The
newspaper De Volkskrant had today a review
of 3 books on Islam and fundamentalism. The first is Het vervallen huis van de Islam (The collapsed house of Islam) by Ruud
Koopmans. The author is Dutch born, but teaches since the 1990s at Humboldt
University in Berlin. He is someone who warns against the ‘soft policies’ of
European countries as to the cultural roots of migrants from Muslim countries.
He even wrote about a ‘collective euphoria’ in Western European intellectual
circles about the great wave of migration in the early 2010s. Instead he warns
that 44% of the new Muslims in Germany are ‘fundamentalist’(research of 2015). The
causes of the decay and backwardness of Islam are not the result of Western
colonialism and oppression, but the inner weakness of Islam.
Joram van Klaveren proud as a 'murtad' or apostate!
The
second book is by a recent convert to Islam of a right-wing politician (even member
in parliament, 2010-2014 for the party of Geert Wilders) and conservative
Christian, Joran van Klaveren. Quite surprising he was writing a negative book
about Islam, but then discovered good aspects of Islam and openly converted to
Islam. His book has the title: De
afvallige (‘The Apostate). His basic
reason were that God is love and did not ask that his son should be executed
and suffer until giving his life and blood for the redemption of sinners,
through the original sin of Adam. Also the doctrine of Trinity is not true teaching
of Jesus: the Jesus of Islam is a much better image of this great prophet. And
Muhammad is also OK.
The
third book is a translation of a book by Ibn Taimiyya, Al Siyasah. It has the quite free Dutch title : Bid vecht en heers. Regeren
in overeenstemming met Gods wil
(Pray, fight and rule. How to govern a country in accordance with God’s Law).
The
writer of the book review blames the shari’a
for the backwardness of many Muslim
societies. In the preface by Ayaan Hirsi Ali it is said that ‘Islamism’
combines politics and belief by the concept of a fixed set of laws, the shari’a
and prevents modernizing Muslim societies.
As a
student a read Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The
meaning and end of religion. Smith sees the rise of a religion as a rigid whole
of doctrine, rules and organization, ‘reification’. Buddhism and Christianity,
like other great religions were not yet fixed entities during the lifetime of
their ‘founders’. The were flexible, not some kind of ‘totalitarian systems’
with all rules for daily life already fixed. Is that the original sin of Islam:
reification finally imposed by shari’a?
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