A historical musing on Islamic extremism.

[Odin2005]

I've been reading the late British historian Arnold Toynbee's magnum opus A Study of History, and he had an intresting observation about Middle-Eastern history. He stated that the Caliphate theocratic state that spread Islam in it's early days was not part of the same civilization as the modern Islamic world, but it was the result of a sucessful ideological overthrow by Syriac Civilization (which represents Middle Eastern civilization during the time period of 1500BC to 1400AD), a civilization that was put in a state of suspended animation by Alexander the Great, against the dying Graeco-Roman Civilization. Syriac Civilization, after the revival of the Syriac universal state that had not existed since Ancient Persia, then collapsed under pressure of the Turks and Mongols. Modern Islamic Civilization is what rose out of the ashes of the Mongol and Turkic invasions. This makes modern Islamic Civilization almost exactly 1000 years younger than Western Civilization. What were religious warirors of the young Western Civlization doing 1000 years ago? Crusading aganst the comparably economically and technologically advanced Syriac Civilization! What are groups like Al Qaeda that represent fundimentalist Islam doing now? Crusading against the comparably economically and technologically advanced Western Civilization and it's defacto "universal state", the US! Groups like AQ are the Islamic equivalent of the religious knightly orders of the Cusades. Islam hasn't given in to Western power because they are not a declining civilization, like the the East Asian and Hindu Civilizations, but a young one, like we were 1000 years ago, and therfore much more resistant to western cultural interference.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. Right after 9/11 Jimmy Breslin

wrote a piece saying basically the same thing and was roundly thrashed for it.

[Igel]

2. Toynbee died when the Ottoman Empire was still

in mid-crumble. Use your brain.

One would have to point out that Sa'udia Arabia had already staged one insurrection against the "Modern Islamic Civilization" by Toynbee's day, and that the Muslim Brotherhood also rejected precisely the Turkish variant later. Those, as well as other pan-Arab and Salafist movements, look back to the earlier, pre-Ottoman days, and draw on populist Arab views.

In other words, they're a reversion, in many respects, to that "Syriac Civilization". Not that the Ottomans ever completely quelled it.

And what was that so-called Syriac civilization doing a 1000 years ago? Lamenting the loss of Palestinian territory to outsiders, and desiring to reclaim it for Islam, while proclaiming itself to be the universal answer for mankind. It was moving across S. Asia and seeking to extend its reach in Central Asia. It was trying to expand in Africa, at the risk of losing its slave source. At the same time, it was fractured, with various territories at odds, fundamentalists taking hold and becoming more and more ossified.

[Orrin_73]

3. Turks entered the middle-east in the 10th century

there was already a Turkish state in Egypt by 9th century founded by a Turk called ibn Tolun. The Ottomans conquered the rest of the middle-east in 1512 permanently.

[Odin2005]

4. Islamists don't really like the House of Saud.

The Caliphate was actually quite progressive in it's time, a place of learning where classical texts were preserved while Europe was in the Dark Ages. Islam Fell behind the west because of a surge of religious orthodoxy, rejection of western technology such as the printing press, and loss of control of oreiental trade to the Portugese. I think a good analogy to Modern Israel is Muslim Spain.