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To get a Western-style wall between mosque-and-state in historically Muslim societies requires an almost unthinkable rewriting of the social contract. Islam is

To get a Western-style wall between mosque-and-state in historically Muslim societies requires an almost unthinkable rewriting of the social contract. Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body. Trying to make a wedge between Islam and government in these places simply will not work. Many European historians contend that Western state secularism was a direct result of there being no lasting European empire following Rome to enforce religious doctrines (whereas most of the ME has been in the hands of one empire or another since the founding of Islam), and the Protestant Reformation only cemented the expectation among various nobles that they get to rule the world while the church sticks with ruling the soul. In short, the greater Middle East will always remain governed by religious politics. Something has to fix the mess out there, but excluding religion simply won't work.

kuschku 10y ago
> Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body. Christianity is not any different. "You shall not cut your hair round or trim your beard". 3rd book Mose, 19:27 Read the Bible, and you’ll find definitions for when to eat what, how long to preserve what, how to punish crimes, etc.
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  Trying to justify one terribly gone wrong political ideology with another isn't a good way to justify an argument. And in the modern age, many Christian majority nations have successfully created secular states, something Islamic states won't and never will consider unless major reform can occur.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  The difference being the New Testament was written decades after Christ's death by apostles who expected worldly salvation a lot earlier, and so the stories are ripe for exaggeration and misremembered details (and the parts that the Catholic Church destroyed because they were incompatible with their ruling ideology but we'll let that go for now). As for the Old Testament: how many Christians keep kosher? Islam's founding story is much more straightforward: Angel tells Muhammed to transcribe a book that exists word-for-word in heaven. No ambiguity there.
  - FreedomToCreate 10y ago
    Exactly no ambiguity. The Quran and the Hadiths clearly state things as they should be and leave little to ambiguity, and that is why reform is extremely difficult within Islam. When the book clearly says that it is the one and true word of God and is perfect, how will you justify reformation. Saying that religion is not a political issue in the middle east is a complete misunderstanding by people.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      I never said religion is not a political issue in the Middle East, I meant that you cannot simply fix the Middle East by "fixing" religion. You also cannot fix America's dysfunctional government by making it more like Singapore's. Whatever happens must be compatible with the cultures of the people living there, not what outsiders would prefer it to be. Come to think of it, that's a hefty reason the region is such a mess in the first place. Edit: the Hadiths are continually debated for accuracy and adherence as they have varying levels of perceived legitimacy, somewhat like interpretations of passages in the Christian New Testament.
- tcoppi 10y ago
  Christianity also has the very convenient line "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"[1] in the New Testament that basically codifies separation of church and state into the religion. Islam has nothing equivalent, in fact more so the opposite. 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The fact that a rule is in the OT doesn't mean it is Christian belief that it is applicable. In fact, the rejection of most of the OT Jewish law as inapplicable to non-Jewish Christian is itself in the Bible (Acts 15).
- rayiner 10y ago
  The difference is that the New Testament explicitly rejects at least part of the Old Testament's rules: http://crossexamined.org/cherry-picking-the-bible-are-christians-expected-to-follow-the-levitical-laws http://crossexamined.org/cherry-picking-the-bible-are-christ.... Moreover, the elevation of faith over adherence to law as the path to salvation also has the effect of deemphasizing the latter.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    And yet, there is a nice quote, attributed to Jesus himself, in the New Testament, saying that "I am not here to replace the old laws". Which can be interpreted as meaning that the OT still is relevant.
danharaj 10y ago
Challenging the Catholic Church and the divine right of kings was unthinkable too, and was a "full stack" social control model. Ideology doesn't do anything. People do things. Ideology is completely instrumental. Material forces dictate the way ideology manifests because, having no power of its own ideology must be propagated by something physical. The enlightenment, first of all a 20th century reinterpretation of history was not ideology overcoming ideology, but material forces of social change outmoding old ideology and fertilizing new. So the question is, what are the material, physical forces driving the political situation in the Middle East? Would it be ridiculous to say that the petrodollar, coups and bombs drive it?
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Yes, exactly. The debacle in the Middle East has far more to do with imperialism and neoliberalism than religion. Trying to fix a religion-dominated society by viewing it primarily through the lens of religion misses the larger picture, which unfortunately I see as (and am complicit with) being willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses of our past and present leaders so that I don't have to spend too much on gas.
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  The motivations are tied to the ideology. You simply cannot protect the ideology from the people and say its not the way that is wrong but the people who follow it when there are so many of the people follow the so called "wrong way". The Catholic Church ruled in a period where opposing it was difficult not only because of societal norms but also the peoples understanding of the world was limited and so opposing views were hard to justify. That is no longer the case, and as can be seen, secular nations have arisen in the west.
  - danharaj 10y ago
    > The Catholic Church ruled in a period where opposing it was difficult not only because of societal norms but also the peoples understanding of the world was limited and so opposing views were hard to justify. That's your claim. I say that the catholic church ruled because it had a stranglehold on material power. It behaved as a cartel for monarchic control. The ideology of the catholic church never prevented challenges to its power that were heterodox, like the multiple antipopes that arose through the years. The ideology of a celibate clergy never stopped popes from siring children and placing them in power. The catholic church declined because technology and economic activity developed into a system that could not be controlled by an entity like the church. Monarchies and the church became obsolete for material reasons, not the appearance of competing ideologies. The ideologies that came about were filling in the vacuum left by the church. A new social order had to be explained. Ideology is post-hoc. That's my claim.
Cyph0n 10y ago
I can provide two counterexamples. Lebanon has been a highly secular state with a varied population when it comes to religion (Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Druze). Unfortunately Hezbollah now has far more influence than it should have, which is what is ruining Lebanon in my opinion. My country Tunisia is slowly shifting towards a pseudo-secular republic. The constitution currently lists Islam as the country's religion, but freedom of religion is guaranteed. The majority are Sunnis, but there are some Shiites, Abadis, and a small historically Jewish population based on the island of Djerba.
- gotchange 10y ago
  Lebanon was a Christian-majority country prior to the mass wave of immigration in the 19th & 20th centuries and if we overlook this historical fact, it still retains a sizable population of Christians that makes the idea of an Islamic theocratic or fundamentalist rule highly unlikely but I agree with you that the main prob with Lebanon political system is its deep-rooted Confessionalism resulting from Taif Accord and political factions capitalizing and exploiting this system and this includes Iran-backed Hezbolla or Saudi-backed Future Movement.
  - nailer 10y ago
    For anyone else wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessionalism_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessionalism_(politics)
notahacker 10y ago
And yet, many historically Muslim societies do have a significant degree of separation between church and state. Turkey - a 99% Muslim society - introduced a secular constitution decades ago, and its secularist policies has seen women barred from political office or even jailed for covering their hair in a religiously-prescribed manner. Similarly, whilst the central Asian states and Muslim parts of China originally had secular government imposed on them by outside powers rather than phased in by indigenous nationalists, there's little doubting the separation of church and state exists. Sure, I'd be the first to agree that trying to introduce the wedge from the outside is incredibly dangerous and liable to backfire (even though in the long run it worked pretty much everywhere in the Soviet sphere of influence bar Afghanistan). But a large degree of separation of church and state is entirely possible with most of the population remaining Muslim. And frankly, the degree of separation of religion and politics is often overstated in the West. I mean, I live in a country with govt-funded parochial schools and an actual established church with formal political power... and I'd still consider it to be a society where religion has less influence on politics than the US.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  Not to mention, pre-Soviet invasion and disruption, Afghanistan under the monarchy was fairly secular: https://hmstur.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/afghan-women-and-a-modern-past/ https://hmstur.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/afghan-women-and-a-m...
  - russnewcomer 10y ago
    I'd disagree with that assessment. It seems that Kabul had pockets that were growing into secularism. The country as a whole was not. Qandahar never had the dip into secularism. Too many Westerners (my apologies if you are not, I am, and I see this contention that you have brought forth from many of them) read things about 'Afghanistan' that are really about Kabul. It's similar to equating New York City to all of America.
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  Turkey is slowly become less and less secular and the same can be said about many of the former muslim majority Soviet Nations. Iran and Saudi are already way past any form of separation (Iran is a complete Theocracy and Saudi is essentially a religious monarchy). Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_Turkey
rhino369 10y ago
>Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body. You are sort of right that Islam was more full stack than Christianity is in western civ now, but this is an over simplification. There were points in Western civilization were the Catholic Church had strong control over western laws. And while Islam started off with a pretty much unified religious and state body, that hasn't always been the case. The Ottoman Empire didn't use real Islamic law. In the far flung corners of the Ottoman Empire (like what is now Saudi Arabia) they pretty much practiced a more pure Islamic law, but the Ottoman Empire didn't. And it's successor states really didn't either. Most of the middle east is on a legal system that quite different from Islamic law. Only really the Saudis are following anything that closely, and even they don't do it 100%. The rest of the Islamic world really just uses it as a family court. The push to bring back Islamic law into full legal force is somewhat new. It's a fundamentalist movement that pushing that idea. Plus the idea that Islamic law is the only law isn't just a bad idea it's essentially unislamic too. Tazir crimes are laws that rulers make for their people and that has been part of Islam since the start.
- azth 10y ago
  > Plus the idea that Islamic law is the only law isn't just a bad idea it's essentially unislamic too. Could you expand on that?
gotchange 10y ago
> The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body. This couldn't be further from the truth. For example, Salat (Praying) which is the 2nd most important pillar of Islam right after the oral declaration (statement of faith - Shahada), you can't find anything whether How-To guide or tutorials in your so-called manual, and the same holds true for thee rest of the pillarsm and this very reason is the chief problem mainstream Sunnis have with Koranists[0] who only endorse the teachings of the Koran while rejecting completely Mohammad's sayings (Sunna). So, no the Koran is not a complete manual for the Sunni Muslim fundamentalists, far from it. It just complements Sunna and both constitute the canonical reference for those people. As with your deterministic overview of the inability to separate Islam and State in Muslim-majority countries, you just have to read about the experiments of Tunisia, Turkey and Albania and see for yourself how secularism developed in those countries despite all the challenges and concerns you cited in your comment. Literal Islam whether Sunni or Shiite version pose indeed a challenge for secularism to flourish in Muslim-majority countries but to write off in absolute terms, secularism taking root in those countries not now not ever is shortsighted and unfair. However, it's still refreshing to hear orientalists views every once in a while on those topics. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism
- azth 10y ago
  > For example, Salat (Praying) which is the 2nd most important pillar of Islam right after the oral declaration (statement of faith - Shahada), you can't find anything whether How-To guide or tutorials in your so-called manual The Quran orders Muslims to obey the Prophet Peace be upon him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4cARWalY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4cARWalY4
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  Anything that Mohammed commanded has to be followed. For example all Muslim men must grow and beard and shave their mustache because that is what Allah through the prophet commanded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpSgEr2vnwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpSgEr2vnwk

kuschku 10y ago

FreedomToCreate 10y ago
Trying to justify one terribly gone wrong political ideology with another isn't a good way to justify an argument. And in the modern age, many Christian majority nations have successfully created secular states, something Islamic states won't and never will consider unless major reform can occur.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
The difference being the New Testament was written decades after Christ's death by apostles who expected worldly salvation a lot earlier, and so the stories are ripe for exaggeration and misremembered details (and the parts that the Catholic Church destroyed because they were incompatible with their ruling ideology but we'll let that go for now). As for the Old Testament: how many Christians keep kosher? Islam's founding story is much more straightforward: Angel tells Muhammed to transcribe a book that exists word-for-word in heaven. No ambiguity there.
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  Exactly no ambiguity. The Quran and the Hadiths clearly state things as they should be and leave little to ambiguity, and that is why reform is extremely difficult within Islam. When the book clearly says that it is the one and true word of God and is perfect, how will you justify reformation. Saying that religion is not a political issue in the middle east is a complete misunderstanding by people.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    I never said religion is not a political issue in the Middle East, I meant that you cannot simply fix the Middle East by "fixing" religion. You also cannot fix America's dysfunctional government by making it more like Singapore's. Whatever happens must be compatible with the cultures of the people living there, not what outsiders would prefer it to be. Come to think of it, that's a hefty reason the region is such a mess in the first place. Edit: the Hadiths are continually debated for accuracy and adherence as they have varying levels of perceived legitimacy, somewhat like interpretations of passages in the Christian New Testament.
tcoppi 10y ago
Christianity also has the very convenient line "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"[1] in the New Testament that basically codifies separation of church and state into the religion. Islam has nothing equivalent, in fact more so the opposite. 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar
dragonwriter 10y ago
The fact that a rule is in the OT doesn't mean it is Christian belief that it is applicable. In fact, the rejection of most of the OT Jewish law as inapplicable to non-Jewish Christian is itself in the Bible (Acts 15).
rayiner 10y ago
The difference is that the New Testament explicitly rejects at least part of the Old Testament's rules: http://crossexamined.org/cherry-picking-the-bible-are-christians-expected-to-follow-the-levitical-laws http://crossexamined.org/cherry-picking-the-bible-are-christ.... Moreover, the elevation of faith over adherence to law as the path to salvation also has the effect of deemphasizing the latter.
- kuschku 10y ago
  And yet, there is a nice quote, attributed to Jesus himself, in the New Testament, saying that "I am not here to replace the old laws". Which can be interpreted as meaning that the OT still is relevant.

danharaj 10y ago

Challenging the Catholic Church and the divine right of kings was unthinkable too, and was a "full stack" social control model. Ideology doesn't do anything. People do things. Ideology is completely instrumental. Material forces dictate the way ideology manifests because, having no power of its own ideology must be propagated by something physical. The enlightenment, first of all a 20th century reinterpretation of history was not ideology overcoming ideology, but material forces of social change outmoding old ideology and fertilizing new. So the question is, what are the material, physical forces driving the political situation in the Middle East? Would it be ridiculous to say that the petrodollar, coups and bombs drive it?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Yes, exactly. The debacle in the Middle East has far more to do with imperialism and neoliberalism than religion. Trying to fix a religion-dominated society by viewing it primarily through the lens of religion misses the larger picture, which unfortunately I see as (and am complicit with) being willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses of our past and present leaders so that I don't have to spend too much on gas.
FreedomToCreate 10y ago
The motivations are tied to the ideology. You simply cannot protect the ideology from the people and say its not the way that is wrong but the people who follow it when there are so many of the people follow the so called "wrong way". The Catholic Church ruled in a period where opposing it was difficult not only because of societal norms but also the peoples understanding of the world was limited and so opposing views were hard to justify. That is no longer the case, and as can be seen, secular nations have arisen in the west.
- danharaj 10y ago
  > The Catholic Church ruled in a period where opposing it was difficult not only because of societal norms but also the peoples understanding of the world was limited and so opposing views were hard to justify. That's your claim. I say that the catholic church ruled because it had a stranglehold on material power. It behaved as a cartel for monarchic control. The ideology of the catholic church never prevented challenges to its power that were heterodox, like the multiple antipopes that arose through the years. The ideology of a celibate clergy never stopped popes from siring children and placing them in power. The catholic church declined because technology and economic activity developed into a system that could not be controlled by an entity like the church. Monarchies and the church became obsolete for material reasons, not the appearance of competing ideologies. The ideologies that came about were filling in the vacuum left by the church. A new social order had to be explained. Ideology is post-hoc. That's my claim.

Cyph0n 10y ago

I can provide two counterexamples. Lebanon has been a highly secular state with a varied population when it comes to religion (Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Druze). Unfortunately Hezbollah now has far more influence than it should have, which is what is ruining Lebanon in my opinion. My country Tunisia is slowly shifting towards a pseudo-secular republic. The constitution currently lists Islam as the country's religion, but freedom of religion is guaranteed. The majority are Sunnis, but there are some Shiites, Abadis, and a small historically Jewish population based on the island of Djerba.

gotchange 10y ago
Lebanon was a Christian-majority country prior to the mass wave of immigration in the 19th & 20th centuries and if we overlook this historical fact, it still retains a sizable population of Christians that makes the idea of an Islamic theocratic or fundamentalist rule highly unlikely but I agree with you that the main prob with Lebanon political system is its deep-rooted Confessionalism resulting from Taif Accord and political factions capitalizing and exploiting this system and this includes Iran-backed Hezbolla or Saudi-backed Future Movement.
- nailer 10y ago
  For anyone else wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessionalism_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessionalism_(politics)

notahacker 10y ago

And yet, many historically Muslim societies do have a significant degree of separation between church and state. Turkey - a 99% Muslim society - introduced a secular constitution decades ago, and its secularist policies has seen women barred from political office or even jailed for covering their hair in a religiously-prescribed manner. Similarly, whilst the central Asian states and Muslim parts of China originally had secular government imposed on them by outside powers rather than phased in by indigenous nationalists, there's little doubting the separation of church and state exists. Sure, I'd be the first to agree that trying to introduce the wedge from the outside is incredibly dangerous and liable to backfire (even though in the long run it worked pretty much everywhere in the Soviet sphere of influence bar Afghanistan). But a large degree of separation of church and state is entirely possible with most of the population remaining Muslim. And frankly, the degree of separation of religion and politics is often overstated in the West. I mean, I live in a country with govt-funded parochial schools and an actual established church with formal political power... and I'd still consider it to be a society where religion has less influence on politics than the US.

Apocryphon 10y ago
Not to mention, pre-Soviet invasion and disruption, Afghanistan under the monarchy was fairly secular: https://hmstur.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/afghan-women-and-a-modern-past/ https://hmstur.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/afghan-women-and-a-m...
- russnewcomer 10y ago
  I'd disagree with that assessment. It seems that Kabul had pockets that were growing into secularism. The country as a whole was not. Qandahar never had the dip into secularism. Too many Westerners (my apologies if you are not, I am, and I see this contention that you have brought forth from many of them) read things about 'Afghanistan' that are really about Kabul. It's similar to equating New York City to all of America.
FreedomToCreate 10y ago
Turkey is slowly become less and less secular and the same can be said about many of the former muslim majority Soviet Nations. Iran and Saudi are already way past any form of separation (Iran is a complete Theocracy and Saudi is essentially a religious monarchy). Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_Turkey

rhino369 10y ago

>Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body. You are sort of right that Islam was more full stack than Christianity is in western civ now, but this is an over simplification. There were points in Western civilization were the Catholic Church had strong control over western laws. And while Islam started off with a pretty much unified religious and state body, that hasn't always been the case. The Ottoman Empire didn't use real Islamic law. In the far flung corners of the Ottoman Empire (like what is now Saudi Arabia) they pretty much practiced a more pure Islamic law, but the Ottoman Empire didn't. And it's successor states really didn't either. Most of the middle east is on a legal system that quite different from Islamic law. Only really the Saudis are following anything that closely, and even they don't do it 100%. The rest of the Islamic world really just uses it as a family court. The push to bring back Islamic law into full legal force is somewhat new. It's a fundamentalist movement that pushing that idea. Plus the idea that Islamic law is the only law isn't just a bad idea it's essentially unislamic too. Tazir crimes are laws that rulers make for their people and that has been part of Islam since the start.

azth 10y ago
> Plus the idea that Islamic law is the only law isn't just a bad idea it's essentially unislamic too. Could you expand on that?

gotchange 10y ago

> The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body. This couldn't be further from the truth. For example, Salat (Praying) which is the 2nd most important pillar of Islam right after the oral declaration (statement of faith - Shahada), you can't find anything whether How-To guide or tutorials in your so-called manual, and the same holds true for thee rest of the pillarsm and this very reason is the chief problem mainstream Sunnis have with Koranists[0] who only endorse the teachings of the Koran while rejecting completely Mohammad's sayings (Sunna). So, no the Koran is not a complete manual for the Sunni Muslim fundamentalists, far from it. It just complements Sunna and both constitute the canonical reference for those people. As with your deterministic overview of the inability to separate Islam and State in Muslim-majority countries, you just have to read about the experiments of Tunisia, Turkey and Albania and see for yourself how secularism developed in those countries despite all the challenges and concerns you cited in your comment. Literal Islam whether Sunni or Shiite version pose indeed a challenge for secularism to flourish in Muslim-majority countries but to write off in absolute terms, secularism taking root in those countries not now not ever is shortsighted and unfair. However, it's still refreshing to hear orientalists views every once in a while on those topics. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism

azth 10y ago
> For example, Salat (Praying) which is the 2nd most important pillar of Islam right after the oral declaration (statement of faith - Shahada), you can't find anything whether How-To guide or tutorials in your so-called manual The Quran orders Muslims to obey the Prophet Peace be upon him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4cARWalY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4cARWalY4
FreedomToCreate 10y ago
Anything that Mohammed commanded has to be followed. For example all Muslim men must grow and beard and shave their mustache because that is what Allah through the prophet commanded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpSgEr2vnwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpSgEr2vnwk