Dr. Dean Ahmad, President and Director, Minaret of Freedom
In which a Palestinian Arab Muslim and a secular Zionist Jew find much accord.
Many take it as a given that Islam and any notion of liberty are diametrically opposed. People are quick to point out the number of Islamic dictatorships and repressive theocracies, and generalize that (for example) to Muslims in America. Dr. Imad Ad-Dean Ahmad, a scholar of Islam and history, would disagree. His organization, Minaret of Freedom, is dedicated to spreading a different narrative, that of a religion which values economic and social freedom, despite its use as a tool of repression by autocrats and theocrats in the Middle East and South Asia.
OMWC: Your background was originally in science. What sort of work were you doing?
Ahmad: My dissertation at the University of Arizona was on “Heavy Element Radio Recombination Lines from the Orion Complex.” (Robert Williams, then an Associate Professor at the astronomy program there, told me years later when he was the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute that mine was the only dissertation from which he could still remember the opening sentence: “From the belt of Orion hangs a sword.”) I focused on radio astronomy and on the conditions in the proto-stellar nebulae in which stars are formed. Comparing observations that I made with the National Radio Observatory’s 140-foot antenna with theoretical calculations I made with the Kitt Peak Observatory’s (at the time) state-of-the-art CDC 6400 computer, I was able to resolve an apparent contradiction in the astronomical literature as to the precise location from which the radiation was emitted.
I worked in astrophysics for another fifteen years after getting my doctorate, publishing models for the solar atmosphere and stellar winds, using mainly X-ray and ultra-violet data.
OMWC: What prompted your career change from science to social and religious activism?
Ahmad: By the late 1980s, I had become increasingly concerned about the inefficiency, immorality, and counter-productivity of American policy in the Middle East. I became painfully aware that of the role that ignorance and political agendas played in formation of bad policy. The so-called experts on the Muslim world had not seen the Iranian revolution coming and their retrospective attempts to account for it were incoherent. Having been a practicing Muslim and a libertarian all my adult life, I realized that the research discipline I had learned as a scientist was much more badly needed in the realm of Islamic studies.
I made the transition by writing a book on the role Islamic Civilization played in the development of modern science (Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer’s Perspective on Religion and Science). After I gave a talk on the book for the Honors program at the University of Maryland (College Park) the head of the program invited me to offer a course there on Islamic Civilization. At the same time, the great libertarian historian Leonard Liggio introduced me to the good people at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, who helped me to start the Minaret of Freedom Institute, the Islamic libertarian think tank I have headed for 23 years (www.minaret.org). The Muslim community also came to appreciate my work, initially because of my knowledge on issues related to the Islamic calendar, but gradually on an increasingly wide range of matters from Islamic civilization to Islamic law and chaplaincy.
OMWC: What was the thing or things which led you to libertarian thought in the first place? Were you raised with this or was it reading or experiences that took you in that direction?
Ahmad: My father (a businessman) was politically conservative and my mother (a teacher and media personality) was politically liberal, so my upbringing provided me a choice. The main sources that influenced how I managed to navigate between their very different views were, in order of encounter (and I think in order of importance) the Qur’an, Henry David Thoreau and Ayn Rand. From the Qur’an I learned the non-aggression principle (“Let there be no compulsion in religion” 2:256) and of the individual’s direct responsibility to the Creator (“There is none worthy of worship but God” 37:35) and the corollary of the idolatry inherent in arbitrary human authority over other humans (“Do not fear them but fear Me” 3:175). From Thoreau I learned of the value of individualism (Walden) and of the power that a righteous individual has over a corrupt state (“Civil Disobedience”). From Ayn Rand I first learned the how markets work and why state intervention is both morally evil and consequentially destructive.
OMWC: In some of your writing, you state that (in essence) you regard the Quran as axiomatic. Does your view of libertarianism derive from those axioms?
Ahmad: Axiomatic is your term, not mine. If by that you mean that I find the values articulated in the Qur’an to be the starting point of my weltanschauung, I agree: Every individual is directly responsible to God (37:35), no one bears the burdens of another (35:18); speak truth to power (28:37); stand for justice even against your own self or near of kin, rich or poor (4:135); say to those who reject your way of life, “to you your way and to me mine” (109:1-6); trade is good (4:29) and fraud (83:1-2) is bad; respond to an injury only in kind, or better yet forgive in order that you should be forgiven (42:40); defend yourself (22:39) but do not aggress (2:190).
OMWC: To clarify, I used the word “axiomatic” because of your statement “There are some things we shall take as a given. We shall not question the text of the Qur’an. While the Qur’an itself invites individuals to ascertain for themselves its authenticity by investigating its inimitability, we, as an institution, take the received Arabic text as our starting point.” So at least in my naive view, it would look like an axiom.
Ahmad: I see your point. The distinction is that an axiom is “self-evident,” whereas, the starting points for a Muslim are inherent in the definition of a Muslim. A Muslim, by definition, believes there is only one God and that Muhammad is His Messenger (i.e., that the Qur’an is His message). This is true regardless of whether the Muslim arrived at that point because he finds these things self-evident or because he had previously questioned them and found the answers convincing.
OMWC: Where in the current Muslim world do you see the possibility of libertarian approaches to social and cultural issues as having the greatest chance for a toehold? Can a Muslim country be culturally libertarian in the sense of treating all belief and disbelief equally under law?
Ahmad: I think that Tunisia is the most promising, with the Nahda Party holding fast to these principles whether their fortunes are good or bad. More secular people than I may think Dubai is the most promising since, despite its undemocratic political structure and strong religiosity of its rulers, it seems to be very tolerant socially and culturally. Until recently, Muslim countries were historically much more tolerant than the West on treating subjects of various religious belief under the law. When the Jews were evicted from Spain, they dared not move to any other Western country, but the Sultan of Turkey invited them to the Ottoman lands promising them absolute freedom to work, worship, and raise their families as they saw fit. Oppression of religious minorities in Muslim countries today is no more inherent in Islamic teachings than the oppression of Muslims (and others) in France is inherent in “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” The one area in which Muslim tradition is a serious obstacle is in the question of equal citizenship. I do not see this as a problem inherent in Islamic law so much as in the conflict of the Westphalian notion of the modern nation-state with the Muslim traditional system of autonomous confessional communities. I am not the only one who has pointed out that the resolution to this conflict may be found in the Prophet Muhammad’s remarkable covenant for the governance of Medina.
OMWC: Do you think that the US has a responsibility to promote liberty in other countries and in other cultures? (This begs the question, of course, of whether the US has a responsibility to promote liberty internally!)
Ahmad: The best way to promote liberty in other countries is to be “the shining city on a hill” and practice it here. The next best way is to trade freely with other countries and facilitate, not impede, cultural and social exchange. Speaking frankly to them can be a good way, if done with discretion and respect. Direct intervention into their internal affairs is generally counter-productive, and military intervention is the absolutely worst way, being immoral, ineffective, and counter-productive.
OMWC: In a related question, does the US, in your view, have a moral imperative to assist in the overthrow of despots where there isn’t a specific threat to us?
Ahmad: No. And there would be far fewer despots if we would stop propping them up.
OMWC: In Europe, Muslims have not seemed to have been integrated into their societies in the same way as Muslims have been in the US. When I hear about the Muslim “threat” here and examples from (say) France or Germany are cited, I ask, “Where are the American banlieues? Why are Naperville, Devon, Lincolnwood, or Orland Park (to choose Chicago suburbs with significant Muslim populations) not hotbeds of crime?” In the US, Muslims tend to be better educated and more economically successful than average, and media posturing aside, apparently as integrated as Jews or Hindus. To what do you attribute that difference?
Ahmad: It is true that Muslims in Europe have not integrated as well as those in the U.S., and while, statistically, Muslims in the U.S. have above average educations and material success, those factors alone cannot account for the more successful integration, since even those American Muslims who are undereducated and in poverty are better integrated than European Muslims. I think the most important single factor accounting for the better integration of Muslims (and other minority religion members) in America than in Europe is the unique American notion of secularity that incorporates both the disestablishment of state from religion and complete freedom of religion. Allowing Muslims the ability to freely interpret and practice their religion with neither interference nor support from the state threatens neither Muslims (and other religious minorities) nor the majority. Under French secularism, the suppression of religion from public life such as the ban on headscarves (and yarmulkes) alienates Muslims (and Jews), and even “neutral” Switzerland bans minarets as a threat to national identity. In England, the state gives preference to Anglicans over other (especially non-Christian) religions, which is a driver of discontent. In Germany the state supports all religions, which provokes resentment in the Christian majority.
OMWC: A rather open-ended question: What would you consider, in general, to be a rational US immigration policy?
Ahmad: Anyone who comes here for a peaceful and positive purpose, including to work or study, should be allowed to do so with a path for citizenship if they want it. Those who demonstrably seek to engage in crime or violence should be denied. The government welfare system should be reformed (or abolished) so that it does not attract freeloaders, and lets private and religious social service agencies carry the load of resettlement.
OMWC: What do you think is the greatest misunderstanding among American libertarians about Islam in a cultural (rather than theological) sense? If a libertarian wanted to understand more about Islamic culture beyond the usual prejudices, what should he or she be reading as an introduction and overview to gain a clearer and more accurate understanding?
Ahmad: The greatest cultural misunderstanding about Islam is the belief that it is culturally monolithic. Islamic culture spans an enormous range of nationalities, ethnic groups, cuisines, literature, arts, architecture, and political systems. If I had to recommend a single book it would be The Cultural Atlas of Islam by Ismail and Lois Faruqi. When you’ve finished reading that book head over to your local mosque and chat with the people there. (Just make sure to talk to more than one person!) Better yet, visit a few different mosques. Muslims are your neighbors and most of them would be delighted to chat with you.
OMWC: And my final question: Given an audience of libertarians with a rather wide range of views on Islam and how it relates to American culture, which question do you wish I had asked? And what over-arching message would you want to convey?
Ahmad: Given that the apprehension about Muslim immigrants is found even among some professing libertarians, I would have welcomed a question along these lines: You note the wide diversity of political views among Muslims. Since you clearly see the Qur’an as a document with some strong libertarian content, why are overt libertarians such a small minority among Muslims? I would have replied that I also see the U.S. Constitution as with a document with some strong libertarian content, and I wonder why are overt libertarians are such a small minority among Americans? In both cases I believe that ignorance of the Quran and the Constitution respectively are the problem, a problem compounded by corrupt political leaders whose interest in power motivates them to keep their respective constituencies in a state of ignorance.
OMWC: I really appreciate the time you’ve taken and the information you’ve given us. My own feeling is that ignorance is the root cause of fear, and your mission to dispel ignorance is far more valuable and effective than the moral preening and name-calling that passes for political discussion these days.
“Allowing Muslims the ability to freely interpret and practice their religion with neither interference nor support from the state threatens neither Muslims (and other religious minorities) nor the majority. Under French secularism, the suppression of religion from public life such as the ban on headscarves (and yarmulkes) alienates Muslims (and Jews), and even “neutral” Switzerland bans minarets as a threat to national identity.”
But, religious liberty in the US is a ‘black hole’. What is so ironic is that the Left so desperately wants to replace the American concept of ‘freedom of religion’ with the very European notion of ‘freedom of worship’, but the European practice has failed, terribly. Too bad, some so called ‘libertarians’ don’t realize this and seem fine with eroding liberty for the sake of being ‘hip’.
Good interview
When the Jews were evicted from Spain, they dared not move to any other Western country, but the Sultan of Turkey invited them to the Ottoman lands promising them absolute freedom to work, worship, and raise their families as they saw fit.
This statement is incorrect. Jews from Spain moved to England and the Netherlands and their credit and banking systems served as part of the backbone of their emerging trade empires. I always find it very questionable when anyone presents narratives like this, as my first instinct is to believe they are lying to prop up their ideology or beliefs. It sours my ability to trust them in a discussion.
True, but some Jews did settle in Palestine at that time. The Ottomans were fairly tolerant, in terms of religion. Excluding, of course, the fact that they would kidnap young Christian boys, castrate them and then train them into the elite Janissaries. Other than that whole kidnapping thing, I guess they weren’t so bad, in comparison.
And, you know, the whole Armenian genocide.
Of course, that was a few centuries later. 100 years or so ago, to be exact.
And during the course of a war in which the Armenians were largely supporting the other side. Not trying to justify it – just saying it’s not a clear-cut example of a religious purge.
They were ‘supporting the enemy’ as much as Germans in America were. Regardless, though, the Ottoman Empire at that time was not really the Ottoman Empire anymore. The Sultan had been marginalized and the Young Turks and the military were essentially in charge. The crime of the genocide, should arguably be put on the Turkish military and not the Ottoman state, per se.
I doubt at this point anyone can know for sure how much ‘they’ really were or weren’t helping the Russians. From what I’ve read, it seems somewhat more than Germans in America were helping the Germans (although it’s not a solid comparison, since German troops never touched American soil), but probably considerably less than subsequent Turks would have liked to have believed.
And in any case, the concept of collective guilt is a non-starter, even if some Armenians were helping the Russians, and I agree with your assessment that at that point in Ottoman history attributing anything to deliberate plans on the part of the Ottoman government is probably a mistake.
From Wiki (so take it as you will)
The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.[15][16][17] Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy.[18][19]
These weren’t soldiers they were putting into POW camps. These were civilians they were exterminating based on their ethnicity.
citation: System of a Down
Agreed. Like I say – I’m not saying it was a good thing, just that it is not a great example of a religiously-motivated purge that indicates something in particular about “Islam.”
As it happens, my family did end up settling in Turkey. Things changed, of course, in the 19th century with the steep rise of antisemitism in the Muslim world. They fled across the Black Sea to what is now the Ukraine, so you can imagine how bad the Ottomans became when Ukrainian and Russian pogroms were a step up.
Christ, your family had a series of bad travels.
Used to work with this Russian Jew about 10 years ago, a little while after the Borat movie came out. One of my colleagues, chuckling, told him about the “Throw the Jew down the well” song in the film. He then says something to the effect “That happened to one of my ancestors”. The hilarity train derailed abruptly.
The resilience of the Jewish people to a millennia of discrimination and violence is such an admirable quality.
The only reason movies like that are funny is because they are so off the wall absurd that even the possibility of the events happening in reality is dismissed outright by the rational mind. The moment you realize that these things not only could happen but did, the lulz immediately get replaced by abject horror. Imagine if the holocaust never happened. I am pretty sure the idea of some dude with a combover haircut and tiny mustache steamrolling half of western civilization would be the plot of a Mel Brooks movie to us.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
Seen it. That was more like a meta critique of the idea of making something so not funny that it swings right back around into funny again, but if the holocaust never happened the movie would not have been about the making of ‘Springtime for Hitler’, it would have been ‘Springtime for Hitler’ itself.
My father’s family had similar issues. He was born to relatively wealthy goldsmiths in Cairo (yes, the stereotypes are true, I guess). Being jewish and having some money in Egypt was a big no no, and after getting royally trounced in the 6 days war the Egyptians were none too friendly to the local jews. My father’s family had to flee Egypt in the 70’s, first settling in France and then moving to America.
No one ever, ever, ever talks about all of the dispossession, by the State, of assets of Jews in Arab countries. That’s how you can tell that they are completely and totally insincere about wanting reparations or whatever for such people. Left totally unexplained is how the 3000 year Jewish community of Iraq became responsible for the actions of the Israeli state.
I kind of wonder if the rise of antisemitism (and anti-Christian / Zoroastrian etc…) in the Muslim world correlates to the end of the jizya tax.
Back when non-Muslims were clearly recognized as 2nd-class citizens in Muslim countries, they seemed far more tolerant.
An implied “with a few notable exceptions” would have made the statement perfectly accurate. I doubt there’s a hidden agenda here – just a conversational rather than scholarly style.
Meh, I see this occurring too much on either side of the ‘Great Islam’ debate. Either the Islamic world was some wonderful and tolerant place in comparison to those savage Europeans, or the Islamic world is evil and has never produced anything of value. I can’t help but notice that these narrative tells tend to crop up.
Too true – I think it’s the impulse toward mimetic violence (Renee Girard was a big influence on my thinking). The ‘Islamic World’ is the Great Other to the ‘Christian World,’ and we have a hard time accepting the notion that the two aren’t significantly different in essence. The debate tends to be “is it the case that the Christian World is Good and the Islamic World is Evil, or is it the other way around?”
Sort of like how in certain isolated Central and South American tribes to imply that brothers physically resemble one another is seen as a provocation to violence.
It’s almost like we should judge people as individuals rather than the groups they belong to…
I found it interesting that he brings up the subject of Muhammad’s time in Medina.
I think I remember that Jewish Medina offered him sanctuary and within 5 years he had killed or run off most of the Medina Jews.
Is that correct history buffs ?
And I believe Italy (Naples). Jews were key launchers of Italian banking in the Renaissance.
And why were the Jews evicted?
For 7 centuries they had been used as the tax collectors, bureaucrats, and business agents of the Muslim rulers. They were the IRS, EPA, and Federal Reserve of the occupied Iberian Peninsula. of course they were ejected.
And why did other Muslim kingdoms take them?
Because they needed taxes collected, accounts kept, and slaves sold while they hawked and banged harem slaves.
Agree on the Netherlands but I think your chronology is off on England. The Jews were evicted from Spain in the 1490s. They had been evicted from England in 1290 and there was no identifiable Jewish community in England until the mid-17th century (although there may have been some individuals who practiced in secret).
Shylock was based on a Jewish physician in England, and I do believe that they did accept a number of Sephardic Jews. I’d have to look for sourcing.
Here’s one source:
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/uk.html
It does seem to suggest that, although there were small numbers it was not a significant exodus. And it doesn’t seem that England recruited them in the same way that, as you correctly noted, the Dutch did.
I apologize for the overstatement. Rather than say none dared, perhaps I should have said migrating to Europe was daring. The reception for any dared to go to the Netherlands was that “[i]n 1522, Charles V issued a proclamation in Gelderland and Utrecht against … against Jews who had not been baptized; he repeated such edicts in 1545 and 1549, as the Reformation grew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Netherlands). In 1571 the Duke of Alba notified the authorities of Arnhem that all Jews living there should be seized and held until the disposition to be made of them had been determined upon” (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11450-netherlands). Please check your dates for immigration of Spacih Jews to England. Edward I expelled Jews from England in the 13th century and “[f]rom then until 1655, there is nearly no official record of Jews in England outside the Domus Conversorum with a few exceptions, for example Jacob Barnet, who was ultimately arrested and exiled.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England).
In contrast to this treatment, the Jewish Museum in Istanbul displays the text of Sultan Bayezid’s letter to the rabbis of Spain, encouraging them to bring their people to Turkey and promising them the freedom to pursue their careers, to worship in accordance with their beliefs and to enjoy their property unmolested. An even more touching display in that museum is a letter that the Sultan had sent to an admirer of King Ferdinand, scorning the monarch who, he said, “impoverishes his own lands while enriching mine.”
I unfortunately did not get to read the whole thing since I am at work, but in regards to the question the title poses: I think myself, like many others, agree that what an ideology (any ideology) practices is infinitely more telling than what it preaches. On that basis, Islam is most certainly NOT a libertarian institution by any metric. Pretty words in an old book are wonderful, but they get a little smeared after being drenched in so much infidel blood.
With a headline like that, how can you NOT read the entire thing? Fortunately, I’m WFH today, so I gotta read this one.
I’m jealous I went from WFH 2 days a week to 0. Great way to destroy employee morale.
Ugh, that’s awful. I WFH more than 50% at the moment. Don’t plan on changing that either, unless it goes to more WFH.
Your point about practice what you preach doesnt make much sense. If you read the interview then you’d see that Ahmad does actually practice what he preaches. He founded a Muslim libertarian organization which is known worldwide and promotes libertarian values from a principled Islamic perspective. Islam is not an institution, it’s a religion. And just like any religion, people will use it in ways that it’s original teacher never intended. On the other hand, The Minaret of Freedom Institute (which Ahmad founded) is an institution which is definitely worthy of support from the libertarian community. It’s one of the rare organizations that advocates for limited government, free markets, and civil liberties in Muslim communities and countries.
Americans are lucky that we havent had any invasions or civil wars in our country for the last 150 years. Rather, we export our (federal) government violence to everyone else (state government violence is another story). So it’s easy to point the finger to others and talk about how much blood they spill while ignoring the role that the American government plays in that blood spilling. Islam doesnt preach violence. al Qaeda and ISIS preach violence. Jesus doesnt preach violence. The American government and Evangelical institutions preach violence: https://vimeo.com/34409225#t=80s
My point is: Religions don’t preach violence. Institutions do.
Islam must be libertarian. You can own as many camels and wiminz as you want, right? If there’s orphans, I guess it’s about time to convert.
You forgot about the ass-sex and hash.
You don’t even need roads!
The good doctor looks like someone photoshopped George Washington + Cheech Marin
That’s an amazing interview. Thanks for setting that up.
I agree. Thank you for introducing me to this guy, OMWC.
I just finished reading it and agree. Very good.
But… it could be a trap. This guy could be softening up libertarians in preparation for a jihad. I’m going back to the roof now to work on my Bethesda busting missile. Bethesda wasn’t very nice anyway.
I kinda like this guy. Too bad both of you don’t like bacon. Great interview!
Obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UO6YlkYNJQ
During the interview, I kept thinking, “I’d love to have a drink with this guy.” Oops.
Pffft, gay.
Bust out the volcano. I think that’s halal.
There’s a sentence I am sure almost no one has read twice.
Not true! I had to read it a second time to make sure I didn’t miss some important qualifier after doing a double take.
Heck, anything “and a libertarian all my adult life” is something I have not seen more than a handful of times.
Not sure about that.
I think ‘cantankerous asshole and a libertarian all my adult life’ is pretty much our motto.
Many of us came to libertarianism while adults. Maybe I am underestimating the number people who have always been so.
I think I’ve always been, but didn’t realize it until 97. I thought I was the only one, seriously. Then I found the LP website on the intertoobz. It was like a religious moment.
Yeah, I suspect that’s pretty common. My libertarian tendencies were there well before the politics or the label.
I was in high school in 08. I guess I was a lefty, but that was mostly the VT surrounding, and looking back was almost entirely based around the wars. Before that, my parents got me a book on fallacies before the 2000 election. I would have been 9 during the debates, and they remind me every now and then that I watched, and yelled what fallacy both guys were pulling. I think that moment was probably my arrival. My mom is on the left, my dad is ‘hands-off republican’. Ron Paul might be responsible for my push into libertarianism, but that was between the 08 and 12 cycles.
Personally, I’ve come full circle.
In my high school mock election in 1988 I voted Ron Paul. By 1991 I was a college sophomore and, therefore, a Communist. By the time of the Gray Davis recall, I was splitting my tickets between Greens and Libertarians (back when Greens still cared about political decentralization). Once the Greens turned full socialist about 15 years ago, I dropped them and registered Libertarian.
But yeah – you almost never meet someone who was “always libertarian” who isn’t lying.
Yeah i’m fairly young, and i wouldn’t claim to have been a libertarian all my life. I’ve flirted with a few other lines of thought, before settling with the little l in my early 20’s
Hmm, probably since about a year into the Thatcher Prime Ministership, so just about all my life. In the limey context, I think the most accurate characterization would be a minarchist.
I’ve been a libertarian my whole adult life. My first year of college was 2000 so I got to participate in my first election. I looked up a political test on the internet to help decide who to vote for and it told me I was a libertarian. I read through some of the party lines and said “Why yes, I think I am as well!” I can’t remember if I voted for W that year, but I’m pretty sure I voted for Brown and any other Libertarians on the ballot, with R’s when I didn’t have the option.
Get off my lawn, snapper!
MAKE ME YOU OLD FUCK! *knocks trashcan over*
Oooh, fun!
*drops gloves*
I had no political identity at all until my son was born in 2012. I got jerked around by my insurance company over the bills on my son’s birth. Long story short, it cost me over 10k out of my pocket before my bills were resolved. This experience got me started looking into why our healthcare system is so fucked up. This led me to th inevitable conclusion of its fucked up because the government is fucking it up. The more things I looked at, the more I realized that the above is the answer to most things that are fucked up.
That and guns. always guns. There is no other political philosophy that would respect my right to own an RPG.
As I tell many people, I am a gun guy first and a libertarian second, because gun ownership is always the first thing they take away.
I recognize your handle and moniker. I used to spend quite a bit of time at TTAG. I liked your commentary there. It was better than most.
I’m pretty sure even the most ardent Bernie-bro doesn’t care about your D&D books.
RPG. The acronym is commonly misinterpreted as Rocket Propelled Grenade. This is however a misconceptiin.
Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot translates from russian to Hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher
There’s a sentence I am sure almost no one has read twice.
I don’t know how many that frequent or run this site have been both their whole adult lives, but…
http://www.muslims4liberty.org/
damn it
I keep using [i] instead of [em].
*Good Edit Fairy flutters by*
I was definitely libertarian-leaning by the time I started college – growing up a Foreign Service brat is a marvellous education in certain ways. When I was a sophomore, the old man got me subscriptions to Reason (this was the Postrel days), The Weekly Standard, and The Nation… and that decided it. (I was bloody glad to leave that address, though – you can imagine the junk mail I was getting.)
Anyone who comes here for a peaceful and positive purpose, including to work or study, should be allowed to do so with a path for citizenship if they want it. Those who demonstrably seek to engage in crime or violence should be denied. The government welfare system should be reformed (or abolished) so that it does not attract freeloaders, and lets private and religious social service agencies carry the load of resettlement.
If you put those in reverse order, they’re gonna be a lot easier to sell.
Allowing Muslims the ability to freely interpret and practice their religion with neither interference nor support from the state threatens neither Muslims (and other religious minorities) nor the majority.
To say this in the west seems reasonable. But to say it in places like Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and a few other places seems like a death sentence to those who do not succumb to many of those “practitioners” of Islam.
My point is, sometimes the state needs to interfere with how someone practices their religion. Especially if that “practice” doesn’t permit for people to be gay, for women to be out of the house alone, for one to be Christian, Jewish or atheist, or for one to draw a picture of Mohamed. The states I mentioned silently allowing people to practice a barbaric strain of Islam that doesn’t respect the individual’s right to freely accept or reject its teachings is doing its people a disservice.
I took the quote to mean that he was saying that American ‘freedom of religion’ made assimilation far easier than the European version of ‘freedom of worship’. I think you have a point that neither ‘freedom of religion’ nor ‘freedom of worship’ exists in the vast majority of the Middle East (although, ironically, Iran allows freedom of worship for Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians).
Iran actually has a long tradition of religious tolerance that they are very proud of. The regime that has been in charge since 1979 is a glaring exception to this overall tendency, and even they don’t seem to me to be nearly as bad in fact as western media makes them out to be. Not nearly as bad as the Saudis, for example.
Nonetheless, if you are not Christian (I don’t think Iran recognizes Mormons as Christian, for example), Jewish, Muslim, or Zoroastrian you have no religious liberty. Further, I don’t think they afford religious dissenters accommodations, like the US does. Iran is tolerant, in comparison to the broader Middle East. Not as tolerant as the Europeans and far less tolerant than the US, which is in a class of its own.
It is difficult to be Baha’i in Iran.
It is inescapable that the greatest religious tolerance in the Middle East is in the lone Jewish state.
True.
A better way of putting it.
“Iran allows freedom of worship for Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians”
Do you have something current that shows that is actually happening? I know back some decades, Persia was just fine with about anyone.
Great interview.
I believe Dr. Astrophysicist Ahmad is much more intelligent than I am, and would not want to go toe-to-toe with him in a point/counterpoint format debating this subject. I loved his rejoinder about the constitution; it’s pretty libertarian, so why are there so few of YOU assholes, huh?
The obvious answer is that our political system has been usurped over the last 200 something years by power hungry carpetbaggers that now control our entire media and education system which systematically brainwashes incoming generations. With the advent of free media sources (e.g.: intertubez) this stranglehold has been slightly loosened, but without major societal upheaval we will never be a dominant political force.
I’d say we’re all pretty aware of the “why”, I just think it’s an amusing response to why there aren’t more libertarian muslims. Their societies are subject to the same “hijacking” that ours is, according to Dr. Ahmad.
The fact that libertarians are not control freaks really lowers the chances of libertarians controlling things.
I didn’t mean that to sound snarky, FYI, but I think it kind of reads that way now that I look at it.
No snark taken, no foul. In retrospect I probably should have seen that question to be rhetorical.
It’s not that there’s so few of we libertarians. It’s that there so damn many statist assholes.
I wouldn’t argue science with him. I think he version of history is very distorted.
I loved that close too
Good interview, thank you. He makes a good point that you can torture some very conflicting sets of conclusions from the same documents.
He seems like a fine fellow and all but he was obviously sugarcoating the issue. Islam translated is submission-I’m sorry but no.
“Islam” can be translated a couple of different ways, but the most common is in the range of “peace-making,” “salaam” meaning “peace,” and “Muslim” meaning “one who behaves peacefully.” It can also mean “surrender” or “submit” in the sense of “submit to the will of God.”
Some strains have interpreted this as meaning “make peace by slaughtering the war-making infidels,” and it’s a matter of some debate as to how “central” this way of thinking is to Islam, but that level of self-contradiction is common to a lot of ideologies, especially insofar as they are used to prop up dictatorships.
Some strains have interpreted this as meaning “make peace by slaughtering the war-making infidels,” and it’s a matter of some debate as to how “central” this way of thinking is to Islam
Which makes me wonder why he thinks the following: Allowing Muslims the ability to freely interpret and practice their religion with neither interference nor support from the state threatens neither Muslims (and other religious minorities) nor the majority.
It seems like you’re inviting a death sentence on non-believers in areas where Muslims take “slaughtering infidels” as a religious imperative.
I think you would have to combine it with a fundamental adherence to the NAP – i.e. “you’re free to interpret your crazy religion any you want to, but not in any way that impacts me against my will.” So, certain strains would necessarily be unacceptable if they’re going to demand that they’re rules get applied to everyone else. If not, ISIS eventually rules the world.
I really don’t think he means state non-interference to the point of allowing mass murder. I believe he means, and specifically mentions, things like the French ban on headscarves, the Swiss ban on minarets, etc.
He mentions those because they’re easy to mention. But his blanket statement is just as easily applied to the people that states are not preventing from tossing gays off grain silos and stoning women to death because they went out alone and got gang-raped.
Non-interference=non-interference. If he meant “to a point that they’re violating the NAP, then he should have clarified. He’s a self described libertarian. He knows the difference.
OR…maybe he was simply answering OMWC’s question and felt qualifying was unnecessary?
But a qualifier is necessary when there are places where the government stands idly by and lets islamists kill gays and rape victims.
I think he’s referring to the accommodations of religion that the US has. A Muslim prisoner can grow a beard in the US, despite general rules forbidding that. Or the idea that Muslim soldiers can exempted from physical training during Ramadan. The unique exemptions that the US allows for the religious is what makes the US unique throughout the world.
He’s speaking in an idealistic manner. Sorry, but the proof is in the pudding. Many of the nations I mentioned upthread do not interfere in how Muslims practice their religion…to the detriment of religious minorities or those who just so happen to run afoul of the morality police, if not afoul of the law Like rape victims that happened to be out unescorted). If he wants to speak just the USA, he should take care to clarify by saying something like “the government would need to intervene in some nations, obviously, since some practitioners of it violently murder non-followers or sinners in its name.”
Fair point
Because he was talking about the integration of Muslims in America.
He’s speaking in generalities though, isn’t he? I read that to mean that what works in America would work better throughout the world than states interfering in how Muslims practice.
And I would imagine a single woman caught driving alone after dark in parts of Syria by the morality police would disagree with him.
No, he’s speaking specifically to the question posed him…why Muslims integrate better in the US than Europe.
I suspect that there are jobs in Murika is part of it. From what I’ve heard, it’s very difficult for immigrants to get a job in Europe. Hell, it’s hard for Europeans to get a job in Europe. Unless, maybe Germany or UK, and it doesn’t appear that immigrants are faring that well, even in Germany.
Then it would be helpful if he acknowledged that Muslims in other parts of the world shouldn’t be afforded the same luxury. Or that we are fortunate enough to only have the kinds of Muslims move here that we can trust to practice their religion free from government intervention.
Does he think that hands-off policy is universally better? Or does he just think its better in America? I’d very much like to hear his answer.
You don’t believe in freedom of religion?
You don’t believe in freedom of religion?
Not when a government lets people practice it in a way that violates the NAP. Like when they stand idly by and let people chuck gay people off of grain silos or stone rape victims to death.
If that makes me a bad person, then I’m sorry.
So your issue is with immoral governments, then? Because freedom of religion is not license to harm people.
So your issue is with immoral governments, then? Because freedom of religion is not license to harm people.
Sure. Except…
Allowing Muslims the ability to freely interpret and practice their religion with neither interference nor support from the state threatens neither Muslims (and other religious minorities) nor the majority.
…should take care to qualify that by saying unless that interpretation violates the individual rights of another person. Especially since there are no small number of Muslims that believe in killing gays, infidels or apostates.
The same would apply to Christians, Jews, Hindus, or Gaia-worshipers. And I can assure you that if I was defending my religion, and my religion had a serious problem with some adherents killing a shitload of people in the name of my religion, I’d take great care to qualify it in that manner.
He did, as he was specifically talking about America at the time, where we don’t allow FoR to trump our murder/assault/rape… laws (which happen to comply with the NAP).
Context matters.
This was a great interview OMWC!
YOU DIDN’T ASK HIM ABOUT DEEP DISH?!
And Daniel Pipes. Sounds like they’re at the opposite end of each other.
“The greatest cultural misunderstanding about Islam is the belief that it is culturally monolithic. Islamic culture spans an enormous range of nationalities, ethnic groups, cuisines, literature, arts, architecture, and political systems. ”
Only an illiterate would think this. Mind you, I’ve read my fair share of history books on the region and was even subscribed to AramcoWorld.
I wonder what Frank thinks of all this.
Get serious. OMWC should have asked him if Muslim’s should be forced to bake gay wedding cakes.
“Yes! Oh, wait.. you said bake gays INTO wedding cakes, correct?”
“How to Cook For Gays”
/blows off dust
“How to Cook Forty Gays”
Dr. Ahmad *reads comments on Glibertarians. Burns down Minaret of Freedom, swears off libertarians forever.*
I’m sure he and Frank can share a lime-a-rita together afterwards.
*narrows gaze*
/writes email to OMWC.
Dr. Ahmad: You said the comments would be awesome!
OMWC: What? They are! Just ignore Rufus. He’s….Canadian.
Dr. Ahmad: *speaking to people at Minaret of Freedom* “After all these years, I’ve seen some of these libertarians writing on the internet”
Dr. Ahmad: They’re a little crazy. And, they seem to worship bacon as their god, and … it’s worse.
People: *exchanging concerned glances*
Dr. Ahmad: There’s… there’s… Canadians.
People: *gasps all around and then* … cries of jihad, jihad, jihad!
The concept of interpreting and practicing a religion at the grassroots level is pretty much a no-no for most religions, isn’t it? Not that I agree with it, but as with statism, it appears that a rigid rule book is what the customers want.
Nice interview. I think you’re going places, kid!
Absolutely, but I think it’s more the ‘vendors’ than the ‘customers’ who are dead set against “interpreting and practicing a religion at the grassroots level.”
If there isn’t a single man serving as the head of your faith, surrounded by a college of educated local governors then you’re religioning wrong.
It seems to me that there’s an inverse relationship between religious fundamentalism (of any stripe) and the tenets of libertarianism, or, for that matter, classical liberalism. All religious texts have bits that adherents don’t like to share in mixed company; the doctrinal equivalents of the drunk uncle that you hate introducing to people outside of the family. To the extent that you feel alright with picking and choosing which bits to follow and which bits to interpret into something more acceptable to non-believers is more a measure of your acceptance of the humanist principles espoused by the Enlightenment (and elsewhere, of course; I’m speaking from the modern Western perspective) and the secularism of your society than any quality possessed by your religion.
In other words, Islam is neither tolerant nor intolerant, libertarian or totalitarian; people choose what to believe, what to practice, and how to behave towards people who believe different things.
Excellant interview OMWC.
Original journalism?! GASP!
Thanks for this, OMWC and Dr. Ahmad.
In all seriousness, it was a good read because it gave a welcomed twist to the whole ‘Islam is incompatible with Western values’ angle.
My own feeling is that ignorance is the root cause of fear, and your mission to dispel ignorance is far more valuable and effective than the moral preening and name-calling that passes for political discussion these days.
*applause*
That, and beheadings.
This may be technically true – barely…. tho i think its maybe unfair to compare an entire body of cultural thought (“Islamic teachings” – which clearly includes ‘teachers’ who have held less-than-generous attitudes) with a mere-National-slogan. If you were to compare “islamic thought” with the broader history of the modern French state, there is indeed a strong thread of anti-clericalism in France, and the official state position of “Laicite” is one of the most hostile in the world to religious expression.
this also seems to handwave aside the depressingly-common mass-murder of religious minorities in Islamic countries; and perhaps worse, that not a single leader of an Islamic country ever seems to step forward and call that sort of thing out as abominable and anti-Islamic, or offer any sort of aid/shelter to those oppressed groups. It may not be ‘inherent in teachings’, but it seems the theoretical religious tolerance of the past is long-gone among actual practitioners.
*i noted later he flagged french-secularism as being ‘the worst of the lot’, so maybe his initial comparison was more to suggest that Islam ‘had issues’, but not necessarily worse (in text) than some western states. I’d still disagree with that – but it does modify the way i read the initial comparison.
that not a single leader of an Islamic country ever seems to step forward and call that sort of thing out as abominable and anti-Islamic,
al-Sisi has been doing it since he got into power.
fair enough. isn’t his example notable mostly because of how exceptional it is?
And that it has taken more than a decade + a half of war between Islamic-jihadists and Western countries to have a single leader step up and say, “maybe these aren’t just ‘a few bad apples’, and that the problem is wider within Islam”?
I’d also note that Al-Sisi’s political popularity partly lies in his being a bulwark against islamist elements in Egyptian politics. Demonizing ‘radicals’ within Islam is, if not entirely self-serving, at least convenient.
his question is really good.
Islam is not the religion of libertarianism any more than Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, yet the enlightenment was birthed and nurtured in the Christian world. Libertarianism was born here, not elsewhere. The Reformation gave rise to the Enlightenment gave rise to classic Liberal thought. Once there is a crack in the dam the deluge is nearly impossible to prevent.
Just as Christians cast off their chains and secularized their religion Muslims can as well. Education can go a long way towards changing that.
Jesus and early Christian were only practicing and leading a peaceful life themselves. It was nothing like what you see today. In fact things really went downhill for Christianity when it was adopted and manipulated by the state. Interestingly, when the Church and State became allies Jesus was quoted as supporting a host of laws, positions, and wars (he tended to support all the countries involved in wars too)
Agreed. Institutionalization of Christianity was actually one of the worst things to happen to it (from the perspective of a practicing Protestant Christian).
In other news, check out this site:
The Odin
There’s gonna be blue people running around with 3 boobs and 2 penises before this is over. Children hardest hit. Ya’ll been warned.
“Genetic Engineering Home Lab Kit”
What are five words I never wanted to see together in the same sentence?
As soon as I engineer this liquor that doesn’t ever get you a hangover, you’re going to change your mind about that. As soon as I get done with my instant penis enhancement and fembot 3000 model engineered from bacon fat, I’m gonna get right on it.
Might want to cure cancer while you’re at it. I hear it’s all the rage now.
Well, the government would probably put a stop to my little adventure if I were to try that.
DIY Bacterial Gene Engineering CRISPR Kit
may be worse.
Does your favorite STD keep succumbing to Cipro? Well NOT ANYMORE!
CRISPR is pretty much the biggest pants shitting inducer term recently. It’s even more scarier than opioid epidemic.
‘3d printed firearm’ would like a word.
What about a CRISPR engineered gun that prints itself and fires opioid pellets? Could anything top that for scariness?
Only if it were made by ISIS. I think I need to change my pants just typing that.
“…and is currently in the hands of ISIS”
That would do it.
Interesting interview. As others noted the historical cites were a little sketchy, but it was interesting to hear that a case could be made for libertarianism and Islam co-existing. Although, I think support can be pulled from the Quran plus the history of Muhammed himself to suggest a more theocratic and totalitarian approach to governence.
I was thinking as I was reading its too bad there is not an extremist sect of Christianity the results would be Chriatians following the NAP, rejecting ties between church and state, and suggesting a moral code for fellow Christians not everyone else
I think such a group does exist in Christianity and is growing. Although, I don’t know that they organize and advocate openly as such. There are some popular preachers (particularly of the more Calvinist/Reformed bent) whose teachings, to me at least, have at their natural end the exact scenario you describe above. The sole exception being the issue of abortion… but if you believe it to actually be murder, and then apply the NAP (or really any modern mainstream moral code), it’s pretty hard not to seek to legally prohibit that act.
Perusing throughout he comments above and noticing the personal stories of Jewish families and their travails.
I am not surprised by the many horrors committed against Jews in the rest of the world. I expect it. My impulse is always to wonder why more of them didn’t flee here. Oh. Because America didn’t want them. Our record certainly has some black spots on it and that is not the smallest of them. It is a mark of shame that we did not offer to Jews the kind of sanctuary we offered post-revolution Cubans. That should have been our policy from day one.
When people point out America ‘didn’t want the jews’ I generally like to counter argue that our version of ‘not wanting them’ was rather welcoming compared to many other countries. Could we have done better? Of course, when does the government get anything right? But we sure as hell could have ton much MUCH worse.
ton = done. How in the fuck did I do THAT?!
Agreed.
Still, I hold us to a different standard and by that standard we performed poorly right up until today. It is a travesty that there are so many calls to let Muslims in as refugees with priority. We should be letting in the minorities being ground under the muslim heel; Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. There is no moral justification for the position that Obama, Clinton and their ilk took.
It is disgusting.
Obviously I am anti-immigration.
Many Muslims are being murdered by the jehadi nutjobs also. I don’t really have my head wrapped around the sunni vs shia riff going on there. But I agree, preference should be given to christians, and yazidis as they are singled out for extinction. That does not happen because the UN is the one vetting refugees in the first step of the process. At least that is my understanding of it.
sunni vs shiite can be boiled to catholic vs protestant. Obviously not that simple but a good metaphor.
When you want to see serious religious intolerance, sibling sects surpass any substitutes.
The hierarchy of evil in pretty much any context goes :
– pagan
– infidel
– heretic
– apostate
There are obviously blemishes on the historical character of America. I would argue, though, that when it comes to religious accommodation and tolerance, the US was and is the best in the world (of course, Mormons might disagree).
There is a reason why the US has the most religiously diverse population in the world, while avoiding sectarian conflicts.
I’ll just leave this warning right here. There must be a reason why they walk almost everywhere. And I know what it is. They are the worst freaking drivers on the planet. Every time, around here, they all suddenly decide to drive somewhere, it’s utter fucking chaos. Worse than the worst traffic jam nightmare in Shanghai or Sao Paulo. They don’t even appear to know what those lines on the road or stop signs or lights are even for. I’ve taken to driving 2 miles around out of the way just to avoid that. And when they walk, even though this community has nice wide sidewalks to walk on, they walk right down the middle of the fucking street. Outside of that, they don’t bother anyone. Also, would be nice if they passed a law to put reflector lights on them so that you can see them when they’re walking in the road at night wearing all black.
Well, that’s my Joo rant for the day.
Um, are you sure you aren’t getting your stereotypes mixed up? Or perhaps you have some very confused asians in your neighborhood?
Hardly. The Asian women are stellar drivers compared to these guys.
As someone who has half his family tree filled with jews, I can attest to some really negative stereotypes they fill like a glove, but bad driver is officially a new one to me.
Maybe it’s just this community. But it’s really crazy.
Hardly. The Asian women are stellar drivers compared to these guys.
Now you’re just trolling.
I live in an area with large Hmong and Somali populations. Lovely people, but there is no way anyone could be worse drivers.
No chance.
If I’ve heard (and said) it once I’ve heard it a thousand times: the only thing worse than two Koreans in front of you in a golf cart is two Koreans behind you in a car.
I wish I was just trolling, sloop.
You’re mistaking the Amish for (((us))).
Nope. The Amish drive those horse and buggies. There was a community of them about an hour from where I used to live. These are orthodox Jews. They’re the ones wearing all black and long sleeves, even when it’s 100 degrees out. The women wear some other colors, but they always wear long sleeves. Sorry, I didn’t know that you’re an orthodox Jew, OMWC.
I believe the technical term is ‘hasidic jew’.
Well, yes, that. But people also refer to them as orthodox. At least around here.
Hasid is a particular sect within Orthodox Judaism. So all Hasidim are orthodox, but the majority of Orthodox are not hasidim.
For the record, I am neither, I am religiously agnostic.
So you’re basically more of a member of my cult than their cult.
I am in the same boat. Ethnically, I am jewish, so I naturally side with the Israelis, but I am definitely an atheist.
Hyp, as far as Jews being ‘the worst freaking drivers on the planet’…ever been behind a carload of nuns?
I can’t be an aethiest, because I have no more proof that there’s not a god, than I do that there is. Therefore, agnostic. There could be or could have been a god, or gods. Of course, it wouldn’t be a supernatural god, but some advanced being or an advanced civilization, which are more primitive ancestors would of course took to be a god. Or the entire universe or parts of it, could be a simulation. Right now, I have no way to know any of those things for sure, one way or other.
Crikey, that was some terrible grammar and spelling. Oh editor god, where art thou? Why hast thou forsaken me?
The Gods of the Copy Book Headings smile upon thee.
Proving a negative doesnt enter into it as that is impossible. The burden is on those making the assertion, a burden that cannot be met. Logic and reason say NO.
“Hyp, as far as Jews being ‘the worst freaking drivers on the planet’…ever been behind a carload of nuns?”
I was behind a bus full of them once, but they went off the cliff.
Excellent job.
Come here to get away from the Trump pantswetting, stay for the excellent and informative articles.
It’s only because the writers ARE the commenters.
the articles are coming from inside the commentariat?
RUN!
Google “fearless girl desecration”.
Go ahead. I dare ya.
By ‘desecrate’, do they mean ‘dry-hump’?
The false outrage is over 9000 on this one. That being said, I know one guy who is going to have a job with his name on his shirt for the next few years.
We saw that last night
We are still trying to figure out which one of us that is.
Desecration? Really? Isn’t desecration something we usually reserve for defiling an object of religious reverence?
OT what the hey?
You are going to hell for posting that.
My son’s Sunday School class has “service” opportunities, and going to feed the homeless was on the agenda for today. The girls in his class were playing the above video.
Easily the most cringe inducing, nerve grating shit I have ever seen and that is saying a lot.
If one treats any holy book like a salad bar, one can make it palatable to anyone. Obviously, no bacon bits on some of your salads.
I’m not surprised in the least that there would be Muslims in western countries who don’t follow the Quran to the letter. I disagree strongly with the premise that it’s just ignorance, though. It is the opposite in some cases, for example the free permission to rape anyone “whom their right hand possesses” (captives who are not Muslim). There are many such passages which justify the abhorrent practices of fundamentalists, and knowing that they exist, reading them for what they are, and educating others about them is the opposite of ignorance.
It is less of a problem if someone came to Islam with western culture and norms already embedded in them. Muhammad Ali was an American convert who was a fine, upstanding person, and he was anti-war all his life. It stands to reason that such a person could reject the terrible things the Quran says and find something of value to them in the rest.
I’ve always been forthright that I believe all religion is a bunch of hooey. That said, I believe just as strongly that anyone can believe whatever hooey they like as long as they don’t try to wield it as a political bludgeon against others. I wish him all the success he can find in converting more believers of Islam to libertarian principles and hope that his mission of dispelling ignorance goes the other way too. Seeing people as individuals instead of collectives is important. If enough people start to see things the way Dr. Ahmad does, it may touch off a badly needed reformation in Islam and help heal the old rifts that are preventing many from finding true freedom.
*stands…applauds*
Well stated.
“a badly needed reformation in Islam”
A slight quibble Islam *had* a reformation in the Arabian peninsula in the 18th century. We call it Wahabbism, and it’s the state religion of Saudi Arabia, a religion the Saudis can export thanks to all that oil they sell.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one…the Wahhabis put an end to local traditions of venerating Muslim saints, claiming this venerating saints was idolatrous. They scrapped many traditions of a related nature, supposedly in the name of adhering strictly to the Koran but actually for the sake of enforcing *their own version* of what the Koran meant.
Yep, I’m well aware of the Wahhabis. The problem is that it brought a bunch of its own fundamentalism to it, which ended up making things worse in a lot of ways.
I don’t think a religion can have anything close to true reform unless it can tolerate heresy and apostasy. It’s for that reason that I consider the adherents of the AGW alarmism cult as more concerning than distant Islamic fundamentalists, because they tolerate neither. They have more real political power and endanger the whole economic system with their inflexibility.
You’re assuming that the only valid form of “reformation” is toward greater tolerance of/compatibility with modern secularism, when in fact, it could simply be a reification of a very traditionalist set of values.
Has anyone Jefferson bible-ed the Quran?
“…anyone can believe whatever hooey they like as long as they don’t try to wield it as a political bludgeon against others.”
That is the whole point of the hooey. It is a tool for control, or at least was conceived as such originally. The rejection of that notion – a secularizing of religion – is what renders it useless as a bludgeon and it becomes a tool for civilizing. Islam has not reached that point yet.
It’s a good thing that glib holy wars mostly only revolve around pizza and what is permissible as toppings on it.
There can be only one. ?
Right.
Stromboli.
HERETIC!
That is true Zero. We are all armed, heartless, vicious bastards. Considering how we treat our orphan slaves I shudder to think how we would treat real enemies. Imagine the bloodbath.
Good, substantive content. Great guy you’re interviewing.
He makes plenty of good points, and I’m sure he can run circles around me re astrophysics *and* Islamic law.
Here’s a thing that stood out, thought:
“The one area in which Muslim tradition is a serious obstacle is in the question of equal citizenship. I do not see this as a problem inherent in Islamic law so much as in the conflict of the Westphalian notion of the modern nation-state with the Muslim traditional system of autonomous confessional communities.”
I think he’s referring to the Ottoman *Millet* system. (sp?)
Non-Muslim groups – Jews, Orthodox Christians, Zoroastrians, etc. – were second-class subjects who got the short end of the stick in the case of disputes with Muslims.
But in the case of disputes *within their own community,* then (say) Orthodox Christians would be subject to the rulings of their Patriarch.
So if you as an Orthodox Christian got sued by your Muslim neighbor, the Muslim judiciary would look at the matter with a bias toward your neighbor.
But if you as an Orthodox Christian got sued by *another* Orthodox Christian, the Orthodox Patriarch or designee would decide how the case came out.
The religious heads of the various minority communities were held responsible for the good behavior of their flocks. So when the Greek rebellion started in the 1820s, the Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, who claimed he was pro-Ottoman, was hanged for being supposedly associated with the rebellion.
And, ironically, this was the undoing of Islamic governments in the 17th-18th centuries. Non-Muslims weren’t bound by Islamic law (unless, as you say, they came into direct conflict with a Muslim). Not only did Islamic governments wind up relying on European Christians for finance since Christians could loan money at interest while Muslims could not, European Christians were able to set up essentially independent “factories” that operated outside the bounds of the society’s laws as “autonomous confessional communities.” Both the Ottoman and Mughal Empires were, in a certain view, bought out by their Christian creditors.
The best way to promote liberty in other countries is to be “the shining city on a hill” and practice it here. The next best way is to trade freely with other countries and facilitate, not impede, cultural and social exchange. Speaking frankly to them can be a good way, if done with discretion and respect. Direct intervention into their internal affairs is generally counter-productive, and military intervention is the absolutely worst way, being immoral, ineffective, and counter-productive.
Preach it Brutha Doctor.
I know nothing of Tunisia and any possible libertarian moments there, but Dubai is tolerant of some social transgressions against Islam due to greed imho. You can drink in hotels and some restaurants, but there are no liquor stores. (one in Sharjha I think) Prostitution is illegal but tolerated until the cops need to do a shakedown. All that, and you can get yourself chucked in the poky if you kiss your girlfriend on the beach with too much “passion”.
I have said in the past that I thought Kurdistan had hope if it ever became its own country. (Granted I got laughed at when I said that, but I am used to that.) They are the one middle eastern country/region I have had any experience with were national culture and tolerance of others trumps anyone’s religion, and they are actually taking a stand against the Jihadi nutbags.
OT: Two feet of snow today.
They are taking a beating from global warming.
It be a nor’easter, it is.
Somehow I left out that the two feet is in NYC.
We’re supposed to get 8-12″ of it here. Sort of weird as we didn’t have any snow all winter.
i don’t recall any mention of “sharia”, “jihad” or “jizya”, i would like for the doctor to address these topics and how he fits them with libertarianism. Even the notion of what is basically a punitive tax for non-muslims seems on its face to contradict the idea that you’re truly free to worship in other ways.
Good question. “Jihad” can also have the meaning of an inner, spiritual struggle, but the other two are quite problematic from a libertarian point of view.
Interesting interview and comments. Dr. Ahmad is a smart fellow, and no doubt can speak more authoritatively on Islam than I can, but I think his approach is doomed. Islam is an inherently anti-libertarian religion.
Imagine if Christianity were different. Imagine that Jesus personally wrote (or was said to have written) the entire Bible, taking dictation from an angel, who got the text from God’s master copy of the Bible in Heaven, which is written in the language God speaks, a somewhat archaic but basically understandable form of English (think Chaucer or Shakespeare). And in addition to being the perfect word of God, the Bible is the last word of God. How much “reform” or “moderation” would be possible in Christianity, without violating its basic tenets? The answer is: not much. To be a Christian would require you to be a fundamentalist, because you couldn’t pick and choose among the words of God, deciding which to believe. It would be an all-or-nothing deal.
Of course one can find “nice” parts in the Quran. The trouble is, much of it is not nice at all, and one cannot simply ignore those parts and still claim to be Muslim, any more than you can accept two out of the three in the Holy Trinity and still claim to be a Catholic. Mohammad is also said to be the “perfect man,” worthy of emulation, but he was a caravan robber, warlord, mass murderer, rapist, slaver, dictator, and (by modern standards) a pedophile. Compared to a pacifist carpenter, he’s bit more problematic to emulate.
Christianity could reform and exist in more secular societies because it has more built-in flexibility. The Bible has two parts, with most of the problematic stuff in the Old Testament (pre-Jesus). It was written by dozens of people “inspired” by God, in a handful of different languages, over hundreds of years. It’s known to have been edited. (Muslims do not admit that the Quran was ever edited, despite many obvious edits and outright errors.) Few read the Bible in the original languages, but the Quran is only “authentic” in the original Arabic. Plus, the Bible has that handy “render onto Caesar” statement, a theological basis for the separation of church and state, while in the Quran, there is no such separation.
As a result, one can be a Christian while ignoring various problematic bits from Leviticus or whatever, but a Muslim doesn’t really have that option. Sure, there are exceptions like Sufis, but they are nearly universally persecuted in Muslim societies (as are Christians, Jews, atheists, gays, etc.).
I’m afraid Dr. Ahmad’s vision of a “libertarian Islam” is about as coherent and likely as a “libertarian Marxism.”
Probably my favorite Marx quote:
“This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the pre-established harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all-shrewd providence, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.”
It would be very easy for someone with a hard-on about Christianity to make the case that indeed those “problematic bits” are integral- and it would be trivially easy to find historical support for such a view.
Pretty much by definition, the Old Testament carries less weight for Christians than the New. That’s why I used Leviticus as an example. The New is said to supersede the Old (though that may not be the correct theological term).
Sure, there are always dissenting views and heresies, but by and large, the mass of Christians (and their churches and theologians) do not see the Bible as the unified, perfect, and final statement of God’s views, which is the way Muslims see the Quran.
And 100% of them are robots whose belief in and practice of Quranic inerrancy is unwavering. Unlike the adherents of every other religion in the history of forever.
As I tried to explain, that’s inherent in the religion. It’s not like Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or most (all?) other religions that way. What other religion believes its holy scripture is a direct and perfect copy of God’s master copy, in God’s language? I can’t think of one offhand. Don’t you see how that leaves much less room for interpretation and reformation?
Jews, Christians, and Mormons (in the last case, perfectly translated from God’s language).
I don’t know about Mormons, but Christians and Jews do not believe that there is a master copy of their holy book up in Heaven with God, and that our versions are perfect copies of it, written in the language God speaks. And that they are the final revelations from God.
I’m sure you know more about Jewish theology than the rabbis under whom I suffered for ten years of cheder. They seemed to think that the Torah was the inerrant word of Yahweh. If they were still alive, you could set them straight about Jewish belief. I’m sure someone here can hook you up with fundamentalist Christian theologians and Catholic clergy so you can explain to them that their notions of inerrancy aren’t part of their religion, either. They will be grateful, I’m sure.
I might well be wrong about how Jews consider their scriptures. I still suspect that there are crucial differences, because I never hear of Jews killing each other over interpretations of the Torah, nor any actions to spread Judaism, and certainly not by force.
My basic point is that Muslim scripture contains far more calls to violence and oppression than Jewish or Christian scripture, and that you see that acted upon throughout Islamic history. I see no way to get around the problem parts while staying inside of the overall ideology of Islam.
“Raze it, raze it to the ground.
Blessed is he who takes your babies and smashes their heads against the rocks.”
Yeah, I can see that.
Obviously they’re not all robots who believe the same thing. The trouble is, Westerners who count on that are basically counting on Muslims being bad Muslims. Theologically, the Wahhabis, Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Iranian regime, and Erdogan are on much firmer ground than any moderates.
And you can see this in the real world. When people become extremely devout Christians, or Jews, or Buddhists, they rarely turn violent. Not so with anyone who becomes an extremely devout Muslim….
I’m somehow not worried about Dean going violent on me. Just a feeling I have. Perhaps I’m missing the extreme danger.
Of course not. It’s just that most Muslims are not like him, and neither of you are living in a country with lots of Muslims. If either of you went to Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia, or some neighborhoods in France or Sweden or the Netherlands or England, and made a public proclamation of your religious views, you would be in extreme danger.
My socialist friends represent no personal danger to me, either. That doesn’t prove their ideology is safe, though.
You ascribe the fact that those places are authoritarian shitholes to their particular religious choices, rather than the fact that they are authoritarian shitholes. And there’s the implication that because they are shitholes, that has something to do with the US. That strikes me as, at best, fuzzy thinking, given the indisputable fact of most American Muslims being much more like Dean than like co-religionists in a distant and foreign land.
One can argue chicken-and-egg about Islam and shithole countries with terrible governments, but there certainly seems to be a correlation, which I think tells you something.
In the past, when there were few Muslims in Britain, France, Sweden, and Germany, they weren’t a problem, either… until there got to be more of them, and then they were.
But “most” is interesting in this context. What proportion of a religion has to be problematic before the whole religion becomes suspect? Even if it’s just 5%, then bringing in 100 Muslims means 5 are problems. And even in the US, it’s more than 5% who are a problem, at least in terms of their beliefs, if not their actions. http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/opinion-polls.aspx
“In which a Palestinian Arab Muslim and a secular Zionist Jew find much accord.”
The Glib’s first interview, and quite the eyeball-grabber. Nice.
I really, really enjoyed this content. Exciting to see the site staff generating novel Libertarian content.
I recently discovered this article, and believe I could write an explanation of Christianity being the “religion of libertarianism” (or at least, being strongly libertarian compatible). I’ve been tossing these ideas around in my head for some time as both a Protestant Christian and a somewhat newish libertarian. The crux here is realizing (as libertarians seem to) that you are free to think and live as you want, but NOT free to impose on other people. My reading of Christianity (and one backed up by some popular preachers) is that Christianity explicitly rejects the idea of being justified (aka – made good, as defined by the religion) by one’s own efforts, actions, thoughts, and behaviors. If this is true, regardless of what I believe to be good moral behavior, FORCED morality through law as dictated and enforced by government is always a stupid, counter-productive pursuit that cannot attain Christianity’s definition of good. Instead, the single best governmental system (should one be required) for Christianity to operate under is one that does not force ANYONE’s personal moral views upon others… hence libertarianism.
Put another way, Christianity should work a-ok with libertarianism, but unfortunately some of the biggest and/or most visible segments therein (the Religious Right, and SoCons in general) hold to a faulty doctrine that is not actually supported by their claimed holy book… either that or they, in all-too-common human fashion, really just seek to control others and Christianity just proved to be the most convenient tool.