Islam today

The caveat, “Islam today,” is important. The central problem with Maher’s and Harris’s analyses are that they take a reality — extremism in Islam — and describe it in ways that suggest it is inherent in Islam.

Harris prides himself on being highly analytical — with a PhD, no less. I learned in graduate school that you can never explain a variable phenomenon with a fixed cause. So, if you are asserting that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant — “the mother lode of bad ideas” — then, since Islam has been around for 14 centuries, we should have seen 14 centuries of this behavior.

Harris should read Zachary Karabell’s book “Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Conflict and Cooperation.” What he would discover is that there have been wars but also many centuries of peace. Islam has at times been at the cutting edge of modernity, but like today, it has also been the great laggard. As Karabell explained to me, “If you exclude the last 70 years or so, in general the Islamic world was more tolerant of minorities than the Christian world. That’s why there were more than a million Jews living in the Arab world until the early 1950s — nearly 200,000 in Iraq alone.”

If there were periods when the Islamic world was open, modern, tolerant and peaceful, this suggests that the problem is not in the religion’s essence and that things can change once more.

confuzzled dude wrote:

The caveat, “Islam today,” is important. The central problem with Maher’s and Harris’s analyses are that they take a reality — extremism in Islam — and describe it in ways that suggest it is inherent in Islam.

Harris prides himself on being highly analytical — with a PhD, no less. I learned in graduate school that you can never explain a variable phenomenon with a fixed cause. So, if you are asserting that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant — “the mother lode of bad ideas” — then, since Islam has been around for 14 centuries, we should have seen 14 centuries of this behavior.

Harris should read Zachary Karabell’s book “Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Conflict and Cooperation.” What he would discover is that there have been wars but also many centuries of peace. Islam has at times been at the cutting edge of modernity, but like today, it has also been the great laggard. As Karabell explained to me, “If you exclude the last 70 years or so, in general the Islamic world was more tolerant of minorities than the Christian world. That’s why there were more than a million Jews living in the Arab world until the early 1950s — nearly 200,000 in Iraq alone.”

If there were periods when the Islamic world was open, modern, tolerant and peaceful, this suggests that the problem is not in the religion’s essence and that things can change once more.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-islam-has-a-problem-right-now-but-heres-why-bill-maher-is-wrong/2014/10/09/b6302a14-4fe6-11e4-aa5e-7153e466a02d_story.html?hpid=z2

• Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) Middle East Palestinian
  
  
• Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) Asia Philippines
  
  
• Gama’a al-Islamiyya Middle East Egypt
  
  
• Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) Middle East Palestinian Territories
  
  
• Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM) Asia Pakistan
  
  
• Hezbollah (Party of God) Middle East Lebanon
  
  
• Kongra-Gel (formerly Kurdistan Workers' Party) (KGK) Middle East Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria Formerly PKK, KADEK
  
  
• Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) Middle East Palestinian Territories
  
  
• Islamic Jihad Group Middle East Palestinian Territories
  
  
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Middle East Palestinian Territories
  
  
• PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC) Middle East Palestinian Territories
  
  
• Al-Qa’ida Worldwide Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
  
  
• Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) Asia Uzbekistan, Afghanistan 
  
  
• Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) (JEM) Asia Pakistan 
  
  
• Lashkar-e Tayyiba (Army of the Righteous) (LET) Asia Pakistan 
  
  
• Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades Middle East Palestinian Territories 
  
  
• Asbat an-Ansar Middle East Lebanon 
  
  
• Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb Middle East, Africa Algeria, Mali, Niger (formerly GSPC)
  
  
• Jemaah Islamiya organization (JI) Asia Indonesia Also in Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore
  
  
• Lashkar i Jhangvi Asia Pakistan 
  
  
• Al-Qaeda Kurdish Battalions Middle East Iraq Formerly Ansar al-Islam
  
  
• Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Middle East, Africa Libya 
  
  
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (formerly Al-Qaeda in Iraq aka Tanzim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR)) Middle East
  
  
• Iraq Formerly Jama'at Al-Tawhid wa'al-Jihad, JTJ, al-Zarqawi Network. Al-Nusra Front is considered an alias of Al-Qaeda in Iraq
  
  
• Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) Asia Uzbekistan 
  
  
• 
  Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI-B) Asia Bangladesh 
  
  
• Al-Shabaab Africa Somalia 
  
  
• Kata'ib Hezbollah Middle East Iraq 
  
  
• Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Middle East Saudi Arabia 
  
  
• Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) Asia Bangladesh 
  
  
• Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) Asia Pakistan 
  
  
• Army of Islam (Palestinian)[7] Middle East Palestinian Territories 
  
  
• Indian Mujahideen (IM) (India) Asia India 
  
  
• Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) Asia Indonesia 
  
  
• Abdullah Azzam Brigades Middle East Iraq 
  
  
• Haqqani network Asia Afghanistan 
  
  
• Boko Haram Africa Nigeria
  
  
• Al-Mulathamun Brigade Africa Algeria 
  
  
• Ansar al-Shari'a in Benghazi Africa Libya 
  
  
• Ansar al-Shari'a in Darnah Africa Libya 
  
  
• Ansar al-Shari'a in Tunisia Africa Tunisia 
  
  
• Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Africa Egypt 
  
  
• Al-Nusra Front Middle East Syria 
  
  
• Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem Middle East Egypt