... everyone? Read this article on German website Der Spiegel and found this bit interesting: Is it fair to say Islam belongs to every country? or every country where it is practiced? I've never really thought about it this way, but it seems logical. It's like a child that you may not want, still belongs to you, but at least taking responsibility gives you more control over its upbringing. Islam can't belong to Arabs or to Saudi Arabia or Iran. This seems to make more sense. Thoughts?
Islam belongs to Muslims. If Islam belongs to Germany, and Germany belongs to the Germans, then a fractional portion Islam belongs to the skinheads who profess revulsion at Islam and are committing hate crimes against Muslims. Does that seem logical? If people who hate it have ownership, then they are expressing their ownership rights when they try to destroy it. And though I know it can be inconvenient, there is absolutely an Arabism intrinsic to Islam. For instance, what is the only language that the Koran can be written in? Towards what country do you have to face every time you want to pray? And so on and so forth. If you want to see a religion free of national borders, look at Buddhism. The problem that this causes, is that Buddhism has fractured into 1000 pieces becomes something totally different wherever it goes. That is the price of freeing your self from any one culture.
I think Muslims commit more crimes against Muslims than skinheads do lol. Also, I don't think you can destroy something if you partially own it. You can't destroy a company when you are one of 1,000 shareholders of a company with thousands of subsidiaries right? I think fragmentation is a good thing. I'm not sure why you see it negatively? I can see your logic here. But let me ask you, shouldn't Germany have some responsibility/control/power over something that is partially domiciled in its country? If a national Indian bank branches into the UK, falling under the regulation of the UK FSA, does that mean the UK owns part of India? No it doesn't, but it does mean the UK can exercise some control and accountability over elements that are domiciled in their country right?
Imagine I own some shares of Company A. Gordon Gecko wants to buy Company A, break it up into pieces, and sell it off. As a shareholder, I can't enter the offices of the company and force them to comply with Mr. Gecko. However, it is perfectly reasonable and entirely common to attend shareholder's meeting, stand up and call the board of directors a bunch of criminally incompetent idiots and advocate following a path which would result in the dissolution of the company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War Look at the way Shia and Sunni feel about each other. Look at the way the Iranians deal with the Bahá'í. Think of a million different heretical things like Bahá'í variants popping up within the existing borders of Islamic culture. And then a thousand, thousand more outside the bounds of that culture. For the true believer, the only thing worse than a non-believer is a heretic. I predict that it would be chaos. In the perfect world, everybody would get along and revel in their differences. In the real world it would be license for mass murder. On a more personal and theological level, at what point does your religion change so much that it is no longer your religion? In South America, there are all sorts of native groups that were force fed Christianity. The result was that they incorporated pre-Colombian religion and ritual into their version of Christianity. Imagine a Peruvian Muslim culture where shamans take preaches that he takes mescaline and gets divine guidance directly from Mohammad and his spirit creatures. How are you going to fit him into the Ummah as a Muslim? Is just calling himself that sufficient license to compel entry into the Muslim community? Maybe it would be a good thing. Did the reformation make Christianity better? Well it make it more adaptable and lead in part to the industrial revolution and modernism, but from the perspective of the "True Church in Rome", it was a disaster. It sucked all the political power out of Christianity. It empowered athiesm, and p*rn, and women's rights, and seperation of church and state and all sorts of deflating things. I would argue that fragmentation made (nominal) Christians stronger, but it marginalized Christianity. The Pope wasn't the single voice of God anymore. Any fool could misinterpret the bible and start his own church. The pope says not to keep the Church out of governement, but who is he anyway? I'll listen to that deist sex fiend who likes to make fart jokes. Maybe he knows better what God wants. Anything goes. I think fragmentation would effectively make Islam impotent as a political unifier. Depending on your point of view, that might be good. Or it might kill Islam. They can hold people in their country responsible for the laws of the country. And they should enforce those laws and requirements equally, irrespective of the religion of the person being overseen. But to me that isn't ownership anymore than the state has "ownership" over the individual. The country has no direct say over what you as an individual, or you and your fellow congregants as a group want to think or believe. I think I'd describe their role more along the lines of "crowd control".
Imagine I own some shares of Company A. Gordon Gecko wants to buy Company A, break it up into pieces, and sell it off. As a shareholder, I can't enter the offices and force them to sell to Mr. Gecko. However, it is perfectly reasonable and entirely common to attend shareholder's meeting, stand up and call the board of directors a bunch of criminally incompetent idiots and advocate following a path which would result in the dissolution of the company. Alternately, I can stand up and say that our steel corporation should quit making steel and start making women's undergarments. Ownership of stock gives me a say in the conversation about where the company is heading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War Look at the way Shia and Sunni feel about each other. Look at the way the Iranians deal with the Bahá'í. Think of a million different heretical things like Bahá'í variants popping up within the existing borders of Islamic culture. And then a thousand, thousand more outside the bounds of that culture. For the true believer, the only thing worse than a non-believer is a heretic. I predict that it would be chaos. In the perfect world, everybody would get along and revel in their differences. In the real world it would be license for mass murder. On a more personal and theological level, at what point does your religion change so much that it is no longer your religion? In South America, there are all sorts of native groups that were force fed Christianity. The result was that they incorporated pre-Colombian religion and ritual into their version of Christianity. Imagine a Peruvian Muslim culture where shamans take preaches that he takes mescaline and gets divine guidance directly from Mohammad and his spirit creatures. How are you going to fit him into the Ummah as a Muslim? Is just calling himself that sufficient license to compel entry into the Muslim community? Maybe it would be a good thing. Did the reformation make Christianity better? Well it make it more adaptable and lead in part to the industrial revolution and modernism, but from the perspective of the "True Church in Rome", it was a disaster. It sucked all the political power out of Christianity. It empowered athiesm, and p*rn, and women's rights, and seperation of church and state and all sorts of deflating things. I would argue that fragmentation made (nominal) Christians stronger, but it marginalized Christianity. The Pope wasn't the single voice of God anymore. Any fool could misinterpret the bible and start his own church. The pope says not to keep the Church out of governement, but who is he anyway? I'll listen to that deist sex fiend who likes to make fart jokes. Maybe he knows better what God wants. Anything goes. I think fragmentation would effectively make Islam impotent as a political unifier. Depending on your point of view, that might be good. Or it might kill Islam. They can hold people in their country responsible for the laws of the country. And they should enforce those laws and requirements equally, irrespective of the religion of the person being overseen. But to me that isn't ownership anymore than the state has "ownership" over the individual. The country has no direct say over what you as an individual, or you and your fellow congregants as a group want to think or believe. I think I'd describe their role more along the lines of "crowd control".
1) and that seems ok to me. A Muslim can do the same. A guy from Manchester can buy shares of Liverpool football club. Karl Malone can buy the Rockets. 2) Well, for me, the idea is to break it up into roughly 1.5 billion pieces. But more realistically, I don't see it having any added effect on sectarian violence. There is no unanimously agreed requirement for there to be an Ummah. Right now, Shiites and Sunnis don't share an ummah. How do you fit a shiite Muslim into a Sunni ummah or vice versa? If EVERYONE is a heretic, then you're not going to bother fighting it. Islam IMO is already in a losing struggle to keep Muslims the same "like sheep" so that they continue to fall under the nebulous power structure that is embodied by imams, sheikhs, fatwas, etc. That's a very dangerous situation given that there is no oversight of that world whatsoever and they are not any more immune to corruption than anyone else. Nevermind that SOME governments have actually taken on a quasi-ownership role, which then allows them to practice their ownership rights outside their jurisdiction. Essentially, by taking on that role, a Saudi wahhabist can do things in Germany without formally holding any accountability for that role. 3) I agree actually, ownership is the wrong word. What I'm trying to get at is a reciprocal relationship where the interests of Muslims is more aligned with the interests of the country. There is no reason to allow certain countries to take ownership of Islam in a way that affects other countries, but also in a way that deflects accountability. * Just a note: Muslims don't face Saudi Arabia, they face the kaaba. Theoretically speaking, the kaaba can be moved to another country/city if it became necessary. Mecca is holy due to the presence of the kaaba (not the other way around). If the kaaba was in Berlin, then Berlin would be holy. If someone invaded Mecca and nuked the kaaba into oblivion, the obligation to go on pilgrimmage does not dissapear or go on hold. The idea is that it is the central meeting point for Muslims. Also, prayer was initially towards Jerusalem (before there was even a mosque there).
The translation of the statements in the Spiegel article is misleading. The dispute is not over whether it "belongs to" Germany in terms of ownership of it but whether it "belongs to" Germany in terms of being an integral part of the country. Nobody is claiming that Germany has an ownership stake in Islam. Some politicians say it is simply a reality that there are many Muslims in Germany, so it is a part of Germany nowadays. Others point out that Islam's culture and values are not characteristic of Germany's culture and values, at least not all of them, and therefore Islam does not "belong to" Germany in terms of having had a formative influence on it.
I view religion as a personal belief system. So saying it "belongs" to a state, or even to a group of people seems strange to me. It belongs to the individual who practices it. And one person's Islam may be different than another person's Islam. The one, true Islam, if it exists, belongs to no one.
