Islam would be a lot better off if it wasnt such a closed religion but contained the tenet of guilt that Christian and other religions share.
Saudi Arabias Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh recently said that girls are ready for marriage by age 10 or 12. In March he had declared All churches in the Arabian Peninsula must be destroyed."
After countless acts of Islamic terror in the last few years one would have expected some introspection by Muslim clerics and leaders about the cardinal principles of their religion some feeling of guilt. There are Western guilt American guilt German guilt capitalist guilt Hindu guilt etc. But where is Muslim guilt? After all this is a religion that spread by the sword decimated civilizations killed and enslaved millions and enchained women. The handful of Muslims who acknowledge these facts are ostracized and often accused of apostasya crime punishable by death in Islamic law.
While guilt-peddling is a despicable activityand is a favorite of Leftistsguilt must be seen as a product and function of the core ideas ideals mores and values of a civilization nation community or any other collectivity. The play of these ideas ideals mores and values in collective consciousness causes moral progress and decline remorse and hubris guilt and unthinking indulgence.
Western guilt has been associated with the chief tenets of Christian theology. But the root of guilt may not always be Christian. Consider the case of the ancient Indian Emperor Ashok Maurya (r. 274-232 BC). He felt deep remorse" at the bloodshed caused by the Kalinga War (261-62 BC) a feeling that brought a sea change in his policies and administration mellowing the warrior king to adopt nonviolence as official policy focus on public works promote education and generally make public life more genial. This was a far cry from the spitefulness that was the hallmark of the earlier phase of his rule for which he acquired the epithet Ashok the Fierce.
Over two millennia later owing to its exposure to the grand Enlightenment ideas Hindu society underwent a metamorphosis. The social reform movement in the nineteenth century attacked caste barriers and helped emancipate women. The polity society and intelligentsia of India accepted that there were communities (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the official parlance) which had been historically discriminated against. There were social cultural and even religious factors responsible for the discrimination and therefore they needed protection and official patronage for uplift. Similarly there were multifarious factors responsible for discrimination against women.
A byproduct of the turbulence in social psyche was Hindu guilt. This resulted in among other things the unrestrained expansion of affirmative action for the so-called lower castes and a draconian anti-dowry law. After some time guilt the illegitimate child of heightened consciousness took over the reins of public discourse and political action. The denouement? Caste-baiting much like race-baiting in the West has become a tool in the hands of most retrograde politicians in India. In Indian society caste distinctions are getting blurred because of natural integration economic development and the imperatives of modernizationand caste-perpetuating politicians are trying to divide it.
In the case of Islam however neither is consciousness ennobled nor is there any danger of guilt pangs. There is finality about this religion: Muhammad as the Seal of the Prophets was the last and greatest prophet; the Koran is the word of Allah; the Hadith are the sayings and teachings of the Prophet. There is no moral perplexity no doctrinal ambiguity no theological confusion no scope for questions about the fundamentals (there are indeed frightful retribution for those who do so). There is a clear correlation between human progress and asking questions; a civilization in which questions are not asked or tolerated ossifies. In Islam questions are not asked and answers are not given; instead the faithful get prescriptions and proscriptions which they are supposed to follow in letter and spirit.
Now Burkeans like Russell Kirk also favor prescription but individual liberty is never absent in Western conservatism. In Islam on the other hand there is no scope for human freedom. Etymologically Islam means submissionthat is submission to the will of Allah. And it is Muhammad and the clergy who make the will of Allah evident.
This submission is not just a matter of theology; it permeates Muslim customs traditions social conventions cultural normsin short it permeates Islamic modus vivendi. Islam is a complete world in itself with every aspect of the life of the faithful tightly regulated and monitored including the behavior in bedroom and toilet. It is also a totally closed world. Muslim clergy ensures that it remains a closed world much to the suffering of millions of Muslims who favor liberty and openness in life culture and religion.
At the heart of the problem is the Salafist school which preaches the purest and unchanging form of Islam. Financed by oil money and promoted by the most reactionary mullahs Salafism frowns at even a hint of freethinking and assimilation with other non-Islamic cultural and spiritual traditions. This is the reason that Indian schools of Islam dislike Salafism.
With its intellectual tradition having become pedantic and society stultified India was also somewhat closed in the early nineteenth century. But its intellectual tradition though stodgy and barren had not been replaced by a totalitarian weltanschauung as was the case in what became the Islamic world.
Like invasive species (e.g. water hyacinth) which unbalance ecology and destroy diversity of a habitat Islam dispenses with the underpinnings wellsprings and fonts of pre-Islamic and non-Islamic cultures and civilizations. The pagan Santa Claus became a Christian icon; local deities and customs blended with the great tradition of Hinduism; but the advent of Islam meant the demise or marginalization of all that was pre- or non-Islamic. Worse it is considered blasphemous to seek solace in anything other than Islamic: since Islam is the absolute and only truth a journey outside it is anathema. Or so the Salafists believe; few Muslims dare to challenge them.
So with all wells dry contact with the external world forbidden and radical exegesis practically ruled out the only reservoir left to draw intellectual and spiritual sustenance from is that of pure Islam i.e. Salafist Islam. Hence the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a well-known fact that Salafism opposes speculative theology (kalam). The religion of the desert spawns cultural spiritual and philosophical desertification. Neither heightened consciousness nor guilt can grow in a desert.