, literally, out of the Hadith that talks about the evil and inequality and iniquity that occurs before this happens. It is a glaring obscenity and if you're raised in this system you can already hear God come down to you and bellow, “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN CORRUPTORS AND DESTROYERS PERVERTED ISLAM?” You'd be compelled to act.

And the thing is, you can literally try to turn to Muslim authorities to fix this problem, but they can't. They're the source of the problem, and they can't even see it. It's not a nice thing to think, that you're responsible for this shit. And of course you don't, because to you, you're still (mostly) good. You're still trying your level best. And there's nothing you can do about it, because it's not something that you can consciously control. You'd need to work out and destroy the assumptions that underly your Islam, and you can't, because it's God's domain. You're trapped, pretty much the same way Muslim “extremists” are trapped in their ideology. You're both stuck.

And I can hear someone chuckling in the background, thinking how foolish these two parties are, and making the smug observation that really, the problem is Islam. And I want to slap that fucker, because no, it isn't. Because axiom #5? Came from white people; specifically, theosophism:

[Webb] reinvented Muhammad as a rationalist philosopher and even made an unsupportable claim that Islam “requires no belief in the supernatural.” Science and reason represented Islam’s “true spirit” as Webb understood it, but as in the case of Olcott, Webb needed to detach Islam’s “true spirit” from the Islam of everyday Muslims. Webb lamented that while Islam was “the most perfect system of spiritual development the world has ever known,” the effects of “climate and racial influence” left Muslims that he had observed in South Asia unable to comprehend what Muhammad had taught. Webb argued that South Asian Muslims, whom he sometimes called “niggers” in his journals, were so caught up in “ignorance and superstition” that they understood Islam no better than cows or horses.

And, remember again, that these “extreme” Muslims had always existed, but never gained much foothold. What was different this time around, was that this time, the extremists? They had help, from the colonial powers. Remember ibn Abdul Wahab and the Sauds? Where did they get the money and armaments? So don't get smug, because the thing you're deriding? It happened, because the West happened, and the West does, in many ways, distort the cultures it interacts with, turning it to the distorted reflections of the West itself.

In many ways, this form of hardline Islam is in itself a modern phenomenon, and is not only a reaction against modernity, but in its own roundabout way, is created by it.

Laila Lalami, My Life as a Muslim in the West’s ‘Gray Zone’

One more time, and with another thought for anyone who does want Muslims to apostatize and assimilate into Western society — do you think that it will stop the assault against you?

Because it won’t. It hasn’t stopped for people who were Arab Christian, who are Hindu, or are Sikh, or are atheist. It doesn’t go away unless you are able to completely disappear into whiteness, and you can’t. Your culture will betray you, your features will betray you.

You literally cannot be against Da’esh or extremism if your position begins with “Islam is incompatible with Western values”.

Because that is literally Da’esh’s fucking messaging.

If your argumentation is: you cannot be “purely” Muslim and exist in Western civilization, you are literally helping Da’esh succeed.

Because Da’esh agrees with you.

If you support the idea of a “clash of civilizations”, the first people who will agree with you will be Da’esh.

If you cannot find a way for “genuine” Muslims to exist with other religions, then you are agreeing with Da’esh.

Am I saying that how Muslims live their lives cannot be questioned? No. Am I saying that many of the community values cannot be questioned? No. That interpretations of Islamic religious law cannot be questioned or critiqued? No. Am I saying that Muslim community leaders and community mores cannot be questioned? Absolutely fucking not. Am I saying that “moderate” Muslim allies to the West cannot be held to account? Absolutely not, some of the shit they do is partly the cause of why Da’esh is so successful right now.