A Question to the Muslims: Does Middle Eastern culture breed extremism?

Question

I believe an extremist is an extremist and it has nothing to do with any particular ideology. I do not look at Islam as being particularly violent, but I do notice a lot of Muslims as being extremist and I also notice that the majority of the ones that would be deemed extremist are of Middle Eastern descent.

I am not saying Muslims or Islam is evil or bad. what I am saying is that there seems to be a lot of extremism in Middle Eastern Islam that I do not see in Islam from other areas of the globe and personally do not see Islam as a religion promoting such extremism.

Answer 1

No, Friend, The middle eastern Culture is not bad, It's the Middle Eastern Regimes.

Answer 2

Islam is familiar to them in so many ways so it's a comfy fall-back when they're attacked by Western ideas and materialism. When someone is used like an old rag, or are just perceiving they're being treated as such, falling back to an extreme form of religion usually looks like an answer to the problem.

It's not just Muslims who feel this snap-back, but Catholics have the same thing going on, started in part with Mother Angelica... if you sit back and watch you'll find examples of this everywhere through history and not just one or two religions.

_()_

Answer 3

Middle Eastern culture does not breed extremism. Despair and hopelessness often do. Throughout history extremism and extreme solutions for societies problems have appeared thought the world. The Spanish Inquisition, the Pogroms of Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany, the Taiping Rebellion and the Cultural Revolution in China, the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland are all examples of extremism. Five hundred years the Middle East was thought of as a place of peace, tolerance and prosperity. One of the roots of contemporary extremism in the Middle East is the belief that large portions of the population in the Middle East are being excluded from their fair participation in the global political and economic community. A group of self-appointed, rabble-rousing "leaders" teach that only extreme actions will remedy this situation and ameliorate the plight of the people. This is the same line that all extremist leaders preach (and have preached throughout history). Much of the ideology behind theses teaching is European in origin.

Answer 4

What makes up subculture? Language - good Muslims would desire to learn Arabic so as to study the Koran correct seen paintings - no photos in Islam, only calligraphy of Koranic verses fashions of human interplay - dictated by ability of the Koran, based on the society of Mohamud's day training - madrasas tutor the Koran i might say that Islam, better than the different faith, exceptionally lots dictates the subculture. on a similar time as any subculture of a people who save on with their herds around the barren area is going to be violent, brutish and oppressive, Islam has carried out a exceptionally good interest of concretizing that subculture and spreading it international huge.

Answer 5

How about we ask if the American culture is extreme? We start wars and are occupying countries where we are not welcome. We condone and participate in torture. Habeas Corpus is a thing of the past. Our president rules by fiat. We de-fund secular education and use public money for Christian schools. We deny health care to the working poor. Our streets are as violent as any in the Middle East (with the exception of the extremely violent countries we occupy). We send boys and girls off to war and when they get injured and come home, we treat them like refuse, or worse, we send them back, even though they are still injured! -- If you ask me, that's extreme.

Answer 6

I would think so. They use culture and call it Islam, while ignoring the fact that while Islam does say to fight back, it also says to stop if the other party fighting you stops. I think it centers around honor. I know that their very bad treatment of women is definately cultural.

Answer 7

You do not look at Islam as being particularly violent?

Try reading the Koran and the Hadiths.

Muhammad killed thousands of people to spread his religion - he massacred entire villages at a time. The parts of the world today considered "the muslim world" were, 1400 years ago, very mixed - literally dozens of religions were practiced, from Zoroastrianism to Christianity, to Judaism to various tribal religions, and in India, Buddhism and Hinduism. About a third of those people left, another third were killed, the other third converted - because they didn't want to be killed - to Islam.

You know that exhibit in the Holocaust Museum where they show pictures of Jewish enclaves in central and eastern Europe before WWII and the caption reads "Jewish population at 1920: 75,000; Jewish population in 1980: 75" - - it's a lot like that.

Most Muslims are moderate and do not practice this - but the moderate Muslim leaders do not do enough, in my opinion, to separate themselves from the violence, to speak out about it, to reform their religion. Even the ones who do, they leave the contradiction - they say "Islam is not about violence and we reject the killings" but then they hold up a Koran and Hadiths that say Allah wants you to kill in his name and say "these are our holy books."

The Bible also has violent passages - it's not cover to cover murder and mayhem, which the Koran is, and God does most of his own wet work, which isn't the case in the Koran - but even so, Judaism and most branches of Christianity went through periods when their leaders got up and acknowledged these problems and said "yes it does say this but you can not take this literally in the modern world - the literal translation is not appropriate in the modern day."

This has not happened in Islam.

It needs to.

I think that's a fair assessment. I don't think that's prejudiced - prejudice is judging people by immutable characteristics like color or ethnicity, and the opposite of prejudice is judging people by their ideas. I'm judging the ideas here. I'm not judging a book by its cover, I'm judging it by its contents - you can't simultaneously say "we're against violence" and then hold up a book as holy which says to commit violence - you need to also acknowledge the problems with the books and with the religion's founder (a problem somewhat unique to Islam but I think still possible of being resolved) and say "these examples must be reinterpreted in a peaceful manner for the modern day."

That's not the same thing as obstinately refusing to acknowledge that it says what it says and that Muhammad did what he did.

It's acknowledging these problems and giving them a new context acceptable today.

Answer 8

Not as middle easteners as a whole. perhaps the ones you know. besides what is extremist to you? are their morals a little too strict according to you?

Answer 9

Come on that's like me saying "Does every European harbour a desire to have imperialistic rule over the world?"

Answer 10

the only thing that promotes extremism is the USA and its allies attacking muslims....everywher in the world has these extremists