Excellent commentary and yes, whether or not we agree on climate change, we should be able to see the direct that nature is heading, and do our best to mitigate the end result.
They say that we always think our own times are the worst, especially as we get older; but I really feel it is getting worse. As we have moved from the real to the virtual, technology ascends ever further and the population far outstrips our capacity to cope with it on every front, greed and panic over resources will result in even more depraved behaviour, justified in all kinds of perverse ways. Yes - I would rather not be around to see all this.
The great irony is that if people truly understood the philosophy of Muhammad what is happening wouldn’t be. And it is the philosophy not the religion that captures my attention.
Please elaborate a little. Do you see the true philosophy of Muhammad as more moderate and peaceful than the world perceives it to be? I know my own Christianity has the innate possibility to turn dangerously extreme, when interpreted more literally than abstractly.
I must begin my answer to your question by admitting that my distinction between philosophy and religion has the tendency to rip the heart from the body. In Islam there is a binding force entailing a deity at the centre to which all must submit. I describe a world view without its central proposition. I am not the first to attempt to do so. The problem for the atheist is that the absence of a deity leads to nihilism. It is the spectre of nihilism which terrified Nietzsche as an adverse consequence of declaring the demise of the celestial. In his case he attempted to substitute the divine as present within each individual.
With that incoherence in my case out of the way I will try to set out what I meant by my comment. In the early days of Islam when it was still vulnerable Muhammad devised a concept which is known as Ummah. It simply means a community of Muslims. When he first developed the idea, he and his followers had escaped to Medina penniless. The initial band of Muslims were dependent upon the existing citizens of Medina, including Jewish tribes, for charity. One of the leading authorities on Islam, Marshall Hodgson, in The Venture of Islam sums the impetus thus:
To Muhammad the move to Medina was not merely an escape from an untenable position in Mecca. It was an opportunity to build a new order of social life such as the development of his faith had more and more obviously demanded. The cult of Allah as Creator demanded, in the first instance, a personal devotion to moral purity; but personal purity implied a just social behaviour: generosity to the weak and curbing the licence of the strong.
Vol 1 page 173
It is critical to note that Muhammad had been all his adult life a judge of rare ability. He performed this role in Medina for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In other words, the Ummah at its foundation was all encompassing. The sanctity of the Ummah is illustrated by an event late in Muhammad’s life. His youngest wife, Aisha, was accused of infidelity by a faction hostile to her led by Muhammad’s son in law Ali. Muhammad sensed the corrosive effect of rumour and division. To reinforce Ummah as a social structure it was decreed that rumours should be quelled in the absence of a standard of evidence basically impossible to meet. It is only on the basis of the impossible standard that the offending couple (woman and man) could be lashed. Coupled with the rule of law, mercy or lenity is the central idea.
Social cohesion plays itself out in a number of ways in Islam. An example is zakat. It is essentially a form of tax, more or less voluntary, which in the time of Muhammad was collected centrally and dispersed at his discretion to the needy or the community at large. It might have been a form of wealth tax – a percentage of an individual’s total wealth or an income tax – a percentage of income (or increment in wealth). I prefer the second for my own reasons but I might be wrong.
Another expression of Ummah is Murabaha. Murabaha is a mode of transacting that is designed to ensure the buyer pays a fair price. It may have existed in pre-Islamic commerce. It entails the vendor disclosing to the buyer the price he, the vendor, paid for the goods subject to transaction. Of all the ideas from Islam, this is the one I find most attractive. In a modern digital age, it would be relatively easy to implement and would have a profound impact. Other economic concepts also seek to diminish division such as the prohibition on lending at interest and personal responsibility (i.e. no corporations).
What Muhammad wanted is not unique. I think his views finds echoes in real Christianity. Christ is, if anything, a more radical leftie than Muhammad. The difference, perhaps, is that Muhammad knew what he was talking about as he was a merchant and judge for much longer than he was a prophet. I note that at the time Muhammad was formulating his doctrines of social order he and his band of followers were engaged in violence primarily to protect themselves or to ensure their survival. The wrong message can be drawn from this for sure.
I wrote about much of Islam's economic ideas here:
I certainly hope that scholars remind followers of his original intent. I don't recommend Bible reading to some types of people, because of enormous differences in comprehension and interpretation. The same can be said of at least the big three religions. I dislike religion quite a bit, yet I study the Bible daily for over 5 decades (and other philosophies) to obtain useful guidelines, metaphorically. I am not a literal biblical interpreter, but I still find many useful parables. I think fundamentalists often become extremists.
I too enjoy the parables of Christ. My favourite is the parable of the sower.
One thing about religion I cannot fathom is the implicit lack of faith in their own belief systems that those afflicted by fervour portray. Take a non-monotheist example to begin with - hinduism and its toxic offshoot hindu nationalism. If you truly believe the precepts of hinduism you believe that all people are subject to its eternal cycles. When Arjuna is given divine vision he sees all people - not just hindu people - streaming into the blazing mouth of Vishnu. “Time I am, destroyer of the worldsand I have come to engage all people.” That being so the believer should not lack confidence to feel threatened by Islam or Christianity. They must be, by definition, illusory.
I think the same thing applies to the two major monotheistic religions. The more extreme adherents also lack confidence in their beliefs as they take it upon themselves to punish or otherwise scorn those who do not follow their religion. It is especially hypocritical for Muslims and Protestants to be so judgmental. Judgement is the prerogative of their god. It must be the ultimate sin to arrogate god’s role to oneself.
I have wondered and noticed that exact same thing. We are expected to trust God, like karma, yet we do everything we can to punish, and worse, exact revenge, lacking faith in the divine's final judgements.
Excellent commentary and yes, whether or not we agree on climate change, we should be able to see the direct that nature is heading, and do our best to mitigate the end result.
I suppose humanity will survive in fewer numbers 😢
They say that we always think our own times are the worst, especially as we get older; but I really feel it is getting worse. As we have moved from the real to the virtual, technology ascends ever further and the population far outstrips our capacity to cope with it on every front, greed and panic over resources will result in even more depraved behaviour, justified in all kinds of perverse ways. Yes - I would rather not be around to see all this.
The great irony is that if people truly understood the philosophy of Muhammad what is happening wouldn’t be. And it is the philosophy not the religion that captures my attention.
Please elaborate a little. Do you see the true philosophy of Muhammad as more moderate and peaceful than the world perceives it to be? I know my own Christianity has the innate possibility to turn dangerously extreme, when interpreted more literally than abstractly.
I must begin my answer to your question by admitting that my distinction between philosophy and religion has the tendency to rip the heart from the body. In Islam there is a binding force entailing a deity at the centre to which all must submit. I describe a world view without its central proposition. I am not the first to attempt to do so. The problem for the atheist is that the absence of a deity leads to nihilism. It is the spectre of nihilism which terrified Nietzsche as an adverse consequence of declaring the demise of the celestial. In his case he attempted to substitute the divine as present within each individual.
With that incoherence in my case out of the way I will try to set out what I meant by my comment. In the early days of Islam when it was still vulnerable Muhammad devised a concept which is known as Ummah. It simply means a community of Muslims. When he first developed the idea, he and his followers had escaped to Medina penniless. The initial band of Muslims were dependent upon the existing citizens of Medina, including Jewish tribes, for charity. One of the leading authorities on Islam, Marshall Hodgson, in The Venture of Islam sums the impetus thus:
To Muhammad the move to Medina was not merely an escape from an untenable position in Mecca. It was an opportunity to build a new order of social life such as the development of his faith had more and more obviously demanded. The cult of Allah as Creator demanded, in the first instance, a personal devotion to moral purity; but personal purity implied a just social behaviour: generosity to the weak and curbing the licence of the strong.
Vol 1 page 173
It is critical to note that Muhammad had been all his adult life a judge of rare ability. He performed this role in Medina for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In other words, the Ummah at its foundation was all encompassing. The sanctity of the Ummah is illustrated by an event late in Muhammad’s life. His youngest wife, Aisha, was accused of infidelity by a faction hostile to her led by Muhammad’s son in law Ali. Muhammad sensed the corrosive effect of rumour and division. To reinforce Ummah as a social structure it was decreed that rumours should be quelled in the absence of a standard of evidence basically impossible to meet. It is only on the basis of the impossible standard that the offending couple (woman and man) could be lashed. Coupled with the rule of law, mercy or lenity is the central idea.
Social cohesion plays itself out in a number of ways in Islam. An example is zakat. It is essentially a form of tax, more or less voluntary, which in the time of Muhammad was collected centrally and dispersed at his discretion to the needy or the community at large. It might have been a form of wealth tax – a percentage of an individual’s total wealth or an income tax – a percentage of income (or increment in wealth). I prefer the second for my own reasons but I might be wrong.
Another expression of Ummah is Murabaha. Murabaha is a mode of transacting that is designed to ensure the buyer pays a fair price. It may have existed in pre-Islamic commerce. It entails the vendor disclosing to the buyer the price he, the vendor, paid for the goods subject to transaction. Of all the ideas from Islam, this is the one I find most attractive. In a modern digital age, it would be relatively easy to implement and would have a profound impact. Other economic concepts also seek to diminish division such as the prohibition on lending at interest and personal responsibility (i.e. no corporations).
What Muhammad wanted is not unique. I think his views finds echoes in real Christianity. Christ is, if anything, a more radical leftie than Muhammad. The difference, perhaps, is that Muhammad knew what he was talking about as he was a merchant and judge for much longer than he was a prophet. I note that at the time Muhammad was formulating his doctrines of social order he and his band of followers were engaged in violence primarily to protect themselves or to ensure their survival. The wrong message can be drawn from this for sure.
I wrote about much of Islam's economic ideas here:
https://walkerrb.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/142923557?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts
I certainly hope that scholars remind followers of his original intent. I don't recommend Bible reading to some types of people, because of enormous differences in comprehension and interpretation. The same can be said of at least the big three religions. I dislike religion quite a bit, yet I study the Bible daily for over 5 decades (and other philosophies) to obtain useful guidelines, metaphorically. I am not a literal biblical interpreter, but I still find many useful parables. I think fundamentalists often become extremists.
I too enjoy the parables of Christ. My favourite is the parable of the sower.
One thing about religion I cannot fathom is the implicit lack of faith in their own belief systems that those afflicted by fervour portray. Take a non-monotheist example to begin with - hinduism and its toxic offshoot hindu nationalism. If you truly believe the precepts of hinduism you believe that all people are subject to its eternal cycles. When Arjuna is given divine vision he sees all people - not just hindu people - streaming into the blazing mouth of Vishnu. “Time I am, destroyer of the worldsand I have come to engage all people.” That being so the believer should not lack confidence to feel threatened by Islam or Christianity. They must be, by definition, illusory.
I think the same thing applies to the two major monotheistic religions. The more extreme adherents also lack confidence in their beliefs as they take it upon themselves to punish or otherwise scorn those who do not follow their religion. It is especially hypocritical for Muslims and Protestants to be so judgmental. Judgement is the prerogative of their god. It must be the ultimate sin to arrogate god’s role to oneself.
I have wondered and noticed that exact same thing. We are expected to trust God, like karma, yet we do everything we can to punish, and worse, exact revenge, lacking faith in the divine's final judgements.