Islam and Anarchism

This is interesting, I haven't heard much about Islamic anarchism before. I reckon there's not that much stuff on it, or at least not that I've read. Not to say I'm surprised it exists, however, Islam can be found everywhere in the world, I wouldn't be surprised if there is in fact a large community of Islamic anarchists that we (I) just haven't heard of yet.
I mean Spain features large amounts of/notable histories of both ideologies. Island South-east Asia is quite the same.
Though I wonder how prevalent anarchist ideals are in the middle east itself.
Speaking on this though, there is Deathless Anguish, an all-womyn political death metal band from Saudi Arabia. Not necessarily directly related but it just reminded me of this (http://r-a-b-m.blogspot.com/2010/09/ori ... metal.html).
I look forward to seeing where this thread (and possibly new take on anarchism to speak broadly and externally) goes.

 

Islamic anarchsim is a contradiction. Islam means obeying god, Anarchsim in general is no gods no masters.

 

and once more:
anarchism includes atheism - so any kind of "religious" anarchism is just impossible, it's no dogmatic point of view, but the nature of the anarchist philosophy.

and there is more than "one" islam, just like there is more than one christian faith, more than one of any other sedative... i don't know enough about the islamic believes in detail, it's hard to find neutral literature around here and i stopped looking for it after a muslim told me that there is no "monolithic bloc" - and by the way, this guy is kind of a friend and calls us "non-believers" when we talk serious about religion and politics.
but i never heard of any anarchist groups in the "islamic" world before.

and even if we fight the us-led western war propaganda and feel with the victims of the war in the near east, and i hope we all do, i think we should be very carefully about underestimating the enemies of our enemy - they might not be our "friends".

 

anarchism is based on rational/modernist premises, nowadays we've incorporated a bitz of post-modernism (foucault or negri anyone). Therefore, it follows that anarchism is, at the least, secular, at best, atheist.
I have no time for religion personally, but i'm not overly concerned about folks that do. Just don't masquerade as 'religious anarchism', the two are not compatible.

 

quoting my favorite butcher may become a habit - so i will only agree with your more accurate statement about the basics of anarchism.

but i already had to be concerned about confessing muslims banging at our door after they had their kor'han-inspired way to deal with "sluts" of wifes and daughters, who were sitting bruised and crying in our kitchen, begging for shelter.
gives you a taste of dschihad, even if you know that mohammad wrote about strictly defensive wars.

not to mention our favourite grandmothers still fighting for the catholic baptisim or introduction of our kids into the jewish community, family crisis ending up with "who killed jesus/who did the holocaust" inclusive.

to choose wearing a t-shirt that leaves a bit breast and the arms uncovered, or to go out without a scarf to cover the hair, or to choose a religion if you are old enough to choose for yourself is a postmodern standard and act of self-determination - but not for these people.

 

I was brought up muslim and raised as a muslim...but i'm not sure if I can call myself a muslim now...

 

quoting my favorite Lil is always a pleasure - but what about the kids current worshipping of the collectives cat?
Postmodern paganism arising?

 

nah, favorite inquisitor, THEY just d o n' t f o r g e t to feed this feline paragon of grace, independence and self-determination.

 

(Silly comment, sorry but I have to...)

Lol, so Michael Knight is an Anarchist AND a muslim? I wonder what Kitt has to say about that...

(and now a serious comment)

A good friend of mine is a really kind and social guy, yet he is one hell of a Christian. he isn't really conservative, yet he really believes everything he reads in the Bible.
we had MANY discussions, for I simply have problems with his entire religion.
This guy explained me what he really believes in and what kind of society he sees as his utopia. the scary thing is that his ideal society wasn't much different than mine, for he believes his "god" wants people to live next to eachother in absolute peace and therefore almost-like Anarchy. I am not defending any religions, yet I think there can be a lot of good intentions involved in their ideology, perhaps quite some similarities to ours as well.

 

a bit off-topic to talk about christians, so i have to say that i know some kind and social muslims too, people with enough sense and understanding/tolerance that allows me to cooperate with them besides having very different points of view.
after some more discussions about islam and quran i learned a bit more and i guess the islamic utopia would be acceptable for christians too, and the quran seems to be more aware of peoples real needs than the bible.
but:

„Deus lo vult" was the battlecry during the historical christian crusades - the muslims answered "Allahu akbar"
both slogans mean "god wants it".
bellum iustum is the latin christian term for "just war" - dschihad is the arabic term for "just war".

yes, you can find inspiration to do the right thing in the bible, the quran and the thora.
but you can also justify every imaginable crime, atrocity and repression with these books too.
and for each idealist that looks for inspiration or advice, there is a pope, priest, mullah, rabbi, preacher to tell him what "god wants". in that, each more or less organized religion is very similiar to others of its kind - but the outcome?

 

I don't know any dedicated muslims, which is why I used an example of a different religion, but I wanted to make my point about people somehow using stuff from their holy book as a motivation for doing good things, being nice to other people, and in my example even for being tolerant to muslims and any other religion (which is quite rare for a dedicated christian)

I, as well as anyone else around here, knows about the bad shit in there, the way they justify crimes against mankind by their holy book, I think it's nothing but ancient imperialism and oppression, but I mean to say that some people manage to use some bad stuff in a good way

 

milan, i made the remark about off-topics only to keep the discussion on-topic because i needed to mix my point on muslim propaganda with christian propaganda too. there is a topic about christian punks on the forum, the discussion there is very similiar to this one and i guess i will go off-topic again when i say:

besides that there is no god who created this world and judges good and evil, my personal motive to reject religion is the fact, that each of the monotheistic religions is usable to keep people submissive and sedated, manipulable and controllable - up to the point where idealism is used to commit crimes against humanity.
some sociologists and scholars of comparative religion claim, that the development of the monotheistic religions was precursory to repressive legislation at a time, when the leaders of communities hadn't the power to enforce laws directly upon their subordinates. instead of this, they promoted gods fury coming over everyone breaking the "god given" laws - and i think there is no question about "who" made those "god given laws".

examples like your christian and my muslim friend are a reason for keeping tolerance and discuss the matter further - but as an anarchist i could not accept that both of them still draw their motives from obviously questionable traditions/religions, instead of using their intelligence to think for themselves, act without the need to justify their actions "because god wants it".
i don't believe that it's possible to use bad stuff to do good and for me the monotheistic religions or authoritarian socialism/communism proved this in history and still today.