Salaam!
Matt Menge wrote at soc.religion.islam:
> ... in my mind, the biggest difference between Islam and most other
> religions is that Islam seeks to control society at all levels.
You state it more correctly later:
> ... assuming that I am correct that religion does really control
> Islamic society at all levels.
This is more accurate ~ Islam constitutes society for muslims. It
does not constitute society for others, but is explicitly a nation
apart from all others.
What you're missing is that every society is "controlled" by some
ethical system, to the extent that it is controlled at all. Here in
America the people are subject to laws contrived by legislatures made
up of men (and women) acting in the interests of those who elect them
to office. And of course there are some people who violate some of
those laws with impunity, while others are impoverished and enslaved
by them. You might consider comparing the "control" exercised by the
powerful in America to the "control" exercised by the people in
authority in early muslim society (during the period of the first four
successors), that would give you a better perspective on your concerns.
> There is, as I understand, a lack of social scientists in most
> Arab countries.
There is no theoretical "social science" in a muslim society, the
faith details how societies function and the varieties of dysfunction
that arise from human foibles. Ours is not a theoretical science, it
is an applied science. Our social scientists are called "shaykhs" and
"imams" and "amirs," and do not need to speculate about the human
condition and its effects in terms of social sciences.
> I also see a lot of Muslims looking fondly at the past instead of
> looking forward to the future. Is this just because their past was
> better, or is there a deeper problem here?
There is a deeper problem where "looking fondly at the past" sees
no further than the dominion of the Abbasid dynasty. Those who look
further, into the prophetic period and the time of the first four
successors, bring it into the present and succeed in this life and in
the next.
> Islam does a pretty good job of setting up fair rules, but the
> problem doesn't seem to be so much the justness of the rules but
> rather their multiplicity. The non-Islamic world seems to follow
> its own intuition about the way that society should go far more
> frequently than Muslims do.
Multiplicity of rules is a characteristic of American society, it
is not a characteristic of muslim society. Rule-making is a tendency
of priests, and Islam has no priests. The terminally-collapsed
millennial muslim world has a priestly class, but it has had little to
do with the faith other than to corrupt it and make it all but
inaccessible to the people. We were warned by the prophet sallallahu
'alaihi wa sallam that this would happen among his people (the Arabs),
and those most vociferously asserting that "it hasn't happened yet"
are the very people of whom he spoke.
You err seriously when you compare contem****ary muslim society
with your ideals. You need to more closely examine all other
contem****ary societies and compare them with the early muslim
community, to which contem****ary muslim society bears virtually no
resemblance.
> Regards,
> Matt
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
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