I copy this shamelessly to you, something which has absolutely nothing to do with Progressivism or Islam, but its one hell of a discovery!

Its been a couple of weeks since I last reviewed the Friday prayer in my city. There’s a good reason for that: I simply wasn’t able to go. So, instead of making stuff up, I did not write about it. But, today I did go and my intentions were less than pure, at least in the Sufi sense. You see, I skipped classes yesterday; in fact I skipped breakfast, morning coffe, lunch, work and coherent speech. And, despite my exhaustion, I thought it would be good form to show up today since S. is old school and kind of expects people to show up. Seriously, so would I.

In conversations about Islamism which I define as a state system which also enforces moral laws derived from Islamic texts, its supporters bring up a common point about public drunkeness or what some consider public lewdness. Indeed, at least in the US there are laws against them, but not at the level that they say the Quran demands. However, I would say that the Quran seeks for people to want not to sin and it does not directly call for a state to enforce such laws. I would further argue that enforcing such laws on outward behavoir are 1) useless and 2) require a anti-Quranic dictatorship to enforce.

Baybars at Austrolabe wrote about why Islamism is a failed ideology and Tariq Nelson wrote more about it.

Its fascinating that some people say that this violent phenomenon results from not following a school, some say it is because of following a school, others say its from modernity. The Prophet said, "ad-deen yusr" and we have verses in the Quran about Allah not burdedning souls. However, almost every example we have of conptemporary Islamist governments are bad examples: sin is only pushed underground and sometimes even increases; people rebel outwardly and inwardly; the governments achieve very little other than enforcing the most superficial aspects of being Muslim such as clothing and other public and even in-home behaviors. In short, contemporary Islamist governments do not seem to be good for either the people or for the worship of Allah (I would say "Islam" but people have a tendency these days for saying such things as "Islam says…" as if Islam were the object of worship). In short, they have not achieved "adl" and "ihsan".

Allow me to propose that there is something quite wrong here. Perhaps the problem is that religion has become coercion. The state now enforces prayer, fasting and other things that the worshipper must do voluntarily. The state invades homes and controls almost every aspect of behavior, something both Islamist governments and the nationalist regimes do.

People beleive that Islamic government is the norm, but it has not been. Exactly how were the Umayyads Islamic? The Abbasids? The Seljuks, the Ottomans, the Jawi sultanates, the Sokoto Empire? These were ruled by secular sultans who were not Islamic scholars and the mode of government largely followed the people’s cultural models. The scholars were largely critics and confirmers of the sultans’ and peoples’ actions, not the originators of those actions! So, this whole idea that the state should strictly enforce shariah is something that does not seem to have ever been successfully accomplished by people other than the Prophet.

I left this as a comment to Salika’s posting (http://salika.wordpress.com/2006/10/04/moderate-muslim/)

Salam, found you via the Carnival. For what its worth, I think people use the adjective “moderate” when they really mean “moderate in political issues”. I think this is part of the big problem with how Muslims mix temporal politics and conflicts with eternal faith. Non-Muslims pick up on this very well, mostly because they see so many of us doing it first and then use ‘Muslim’ as if it is in the same class as ‘Democrat’, ‘Capitalist’ and not in the same class as ‘Christian’, ‘S

I was reading an article by Hatoon Al-Fasi xommenting on the  possible prohibition against women on the main floor of the Mosque in Makka.  She mentions how the Prophet forbade people from prohibiting women from coming to the mosque. While we've heard this many times before in different contexts, what we seem to not see is why he needed to say this in the first place? Does it not seem apparent that there were people even then who wanted to push women out of the public sphere? Now, what's sad is that this trend continues to this day despite the Prophet's admonitions and excellent character in accomodating women and caring for them. Why? Perhaps I am right: Ignorance (Jahiliyya) never died out and ignorant ideas and practices continue to reassert themselves, only more dangerously after having coopted Islamic personalities.

Well, I started my second year of graduate school last week. I'm pretty blue about the whole thing, but more on that later. Today, I have an important subject to broach with the fine ladies here. 

Here's part one of the issue: when I walk around campus, I am usually wearing shorts or docker-style trousers with a button down shirt and sandals. I wear a mustache and am balding on the top like many fine Italian gentlemen. I'm a little on the short side. I like the way I look: definitely grad student, even professor-like at time, but this is a double edged sword.

Here's part two: there are a very large number of young women on campus who are quite fine (I get the understatement of the year award, no?). At least once I day I'll pass by one of them who smiles at me and looks me in the eye flirtatiously and we'll exchange hellos while another time a young woman may look straight ahead while grinning widely and pulling down her shirt over her bare belly to cover her hips. Sometimes this happens without me ever even glancing at them. I'm not sure how to interpret it; thus my question. Are these young women two different cases? I mean, are some of them flirting while others think I look so goofy it causes them to laugh at me?

I was reading a comment on Eteraz's site which struck me because of the Sufi author's repitition of a certain concept. This concept was that of submitting oneself continuously to others: to a tariqa, to a shiekh, to a wali and so on. Is this not the same binding to other humans that Islam came to overturn? What is the intrinsic difference between being bound as Abu Jahl’s slave and being bound as a sheikh’s disciple?

I’m certain that people will say that the goals are differenent and they are, but the model is still the same: sacrifice oneself to the will of another human. Call me a rebellious Western Muslim, but I for one can’t accept returning to any bondage that negates the self <strong>to a human</strong>. And, I cannot see how bondage to a human can lead one to Allah. I see everything in the Quran as contradicting this, which is why as attractive as Sufi spirituality looks and feels to me, I will not take the next step and submit to any shiekh, pir or so-called walis…

Willow was right when she said that living in Egypt means that she is not living in a free country or free enough to help fix the mosques. This is exactly the problem with mixing religion and the state: it makes changing  attitudes and values through the mosque nearly impossible. Challenging the messes in such countries' mosques also means challenging the state's authority which is a kiss of death is authortarian cultures. Indeed, the Egyptian state's authortarianism is merely a reflection of the rampant authortarianism woven throughout Egyptian culture itself, slithering all the way from the domineering husband and father to the domineering father of the state. Granted, not all Egyptians have authortarian personalities and one can find many fine Egyptians who respect others and nurture humanistic values alongside thier faith or even outside of it. Nevertheless, the culture itself, despite dissenters, is stifled by a pervading sense of authortarianism.

This post is satire. This post is satire. This post is satire.

(Please read with the voice of Jeremy Irons in Die Hard 2)
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"This is a communique from the Western Turncoats Front for Converts (aka , WTF-Converts). Many Muslim immigrants worship insurgents and make excuses for terrorists who target our nation. It is high time we turn the tables, is it not? For too long, Western converts to the great Islamic religion have been shunned for not adapting themselves as clients of the Master Race of Islam, or whatever ethnicity of the person who showed them how to be Muslim. Because of this, and the ignoring of our communal and familial interest, indeed the denial of our familes as kafirs and our communities as  the immigrants' enemy, we are the oppressed minority of the American Ummah."