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Originally Posted by czgibson This reinforces the point I made about the insularity of Muslim culture. |
You make music synonymous culture, and I understand that it plays an integral role in western culture, but that doesn't mean that one should expect other cultures to integrate it and make it an integral part of their culture. This gets back to the issue of ethnocentricity. If we don't want to make music an integral part of our culture the way it is in western culture, why do we automatically recieve the label of 'insularity'? We're not asking westerners to integrate prayer into their culture and make it an integral part of their culture.
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That's one way of putting it. I would say the spiritual side diminished in the West as more and more people began to see that it was, in fact, a fantasy.
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That you think its a fantasy is not fact, its an opinion that you can't substantiate. And if that was the case, then we would not see such a desperate attempt to revive one's spiritual side that sends many people into long quests. Suicide rates are rising in the west because people have starved this side and neglected it, causing them to go into despair at the futility of their life. But of course, this is another topic all-together.
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The Islamic world was certainly way ahead of other civilisations during the Dark or Middle Ages, but for some reason it stagnated. As I've hinted, I would attribute this partly to cultural insularity.
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It seems that you have not adequately studied the history of the Muslim world if you feel that cultural insularity was a factor. If this was true then it should have caused a decline in the Muslim world when they first expanded and extended their territories into Africa, Perisa, India, Turkey, Malaysia and Spain. It did not, and the Muslim world integrated all of these cultures and thrived for centuries after that. You use the broad label of 'cultural insularity' simply because of the guidelines Islam has set with regard to music.
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I'm talking about the attitude towards the kuffar engendered in Muslims from a young age.
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Right, like the stories about how the early Muslims dealt with kindnesss with the Ethiopian Christians and how they were forgiving to even a non-muslim bedouin who urinated in the mosque.
Islam does not need to justify itself according to a secular philosophy where aall religions are equal, because they are equally false. Islam is justified according to its own philosophy that
kufr is disobedience to God, that we are sent on this earth with a divine purpose and our lives are not futile, and that we must perform our duty to God and invite others to it as well.
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The belief that most of the population of the world will go to an imaginary place of eternal fiery torment called Hell is a contemptuous one, I believe.
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Those who reject faith in God will be punished, but God is most just and deals with everyone according to their own circumstances. If someone never recieves the true guidance, they are not held accountable for that.
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Islam is supicious and contemptuous regarding innovation regarding religion
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The divine message sent by God should not be altered.
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the influence of other cultures
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Only in what negatively impacts one's spiritual well-being.
Islam is not contemputuous of them, rather it seeks to guide them.