Islam and the Middle East general thread

[1776]

In the interest of helping this place grow, I figured I'd open the floor up on my area of expertise. Throw out ideas and questions. My particularly area is 'modern' islamist ideology (the last 150ish years)
مرحبا يا اصدقائي
أنا اسمي ١٧٧٦
أنا أدرس الشرق الأوسط والإسلام والحكومة في جامعة.
ما عندكم أسئلة لي؟

 

[1776]

أيضا انا اتكلم العربية قليلاً

 

[karlvv]

If you are trying to hook up with hairy stinky men I'm sure there is a website out there.

 

[1776]

Ok, I'll just pop off with some random fun with Arabic linguistic roots.
Today's root is ج ه د roughly transliterated to J H D

We'll focus on 4 words
جهاد or jihad
مجاهد or mujahid
اجتهد ijtihad
مجتهد mujtahid

I'm sure most have heard the term jihad/جهاد and equate it with 'holy war.' in reality, the definition is closer to 'struggle' or 'exert energy'. Ideologically, the 'jihad' we know is considered the lesser jihad, while greater jihad is an esoteric concept relating to striving to be closer to god.
a مجاهد is one who engages in jihad, lesser or greater. Modern usage almost always refers to one who engages/leads in lesser jihad.

اجتهد is a term that divides some of the Muslim community. It's the exercise of critical analysis to reconcile modern circumstances and Quranic teachings.
Most Shia Muslims embrace ijtihad as practiced by مجتهد, or one who practices ijtihad, (see the relation of terms?). In fact, shi'ism basically requires it by directing followers to choose a mujtahid whose rulings they'll follow. In this context, mujtahid are heavily educated to a level somewhat parallel to a PhD who has completed a lengthy post doc fellowship.
Some early modern islamists took an even broader view of ijtihad extending it in some ways to individual followers.
Conversely, jackasses like the Wahhabis of the Gulf nations and the ensuing offshoot islamist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS (it is important to note that these organizations are not ideologically synonymous, there's a sliding scale of douchebag here). These are generally referred to as Salafi, salafiyyah, or salafist, with 'salaf' being a term referring to the first few generations of Muslims. (Salafi and salafiyyah are transliterations of the Arabic adjective that would translate to salafist). Salafist reject any new interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah.

 

[1776]

If you are trying to hook up with hairy stinky men I'm sure there is a website out there.

I don't need a website for that, I can just call you.

 

[1776]

Fun fact, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, considers Victor Hugo's Les Miserables to be the greatest literary work of man (with the obvious qualification if the Quran being the literal word of god and not a work of man)

 

[1776]

Note: not a Muslim, not up on day to day practice of Islam and shit like that.


Shia vs. Sunni crash course.
Shortly before his death, Muhammad gave a speech at Ghadir Khumm (Ghadir is 'pond/lake/small body of water and Khumm was a town, in Arabic this construction is known as idafa, essentially a noun that possesses another noun, so the pond of Khumm is an acceptable translation)
In this speech, Muhammad declared his son in law, Ali, as his successor in leadership of the Muslims. After Muhammad's death, some Muslims decided they'd choose someone else to lead them, these people are what we now know as Sunni and their leadership is often referred to as the Caliph. Shias believe that leadership of Muslims passed down through the lineage of Muhammad instead, as Muhammad commanded at the speech, and these leaders are known as Imams. The majority of Shia are 'twelver' and believe that there were twelve Imams in the lineage with the last being in 'occultation' until the end times. Caliph affiliated groups/people murdered every Shia Imam from Husayn forward (the twelfth was almost certainly murdered, but there's a lot unknown about him as he spent much of his life in hiding due to threat of assassination)

 

[1776]

For mainstream Muslims, both Shia and Sunni, there are no living Caliphs or Imams since the kemalist reforms in turkey abolished the ottoman Caliphate. Some offshoots of Shi'ism believe in a modern Imam. Obviously, the ISIS fucknuggets believe in a modern caliph. And Bahai'ism is an offshoot of Shi'ism that goes one further and believes in a full on successor prophet to Muhammad.

While more mainstream interpretations of Islam, both Shia and Sunni, reject Takfirism (declaring someone to be not a non believer, related to the term Kafr which means infidel) these 3 groups are, to varying degrees regarded as not Muslim.

There are also oddball offshoots, like the Alawites of Syria, who generally reject Sharia and engage in terrible shit like social drinking and mixed gender gatherings...

 

[Miles]

Where do Chechens come in? They seem to be a more "get along, leave alone" group of Muslims than others.

 

[1776]

Where do Chechens come in? They seem to be a more "get along, leave alone" group of Muslims than others.

The Chechens are Sunni. I believe they tend towards the Shaf'i madhab, which is somewhere in the great between the strict old school BS of salafist and the idea of personal ijtihad. They try to make it work off the old ways first, but aren't afraid to adapt. There's a lot of tribal rooting in that specific school which is reflected in the ideology not really relying on a Caliph/Imam/Marja. Of course, in the last several decades, Saudi has tried, with varying degrees of success, to first weaponize against the USSR then assimilate into the wahhabi style salafist.

 

[1776]

I know the ottoman empire covered Chechnya at one point, but I think Islam was there before that as a result of trade routes. It's a weird tangled web, especially as you start branching out from the Levant/Gulf/Egypt core of the Middle East and Islam.

 

[Miles]

I have been impressed with what the current Chechen leader been able to do.

 

[1776]

Islamism crash course:
Islamist organizations are not homogenous.
ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood...they all have very different ideology.

ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda all share a similar core ideology of what/how Sharia should be applied. They differ in ideology regarding the spread of their version of Islamic governance. Taliban largely want only to enact their degenerate filth in Afghanistan and be left the hell alone. Al Qaeda embraces an ideology of spreading their Islam throughout the world and converting the world. ISIS just wants to kill everyone who doesn't already believe what they believe....they're super cunts....extremist enough that even Al Qaeda disassociated.


IRI is unique among these in that it's Shia rather than sunni. There are a lot of intricacies involved in this difference that deserve an independent post. We are lied to about who they are and what they believe. Don't misunderstand, the government of the IRI has some serious problems, but they aren't exactly the devil our government and media portray.

Hamas are basically just retarded tools being used as a proxy by multiple organizations. They lack a cohesive ideology at this point and basically just exist to launch missiles at Israel.

the Muslim Brotherhood should be addressed as two entities. The MB of Egypt and the other factions are very different. Outside of Egypt, they tend towards a more wahhabi/Al wards type ideology.

the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood is an entirely different story. The original ideology holds true today, but there were some more militant years under the influence of qutb. Basically, the original and current ideology focused on Muslims becoming productive members of a western style democracy. They wanted an Islamic government, but only through Muslims being popularly elected to representative positions. While they are in favor of some sharia influence, they do not claim to want to apply it in instances where a non-Muslim violating sharia has no real effect on Muslims ability to practice Islam. Muhammad Morsi, a member of the MB, was elected president of Egypt in 2011 and spoke frequently about respecting other religions. In reference to Coptic Christian’s, he acknowledged that they were just as, if not more Egyptian than he and had a right to practice their religion in their country, unencumbered by Islamic law. Unfortunately, the Saudis really fucking hate the Egyptian MB, it’s viewed as a threat to the legitimacy of the monarchy, and they caused a shitstorm that resulted in a military-ish coup and Morsi’s arrest and imprisonment until his death.

 

[1776]

A few names relevant to modern Islamism:
Jamal Al-Deen Al-Afghani
Muhammad Abduh
Rashid Rida
Sayyid Qutb
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam

 

[1776]

Jamal Al-Deen Al-Afghani

was…..an interesting character
The popular theory, even among mainstream academics, is that he was Persian, but adopted the name Al-Afghani so people wouldn’t immediately judge him to be Shia.
he was all over the region. In Egypt, he was a mentor to Muhammad abduh and they published a journal by the name of Al-Urwat Al-Withqah, roughly translating to ‘the firmest bond’ encouraging people to embrace Islam despite the colonial oppression of the British. In iran, afghani had the ear of much of the ulama and had a significant influence in the roots of clerical authority that lead to the Islamic republic. At the very least, he encourage the tobacco fatwa, though some speculate that he actually wrote it and forged the authority of an actual ayatollah. The tobacco fatwa marked the first modern exercise of political authority by clerics and against a sitting government. Basically, the shah of the time sold all tobacco rights to a British businessman with no benefit to the people of Iran. The clergy declared any involvement with tobacco to be haram, thus destroying the value of this purchase and causing some future hesitance by western powers to invest in Persia. He was also arrested to plotting the assassination of the shah and placed on house arrest for the rest of his life.

 

[1776]

Muhammad abduh, protege if afghani, ultimately caused enough civil unrest/disobedience in British Egypt that the British authorities appointed him grand mufti of Egypt under the proviso that he not work towards toppling the colonial government.
his rulings are very different from how western media portrays Islam and he was a major influence in the formation of the Muslim brotherhood. Among his rulings he determined that hijab was not mandatory, mingling with people of other religions was permissible, and all religions should be respected so long as they don’t directly interfere with the practice of Islam.

his protege was Rashid Rida. Rida started off ideologically very similar to abduh, but ended up becoming close with the Saudis in an attempt to moderate the extremism of Wahhabism and create a more cohesive ummah (this word is tricky, literally it means Nation, many Muslims consider it to mean the community of Muslims throughout the world, a literal interpretation of the Quran suggest that it includes Jews, Christian’s, and other monotheists). He ended up drifting towards radicalism as he saw freedom to practice Islam in Saudi, but did not live to see the freeing of Egypt from colonialism. In the world of islamism, he was kind of a bit player in regards to direct influence, but his moderating influence contributed to the rise of KSA.

 

[1776]

Hassan Al-Banna founded the Muslim brotherhood. I’ve covered the original ideology already so I won’t say much. He was heavily influenced by the work of Muhammad abduh. His grandson, Tariq Ramadan, teaches at Oxford and is vocal in trying to separate his grandfather’s ideology from the western perception of islamism.

 

[1776]

Sayyid Qutb is where shit really goes off the rails. He’s the original impotent incel cunt. He was never formally clerically trained. Rather, he attended graduate school in the US. He refused to make any effort to fit into western society, threw tantrums about everything western that was ‘un-Islamic’ and returned to Egypt bitter. His ideology is very much similar to Al-Qaeda and the non-Egyptian brotherhood organizations.

 

[1776]

Abdullah Yusuf azzam is where it gets real for those of us alive today. He was educated in a Palestinian madras’s funded by Qutb’s Brotherhood. He found a home in Saudi, gained popularity and was a key player in rallying financial, materiel, and personnel support for the Afghanistan jihad against the USSR. He would later spend a lot of time in northern Pakistan, directing the jihad and working on his side project, Al-Qaeda. Azzam is the true founder of Al-Qaeda, OBL was just the dumb rich cunt with money. Bin laden was initially recruited for his access to heavy equipment to rebuild afghani infrastructure. (The bin laden family made its name in construction. They also were partners with George W Bush in his first oil company.)

 

[Miles]

What's a sigificance of a sword dance that Trump did in Saudi Arabia?