Colleagues:
A virulent debate has emerged regarding the nature of Islam, the Arab mindset, and the impulse towards global Jihadism. For some time I have been somewhat neutral in this discussion, but have found it increasingly difficult to find substantiation for the thesis that Islam is at its heart a peaceful religion. Similarly, I have not found support for the concept that moderate Islamists have much influence within the movement, nor for the thesis that reason can overcome faith based apocalyptic tendencies.
I have resisted reading Robert Reilly’s, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis”, thinking it was just another quasi-academic condemnation of Islam. I was wrong, am going to read and study the work, and am recommending it everyone on this net to do the same.
I have attached an excellent review of the Reilly book by Barry Cooper, who summarizes the text quite well. According to Cooper, Reilly argues that a large portion of mainstream Islam has “shut the door to reality in a profound way”. Reilly attributes this non-recognition to the “dehellenization” of Islam—the hijacking of a religion that was very much in the mainstream of rational thought until the 9th century. Until that time it was still possible in the Muslim world to discuss, as the Greek philosophers did, the relationship of reason to God, the concept of right and wrong, the responsibility we bear for our own decision-making and subsequent events.
The early Muslim thinkers followed the Mutazalite philosophy that posited that the Koran was a historical document, not an absolutist guide to behavior. That line of thinking was overthrown by the Asharite School, which emphasizes the unlimited will of God, discredits reason, considers debates over good and evil as mere distractions, and concludes that the idea of “human freedom” is an affront to God. Democracy is thus rendered impossible for believers; divine omnipotence is liberated from the laws of causality, real “science” is impossible. After all, if you believe in this interpretation of Islam, then you never have to bother yourself with trying to understand how the world works.
My colleague, Dr/COL Richard Hobbs, author of the proclaimed book, “World War IV and Beyond: Islamofascism, the Third Jihad, and Other Threats to the USA”, reminds me that Islam is not a religion as we think of it; rather, it is a total ideology that controls all aspects of life and, indeed, the hereafter. The guide is the Koran, which Hobbs reminds us, was supposedly received verbatim from Muhammad (Allah), even though it was not written down until long after his death but carried on by story-tellers. Dick agrees that the Mu’tazalites believed in the primacy of reason and they thought that one could only to come to know God through reason—and thereby to understand what is good and what is evil, what is just and what is unjust. Al-Ghazali, in contrast, stated that there is no “right or wrong”, all things and actions flow from the “Sharia”, Allah’s commands. There is no “natural law”, no such thing as “reason”, no place for concepts such as “democracy”.
For Hobbs this 9th-century victory of the Al-Ghazali sect explains the dysfunctional nature of Islam today, and illuminates why so few scientific advances have been made in the Muslim world. It explains why terrorism “is an obligation under Allah’s religion”, as Osama bin Laden’s mentor taught. Hobbs feels that Reilly’s calls for a “re-Hellenization” of Islam cannot occur today—the radicals who now control the movement have won whatever Civil War there might have been within the Muslim world. As such, Hobbs concludes, “We are in a very serious struggle with Islam, which is an extreme totalitarian ideology that is totally opposed to everything we stand for”.
Here is a link to Barry Cooper’s review of Robert Reilly’s book on the “Closing of the Muslim Mind” for your consideration.
Click here: VoegelinView Closing of the Muslim Mind (Review)
My report here is the first section of a 2-part analysis of Islam today—I will send out a follow-on summary of a major study undertaken by a conservative think tank that focuses more on the practical manifestations of the philosophical impules within Islam noted above. I will also forward an article that looks specifically at the Arab Muslim world, where the dismissal of reason and intellectual responsibility has led to a refusal among the leaders and the populace to “think for oneself”, to accept personal responsibility, and to yield to a willingness to submit to political systems that are repressive and with no obligations over those who are ruled.
– Tyrus W. Cobb
Minister of Enlightenment
The National Security Forum