Islam Vs. The West
Islam VS The West
Westerners tend to think of Islamic societies as backward- looking, oppressed by religion, and inhumanely governed, comparing them to their own enlightened, secular democracies. But measurement of the cultural distance between the West and Islam is a complex undertaking, and that distance is narrower than they assume. Islam is not just a religion, and certainly not just a fundamentalist political movement. When people think of Islam they think of all the crazy beliefs and a religion where freedom is certainly not an option. When people think about west there is only one main religion of west, which is Christianity. Islam and Christianity are very same in some aspects. Islam and west are two different worlds. Islam is a lot different than what western people think it is. Sure you don’t get as much freedom as you like but that doesn’t make it a bad religion. Every religion has its own rules so is Islam. It is said that people who are too much alike cannot easily live together, and the same goes for cultures as well. Both Islam and Christianity (which serves as culturally uniting factor for the West) are absolutist, monotheistic religions. Both are universal, in the sense of making claims to apply to all of humanity rather than a single race or tribe. It is a civilization, and a way of life that varies from one Muslim country to another but is animated by a common spirit far more humane than most Westerners realize. Nor do those in the West always recognize how their own societies have failed to live up to their liberal mythology. Moreover, aspects of Islamic culture that Westerners regard as medieval may have prevailed in their own culture until fairly recently; in many cases, Islamic societies may be only a few decades behind socially and technologically advanced Western ones. In the end, the question is what path leads to the highest quality of life for the average citizen, while avoiding the worst abuses. The path of the West does not
Westerners tend to think of Islamic societies as backward- looking, oppressed by religion, and inhumanely governed, comparing them to their own enlightened, secular democracies. But measurement of the cultural distance between the West and Islam is a complex undertaking, and that distance is narrower than they assume. Islam is not just a religion, and certainly not just a fundamentalist political movement. When people think of Islam they think of all the crazy beliefs and a religion where freedom is certainly not an option. When people think about west there is only one main religion of west, which is Christianity. Islam and Christianity are very same in some aspects. Islam and west are two different worlds. Islam is a lot different than what western people think it is. Sure you don’t get as much freedom as you like but that doesn’t make it a bad religion. Every religion has its own rules so is Islam. It is said that people who are too much alike cannot easily live together, and the same goes for cultures as well. Both Islam and Christianity (which serves as culturally uniting factor for the West) are absolutist, monotheistic religions. Both are universal, in the sense of making claims to apply to all of humanity rather than a single race or tribe. It is a civilization, and a way of life that varies from one Muslim country to another but is animated by a common spirit far more humane than most Westerners realize. Nor do those in the West always recognize how their own societies have failed to live up to their liberal mythology. Moreover, aspects of Islamic culture that Westerners regard as medieval may have prevailed in their own culture until fairly recently; in many cases, Islamic societies may be only a few decades behind socially and technologically advanced Western ones. In the end, the question is what path leads to the highest quality of life for the average citizen, while avoiding the worst abuses. The path of the West does not