From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 03:41:02 MST
Hey Eliezer! Is this an IRAQ thread? I can't tell.
Ahem. Following on from my first post to this thread:
One way of casting what seems to me to be the crucial question is "Can
_Islam_ tolerate /'the separation of Church and State'/?"
Sayyid Qutb was a modern-day, madrassa-and-college-educated Muslim scholar
who was hanged (/martyred) in Egypt in 1966. His influence has grown since.
His answer to that question was, based on my reading of secondary sources,
a resounding "NO." The "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render
unto God what is God's" of the Christian New Testament was in his view the
core error of Western Civilization and the cause of all that he found wrong
with it--apart from a huge streak of Zionism-related perfidy, that is.
His masterwork is said to be a huge text called "In the Shadow of the
Quran"--written in prison on smuggled paper, currently in translation to
English as "fifteen fat volumes". I have not read them, but I hope to
browse them someday soon.
This book has been referred to, by some, as "Das Kapital for Islamicists".
But I am told that does not do it justice--it is sweeping, lyrical and
embodies deep currents of compassion for the disaffected. As long as they
submit to Allah.
So, to borrow from William F. Buckley and V. I. Lenin:
"The question then becooooomes: 'What is to be done?'"
MMB
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