European Muslim Hate Poll

[hollodero]

(02-20-2017, 04:33 PM)Dill Wrote: I don't think Bels meant Wahabism was founded in response to colonialism.  It was more like the Calvinist/Lutheran response to "excesses" of Catholicism--an effort to purify and return to simple origins, a critique of existing (especially Cosmopolitan) Ottoman and Egyptian Islam, and Shia, which was making inroads in Bahrain and the area we now call southern Iraq.

The point is that Saudi money and the breakdown of alternatives have created fertile ground for its spread. The inability of some Middle-Eastern countries to control their own destiny, having been run by Europeans (forcing European laws and customs upon them) or European backed leaders or bad Arab leaders purveying Western-style political ideologies (Ba'athism) has made a "pure" conservative "untainted" Islam seem the remedy.  E.g., The Saudis have pumped millions into Egypt in support of Wahabist Imams and Mosques and organizations, including the more conservative organizations flying under the "Mulslim Brotherhood" umbrella.

So ironically, it is this supposed foundation outside western influence, its desert purity and simplicity, which make it the antidote to "tainted" cosmopolitan Islam. That is why, as I mentioned, almost no women in Cairo wore the Hijab in the 1980, whereas now it is rare to see a woman without one. There is a low intensity social war going on in many Arab Muslim countries generated by this rising attraction to Wahabism. Every country is different though.  Critical, I think, disruption created by dispossession and war (Gaza, Southern Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan), or smothering political oppression (Tunisia, Egypt).  Wahabism has much less influence in Jordan, where many women don't wear the hijab.

This "purity" also makes it attractive to confused westerners who need both internal (personality) and external structure in their lives.

PS sorry Hollo. I wrote this before I saw your post #33.

I agree with most parts. Wahabism was still more of a sect that legitimized a war to unite the peninsula. Islam, compared to Christianity, was always more political ideology and not just core belief alone.
I see a "problem" if you will in the fact Islam as a whole never had an Enlightenment/secularisation period, and I don't entirely blame Europe or the US for that. To some part, sure.

A detail I disagree on, Jordan is not wahabistic because it's a hashemite state, the hashemites being the enemies of the Saud clan in the younger Arab history. They were the ones that got kicked ouf of Mekka by wahabist Sauds, hence historically no big fans there.

The rest is fine with me.