Islamology

Yesterday I got an email message from family of one of my ex-es. In short it was a message to congratulate a member of the family for the fact that he reacted on an article in one of the dutch mainstrem papers. The article bore connotations to islam-bashing...

My reply (to the family) in email-form was: islam is indeed an ideology, because it is regarded as THE word of THE DEITY. This means that followers regard the quran-verses as sacred and sacrosanct, i.e. the words in the quran are not to be regarded as words that can be interpreted as time goes by, but are indeed unequivocably the words of the deity, which means they are LAW (to the believers).

In that sense they are totally opposed to (in effect totally un-equal to) a thing we hold dearly: the western version of world order, i.e. capitalism.

Allahists react differently to standards we've grown used to. I mention a few: economic power by as few as possible, no interest bearing securities, give freely to the needy if your economic position so permits, managers ought to know the people their companies hire, and so forth.

Sounds nice right?

Allahists ALSO react differently to HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES we've grown accustumed to: Women are (in their opinion) NOT equal to men (or vice versa), women (if widowed) deserve no more than half the money that men in the same position will get (look it up, it's in the quran), the clergy decides over everything, implying that a democracy under islam is non-existant, the principle of reciprocity is non-existant (meaning that what is OK in -non-islam- country A, is -more or less by definition- NOT OK in islam country B. Internationally agreed human rights have no foundation in the quran, so for islam countries internationally agreed human rights do not exist.

Sounds alright?

If yes to the last paragraph, you are not a friend of mine. Of no you are.