Luxor4u

Worth taking a look at, this guy talks a lot of sense

Interesting...and it reminds me of an article I was reading recently on the subject of ijtihad...free thinking.

Until Muslim countries and Muslim communities in the West allow their people to express themselves freely -- without fear of reprisal -- it is unlikely that the Muslim world will be able to think creatively and again become a center of science and knowledge, as it used to be in the early centuries of Islam.

The exercise of critical thinking and independent judgment – or Ijtihad --was an important way to address questions in the early centuries of Islam. After approximately 400 years, however, the leaders of the Sunni Muslim world closed the "Gates of Ijtihad;" Muslims were no longer allowed use itjihad to solve problems. If a seemingly new problem arose, they were supposed to find an analogy from earlier scholars and apply that ruling to the problem that arose. From the 10th century onwards, Sunni Muslim leaders began to see questioning as politically dangerous to their ability to rule. Regrettably, Sunni Muslim leaders reject the use of ijtihad to this day.

As questioning could very likely upset the established order and bring down the autocracies and despotic regimes which rule most of the Muslim world, even Muslims who live in freer Muslim countries such as Turkey often hesitate to exercise ijtihad. How did the Muslim world succumb to this situation, and is there a way out?

The full article is fascinating and, to my mind, goes a long way to explaining why the muslim world is in the situation it is today.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3114/muslims-ijtihad

An interesting review of two recent books on this matter - with specific reference to the liberalizing effects of Napoleon on Egypt.

Some striking points. Egypt took a deliberate decision to suppress the printing press lest ordinary people be led into error through unguided reading of the Quran, Napoleon was big on urban hygiene/dealing with the rubbish, fundamentally different meanings of freedom/personal autonomy, literacy was only 3% around 1800, anatomy/medicine had been retarded by the Islamic 'prohibition' on autopsy, as recently as the 1840's the religious leaders in Egypt preached that plagues were the work of djinns and should not be resisted etc.

The books reviewed also cover related issues in other Muslim countries - India, Persia etc.

The overall thrust of the books reviewed seems to be optimistic - which raises the issue on why so little has happened. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06 ... ern-world/

One of the weaknesses of such books, and the Gates article posted by Newcastle, is that they focus on a few isolated, and not always powerful or influential, intellectuals not on the commonly held views of upper, middle and average Muslims of the time - obviously hard to study because they left few records. An intellectual history of the Philosophy school at Oxford would give a similarly partial view of ideas in England.