Mandrak
Jedi
One can argue that Western Muslims in the 21st century rightly find these practices abhorrent, but I think that is because they have adopted western customs and values, and over time, cut ties with those aspects of the teaching. But when we look at some countries in the middle East, these things are still practiced.
Today is a popular to criticise Islam and an unbalanced look at it (propaganda).
I would like to offer an additional perspective, which may often be missing.
What is important to note is:
- religion is often not the main driver of people, but local collective consciousness, habits, customs, politics of local elite, tribalism and nationalism.
- a person or a group can not be considered a better or worse by religion because it is a superficial mark and because reality tells something else.
- outer forces partly controls path of evolution of Islam (mostly starting the war with the Ottoman Empire to today), but also Christianity to support Zionism for example, in global scale, and to support local goverment even when they are doing something really bad.
- western customs and values can be worse (e.g. hygiene, in treating the Jews and heretics, Saladin compared to Richard in the conquest of Jerusalem), West also learned many things from East and Muslims (mutual learning is completely natural and logical), in many cases West make Islam worse to fits the elite`s interests (of Britain, USA, Israel), but also this is Western civilization so all is influenced by this and the responsibility and power of the West is great and unfortunately, often negatively used.
- in Islam, good and bad things can be found, as in other religions, so some parts are arbitrarily taken to suit to arguments, it can be said, religion is like a knife, can be used for good and bad, if someone wants to be bad, can use Islam for bad, to say that Islam makes him to do evil, or to spread hatred towards Muslims, he can look for the appropriate parts, quotes.
- many people are heavily influenced by ISIS/Mossad propaganda material (which was the main purpose of that material) and Islam was viewed through ISIS and terrorism (TV is our "reality").
Here in Bosnia there is a collision of 2 types of Christianity and Islam. Christianity is often manifested in terrible ways, starting with the Crusades .
"In 1221 Honorius III called on King Andrew II to crusade against heretics in Bosnia and Hungarian forces responded to further papal calls in both 1234 and 1241. The later conflict ended because of the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241. The Bosnian church was Catholic in theology, but continued to be in schism with the Roman Catholic Church well past the end of the Middle Ages. " crusade against heretics in Bosnia | Belfast Child
"Led by the Hungarian prince Coloman, the crusaders only succeeded in conquering peripheral parts of the country. They were followed by Dominicans, who erected a cathedral and put heretics to death by burning. The crusade came to an abrupt end when Hungary itself was invaded by Tatars. " Bosnian Crusade - Wikipedia
After the Ottoman Empire withdrew from Serbia, ethnic cleansing began. Persecution of Muslims during Ottoman contraction - Wikipedia
The another manifestation od "Christianity" is in WW2 the use of terrorist, fascists: Ustasha from Croatia and Chetniks from Serbia, against the people of Bosnia, with terrible crimes against civilians (similar to what we have recently seen at ISIS).
The last important manifestation of "Christianity" in Bosnia was the war of the 1990s. According to CIA, Serbs (mostly Orthodox Christians) done 90% of the war crimes, Croats (mostly Catholics) done 6%, and Bosniaks (mainly Muslims) 4% war crimes.
But, I must say, all this really has nothing to do with religion. The main driving force of these crimes is nationalism and policy. Today, the world with delays meets nationalism (again) and looks at it as something beautiful. Nationalism appears in the Balkans in a very bloody and negative way, with terror.
But people of religion - priests, are part of people and often influenced by nationalism and goverment.
For example Serbian Patriarch Pavle did nothing to calm the situation (in fact in the letter of 1991 he wrote "Serbs can not live with Croats in any country, nor in any kind of Croatia" and supported war criminals and war crimes), but after the war, however, he made a distance to the crimes. Asked by foreign journalists about alleged Church support to the Greater Serbian project, Pavle, Serbian Patriarch, answered:
"So I say: if a Great Serbia should be held by committing crime, I would never accept it; may Great Serbia disappear, but to hold it by crime - no. If it were necessary to hold only a small Serbia by crime, I would not accept it. May small Serbia disappear, but to hold it by crime - no. And if there is only one Serb, and if I am that last Serb, to hold on by crime - I do not accept. May we disappear, but disappear as humans, because then we will not disappear, we will be alive in the hands of the living God." Pavle, Serbian Patriarch - Wikipedia
This attitude is more Christian because it puts the spirit above the abduction of the territory.
It is also necessary to know how "Christianity" has participated in the formation of Islam.
Beginning with British demolition of the Ottoman Empire through Wahhabism.
Graham E. Fuller: “The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan." Who is Graham Fuller? : The Corbett Report
"Asked about the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism, the austere faith that is dominant in the kingdom and that some have accused of being a source of global terrorism, Mohammed said that investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union."
Hillary Clinton: "Let's remember here. The people we are fighting today, we funded twenty years ago and we did it because we were locked in trouble with Soviet Union they invaded Afghanistan and we didn't want to see them controlling central Asia and we went to work. It was president Regan in partnership with congress led by democrat’s who said you know what? Loving! Pretty good idea! Lets deal with the ISI in the Pakistani military lets go recruit Mujahidin, that’s great, lets get some to come from Saudi Arabia and other places importing their WAHABI brand of Islam so that we can go to beat the Soviet Union and guess what? They retreated, they lost billion of dollars and it led to the collapse Soviet Union. So there is a very strong argument which is presence a bad investment in Soviet Union but lets be careful what we saw because we were harvest."
"As the US mobilizes for covert war in Afghanistan (see 1978 and July 3, 1979), a CIA special envoy meets Afghan mujaheddin leaders at Peshawar, Pakistan, near the border to Afghanistan. All of them have been carefully selected by the Pakistani ISI and do not represent a broad spectrum of the resistance movement. One of them is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a drug dealer with little support in Afghanistan, but who is loyal to the ISI. The US will begin working with Hekmatyar and over the next 10 years over half of all US aid to the mujaheddin will go to his faction (see 1983). Hekmatyar is already known as brutal, corrupt, and incompetent. [McCoy, 2003, pp. 475] His extreme ruthlessness, for instance, his reputation for skinning prisoners alive, is considered a plus, as it is thought he will use that ruthlessness to kill Russians." http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=afghanwar_tmln
"Why are the Arabs here? The U.S. brought the Arabs to Pakistan and Afghanistan [during the Soviet war]. Washington gave them money, gave them training, and created ten or 15 different fighting groups. The U.S. and Pakistan worked together. The minute the pro-Communist regime collapsed, the Americans walked away--and didn't even clean up their shit. They brought this problem to Afghanistan. " - Afghan commander Abdul Haq 'I'm Sick And Tired Of Bloodshed'