The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. By RICHARD W. BULLLIET. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 187 pp. $24.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).
World historians will enjoy and profit from this wise and wonderful book with an eye-opening approach succinctly captured in its title: The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. Richard W. Bulliett, professor of history at Columbia University and former director of its Middle East Institute, offers a startlingly original interpretation that challenges not only conventional wisdom but the historical master narrative of the last fourteen centuries. No one who has digested this little volume will be able to look at Islam and Christianity again in the same way.
At the first glance, Bulliet's book appears to be a rebuttal of Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis. In fact, the real target is Bernard Lewis, sage of Middle Eastern studies, who originated the term in an article on "The Roots of Muslim Rage" in 1990 and whose baleful influence on the Bush administration helped spur the American occupation of Iraq in 2003. It is a distinguished Arabist's response to the academic and policy-making drum beaters of American empire whose misunderstanding of Islam and Middle Eastern history have led to talk of a generations-long war with radical Islam and trying to make Mesopotamia safe for democracy.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
08/26/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Bulliet is yet another Eastern dhimmi. The book is already long in the remainder bins, but readers should take notice of this surrenderist creep.
#2
"But we refuse to countenance the thought of loving them for their values"
Ohh, let me count thy ways. You are respectful, personable, despise outward expression of deviancy, you look after your families, you hold prorper respect for sages, you ensure local community, you are not afraid of personal contact, soft spoken, modest,you are ardent in belief, you can change,you are are of promise of Abraham, and you smile at me. Thats why I love you.
#3
In fact, the real target is Bernard Lewis, sage of Middle Eastern studies, who originated the term in an article on "The Roots of Muslim Rage" in 1990 and whose baleful influence on the Bush administration helped spur the American occupation of Iraq in 2003. It is a distinguished Arabist's response to the academic and policy-making drum beaters of American empire whose misunderstanding of Islam and Middle Eastern history have led to talk of a generations-long war with radical Islam and trying to make Mesopotamia safe for democracy.
Whatta load of fetid tripe! I don't know if this is just the reviewer projecting or the book's actual thesis, but I sure won't read it after that line.
"Islam, now at the beginning of its fifteenth century, awaits its renewer. The next two or three decades should, he thinks, "see religious leaders of tolerant and peaceful conscience, in the mold of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, eclipse in respect and popular following today's advocates of jihad, intolerance, and religious autocracy" (p. 161).
#4
Actually, I think this guy is wrong, but not for the reasons people here will think.
The Islam preached and practiced today, by both the "secular authoritarians" (which is a big misnomer, IMHO) and by the "religious authoritarians" is IMHO different from what the Moslem world really did believe in the 12th century, even if the latter are trying to sell their alleged belief system as Authentic 12th Century Islam.
(Note I say that's what they're trying to sell. I have my doubts that it's what they actually believe instead of what they find useful to get Joe Jihadi to express his dissatisfaction with his society by blowing up Americans rather than blowing up Mullahs and Princes; the evidence suggests that they're pretty amoral).
#5
AS, actually, they are trying to sell 13th century Islam. The 12th century of Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina was overturned by "reformation" (back to roots Islam).
Not that Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina were somehow a result of Islam, rather their works were produced despite of it.
personable - sectarianism within Islam results in no MORE than 20% of any group of Muslims treating the other 80% as apostates. They hate each other; they despise us.
despise deviancy - they exterminate homosexuals, abandoners of Islam, adulterers, apostates, etc and de-limb thieves. Where a majority of Muslims form governments, they ethnically cleanse oppressed minorities, even as they (CAIR, et al) make extreme demands on states where THEY are a minority.
family care - males may add wives (to 4) at will and may divorse by repeating "talaq" 3 times. At divorse, males get custody of children unless they chose to abandon same. Male spousal battery is prescribed in the Koran (4:84). "Honor" killings pollute their social life.
respect educators (sages) - Criticism of Muslim doctrine results in death threats. Sages in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany are under police protection after receiving threats from "respectful" Muslims. Bat Yeor, Steve Emerson and Robert Spencer REFUSE to even name their home states, in face of Muslim lawlessness and savagery.
support local communities - The Koran prescribes disassociation from Jews and Christians, hence the surly snears we get from that corrosive minority. Further, they seek interference with the dominant culture, by demanding surrogate enforcement of sharia perversity.
modest - Muslim males are extremely vulgar and condescending to women. In some European countries MOST convictions for sexual offenses are registered against Muslim males. The unholy Koran prescribes that women exist for "ploughing" as are "fields" ploughed. The mere presence of Muslims in any community, ensures that equal treatment under law is subverted. In Philadelphia, Muslims on juries routinely nullify verdicts, where a homocidal member of one of their recruitment communities (blacks; hispanics) is on trial.
ardent in belief - So was Hitler. Strength of conviction is hardly a cardinal virtue. Polled Muslims consistently reveal fanaticism of belief. Fact rarely registers on a Muslim's brain, hence their denials of the Holocaust and Muslim culpability for 9-11 (even in face of 3 admissions by senior al-Qaeda spokesanimals)
open to change - Central to Muslim dogma is their fixed belief that the Koran is the final message to mankind by their concocted deity. EVERY American Muslim leader is not working within the constitution; they are working to overthrow the American Constitution which would be replaced with the unholy Koran.
children of Abraham - the notorious "Satanic Verse" incident, where the phony "prophet" had to retract Koran verse, because he claimed they were received while he was under Satanic possession, illustrates the fact that Muslims HAVE to believe that the Jewish and Christian testaments, were distorted by Satan. There was an infamous incident in Germany where a Christian preacher, having been presented with a Koran, tried to reciprocate by handing a Bible to a mullah. The Koranimal angrily refused same.
cheerfulness - Muslims TAKE from our societies; it is easier to make the grab by using strategic deceit (al-taqiyyah) to feign friendship. Other than ignoramuses who have yet to learn their Koranic obligation ("jihad is prescribed to you"), a smile on a Muslim's face is covered by a knife in his back pocket. Current trials are proving that "unindicted co-conspirators" as CAIR and ISNA, use the same "doble cara" of the Central American communists, who President Reagan put down. For unknown reasons, GWB STILL pays CAIR/ISNA consultation fees on "Islamic affairs."
loving nature - In 5000 years of recorded history, no greater haters have arisen to top Arab Koranimals. They murdered an estimated 300,000,000 Slavs, Russians, Indians, Persians, Mongols, Jews, Egyptians, Assyrians, Levantines, Nubians, Ethiopians, Berbers, Iberians, Gauls, Germans, Franks, Norsemen, Chinese, Thais, etc. They are passive only when they have to be. Where they have the numbers and a dhimmi (Hillary/Barrack) pseudo-opposition, they are merciless in their slaughter.
Why the F@#$ can't a majority in the West understand the inherent aggression and perversity of the Muslim enemy? If someone wants to destroy Western Civilization, then make stupidity a crime. Are streets would be empty.
#7
Against perceptions of the "otherness" of Islam, he argues the two are sibling civilizations, actually fraternal twins, sharing more similarities than differences.
Too bad the differences are both irreconcilable and totally fatal for Christianity.
After about 1500 the two parted ways, "like fraternal twins that are almost indistinguishable in childhood but have distinctive and not necessarily compatible personalities as adults"
[N]ot necessarily compatible, now theres an understatement on a par with calling the ocean rather damp.
In Christian civilization, the contest between crown and clergy ended in separation of church and state, but in its sibling it developed into "a malignant rivalry in which personal tyranny, accompanied by suppression of critical religious voices, developed as a self-fulfilling prophecy"
Which continues unabated to this day.
In the shadow of the Cold War, under the spell of the magic words "development" and "modernization," academics created an American Orientalism that assumed Islam was a relic destined to pass away.
It is, but only a small percentage of people realize it, least of all the Muslims.
Completely missed were "the middle ground of people deeply wedded to their religious traditions, but eager to share in at least some of the benefits of the modern world, [who] gave birth to the Iranian Revolution, a multitude of Islamic movements and political parties, and, sadly, the jihadist plots of Osama bin Laden.
Sane people call these individuals Islamic colonists. They are quite eager to share in at least some of the benefits of the modern world but only in so far as it furthers their Islamic agenda.
But with rare exception, Islamic activism went unobserved and unanalyzed in the early days of Middle East studies, and remains disturbingly puzzling to the present day"
Puzzling only to insensate credulous abettors like Richard Bulliett.
But we refuse to countenance the thought of loving them for their values
Thats probably because Muslims embrace sharia law, which embodies some of the most barbarous Neanderthal practices to have survived the stone age.
Islam, says Bulliet, is in a "crisis of authority" that will take several generations to resolve
The author carelessly overlooks how Islam will be rather fortunate to survive even another single generation before it provokes the West into obliterating it out of sheer frustration over incessant terrorist predations.
Predicting that the next Islamic revitalization movements will come from the peripheries, he identifies the Islamic diaspora communities of America and Europe, democratic Islamic political parties in certain Muslim countries, and new religious universities in Indonesia and Turkey as sources that could generate the creativity and vitality to transform the Islam of the twenty-first century.
This is delusional on so many levels that it is hard to even begin parsing the mistaken notions this author thrusts forward with so little regard for the reality on the ground.
He further expects that "conservative voices from the centerincluding both governments in majority Muslim countries and the marginalized traditional ulamawill weigh less in the future spiritual balance than some of the new expressions of Islam on the edge"
Please note how this totally unfounded assertion is presented without the least supporting evidence or critical analysis. Overwhelmingly, Islams major impetus continues to come from its historic center and its radicalizing influence continues to strangle all moderating or modernizing voices.
Islam, now at the beginning of its fifteenth century, awaits its renewer.
This blithering idiot refuses to comprehend how Islam has already found its renewer in the likes of Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin Laden, and Ayman Zawahiri. They are not mere revivalists as he would like us to thinkand these puritanical fanatics instead have purged Islam of any acquired modernity that once tainted it.
The next two or three decades should, he thinks, "see religious leaders of tolerant and peaceful conscience, in the mold of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, eclipse in respect and popular following today's advocates of jihad, intolerance, and religious autocracy"
Everything about modern Islam militates exactly against such a sorely mistaken notion. Islams rapacious nature guarantees that all such innovators or reformers are not just discredited but, too often, murdered along with their followers. It is precisely this intolerance for any evolution into a benevolent and cooperative entity that assures Islam's pending demise.
Short, thought provoking, and available in paperback, this is a perfect piece for generating lively discussion in world history, Middle East studies, and comparative religion courses.
#9
Columbia University Press has produced some of the most awful crap imaginable in the past 10 years. Not just this drivel, but Gender Studies crap, New Journalism studies crap, Ethic Studies Crap, New Labor studies crap.
and their tuition is outrageous too as well as the University's plan to gobble up land in Harlem.
#11
Recalling that "Judeo-Christian civilization" is a term originally coined by Nietzsche to deride both and was adopted only after World War II, when its acceptance changed the master narrative, he hopes to do the same by proposing an Islamo-Christian kinship that will help Americans find a common ground with the Muslims in their midst. Against perceptions of the "otherness" of Islam, he argues the two are sibling civilizations, actually fraternal twins, sharing more similarities than differences.
Aw, hell, nobody told me!
Posted by: Constantine XI ||
08/26/2007 10:13 Comments ||
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#12
Columbia University Press has produced some of the most awful crap imaginable
alumni in the state department?
Posted by: john frum ||
08/26/2007 11:44 Comments ||
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#13
Talk about a bad reviewer. He couldn't even spell the guys name right! He left the 'sh' out of the second syllable.
Posted by: Total War ||
08/26/2007 12:24 Comments ||
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#14
"Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends." Koran
#15
His case is composed of four essays, each of which can stand alone but taken together make an ingenious argument that Islam and Christianity should be thought of as two versions of a common socioreligious system, like Orthodox Christianity and Western Christendom
When your base premise is fundamentally flawed, all results, hypothesies or conclusions drawn will also be flawed. You can write it as fancifully or as pseudo-scholarly as you like, but Islam is not now, nor has it ever been in any way related to Christianity. Mohammed hated the Christ of the Bible, and his writings reflect that hatred. To someone who donesn't accept the divinity of Christ, or is irreligious, perhaps calling Jesus a prophet is considered a compliment. But to Christians of the period, as well as today, it denies the basic tenet of the Christian faith, in that it it took a Divine God incarnate to make a sacrifice of himself for mankind.
I would make no argument that the "orthodox Christian" denominations may have much in common with Islam, since they themselves deny the divinity of Christ and the authority of scripture, but I use the term Christian in a very specific sense. One cannot deny the basic premise that one's faith is built on, and still claim to be a follower of that faith.
"Christian" civilization was not built by those who were Christian in name only, but by people who actually believed in Christ, and his divinity.
The author seems to really be making a case for a homogenized ecumenical "religious civilization" but by no means has he made the case for an Islamo-Christian one.
I would also make the obvious case that the theory falls apart because of muslim objections as well. You don't need much proof for this, just look at what they say and do.
#16
This is the sort of Orientalist nonsense that has caused the US to prop up Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for decades. It is reinforced by a segment of the feudal elite of both states who appear to be westernized and modern.
"Good old boys" who can drink you under the table and chase skirt with the best. They must be just like us.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/26/2007 16:58 Comments ||
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#17
Word. Spot on. Precisamente. Exactol. Le Bingo*. Bulls-Eye, john frum!
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/26/2007 17:28 ||
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#1
"America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend."
um, wrong conclusion. We won the cold war. Sadaam is dead. AQ is decimated. Most of the members on the cards are dead. We are winning in Iraq. And million of people world-wide are helping us win the war against Islamist extremists.
So far - it remains lethal to challenge us, something I'm sure little Mo will soon grasp as well.
#2
that's the conclusion our democrats, academics and assorted loser leftists would deliver. Hillary and crew would do so just for power, knowing better, which is probably worse
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/26/2007 18:28 Comments ||
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9/11 has brought Americans closer to Islam, since the Americans started studying Islam after the bloody attacks and realised that Islam was a peaceful religion, said Walter Russell Mead on Saturday. The hell you say, Walter!
The US foreign policy expert and Henry Kissinger Senior Jolly Good Fellow for the US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations was speaking at Jamia Ashrafia on The Influence of Dhimmitude Religion on the US Foreign Policy.
Osama was not a true leader of Islam and his acts were against the teachings of Islam, he said. Mead said as far as war on terror was concerned, the American Muslims were not a problem, but a solution, since they could act as a *ahem* bridge between Islam and West. Answering a question regarding the US support for military regime, he said there was not true democracy in Pakistan and the United States wanted to see Pakistan a truly democratic Muslim state with better socio-economic conditions. Religion was never a controversial issue in the world and religious education was being given everywhere, including the US, Mead said. Thanks for clearing things up, Walter! Please feel free to visit Pakistan and share your wisdom again soon.
Posted by: ryuge ||
08/26/2007 03:23 ||
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#1
Please feel free to LIVE in Pakistan and share your wisdom.
#10
I, for one, know a lot more about Islam than I did six years ago. I even own a Koran. However, I like Islam a lot less than I did six years ago. The more I learn, the less I like.
#16
GUAM K57 Call-in > informed host that Guam has been listed/indic as a de facto future target by Radical Muslims; + that besides that Russ bomber, NAVMAR Guam USN officials did not know there was a Chin PLAN Submarine observing VALIANT SHIELD just two miles offshore from Guam.
#17
Watching the acts of the Brave Lions of Islam brought that desire to completion.
Darth, while I still hope that a Muslim holocaust somehow can be avoided, I too have nearly lost all hope. A list: (not necessarily in order)
Endless mass murder attacks in Bierut, Kenya, America, Bali, Madrid, Bali, Beslan, London plus constant predations in Israel, India, The Philippines, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and all over the globe.
A carbomb with infants strapped into their car seats.
A five year-old child set on fire as revenge.
Kris Donald burned alive.
A retarded teenager laced into his bomb vest and sent packing.
Palestinians rejoicing over Hamas missiles exploding on their own turf.
Jirga sanctioned gang rapes against entirely blameless victims.
Occupation and destruction of embassies on international soil.
Heinous murders masquerading as "honor" killings.
Routine Catch & Release of known terrorist operatives.
Intentional addition of inflammatory images to six month-old cartoons.
Conferences dedicated to denying the Holocaust.
Cartoon contests to portray denial of the Holocaust.
Overt declarations in favor of renewed Jewish genocide.
Death threats against Pope Benedict.
Beheading preadolescent Christian schoolgirls.
Destruction of the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to unstable regimes.
Others may please feel free to submit additions to my woefully abbreviated list.
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