Islam and the Clash of Civilizations
Submitted by M A Khan on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 07:09
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PDF versionChallenging Nobel Laureate Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 thesis that with the fall of Marxist Communism, the world will converge towards nonconflictual liberal-democracy as its final destiny, Samuel Huntington proposed his Civilization Clash theory in 1993. Contradicting Fukuyama’s optimism of a more peaceful world-civilization ahead, Huntington emphasized that conflicts in the world were not over, but future conflicts will be fought along civilizational fault-lines over cultural or religious differences, not between states over ideological (political) or economic reasons. “The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future,” he predicted.
Huntington identified eight major civilizations—Indian, Chinese, Asian, Islamic, and Western etc.—and emphasized that instead of converging towards universal liberalism globally, human consciousness within these civilizations is accentuating; people are becoming increasingly parochial and conscious of their cultural, religious or civilizational values and differences.
Huntington analyzed how these civilizations would likely interplay in reshaping the emerging world-order. His thesis gives significant space for Islamic resurgence simply because, in recent decades, religious revivalism in an intolerant and violent form amongst Muslims much outweighs the rejuvenation of civilizational or religious consciousness amongst other peoples.
In the ongoing civilizational clash of Islam with the rest of humanity, Huntington wrote: “The overwhelming majority of fault line conflicts, however, have taken place along the boundary lopping across Eurasia and Africa that separates Muslims from non-Muslims”. He added: “wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors.” Islam has “Bloody Borders”, he asserted.
His analysis vis-à-vis Islam in his thesis has become a bone of contention; he came under intense attacks over this from his critics, led by Edward Said.
Like it or not, Huntington’s thesis is already becoming a reality. Even the followers of Hinduism and Buddhism—both apolitical and pacifist creeds in principle and historically—are becoming increasingly jingoistic, political and even militant. There have been attacks on Christians and churches by Hindus in India and Buddhists in Sri Lanka in recent years. This trend, in all likelihood, would heighten over the coming decades.
Despite the denials of his critics, Huntington’s analysis regarding Islam’s clash with its neighbors is based on undeniable ground reality, which has greatly heightened since his theory was proposed in 1993, most prominently after the 9-11 attacks.
A cardinal fact that one may miss in Huntington’s book is that the civilizational clash of Islam is not new; it is as old as Islam itself: fourteen centuries old. Islam was founded by Prophet Muhammad as a “totalitarian and globalist creed” in the 7th-century Arabia at the cost of his non-Muslim neighbors: Pagans, Jews and Christians. The Prophet himself had cleansed Arabia of the Pagans. On his deathbed (632), he had ordered his followers to cleanse Arabia of the remaining few Jews and Christians, whom he had allowed to live as ignominious dhimmi subjects in peripheral areas. The second caliph Omar (d. 644) put Muhammad’s last wish to action, denuding Arabia of non-Muslims. He expelled the Jews of Khaybar in 638, for example.
The clash of “Islam versus the rest of humanity”, initiated by Prophet Muhammad at its founding, was widened against all humanity and perpetuated by Muslims over the centuries. It could not be otherwise, because Islam was born in Arabia as Islamic God Allah’s master-plan, His politico-military tool, for creating a global Islamic state by making Muslims His “agent and inheritor of the earth” [Quran 6:165] and promising to make Islam victorious over all peoples and places [Quran 8:39]. Since then, Muslims, including its classical scholars, have divided the humanity into two houses, two civilizations: Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (House of War).
Islam’s central mission over the centuries has been to turn the non-Muslim Dar al-Harb into Dar al-Islam through Jihadi wars to realize Allah’s global imperial dream. Classical Islamic literature is very candid about this. And Islam’s history reflects exactly that. Islam has achieved stunning success in this mission. Where is the great pre-Islamic civilization of Coptic-Paganic Egypt, Zoroastrian Persia, Eastern Christianity of West Asia, Paganic-Animist North Africa, where Islam reached quite early by the sword. They have all vanished. Estimated 120 million human lives were lost to Islamic swords in Africa and 80 million in India. Some 60 million Christians and millions of Buddhists also perished. Readers may consult my just-released book, Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery, in order the grasp the whole picture of Islam’s historical and ongoing clash with the rest of humanity.
It should be pointed out that Judaism and Christianity had their own problem. If the account of the Old Testament is to be believed, at the founding of Judaism, Moses led his enslaved, oppressed Hebrew people out of Egypt to Israel, which was to become their G’d-given homeland; the indigenous people there suffered. But Judaism’s clash with its neighbours theoretically ended there; it was not supposed to spread out of Israel. In reality, they soon became victim of harrowing persecution at their very homeland; their right to live there has been under constant threat, which continues today. Most of all, they have mended their ways: they live in complete harmony with people of all faiths: from India to North America.
Christianity had problems somewhat similar to Islam’s: it dreamt of taking over the world through the instruments of force until the days of the Renaissance. Then came the Age of Enlightenment, which pushed Christianity out of politics. It has distanced itself from political spheres and violence for a long time.
The same cannot be said of Islam. It has changed little from what it set out to be at its birth. Its clash with global humanity in its age-old violent form continues to this day. Muslims continue to use the instrument of violence and intimidation. The conflicts in Kashmir, Mindanao, Southern Thailand, the Balkans, Chechnya and parts of Africa, plus the violent campaigns of Islamist Al-Qaeda and like-minded terror groups, are a continuation of that. The same applies to Muslim immigrants’ clash with their host societies in the West: their refusal to integrate, open disobedience to respect Western laws and persistent efforts to introduce Islamic laws even in public spheres—social, political and financial.
Whether one agrees with Huntington or not, the clash of Islam with the rest of humanity, amongst his theorized conflicts amongst various civilizations, is obviously in the act and will undoubtedly intensify in coming decades. Whilst achieving stunning success in its clash with greater humanity over the past 14 centuries, Islam is most firmly placed than ever to finish off the job—that is, take over world and institute the governance of the Quran and prophetic tradition—the ultimate ambition, it was born to accomplish.
dear faith freedom sorry to
dear faith freedom
sorry to do this but
why can't i login with this password to the forum?
anyway I think you should know that WOT has a warning rating on this site because of 2 muslims.
i have put in a few good words.
but your bad rating remains.
2. find the site focus is missing its real audience
not the converted
but the ignorant and confused who do not know better
all similar sites should get together and work on a new approach to blanket the world with the greatest story ever told:
in dvd format downloadable to inform audiences at a low fee
all the things said here are not read by the multitude who are too busy making a living or not intelligent enough or interested enough to read boring sites on matters which do not direct impact on their lives.
so what to do?
the dutch film was a step in the right direction.
but its message was too obvious.
we need a dead pan approach to a major series on mohammed which portrays him in the words of the authenticated sources in arabic with actors playing the parts and portraying the emotions attributed to them at the time.
they could even be glamorised to appeal to arabic critics as well and outfox them.
i picture this can be shown with subtitles in english and citations to the sources shown at the same time on screen.
maybe a prelude showing the christian civilisations living happily before the scourge of allah.
then a doco on all the pictorial representations of mohammed
so that one can be chosen as Mohammed and pose a conundrum to fatwaists.
in the epic to come:
then mohammed's early life,
his koran with all its contradictions clearly spelt out in subtitles and with a narrator in the background.
dead pan.
so arabs can start to think.
about the voices...
times...
genres...
and registers...
then the juxtaposition of abrogating verses against moderate euphimisms to jangle believers and western converts who may have been fed the abrogated verses by knowing missionaries.
then the fun really begins!
we need to show Mohammed's glorious actions with the words as they are recorded, exultant and rejoicing at the destruction of established cultures, the lies, murders, robberies and the words of mohammed all the time ringing gloating at the evils he unleashes and justifies.
all without any reference to current events, just the march of time.
we need to show the murders, rapes and destruction of whole civilisations in the words of the chroniclers themselves...
the middle east, africa, india, europe...
showing the rape of women, the streets running with blood, the sacking of civilisations and cultures, languages and peoples, genocide and ethnic cleansing, slavery and perversion, all inexorably detailed in full detail without gloss or comment beyond what the original authors themselves said.
maybe no music is needed as this story unveils with only dialogue and the screams of the fallen at the hands of the victorious waves of muslims bearing destruction in their wake and forcing coversion or slavery or poll taxes while being corrupt venal and showing themselves realistically and not romantically for our sanitised imaginary ideas which prevent us from addressing the threat today.
and this could be put out in various media depending on the effectiveness.
maybe TV or DVD
maybe churches may be urged to show them as educational documentaries.
and sell dvds to each parishoners, each now armed with the truth so that they can innoculate themselves against the lies.
then the groundswell can rise and draw everything before it into a tsunami of public opinion which can allow a rational response to the dangers to the world of this ever self generating hydra.
we need to reach the silent majority who don't know and don't care and make this common knowledge so that politicians no longer hide with ignorance or politic untruths and brainwash us while we are being undermined as we sleep.
"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle;pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge withoutcharacter; business without morality; science without humanity; andworship without sacrifice."
Mahatma Gandhi
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Just don't blame peaceful
Just don't blame peaceful ISLAM or you will be ...
http://markhumphrys.com/islam.killings.html
Peccadilloes, That was a
Peccadilloes,
That was a dead right plan man! Actually the documentary film "obsession" had such a stunning success that it sold more than 30 million copies since its release in 2005. I bet the film about muhammad would actually be the best seller of all time no doubt about that!
U bet PC, and I would be the
U bet PC, and I would be the first one to buy the DVD. Such a movie would break all BO records ,ie.e, if the theaters are not blasted and the movie viewers are not killed by Muslims.
Ibrahim I cant wait to see
Ibrahim I cant wait to see who will play muhammad! And that portion of briding Aisha...lol!
Okay Ibrahim let us now be realistic. Do you think the likes of Steve Spielberg have never thought of producing "muhammad"? Ahh, Mel Gibson is very good at such kind of movies he must have had such a thought. Are they concerned about market?
AMIM heres how the MUSLIMS
AMIM heres how the MUSLIMS behave very secularly.
Hindu families from Pak seek refuge in India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Hindus-from-Pak-seek-refuge-in-...
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/\papers31\paper3018.html
PC, I can imagine Speilberb
PC, I can imagine Speilberb making a movie like that, lol. Imagine what the Arab newspapers will be carrying in the headlines, Zionist Conspiracy, Fatwa on Speilberg.
No dear brothers Ibrahim &
No dear brothers Ibrahim & proud christian, that would lead to mindless violence.Nonmuslims are still unprepared mentally to fight islam.We need to educate the educated about islam with out retaliation.muslims are scratching their heads as to how to deal with the internet.SEE THE IRONY,AMERICA WAS IN THE SAME PREDICAMENT POST 9/11.They just did not know which islamic country to attack.We need to be faceless for sometime.In the meantime we should sensitize policy makers,security experts,etc.We have to bid our time,at the same time we should percolate drop by drop to the grass root level.In India mainline churches should rein in the evangelist churches to prevent christians & muslims on one side & hindus on the other side.
Nice article.
Nice article.
krishna its easier to teach
krishna its easier to teach someone who can understand. I had a hindu collegue of mine once say that she rather go to a dargagh than a temple. when I told her more about Islam she started to laugh and called me crazy. HWne I asked her if she was familiar with Islam, her answer was a no. All her info came from Tv and her so called friends. I gave her Ali Sina's book and her remarks were that it was a stupd book.
With people like that around its difficult for non muslims, especially Hindus to understand. The middle class Indian Hindus just refuse to accept that Islam is bad cos that not being good and its not politically correct. I can merely pity such pathetic people.
Bang on Ibrahim,you are
Bang on Ibrahim,you are right.Thats because of "secular education".I remember my school days Where the word FLIGHT(flee) of muhammed from mecca to medina was described in textbooks. I used the same word to a muslim. I noticed he visibly winced at the word. I never asked him why nor did he give me an explanation. Now i understand,Hero's don't run. But muhammed fled isn't it!!!
Now in my son's textbook the word i think is migration or moved or something like that.History is being rewritten.
M.A.Khan says "Christianity
M.A.Khan says
"Christianity had problems somewhat similar to Islam’s: it dreamt of taking over the world through the instruments of force until the days of the Renaissance".
Unlike Mohammad, Jesus encouraged his followers to evangelise people, through love and service. However colonial masters, apart from the evangelists, introduced Christianity by force in their colonies as a counter measure to Islam. The Western Europe was shaken to the core when Islamic forces invaded Spain, not for economic reasons or for prestige but for establishing a worldwie caliphate. I shall be thankful if somebody could convince me that Christianity used instruments of force before Islam or 7th century. Anyway I enjoyed the article.
Same on ... same on ....
Same on ... same on .... Roman, please check Western story how Catholic Christianity used their power to burn non-believer (Protestant) ...
Anyway, how about joining Marilyn Manson way? Welcome to Hell, dude ....