Islam discussion, split from deviance

[Pucksoppet]

Justin Welby is an evangelical low church product of the alpha course which in itself has roots back in evangelical US theology.

Now I get it. Those fuckwits are who drove me away from organised religion when I was a teenager. Before I came into contact with them I was comfortable in woolly but generally pragmatic Anglicanism (even lived in a vicarage for a few years, my grandfather was a vicar, after my parents divorced)

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

[jimbob]

Justin Welby is an evangelical low church product of the alpha course which in itself has roots back in evangelical US theology.

Now I get it. Those fuckwits are who drove me away from organised religion when I was a teenager. Before I came into contact with them I was comfortable in woolly but generally pragmatic Anglicanism (even lived in a vicarage for a few years, my grandfather was a vicar, after my parents divorced)

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

I have plenty of Muslim colleagues - some Shia and mostly Sunni. I don't know about specific groups, but quite a few believe in evolution, for example and would be about equivalent to, say, Reformed Jews, in terms of pragmatism whilst keeping the core of the belief.

[Little waster]

Now I get it. Those fuckwits are who drove me away from organised religion when I was a teenager. Before I came into contact with them I was comfortable in woolly but generally pragmatic Anglicanism (even lived in a vicarage for a few years, my grandfather was a vicar, after my parents divorced)

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

I have plenty of Muslim colleagues - some Shia and mostly Sunni. I don't know about specific groups, but quite a few believe in evolution, for example and would be about equivalent to, say, Reformed Jews, in terms of pragmatism whilst keeping the core of the belief.

IIRC the Sufis are fairly easy-going, apolitical and woolly.

There was a meme doing the rounds among the pro-war ghouls at the time of the Iraq debacle that the vocal opposition to Operation Kill-the-Fuzzy-Wuzzies-and-Nick-Their-Stuff was just a noisy minority of extremists Muslims when actually there was really a silent majority of Sufis who were actually really enthusiastic about the planned invasion. They however weren’t allowed to express this support because reasons and just you watch once the Coalition of the Shilling start dropping Freedom and Democracy on the Iraqi civilians from 5000ft all this opposition will just evaporate. In the meantime let’s just pretend the MCB doesn’t exist oh and by the way here’s the Sufi Muslim Council which actually represents 80% of British Muslims who incidentally not only support the Iraq war but the occupation of Palestine and Lebanon too, which is nice.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... oconserva/

[individualmember]

Justin Welby is an evangelical low church product of the alpha course which in itself has roots back in evangelical US theology.

Now I get it. Those fuckwits are who drove me away from organised religion when I was a teenager. Before I came into contact with them I was comfortable in woolly but generally pragmatic Anglicanism (even lived in a vicarage for a few years, my grandfather was a vicar, after my parents divorced)

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

I don’t usually enquire what religion people adhere to, but I briefly worked with a chap called Aaqil Ahmed, when he was at Channel 4. He became the first Muslim Head of Religion and Ethics at the BBC. I’m sure I’ve worked with other muslims without knowing or caring.

I like to point out that it was Nazir Afzal, young muslim lawyer at the DPP, who brought the first prosecution against a “Muslim grooming gang” thus revealing the scandal to the public’s attention in 2011.

ETA there’s a good interview with Afzal in James OBrien’s Full Disclosue podcast.

ETA again, off on a tangent, also in the Full Disclosure podcast is an interview with Gulwali Passarlay who was a refugee from Afghanistan, and that caught my ear because of the way he was told that the Americans were bombing them because They (the Americans) hate Our (Afghan) way of life. Because it’s just like we in the west are told that They (Muslims) hate Our (secular western) way of life.

[sheldrake]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream.

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

[Woodchopper]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream.

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

Central Asian states also have in general a more pragmatic attitude. About a decade ago Kyrgyzstan briefly had a female atheist as president.

The current Bangladeshi Prime Minister is a woman. When I visited a few years ago it was normal to see women working alongside men etc. There has been some violence by extremists in Bangladesh. But as far as I could tell they were a small minority.

[discovolante]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream.

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

It's also fair to separate people from their government. I don't think those in power in Iran are particularly popular particularly the younger generation. Ireland has only recently legalised abortion via a referendum.

[sheldrake]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream.

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

It's also fair to separate people from their government. I don't think those in power in Iran are particularly popular particularly the younger generation. Ireland has only recently legalised abortion via a referendum.

Ireland isn't in the same ball park as Saudi Arabia. Western liberals have a bit of a mental block accepting how barbaric the social norms are in some other cultures. Female circumcision is real. Men raping pre-pubescent girls to try and cure their own HIV is real.

[Pucksoppet]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream.

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

It's also fair to separate people from their government. I don't think those in power in Iran are particularly popular particularly the younger generation. Ireland has only recently legalised abortion via a referendum.

Oh, I agree. I was on a course recently where one of the participants was a Bosnian Muslim lady. No covering of the hair. Regarded Friday prayers as optional in much the same way as most woolly Anglicans regard Sunday Communion. Did not observe Salat (prayer 5 times a day). If anything she was a 'cultural Muslim' somewhere on the same spectrum as Richard Dawkins is a 'cultural Christian'. She did fast during Ramadan, and I have no idea if she drank alcohol, ate pork, or had been on the Hajj. She was a lovely lady, and was very concerned about the well-being of others. It is difficult to reconcile her behaviour in a roomful of unbelievers with that of a suicide-bomber - apparently both are Muslim, and that, in some people's minds is enough to allow one to be judgemental.

I've also spent a fair amount of time exposed to a group of fairly committed Anglo-Catholics. A very different kettle of fish, who were very assured of their opinions, and that therefore their behaviour was correct.

[discovolante]

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

It's also fair to separate people from their government. I don't think those in power in Iran are particularly popular particularly the younger generation. Ireland has only recently legalised abortion via a referendum.

Ireland isn't in the same ball park as Saudi Arabia. Western liberals have a bit of a mental block accepting how barbaric the social norms are in some other cultures. Female circumcision is real. Men raping pre-pubescent girls to try and cure their own HIV is real.

I wasn't claiming equivalence.

[sheldrake]

It's also fair to separate people from their government. I don't think those in power in Iran are particularly popular particularly the younger generation. Ireland has only recently legalised abortion via a referendum.

Ireland isn't in the same ball park as Saudi Arabia. Western liberals have a bit of a mental block accepting how barbaric the social norms are in some other cultures. Female circumcision is real. Men raping pre-pubescent girls to try and cure their own HIV is real.

I wasn't claiming equivalence.

Fair enough.

[sheldrake]

It is mainstream in Saudi Arabia and a few other gulf states. The 'tell' is usually that there are draconian restrictions on women, or that they have only recently lifted. It is not mainstream in North Africa or Southeast Asia.

It's also fair to separate people from their government. I don't think those in power in Iran are particularly popular particularly the younger generation. Ireland has only recently legalised abortion via a referendum.

Oh, I agree. I was on a course recently where one of the participants was a Bosnian Muslim lady. No covering of the hair. Regarded Friday prayers as optional in much the same way as most woolly Anglicans regard Sunday Communion. Did not observe Salat (prayer 5 times a day). If anything she was a 'cultural Muslim' somewhere on the same spectrum as Richard Dawkins is a 'cultural Christian'. She did fast during Ramadan, and I have no idea if she drank alcohol, ate pork, or had been on the Hajj. She was a lovely lady, and was very concerned about the well-being of others. It is difficult to reconcile her behaviour in a roomful of unbelievers with that of a suicide-bomber - apparently both are Muslim, and that, in some people's minds is enough to allow one to be judgemental.

Muslims tend not to eat pork in the same way we tend not to eat dog or horse meat, it's not closely related to the level of religious observance, it's just something they've been brought up to think of as 'gross'. Bosnian muslim men at least do tend to drink alcohol, just as a lot of Turkish men do.

[sTeamTraen]

Muslims tend not to eat pork in the same way we tend not to eat dog or horse meat, it's not closely related to the level of religious observance, it's just something they've been brought up to think of as 'gross'. Bosnian muslim men at least do tend to drink alcohol, just as a lot of Turkish men do.

I spent a little time talking to a 30-year-old Saudi woman who had lost her faith and was now a full-on atheist. She was into pretty much every aspect of a standard Western lifestyle, but she still didn't really like pork. Not even bacon .

However I did read somewhere once that some people in the Turkish countryside are not averse to hunting and eating wild boar, despite it being as haram as Peppa.

[sheldrake]

I didnt know about the wild boar thing in Turkey. Maybe its a holdover from the greek or armenian-speaking populations that were forced to convert to Islam?

[Gentleman Jim]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

In general(principle), the Shia branch of Islam is less strict and more tolerant of others - despite the "unorthodox" government in Tehran atm
Sunni islam tends to be stricter and more fanatical (esp the Wahabi sect).

But for sabre rattling, now and in the past, Shia Islam should be more in step with the west.

Big caveat though:

It is the Sunni states that have most oil

[Bird on a Fire]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

'Woolly pragmatic Anglicism' arises from the intersection of two forces, the official doctrine of the Anglican church, and the nature of modern English society, which (like much of the west) places strong emphasis on individualism, multiculturalism and tolerance. None of those things are functioning anything like perfectly, but they are constant underlying concepts in a way that they wouldn't be in places that are more culturally monolithic.

So the answer to your question will depend on exactly what you mean - the intersection of Islamic doctrine with modern British society, or the intersection of Islamic doctrine with whatever the local, contemporaneous culture happens to be in a given part of the world.

For the former, one only has to look at second-generation and onward Muslims and Britain. I know plenty of people my age and younger from Muslim families who hang out in the pub and get pissed (and weed seems to be commoner than amongst C of E kids), aren't too fussy about eating halal (though special diets are quite common amongst the younger folk anyway), and so on. They might do Ramadan some years, or only observe it in front of their families, or whatever. In general, my British Muslim friend's faith (or lack of it) affects my interactions with them about as much as anybody else's.

The latter I expect is extremely common on a global scale. There are, after all, nearly 2 billion Muslims worldwide, all across Africa, Europe and Asia. I can certainly tell you that amongst low-education, rural populations of Muslims the faith becomes highly syncretic, just as Christianity did in Europe. I suspect part of the difference is that the syncreticism was with the culture of those commanding the Christian Church, so a lot of those features got built-in doctrinally or at least culturally. The timings of Easter and Christmas are obvious, well-known examples.

So, for example, when I worked in Sulawesi in Indonesia, there was a Mosque in the village blasting out the call to prayer every morning, though its main effect seemed to be rousing the village cockerels rather than summoning the faithful. The young guys we worked with as forest guides used to just chuckle at it while we were off birdwatching ("that's my uncle this morning - his singing is sh.t"). They were pretending to their families that they were observing Ramadan, but would happily eat, drink and smoke as soon as we got away from the village. They also had a strong and entirely serious fear of the spirits in the forest which would call people's names in their friends' voices, causing people to get lost and go missing forever. For this reason they communicated with whistles only when in the forest - calling names was verboten, should the spirits learn them. Everyone in the village, even the stricter elders, would get pissed on home-made palm wine every now and again. The next village 10 minutes along the road was Balinese Hindu, with a different first language (Indonesian being only a lingua franca outside of the metropolitan elites) but there didn't seem to be any friction - folk knew each others' names and shopped in each others shops and stuff.

I worked in Guinea-Bissau last spring. As in a lot of West Africa, the national borders mean very little, but there are a lot of different tribes with different languages and religions. The area we worked in was dominated by Bissago people, whose main religion is something local and traditional and I think barely described, with Muslim Fula people running a lot of the businesses. The Fula seem to move a lot, as many were first generation immigrants from Guinea-Conakry or Mauritania. Some women chose to wear headscarves, but they might be doing so while cockle-picking in nothing else but a bra an a grass skirt, and then unselfconsciously remove the bra to breastfeed a kid.

My point is that the interpretation of Islam represented by people you might meet at work will generally be those of the richest, best-educated, urban and (from some countries) politically favoured, and are actually very unlikely to represent how the vast majority live. My expectation based on observations, rather than solid data, is that the really strict by-the-book kind of interpretations are likely to be a largely urban, middle- and upper-class phenomenon, borne of the interaction between the religious-political complex and holier-than-though oneupmanship. Note how, the further one gets from the nexus of Islam-as-politics in the middle east, the less extreme interpretations tend to be - there are exceptions, but at least some of those result from Saudi-exported Wahhabism.

[sTeamTraen]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Fabulous post, thanks.

[noggins]

Wahabbism is the enemy, isnt it?

[Pucksoppet]

_____________________^here

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

[Bird on a Fire wrote lots of interesting and informative stuff. Click on the little arrow pointing upwards beside Bird on a Fire's name above, where I have added '____^here' to see it. ]

Thank you for taking the time and trouble for making such an excellent post. I think someone else nominated it as Post of the Day, which I heartily endorse.

[Pucksoppet]

In general(principle), the Shia branch of Islam is less strict and more tolerant of others - despite the "unorthodox" government in Tehran atm
Sunni islam tends to be stricter and more fanatical (esp the Wahabi sect).

I have had the pleasure of working with several members of the diaspora from Iran, who were careful to self-describe as Persian rather than Iranian to distance themselves from the current régime. Their religion never came up in conversation, and we got along with no problems.

I don't know why some groups of people can live in disparate communities without intolerance and strife, and others cannot. I don't think it is just a problem of ideology, but maybe something more innate in people's characters and how hard their boundaries are. I expect a lot of study has been done on this, especially with the break-up of Yugoslavia, and inter-group tensions in many other regions - is there a recipe from experts in the field on how to promote tolerance?

[Woodchopper]

What is the Muslim/Islamic equivalent of 'woolly pragmatic Anglicanism'? I hope there is one, because I get tired of Islamophobes pointing at the lunatic end of Islam and claiming it is mainstream. It would be nice to have a counter-example.

'Woolly pragmatic Anglicism' arises from the intersection of two forces, the official doctrine of the Anglican church, and the nature of modern English society, which (like much of the west) places strong emphasis on individualism, multiculturalism and tolerance. None of those things are functioning anything like perfectly, but they are constant underlying concepts in a way that they wouldn't be in places that are more culturally monolithic.

Thanks for an excellent post. I'll just add that there's nothing inherently woolly and pragmatic about Anglicanism.

The Church of England used to persecute people who didn't profess belief in Anglicanism. Catholics, Quakers, Jews, atheists etc were at times executed, tortured, exiled and were denied rights given to the rest of the population (like being able to own property). This wasn't just medieval barbarity, and it continued through the enlightenment and into the early 19th Century.

As Bird on a Fire writes, what changed was society in Britain, and the church had to slowly change to reflect the people around it.