Dear brother Krash,
Thank you for your reply, a lengthy one and no matter that we agree or disagree, I am glad to have a conversation with you.
Firstly, lets cut to the chase - you are suggesting that religion or secularism are not the problems that do not cause our prosperity or lack thereof.
I would say that I disagree. Islam is far more a way of life than Christianity, and has had a deep impact on all the cultures of the Muslim world. Thus for instance, you will find that snake charmers can be found from Morroco to Samarkand, but never in the non-Muslim world.
You can find that the entire Muslim world cannot produce the research of a single Western nation. We have universities, just like the West, often copy-pasted but still!
You can see Germany, which was destroyed completely and utterly after WWII. All its scienitists and engineers where either killed or migrated (many by force). Industries where either destroyed or in many cases, physically taken. Much of the male population decimated. Yet, within 15 years, West Germany became one of the top economies of the world. In contrast, all the oil of the Arabs, all the money, all the effort could not turn a single Gulf state into an economic powerhouse.
You can find that the Ottomans lived next door to Europe and gave them gunpowder. Yet, watched Europe develop from 1400-1800, without doing much to catch up. Yet in comparison, you see Japan, which, from the moment they came into contact with The West, quickly adapted and developed to challenge them.
I can give you a hundred other examples but suffice it to say that the case is rather solid to exemplify that:
1. The problem of the Muslim world is a common problem. Its not an Algerian problem, an Egyptian problem, a Pakistani problem, or an Indonesian problem. The virus for all purposes appears to have similar genetics.
2. The diagnosis therefore must be a common diagnosis.
You misunderstood me. My contention is not that we can progress holistically with or without religion. My contention is that we can progress economically with or without religion, religion as perceived by the Muslims of today not what was brought 1400 years ago. We however believe that praying 5 times a day and not drinking alcohol will magically start raining money on our streets. Of course this won't happen because as soon as we step out of the mosque, at times within as well, we become cutthroat, conniving, dishonest backstabbers who would kill his own brother for a few rupees. Why? Because we've made Islam dogmatic and confined to spirituality when it is precisely meant to break us free of these curses. Why did the most primitive society on the planet suddenly start ruling half of the known geographic world and almost all of the intellectual and academic world? Because this religion broke them free of these dogmas which we, as idiots, want to flail around with pride (this is a discussion in it self so I'll just stop here). Islam doesn't become a way of life when you pray five times a day. It becomes the way of life when you start following the principles that it teaches you. Praying has no direct societal impact whatsoever, it is these principles that change the society. The principles which the west imported and adopted from you! Only to give them different names, secularism, democracy, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, honesty to the state and fellow man, so on and an unending so forth. You think these western societies were socially compatible or inclined towards free thought? They were brother killing, dishonest savages. And then they adopted what you discarded and began ruling you.
So, the crux of the previous post: You want holistic progress? Fine, start practicing principles which are indisputable. You don't want to call it Islam? Fine, call it modern thought (or whatever for that matter). You wan't to call it Islam? Fine, call it Islam. You don't need Islam to teach you to be honest, upright, humble or hardworking, take it from which ever place you want. Everything, every book, every rational mind, every religion, philosophy, sociology, COMMON SENSE (!) tells you these principles. You think these principles are incompatible to any society in the world? They are less incompatible to us than they were to the west. And as for culture, you don't sit on it in hopes of saving it. You change it, evolve it. That is an intrinsic property of culture itself. But we are so comically stupid that we are debating, with swords in hand, what color to paint the building when the base of the building isn't even there.
And even more comically, we demand that religion be imposed on us from the top. That is like crooks complaining of their own thievery and then blaming the local police for not stopping them. We can't even stop ourselves from cutting in ques and you're telling me that imposing Islam from the top will fix us? A laugh to that sir.
ps: The diagnosis is common and a very simple one; be honest to your state, your fellow man and your own self. Everything else branches out from this.
pps: There are many different socioeconomic problems behind the Muslim world's predicament. Turkey solved them one way, Malaysia solved them another way. Both are rich and prospering.
But we are not the Netherlands! Our "social genetics" are totally different from the West. We make the common mistake to think we can compare ourselves to the West, or apply its solutions without understanding our completely different societies.
Thus Turkey under Attaturk thought the same and decided that rejecting their language and culture and replacing it with European ones (down to the names of their streets) would turn them into a developed nation "like the West". This approach didn't work out. In contrast, Japan kept its culture, and built an economic model around its own culture (Kanban, Kanren-gaishas, etc) and succeeded.
The fact of the matter is simple. A race horse cannot be fed and trained as a camel, or vice versa. We have to have solutions rooted in our own cultures. Since our cultures are deeply influenced by Islam...
The line you quoted was a continuation of what I explained in the above para of this post. You misunderstood it. I actually completely agree with your point. I wrote another post to the same effect a few posts before. However, one must keep in mind that you do not need to let go of any of your cultural or societal values in pursuit of the said, very basic and independent principles. Freedom of expression, democracy or secularism do not automatically allow alcohol or prostitution, for example, in your society. The society has all the right to prohibit these in the country, but only if the society overwhelmingly agrees to it (Developearo explained it well in his post). Unless the said values are irrational, dishonest and/or a breach upon someone's rights, e.g. the blasphemy law. You can't hide your warts under the guise of cultural values. That is how you fall and we have fallen. Btw, all of this is actually taught by Islam. There's no problem, we just love making excuses.
Well, I think you don't do yourself justice here, and we've gone down to talking about doping. But let's leave that aside. The issue is this: no great nation uses the language of another to develop its sciences and technology. Thus, as a member of the education committee of PTI's IRW, I argued for Urdu to be used for the national curriculum. There are many varied and sophisticated arguments on both sides, and the matter has little to do with dope. We can discuss this at length if you like but it detracts from our topic. The matter is this, we were able to convince or helped convincing PTI to have this as a manifesto aim - to use Urdu as the national language, and the language eventually as for all curriculum. In the simplest terms - just as Germans use German, Japanese use Japanese, Koreans use Korean, Chinese use Chinese, French use French, Russians use Russian... all great engineering and technology leaders use their own language to study science and they excel - why? Because you can't grasp concepts as easily, and "play with them" in your mind as easily, as in your native language!
That was actually what I was trying to say too; Disregarding the debate of one's pride and losing one's own self, you can't achieve anything by taking away the language (doping the society or 'trying to box it up', like Attaturk did), especially in this day and age. If we want a more lasting and substantial solution then we must solve the problem itself instead of running away or burying our heads into the ground. The Urdu vs English is a long debate and a complicated one for me, I wont get into it.
The basic point, which is the point essentially that Allama Iqbal, Allama Asad, Muhammad Abduh, Malek Bennabi, Ali Shariati.... and others are making (and this is a gross simplification but we can go deeper into it, but for now...), is this:
1. That the problem of the Muslim world is common across the board.
2. That the Muslim world is living in a state of Ignorance or Jahiliya or as Iqbal called it "Dead crust". i.e. we are a dead civilization or more politely, a post-civilization.
3. That the key element is culture and our society, that suffers from multiple major problems, many of them deriving from our religion (as our religion is intrinsically linked to our culture). (Thus for instance, khirad ko gholami sey...)
4. That both the problems and the solutions lie intrinsically with our culture and religion.
5. That any solution we apply, must not be cookie cutter solutions from the West, as our "soil" is fundamentally different. Thus development, democracy, education, R&D, etc has to be modified to our conditions very carefully.
6. That we have to stop being unserious about this, talking about headless chickens and drinking water and what not. This is a dead serious issue, and we need to put our collective brains to diagnose and solve these problems. Its not a mere debate or argument on the internet. As the grandson of one of the founders of Pakistan, its my biggest concern. Its something I have pondered over for 12 years, and only really began to grasp in the last 1 year or so. This is a very complex problem, and we have to take this dead seriously...
Not a speck of disagreement here. Unless somebody out-rightly disregards nationalism or democracy because they supposedly come from the West. Like the post I was replying to. Then it is just stupid and I won't have it.
I assure you I'm not more serious about much else. Still, analogies help make a point.
Well the system of Khilafat actually works on the principle of Masjid (Mosque). Its like every town would have its own Masjid. Not like the ones we have today
. Masjid in Islamic system actually works as a community centre (not only for Muslims but even for non-Muslims, as seen in the Holy Prophet (S.A.A.W)'s time). Dealing with all administrative affairs of the town along with addressing spiritual needs. This makes the people of the town directly connected with the administrative office of the town.
