Reza Aslan absolutely destroys CNN and Bill Maher on Muslim violence

[Sbane]

Here's the disconnect: 

Is Islam necessarily violent?  No.  But, just look at the borders between Suni Islam and other sects.  You have India & Pakistan, Northern Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank.  At some point you need to recognize the pattern.  And, the counter-examples don't really disprove the link either.  The places where you don't have Islamic violence are basically all secular strongman regimes where some nationalist group or the military keeps things under control by force.

Sure, Islam doesn't necessarily lead to any specific type of Al Qaeda or ISIS type regime.  But, it is an inherently political ideology with fundamentalist doctrine that resists change and stands in opposition to the pluralist, liberal principles of the West.  People want to deny that because it feels all nice and eccumenical, but it's just a fact about the current state of Islam.

Hmm? India is not a Muslim country. And if you meant to compare the Muslims in India vs Pakistan, the divergence is fairly recent and due to Pakistani foreign policy, not sectarian reasons. The spread of Islam in a good chunk of South and Southeast Asia occurred by means the Saudis would consider sacrilegious. For example the Sufi saints who spread Islam through music throughout South Asia, including areas which are now in Pakistan.

I think this is a cultural issue more than a religious issues. The desert cultures of the Middle East are extremely backwards and it's reflected in the type of religion they practice.

[Sbane]

Here's the disconnect: 

Is Islam necessarily violent?  No.  But, just look at the borders between Suni Islam and other sects.  You have India & Pakistan, Northern Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank.  At some point you need to recognize the pattern.  And, the counter-examples don't really disprove the link either.  The places where you don't have Islamic violence are basically all secular strongman regimes where some nationalist group or the military keeps things under control by force.

Sure, Islam doesn't necessarily lead to any specific type of Al Qaeda or ISIS type regime.  But, it is an inherently political ideology with fundamentalist doctrine that resists change and stands in opposition to the pluralist, liberal principles of the West.  People want to deny that because it feels all nice and eccumenical, but it's just a fact about the current state of Islam.

Hmm? India is not a Muslim country. And if you meant to compare the Muslims in India vs Pakistan, the divergence is fairly recent and due to Pakistani foreign policy, not sectarian reasons. The spread of Islam in a good chunk of South and Southeast Asia occurred by means the Saudis would consider sacrilegious. For example the Sufi saints who spread Islam through music throughout South Asia, including areas which are now in Pakistan.

I think this is a cultural issue more than a religious issues. The desert cultures of the Middle East are extremely backwards and it's reflected in the type of religion they practice.

India is a partially Muslim country.  There are more Muslims in India than there are in any country besides Pakistan and Indonesia.  And, you can't say there is no Islamic terrorism in India between the insurgency in Kashmir and the Mumbai attacks.  Obviously, nationalism is a major issue in India and Pakistan too, but religion strife is a factor there. 

And, on top of that, your point is pretty nonsensical.  Islam is a religion largely based on the Arab culture and language.  Islam codifies the Arab culture of the Middle Ages and elevates that lifestyle to unquestionable perfection.  The solution is that Islam needs to change and become less fundamentalist and extreme.

Don't call my point nonsensical when it's pretty clear you are completely clueless about this topic.

You obviously have no idea how Islam has spread around the world or the current trends within it. Islam in the Middle East is essentially a codification of their way of life, which is pretty backwards in my opinion. Outside the Middle East that falls apart very quickly. And where it doesn't, like Pakistan, it is due to the influence of middle eastern oil money brainwashing kids with their Wahhabi ideology, which you seem to think is the entirety of Islam.

Talking about India, the Mumbai attacks were perpetrated by Pakistanis, not by Indian Muslims. And Kashmiri Muslims (at least some of them) want either their own Muslim state or to become a part of Pakistan. That does not mean they want to establish a caliphate across the world. It does not mean they want to convert every non-Muslim in the world. The terrorist groups themselves do hold that view but that is because they have essentially been trained by the Saudis. How many Indian Muslims outside of Kashmir are in terrorist groups? How about Bangladesh or Indonesia or Malaysia? How many beheadings occur in these countries?

You are making the correct argument against Middle eastern style fundamentalist Islam but why do you feel the need to include every Muslim around the world? There are very moderate forms of Islam being practiced around the world, and particularly in India and Bangladesh. The style of worship among poor Muslims in these countries (a mixture of Hinduism/Islam as well as idolatry of the Sufi saints) would probably get them beheaded in Saudi Arabia. So why do you feel the need to attack these people in addition to the real villains in the Middle East?

[Sbane]

I think he's right about a few points, but ultimately, pretty misleading.  It's true on one hand that there are plenty of nice, progressive Muslim people and there are secular Muslim countries.  And, sure, Bill Maher is not an expert on Islam or the world outside America.  I suppose that's an important point to make for balance, especially when some people are bigoted and hate Muslims in America.

But, I think you can say that Islamic ideology fosters and promotes these major problems like terrorism and disrespect for women's rights.  Islam is not a progressive religion.  By that I mean, Islam is a set of rules for every facet of life and those rules do not change.  Islam is a religion, but it also contains a set of cultural norms that date to the early middle ages in Arabia.  Is there dispute about those rules?  Sure.  Many Muslims believe music is allowed.  Many Muslims believe that women should be allowed to travel alone.  But, the general attitude is that these rules are not debatable or permissive if you find a clear statement from the Islamic scriptures.  In that way, Islam more resembles Christianity in Europe before the reformation democratized Christianity with vernacular texts. 

Once you create that baseline, that you have a book with the perfect revealed truth on how to live your life in every facet, it's inherently at odds with these Western values that Resa Aslan supports like feminism and human rights.  While it's true that some people reconcile Islam with our values, but that's more about those people becoming secular than it is about Islam embracing equality for women or whatever.  Turkey's more modern progressive policies are all about how Turkey became a secular country, not about Islam at all.   

I don't claim to be (nor really wish to be) an expert on this issue, but this strikes me as a pretty gross oversimplification in both meanings of the term, one that honestly deserves the label "orientalist". Obviously political Islam, especially the Wahabbi strain of it, is a serious problem now and is in dire need of reformation.  But it's actually pretty ignorant of history to claim that it's all part and parcel of some unbroken chain of austere fundamentalism that's innate to the religion- I mean, Wahabbism is actually a relatively recent development along the lines of the Puritans and Calvinists, and to assume that its attitudes regarding practice can be reliably back-dated to earlier eras is just as silly to assume that the Christian world was living with Puritan morals in the Dark Ages.

I mean, the Abbasids were far more tolerant of Christians and Jews within their borders than Christian kingdoms in Europe were of Jews and Muslims during that time period; and there were plenty of practices and attitudes of theirs (and their contemporaries) that would be slammed as "heresy" and "idolatry" and "liberalism" today.

I don't know how to respond to this.  You're not really disputing my specific points, you're just saying that it's uncouth to talk about a religion and somehow racist or Eurocentric to criticize Islam.  You're both saying, I don't know much about this topic and making these broad, unalloyed assertions about "Wahhabism."

If you actually said, "well, Islam is not political or oppressive towards women, only Wahhabi Islam is political and socially backwards."  That would just be incorrect.  There are no masjids where they preach feminism, pluralism and acceptance of gay people.  Obviously, everyone defines their religion in a unique way and history is incredibly complex and interdependent.  You can go back and connect Islamist movements to all these other political, ethnic and social factors.   But, the ideas matter, the religion matters. 

Just think about it this way.  Islam is supposed to be a set of perfect texts that explain how to live life in every facet.  Not only in "Wahhabi Islam" or "radical Islam," in mainstream Islam.  That is not something that is easily moderated or squared with social progress.  You can sometimes find new interpretations that help your religion keep pace with society, sure.  But, if you believe that the scriptures are perfect and should dictate every part of life, that's not helping matters.  And, that's a major problem in the world today.

Mainstream Christianity is the same way though. How many churches preach feminism and gay rights?

And to respond to some of your other posts, you say the problem is Islam, not Wahhabism since it is all in the Koran. Yet you could say the same for Judaism or Christianity. The difference is that the extremists who want to literally interpret their holy books have been marginalized in more of Christian and Jewish societies (not all though like Uganda with their gay laws) than in Muslim societies.