Suha Taji-Farouki Quotes
While modern changes were intrinsic to Western historical development, they were largely seen by Muslims as alien and enforced.
Suha Taji-Farouk, Secretary of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies, Lecturer in Modern Islam at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Jews and Arabs for years shared Palestine. But the Jews spread out over the world, becoming modern and Westernized in the process. When the Jews returned to Palestine as a part of the Zionist movement, they were more modern, Westernized, and culturally at odds with their old Arab cousins, whose cultures had atrophied. The Arabs resented the Westernized culture that was being introduced into the Middle East. One point of view is that had Israel not tried to introduce moderism and Western ideas into the Middle East, the Jewish State might have been more accepted. However, not only did they bring a foreign perspective (democracy), education and techmology and capitalism to the area, but they far outpassed the Arab nations in agriculture, industry, science, medicine and general standard of living. The Arab dictators and monarchs had always had the excuse for poverty that the land was so poor that it simply could not be developed, but Israel developed the worst of the land in the area with no oil or natural resources. Every day of Israeli prosperity and scientific achievement was an embarassment for the rest of the Middle East where even the rich oil countries were not improving the lot of the average citizen.
10 centuries ago was a time when the Arabs were far more advanced and modern than other cultures including the Christian West that was in the Dark Ages. However, in the 12th century there was a “closing”—a narrowing of allowable Islamic thinking, and since then, Islamic people have had great difficulty with change or modernity. Not all Muslim nations are equally rigid but the Arabs are at the extreme among Islamic counties.
While this type of modernization had been a theme of her reign, it was particularly fascinating at this time when China had been invaded by Japan and 7 Western Countries, she still argued that the only way for China to thrive and attain true independence was to reform and adopt many Western Ways. Chinese leader after her gave lip service to doing this but never wanted to implement the reforms lest the lose power. Ironically, it was under Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, 1904-1993, that Cixi’s notion of adopting modern Western economic and technological models and approaches was finally implemented and then China made the greatest improvement of any large society ever in a relatively short term. However, Deng stopped short of adopting Western notions of political freedom.
Islam is a religion, like many Christian sects, where conversion of non-believers is a religious duty. When many of the European day-to-day customs, conflict with Islamic custom or prescription, decadence and the desire to change it becomes a very predictable result.
Pandita Indrani Rampersad. She is the first Hindu woman who ever became a pundit—a religious expert who guides Hindus. She is also a professor in the United States.
Most Muslims in the world prefer a Western modern lifestyle to their traditional culture. The Islamic fundamentalist leaders however see evil and the dissolution of their traditions in this process of modernization and try and polarize their communities to intimidate the modernists. The same thing happened in Christianity over the last centuries and the modernists prevailed, but even in America there are still religious fundamentalists (Christians and Jews) who reject and oppose modernism. The difference is that in America, the anti-modernists are relatively few and not nationally influential on public officials while in many Islamic nations, they are numerous and very influential on public officials. The American religious fundamentalists have already lost in trying to stave off modernity; in many Islamic nations the contest is still in doubt.
In China, the religious activities of the Missionaries never really lead to the many troubles between the missionaries and the Chinese. It was their activities in the non-religious arenas articulated here by Denby.
