Religious effects of the ongoing revolutions in Egypt, Libya etc

The big problem in the region is that for decades these autocratic regimes focused so much attention on cracking down on opposing political parties (most of whom were left-wing groups, and much of the cracking down was backed by the west because they were gettin' rid of those pinko commies), but religious institutions went relatively untouched. And so when these regimes collapse, the only organized political parties that are around are these religious institutions. That's how the mullahs in Iran were able to turn what started as a secular, democratic revolution into a repressive Islamist regime, and that's the fear now in Egypt. 

That's one of the big reasons as to how Islamism has become so dominant in Middle Eastern politics in a relatively short time period. It's hard to imagine now, but just a little over 50 years ago the region was very secular politically.  

The big problem in the region is that for decades these autocratic regimes focused so much attention on cracking down on opposing political parties (most of whom were left-wing groups, and much of the cracking down was backed by the west because they were gettin' rid of those pinko commies), but religious institutions went relatively untouched. And so when these regimes collapse, the only organized political parties that are around are these religious institutions. That's how the mullahs in Iran were able to turn what started as a secular, democratic revolution into a repressive Islamist regime, and that's the fear now in Egypt. 

That's one of the big reasons as to how Islamism has become so dominant in Middle Eastern politics in a relatively short time period. It's hard to imagine now, but just a little over 50 years ago the region was very secular politically.  

-Sun_Tzu-

This guy knows what he is talking about.

[QUOTE="-Sun_Tzu-"]

The big problem in the region is that for decades these autocratic regimes focused so much attention on cracking down on opposing political parties (most of whom were left-wing groups, and much of the cracking down was backed by the west because they were gettin' rid of those pinko commies), but religious institutions went relatively untouched. And so when these regimes collapse, the only organized political parties that are around are these religious institutions. That's how the mullahs in Iran were able to turn what started as a secular, democratic revolution into a repressive Islamist regime, and that's the fear now in Egypt. 

That's one of the big reasons as to how Islamism has become so dominant in Middle Eastern politics in a relatively short time period. It's hard to imagine now, but just a little over 50 years ago the region was very secular politically.  

SaudiFury

This guy knows what he is talking about.

I'm not sure things were so secular 50 years ago. For example, Pakistan was made an Islamic state in 1947.

Wasn't saying that the secular groups were the ones in charge in the Muslim world either though. but they definently had a larger following in the past.

but with the rise of dictators and monarchs, and the want to control, they squeezed out the seculars and essentially drove the underground. It's only been the Arab Spring has it been a reawakening of sorts for these groups. 

Personally the outlook is a positive one from my viewpoint. It will still need continued struggle.

and even if the Islamist get a few victories, it'll be sour medicine and people will learn from their mistakes in time.  I know that seems unreasonably unfair, but i see it as social evolution of sorts. 

by the way, i am Muslim, but i am clearly not an Islamist. I do believe in the seperation of the two. Believe me, i grew up in Saudi Arabia, and i loathe the mutawa. 

Wasn't saying that the secular groups were the ones in charge in the Muslim world either though. but they definently had a larger following in the past.

 

but with the rise of dictators and monarchs, and the want to control, they squeezed out the seculars and essentially drove the underground. It's only been the Arab Spring has it been a reawakening of sorts for these groups. 

 

Personally the outlook is a positive one from my viewpoint. It will still need continued struggle.

and even if the Islamist get a few victories, it'll be sour medicine and people will learn from their mistakes in time.  I know that seems unreasonably unfair, but i see it as social evolution of sorts. 

 

 

by the way, i am Muslim, but i am clearly not an Islamist. I do believe in the seperation of the two. Believe me, i grew up in Saudi Arabia, and i loathe the mutawa. 

SaudiFury

Isn't it hard to differentiate (or ignore) the bad in the Quran and it's various Hadith in focusing on a more moderate Muslim ideology? The mutawa do use the same books that you use for your own faith to enforce their rules.

I really do hope the "Arab Spring" you refer to is actually something tangible, rather than the media invention I suspect it is.

eh i'll say straight up, i'm not looking to start an argument or a debate

but much of what the mutawa role is supposed to be is simply to be the 'reminders' of faith. problem is they go ten steps too far and in fact end up killing people in the process. The whole structure and existence of the mutawa is unneeded and not called for. Frankly i view the mutawa as a fabrication used to enforce their version of faith down people's throats, in fact they kinda are if one looks at how Arabia looked like before the Salafi's came and enforced their views on Saudi. and it's state sponsored nontheless.  Many of the people who are mutawa are ex-criminals who'se only achievement was memorizing the Quran. I've done the same (memorize the Quran) but i can tell you this, it doesn't automatically mean they're 'better' people.

you don't give the ex-convict a policeman job simply because he memorized the constitution and the police handbook either.

The 'reminder' as i've always come to know it was something akin to telling a kid to treat another person with respect, if you were to remind a brother to head for Mosque it was time for prayer but refused to go, then it was not your obligation to force him to go, you did your part in 'reminding' him. Not "hey woman your not wearing your abaya correctly, watch me pull out my stick and beat you with it". 

Now i'll be fair though, a few of the mutawa do do just that, and leave it at that. but far far too many of them go way too far. again, it isn't a JOB in the sense of a real job. 

It's not unheard of to see mutawa people getting beaten up, especially by the youth nowadays. in fact with the rise of mobile camera cell phones in the Kingdom, a lot of their actions and misdeeds get put on the net like Youtube and on the blogs. It's basically forced the mutawa to retreat.

Literally when i visited in 2008, they were around a little bit, in their trucks, and on their patrols, by 2010. The entire summer i was there i never once saw them outside. I asked my cousins if they were still around they said yes, but they do the bare minimum now.
Frankly if i had my way, i'd do away with them all together.

I do not believe Islam needs to be enforced the way they do it at all. I haven't ever REALLY been at their mercy, but i've seen them pull their crap when i was growing up. Believe me, even the more religious Muslims, really don't like them either. Just a lot of them - especially the older generations - are too afraid to say anything.

and again the same books, yeah. different interpretation, i am most definitely not a Salafi. and i take my interpretations through various imam's, and on top of that my own capacity to think. I also do not put much weight in the hadiths, I don't completely write them off, but knowing how and when they were collected makes me skeptical of them being the actual truth of what happened as reported. in my view and even in some Imam's views (like Hamza Yusuf comes to mind) they are not authoritative in the sense that they could be used to apply law.  They can inform, sure, in the same sense one could look at what the state of Delaware said on a subject matter back in 1813. 

I should also mention, i am not a trained scholar, so i don't know all the history and all the details either. But i do feel i am more informed then my other Muslim peers who simply take whatever their local sheik tells them.

anyways that's all. not looking for a debate.


I don't know if you've been following but there is a 'test' of sorts for secularism in Tunisia right now, over the right to show a controversial film. The Salafi's are all up in arms and injured some people. 

I am optimistic again however. If one looks at Saudi objectively without their ethnocentric baggage, can see Saudi is slowly edging in the right direction. Right now they're scared of the Arab Spring, and most of what that 'stimulus' package was for security not economic boosting. They're building universities to do more then just religious studies, built the first co-ed college and specifically had it set it up seperate from the Ministry of Higher Education (which the mutawa have a hold over still :( ). Top that off they have been sent/sending over 100,000 students (including myself) to get hard science degrees and come back to the country (which most of them will do). You can't expect cross-culture meeting on top of a good education is not gonna cause people to start asking questions about their lot in the world. There is an obvious tug within the royal family between reform minded and old-school control via patronage and religion. 

It'll only be reinforcing pressure on the monarchy (which has been giving billions in aid to other monarchies in the region like Bahrain, Oman and Jordan to keep them going), if Egypt and others manage to get more freedom for their citizens. 

eh i'll say straight up, i'm not looking to start an argument or a debate

but much of what the mutawa role is supposed to be is simply to be the 'reminders' of faith. problem is they go ten steps too far and in fact end up killing people in the process. The whole structure and existence of the mutawa is unneeded and not called for. Frankly i view the mutawa as a fabrication used to enforce their version of faith down people's throats, in fact they kinda are if one looks at how Arabia looked like before the Salafi's came and enforced their views on Saudi. and it's state sponsored nontheless.  Many of the people who are mutawa are ex-criminals who'se only achievement was memorizing the Quran. I've done the same (memorize the Quran) but i can tell you this, it doesn't automatically mean they're 'better' people.

you don't give the ex-convict a policeman job simply because he memorized the constitution and the police handbook either.

The 'reminder' as i've always come to know it was something akin to telling a kid to treat another person with respect, if you were to remind a brother to head for Mosque it was time for prayer but refused to go, then it was not your obligation to force him to go, you did your part in 'reminding' him. Not "hey woman your not wearing your abaya correctly, watch me pull out my stick and beat you with it". 

Now i'll be fair though, a few of the mutawa do do just that, and leave it at that. but far far too many of them go way too far. again, it isn't a JOB in the sense of a real job. 

It's not unheard of to see mutawa people getting beaten up, especially by the youth nowadays. in fact with the rise of mobile camera cell phones in the Kingdom, a lot of their actions and misdeeds get put on the net like Youtube and on the blogs. It's basically forced the mutawa to retreat.

Literally when i visited in 2008, they were around a little bit, in their trucks, and on their patrols, by 2010. The entire summer i was there i never once saw them outside. I asked my cousins if they were still around they said yes, but they do the bare minimum now.
Frankly if i had my way, i'd do away with them all together.

I do not believe Islam needs to be enforced the way they do it at all. I haven't ever REALLY been at their mercy, but i've seen them pull their crap when i was growing up. Believe me, even the more religious Muslims, really don't like them either. Just a lot of them - especially the older generations - are too afraid to say anything.

and again the same books, yeah. different interpretation, i am most definitely not a Salafi. and i take my interpretations through various imam's, and on top of that my own capacity to think. I also do not put much weight in the hadiths, I don't completely write them off, but knowing how and when they were collected makes me skeptical of them being the actual truth of what happened as reported. in my view and even in some Imam's views (like Hamza Yusuf comes to mind) they are not authoritative in the sense that they could be used to apply law.  They can inform, sure, in the same sense one could look at what the state of Delaware said on a subject matter back in 1813. 

I should also mention, i am not a trained scholar, so i don't know all the history and all the details either. But i do feel i am more informed then my other Muslim peers who simply take whatever their local sheik tells them.

anyways that's all. not looking for a debate.


I don't know if you've been following but there is a 'test' of sorts for secularism in Tunisia right now, over the right to show a controversial film. The Salafi's are all up in arms and injured some people. 

I am optimistic again however. If one looks at Saudi objectively without their ethnocentric baggage, can see Saudi is slowly edging in the right direction. Right now they're scared of the Arab Spring, and most of what that 'stimulus' package was for security not economic boosting. They're building universities to do more then just religious studies, built the first co-ed college and specifically had it set it up seperate from the Ministry of Higher Education (which the mutawa have a hold over still :( ). Top that off they have been sent/sending over 100,000 students (including myself) to get hard science degrees and come back to the country (which most of them will do). You can't expect cross-culture meeting on top of a good education is not gonna cause people to start asking questions about their lot in the world. There is an obvious tug within the royal family between reform minded and old-school control via patronage and religion. 

It'll only be reinforcing pressure on the monarchy (which has been giving billions in aid to other monarchies in the region like Bahrain, Oman and Jordan to keep them going), if Egypt and others manage to get more freedom for their citizens. 

SaudiFury

Sorry if I came across as antagonistic or disrespectful - I didn't mean to, although I hope you won't mind me expressing my opinion. I do like a debate, but feel I have an overblown sense of justification that can be annoying.

I'm learning from you about Saudi, so am grateful for your posts here. I support your view that further education does open up a more questioning approach (perhaps as in your own case), but would hesitate to say it cures all cultural and religious obstacles to fanaticism. For example, in my country (the UK), some universities have been accused of fostering Islamism from within their own Islamic societies.

In Libya, the UN sponsored rebellion is "slowing down" for Ramadan. It seems the Egyptian protests have growing numbers of uniting Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood. (Can women join too?) Syria seems to be upping the protests for Ramadan (from a 70% Muslim population and a hot-bed of fundamentalism). Palestine (what there is of it) also has these mutawas, who guide people away from their individual search for meaning  by enforcing arcane, obsolete, absolute law on them. The UK has a Sharia court system that appears to supercede traditional British justice for its adherents. I sincerely hope the Arab Srping formalises and identifies itself as a popular movement soon, since I think democracy is more important than revolution.

It really depends more on the government itself rather than the religion. Generally, people will always have a distaste towards politicians, dictators and that sort, regardless of whether they're Muslims or not.  

I mean how often do you hear people say "I love the Government! Those politicians are awesome! I adore our dictator!". And even when you do it would be out of fear of persecution (or for their lives).