Just to follow on from Mindysan33’s:
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I guess I need to learn more about this. What are the less-oppressive Muslim states? Are there officially Islamic governments whose citizens enjoy openness, equality, religious freedom, and so on?
A country with lots of Muslims isn’t necessarily a “Muslim country,” any more than the US is a “Christian country.”
I haven’t been impressed when he’s talked about Scientology.
http://umbraxenu.no-ip.biz/mediawiki/index.php/Category:Reza_Aslan
Pretty much, except for Israel, Turkey, and Egypt (which is at this point essentially a military dictatorship), the rest of the middle east has some degree of religious influence in their legal structures, so most of them could be considered a “religious oriented country” with varying degrees of democratic practices. All have parliaments with degrees of autonomy from the executive branch (which is often royalty). How about Jordan?
Can you maybe link directly to something he said, rather than a wiki page that links to other things? Are these things he said in defense of Scientology? Or what? The one or two links had nothing to do with Aslan, or had one line about him with some unfounded rumors about him…
But that has little or nothing to do with his base of expertise on religion, especially Christianity or Islam.
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Plenty of Americans believe the US is based on religious principles.* But I don’t think the US is a Christian state. I still think Aslan was putting words in the CNN talking head’s mouth, to make her appear intolerant and stupid.
*I think they’re wrong, but the case is certainly made with frequency. And volume.
The UAE?
Pre-Erdogan, I’d have thought Turkey was the highest-regarded.
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I thought Turkey was an explicitly secular state. A high percentage of Muslim citizens, but not (legally, um… governmentally) Muslim.
The US is explicitly secular, although a high percentage of Americans are Christians.
Maybe I just don’t have the vocabulary to describe this.
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Turkey also had a secular state, though, which doesn’t fit @Footface standards that he’s setting to better understand this issue.
UAE is certainly a state with Sharia laws. Jordan, Kuwait, and Oman… Lebanon.
Plus, I think it’s disingenuous to say “look at states with Islamic law and how unfree they are” when we can point to any number of examples of unfree places that don’t employ religion, or employ a different religion, to justify their state structure. It’s not like literally every other place in the world is a human rights paradise except countries with laws drawn from Islam.
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Yes, clearly there are hellholes that are not Islamic theocracies. And Islamic theocracies are hellholes. I propose we criticize all of the hellholes.
Footface, making the world better and/or worse since 1966.
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I’m no expert on any of this and I’m certainly not claiming that non-Islamic states are especially “free” in comparison.
I just went looking for some kind of report and found that wiki link, which gave the UAE the highest rating.
Turkey’s a bit of an odd case, isn’t it?
I know it was secular, I just wonder how that works in practice and whether it’s still as secular as it once was.
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To be fair, I’d argue that this is a point of contention politically, with a not insignificant segment of the population disagreeing with this assessment. I think we qualify as a secular state, but plenty of others disagree with our view.
But I’d also argue that even if a state is not explicitly an “Islamic” state, that having a Muslim majority is going to mean that Islam is an influence, even if not the overriding influence, on the structure of law. Law makers are going to be influenced by their own moral compasses when drafting laws, and if someone is religious, that’s going to be part and parcel of their decision making processes.
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I totally agree with you about criticizing hell holes! It’s nice to agree.
I do think that we can’t assume some place is a hell hole because of their professed faith (or lack thereof, in some minds). We can probably agree that there are plenty of places that qualify as a “secular” state and are hellholes for some or all of their citizens.
I don’t think it is, since Erdogan is attempting to use Islam to rally the working classes and rural populations to his side. If there was an actually attempted coup a few months ago (and I’m still not fully convinced it wasn’t a falseflag) it would have been a secular coup, as Turkey has a long history of such.
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I can’t believe that this discussion made it this far without mentioning…
While the show does derive some of its humour from exploring the interactions of the Muslims with the non-Muslim townspeople of Mercy, and the contrast of conservative Islamic views (held primarily by the characters of Baber and Fatima) with more liberal interpretations of Islam (as represented by Amaar and Rayyan), at its core the show is essentially a traditional sitcom whose most unusual trait is the simple fact of being set among an underrepresented and misunderstood cultural community. Nawaz herself has stated that the show’s primary agenda is to be funny, not to be a political platform. She has also stated that she views comedy as one of the most valuable and powerful ways to break down barriers and to encourage dialogue and understanding between cultures.
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I agree. I am not a big fan of theocracy in general, regardless of whether theocratic nations are Islamist, Christianist, Buddhistist, or whatever.
Turkey has a long-standing reputation as being secular, yet culturally Muslim. I don’t think it can stay that way for very long unless something drastic happens, because of Erdoğan (aka Turkish Putin) playing to the religionists. At the same time, I think the US and Russia are in danger of becoming Christianist.
The attempted coup a couple months ago was launched by a guy in Pennsylvania who plays to the Islamists even more than Erdoğan does. He makes Erdoğan seem like the reasonable one.
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Was there every any real evidence of that, other than Erdogan proclaiming it?
I suppose I can talk to my Turkish friend, who has a long history of activism? Wow, that just sounded like “I have a Turkish friend” but I actually do have a Turkish friend and she has been an activist, specifically for people who are not ethnically Turkish. She knew people who were assassinated by anti-Kurdish, pro-Turkey groups.
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I’m not sure. The guy in Pennsylvania (Fethullah Gülen) denies his involvement.
I hope he wasn’t behind it, because as much as I want to see Erdoğan lose power, I definitely don’t think Gülen should be the one to replace him.
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Yes, seems like it might be a religiously oriented, right wing struggle, which explains why the coup didn’t succeed. Prior coups have been carried about by the Kemelist military, which has a hardline secular stance.
[ETA] It seems like Erdogan (at least from the Wikipedia page) has made him into something he’s not, though, prompted by a personal fall out of some kind? It seems like there is no real evidence to suggest he’s a terrorist or a supporter of terrorism, it’s just an effective strategy to legitimize pushing for outlawing a political opponent. Both are anti-Kurdish, though.
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Of course not. My interest in him is only when he intersects my narrow obsession with Scientology. There I’ve found him to be superficial, uncritically repeating the official position and tends to ignore anything ex-member apostates might have to say – much in the style of Gordon Melton.
Previous coups in Turkey have been in support of secularism, not against it, so I thought the coup was a good thing at first. Now, I’m not so sure, especially if Gülen is involved.
I do think Erdoğan is trying to make Gülen sound like a terrorist. I would probably consider him like Erdoğan or a little worse. I don’t think Gülen is directly involved in terrorism, but his associations are definitely a bit dodgy. I am not an expert on this, so I probably don’t know anything you don’t know regarding the coup attempt.
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