HN Explorer

Ask HN: So, what must Muslims do?

7 points by aquratic ↗ HN
I am a Muslim, from a multi-religion non-western country, studying for an grad degree in western Europe. I am very sad about the recent ISIS attacks.

Given these attacks, it is natural that Muslims get a bad name. The amount of generalized hatred directed towards us on social media makes me even more sad. It was depressing to see people on an intellectual platform like HN suggesting stuff like large scale surveillance of all Muslims, extermination, nuking the middle east etc.

Radicalization is one of the popular explanations of why so many Muslim youth are attracted towards the extreme violent ideology of ISIS (which is condemnable according to Islam itself). A lot of people have suggested, or even demanded (on HN threads, comments sections of other websites etc) that Muslims must do something about this. As educated Muslims, any ideas on what we could do? How could we help stop violent and extremist propaganda, and its influence on Muslim people? Should this be the sole responsibility of Muslims?

Note that Muslims are a culturally diverse bunch. A Muslim from Turkey is very different from one from Malaysia. They also speak completely different languages. I am culturally closer to people (regardless of religion) from my country than to Muslims from another country.

Further, how should we react to wholesale blaming of all Muslims for the violence, and to rising attitudes of suspicion towards Muslims?

17 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 48.8 ms ] thread
maxharris
Ayaan Hirsi Ali's answer to these questions is very interesting. She says that Islam itself must be reformed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSVMaNVzO-w

dalke
I don't understand the answer. We see Christian extremists, who "peddle a message of terror" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism). Why didn't the atrocities of, say, the Lord's Resistance Army end up with a call that all Christians had to reform their faith? Would it have made a difference?

We see plenty of people from other faiths, including Christians, who want the equivalent of sharia - where their own religious laws take precedence over secular laws. (Eg, anti-gay marriage justified by Biblical interpretations.) Many passages from the Bible are also full of views that don't really fit with our modern life. (Eg, is it okay to have slaves? can a women be ordained?) There's been centuries of schism and reform on those points, and still no consensus. (Eg, that whole Protestant thing.) Why expect more from Muslims than those of other religious faiths?

As the interviewer suggested, I find the Ali's views "absurd and offensive", including even the term 'reform'. What I understand is that the vast majority of Muslims want a return to the more secularized world of the 1950s and 1960s. Back when ideals from communism and socialism had a bigger influence in middle eastern political practices, and where Islam was seen more as moral rather than a political influence within a secular state. (Eg, rather like the Christian state church of England.) Back when women could wear miniskirts in Kabul, and Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize in science, was still considered Muslim by his nation.

That's hardly a reform, but a restoration.

maxharris
Why expect more from Muslims than those of other religious faiths?

Let's get this straight: all faith leads to backwardness and death. The more consistently a faith is practiced, the more pronounced this becomes.

In the Islamic world, people tend to defer to religion more on most crucial moral issues than they do in the West. (Although with the rise of the religious right, this too is changing, and will destroy our nation if it progresses much further.) This is because the West is still riding off of the embers of the Enlightenment, whose main contribution to mankind was to muzzle religion.

I do not hold Islam to a higher standard than Christianity - they are equally poisonous to life, liberty and the intellect. We have only a short time - 20 to 40 years, maybe - before a return to Christianity puts us down a path to where we are as enslaved and impoverished as the Islamic world is today.

dalke
Right, so your own beliefs on the topic are quite different than Ali's, and rather than elaborate why her views are relevant to the question at hand, you've switched to professing your own views.

You should have just lead with that, rather than pointing to something you don't actually believe is correct.

maxharris
None of the advances you speak of in this "restoration" are essential. And they are all impossible to sustain culturally without discarding fundamental religious beliefs, such as a focus on the afterlife, and the idea that morality has its basis in faith rather than reason.
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maxharris
Hey @dalke, what is your reply to the above?
dalke
I thought it was clear. I question the assertion for a special need for Muslim people to reform when basically all religions, under Ali's argument, are death cults.

Thus, it's irrelevant to the rather difficult question posed by the OP. Moreover, it stinks of victim blaming because the short version seems to be 'if you weren't Muslim you wouldn't have these problems.'

maxharris
Despite our differences, the Islamic State finds you and I offensive - do not let your offense shut your mind to superior ideas.
dalke
"superior ideas"

Ahh, usurping the language of imperialism and religious domination. We've got lots of experience to show how well that works out.

Here's Pat Buchanan using that same language: http://buchanan.org/blog/goodbye-columbus-7030

> And here we approach a deep-seated reason for the hatred of Columbus. He was a colonialist and an imperialist. He believed in the superiority of his Catholic faith and European tribe. He believed that what we call the West should rule, because its faith, of which God Himself had been the founder, and its culture and civilization, which excelled all others in arms, inventions, literature, governance and the arts, were superior.

> Christopher Columbus was a Christian European supremacist.

> ...

> How else, these men would ask us, does civilization progress, if not through the imposition by superior men of superior ideas? What great nation, what great empire, what great civilization ever rose on a belief in the equality of all other peoples and all other faiths?

The British spread 'superior ideas' as well, https://visserhis338.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/journal-seven/ :

> Furthermore, his purpose for making the trip reflects a greater British colonial theme, global missionary work. Britain felt obligated to spread its superior ideas and culture around the world and civilize those in need of their assistance.

Here you see it used to justify war http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10...

> The Peace of Westphalia remained in effect until the revolutionary leaders of France, who believed their ideas were superior ideas and should therefore be imposed throughout Europe, decided to go to war. The decision to go to war coincided with the developing concept of sovereignty which included the idea that a state had the right to use force whenever its leaders wished.

If you usurp the language of conquest, how do you tell if you've also inherited the bigotry and intolerance that so often accompanies it?

maxharris
If you usurp the language of conquest, how do you tell if you've also inherited the bigotry and intolerance that so often accompanies it?

Anyone, regardless of their ethnic background, is capable of holding any view. Race does not determine the content of the mind.

I'm sorry you don't like the word, but in the realm of ideas, there is such a thing as good or bad, better or worse, superior or inferior, etc.

Now that I think about it, I don't think "superior" is a strong enough word. Individualism is not merely superior to racism: the former is is true and good, while the latter is false and evil.

dalke
In that case, I think my views of multicultural secularism are superior to your views on individualism. In either case, neither are at all relevant to the OP's question, which is:

"How should we react to wholesale blaming of all Muslims for the violence, and to rising attitudes of suspicion towards Muslims?

NetStrikeForce
I don't think you should do anything different than a person following any other religion, or no religion at all. And for those people blaming all Muslims, again, do the same the vast majority of the people do: Ignore them, carry on with your life.

I know it's easier said than done, but we all have to be strong in the face of adversity.

[dead] sathis
Renounce your religion. If you care about the humanity, that's the best thing you can do.

I don't hold muslims responsible for what ISIS is doing. I hold islam responsible for these crimes. A religion which divides people as believers and non believers and advocates violence against non-believers deserves no respect. If you have true feelings for the victims, renounce your religion. That's the simple and effective thing you can do.

osullivj
Muslims need a leader who can project positive PR in the media. Buddhists have the Dalai Lama; everyone sees him as a man of peace, wisdom and unimpeachable integrity. Recently Catholics have had John Paul II and Mother Teresa as moral beacons. Benedict wasn't a PR success, but Francis has been well received recently. And the Anglicans have Desmond Tutu, who has great moral stature from the anti apartheid struggle. In the UK in recent years Rabbi Lionel Blue was a regular media presence, and was generally liked and respected, and so a big plus for British Judaism generally.

So, what media friendly nice guy Imam do Muslims have? You need to find a humorous, gentle, wise, grandfatherly Imam and get him on TV quick.