How compatable are Islamic beliefs and values with Western society?
It seems that there is always either a simplified view of Islamic extremism in the media, or a reactionary 'Islamophobia' labels thrown around but little actual examination of the fundamental tenets of the faith and doctrines they live by.
So hopefully there can be some civil discourse about these issues from both perspectives.
An example of gross double standards about this here.
The ban of religious attire in work places recently by the EU, which was criticized heavily by Erdogen as 'Islamophobic'.
https://www.rt.com/viral/529526-turkey-eu-headscarf-ruling/
Yet it seems he does not want to apply anything like the same standards of criticism to muslim communities both at home and abroad and any legal systems they try to enforce.
A Czeck politition had given a strongly phrased talk on it but in my view she is basically accurate in the description of the fundamental issues here and why there will always be some conflict, worth reading.
https://motls.blogspot.com/2016/05/klara-samkovas-talk-should-we-be-afraid.html?m=1
So I'm going to tackle this as a British Muslim - born and bred in London.
I don't think this question is as applicable for Muslims not born and brought up in this area of the world - because Islamic beliefs and western values/society is pretty much a experience we do not share with Muslims who do not live in western societies. It's something Muslims born in the West can really only answer - since we are here and have first hand experience of it.
Wanted to get that out of the way first.
I will clarify as well that I am a practising Muslim - I pray five times a day, fast, give charity and all of that other stuff. I will preface this with saying that I only really started praying regularly/consistently around 2 years ago after the loss of a loved one made me re-evaluate a lot of things in my life.
I wouldn't recommend any Western country to look at Erdogen and try to compare his authoritarian rule and conflate that with the way ordinary Turkish Muslims live day to day. Sure some may be conservative and others more liberal. It's not black and white.
I also wouldn't recommend using Erdogen as a means or measure of how we should behave on this side of the world - aka we do xyz and he doesn't.
Erdogen isn't exactly a great example to follow. The only reason some Muslims like him is because despite having many faults - being authoritarian among them - he points out double standards of countries over here - rightly so - he however is as much a hypocrite as those he accuses of xyz.
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Islam....is primarily a totalitarian system of governance in which God only plays a substitutive role because the main content of Islam is nothing else than the arrangement of the state matters. As opposed to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, or Shintoism, the heart of Islam is the law, namely the Islamic Sharia law."
"It wants to be protected according to our tradition which it exploits in this way, while it is not willing to behave reciprocally."
"From the viewpoint of Islam, the concept of religion as a private, intimate matter of an individual is absolutely unacceptable...Islam rejects the individual conception of faith in God and in a totalitarian way, it forbids all doubts about itself."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam
https://exmuslims.org/
I agree and disagree with this part.
Islam does delve into a system of governance because the early Muslim community became an entity "state" of its own as a result of what happened during the early years of the faith - however it is not the only faith unique in this aspect. The Jewish faith also has its own set of personal laws (hakkalah) to live by. Christians also have mosaic law (10 commandments). This is hardly unique to Muslims.
Even Buddhism has the dharma - so does Hinduism.
I feel like this speaker probably has a very poor grasp of world religions by making that statement.
I wouldn't describe Islam as a totalitarian system of governance because that would be a counter to the essence of having the free will and the choice of believing or not and the ability to make mistakes and seek forgiveness from God (from a Muslim's perspective).
The speaker here is conflating authoritarian governments/dictatorships with religion - by combining the two erroneously imo. History quite simply proves how invalid this point is. For recent history - see the formation of the baathist party across the Middle East.
In regards to apostasy - this is why there are many scholars and many Muslims reject the line of thinking that says death is an acceptable punishment for leaving the faith - because it is a retarded idea and rightly should be criticized by all - muslim and non muslim alike. It's also not borne out of logical interpretation of Islamic theology/law to top it off.
I have members of my family that are athiest, agnostic, cultural Muslims and some practicing - like is the case with many Muslim families. I don't think any one of us would be ok with execution for apostasy.
For example in Saudi Arabia religious freedom is almost non existent.
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the public practice of any other religion than Islam is illegal and even private worship is severely restricted. Mosques are the only public places of worship and the construction of non-Muslim places of worship is outlawed. Non-citizens are required to carry identity cards, which classify them into “Muslims” and “non-Muslims” and non-citizens applying for naturalisation must convert to Islam prior to the procedure."
http://www.hscentre.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/saudi-arabia-affront-religious-freedom/
So we have a well know Muslim leader calling an EU ruling 'fascist' simply because they block the overt display of any religious attire like the veil in workplaces. Yet he will keep his mouth totally shut regarding religious persecution and lack of rights of atheists and non Muslims in Muslim nation's which would by the same standard be far far worse.
We find similar repression of non muslims in many Muslim countries, and total silence about this from those who throw the Islamaphobia label around.
https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-report-on-international-religious-freedom/morocco/
Saudi Arabia has bigger problems than religious freedom. Add corruption, women's right, treatment of minorities (muslim and non-muslim alike), selective application of the law (if you are a Saudi prince) and illegally locking up dissidents/activists both Muslim and non-Muslim who are critical of the Saudi authorities.
It's not only human rights activists that get locked up in Saudi - Imams also get locked up or fall foul of the authorities if they say anything that is against the government. Many Imams simply cower to the Saudi line (don't bite the hand that feeds you) and those Imams with backbone/principles simply get locked up, put on house arrest or if they are very lucky get censored only.
A famous case of this is in 2018 when Shuraim - one of the Mufti/Imams of the Grand Mosque in Mecca was censored and his twitter account deleted by the Saudi authorities after he criticized them. This is the equivalent of one of the leaders of prayer at the Vatican being censored by Papal authorities for making legitimate criticisms of them.
The difference is we only ever hear of women's right or human right's activists getting into trouble because it fits the narrative we are fed over here. They won't talk about all the Imams that have fallen foul of the Saudi authorities.
Again what is with the comparison.
You should be able to condemn both Islamophobia and the treatment of non Muslims and atheist in Muslim countries. It's not a reciprocal type situation where we don't acknowledge our own issues because xyz country doesn't acknowledge theirs?
I hope we here in the west would want to maintain a higher standard for ourselves than Erdogen - this is why I don't understand the comparisons with a dictator.
Saying that Muslim women should have the right to wear what they want and non-Muslims should have the right to freely practice their faith in Muslim countries - can be said in the same sentence.
Our societies here imo are significantly more freer and more tolerant than over there. It's not that people there are a problem - it's repressive governments that talk the "Islamic rhetoric" in public but not in practice. Erdogen and MBS are classic examples of this and why many Muslims think of them as hypocrites.
So to what degree can Islam ever be truly reconciled with Western secular values? And can these same standards be applied all around when evaluating these issues?
I'd say that for many Muslims born and brought up here that these values have already reconciled with one another - we're living proof of it. They aren't though with people who have an issue with Islam, Muslims, immigrants, minorities or those that have a certain political outlook - it's easier to think that these two things cannot be reconciled because they can carry on believing in their political outlook without having to look at actual evidence because if they did - they'd have to re-evaluate what they think.
Many people aren't prepared to change thoughts/beliefs that are borne out of prejudice or are not perceivable in data. Easier to live in ignorance than having to work on yourself and change your outlook. I know Muslims and non-Muslims like that.
The only people that don't think Islam can be reconciled with secular values are jihadis/extremists and people with fringe like political outlooks. The fact that both ends of the spectrum share the same outlook should be worrying for anyone with a brain.