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Friday, January 9, 2015

"Stop giving modern Islam a free pass"

A thoughtful article by Amir Taheri about whether Islam is a religion or ethnicity or class or political movement.

4 comments:

Steven said...

hmmm not too impressed with that.

Its is a religion with a theology and all that. It knows it is.

Its also a religion that prescribes a code of behaviour and legal system. It doesn't really allow a separation of church and state as Christianity can more easily (give to Cesar what is due unto Cesar and give to God what is due unto God). More difficult with Islam.


That's why Islamism is both a religion and a political movement.

Obviously its not a race or ethnicity- that's just obvious.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Taheri's main point is that Islam wants to be given the deference that a religion gets, but at the same time wants to act like a political movement. This obviously isn't true of everyone who practices the religion, but it's true of enough of them that Taheri's argument has to be taken seriously.

Mark Caplan said...

Islam is like Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, a total, all-encompassing way of life that dictates your thoughts and actions every waking second. That would make it a cult rather than a mere religion.

Steven said...

Oh yeah I see what you mean.