Heh, well you know what ‘go forth and multiply’ implies don’t you?

Naxal: If you have two groups of people from virtually identical backgrounds, with the only exception being religion, and one group is successful and the other an abysmal failure, what conclusions can you draw from that?

You mean without taking into account class, the area where they moved to, where they came from, local govt policies, national govt policies, the time that they came over and the state of the country when they came over??

Yeah, real intelligent analysis there Naxal. Tell me, where you born this obtuse or have you suddenly found this blog or thought I’m going to use some of their big words to regurgitate my foolish theories? Or maybe you want to make out that most Sikhs are as idiotic as you are.

I quoted this earlier:

Writing about the initial Sikh settlement in Gravesend, John Gummer concluded that they were ‘strangers in a strange land and … intellectually and educationally ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of a modern civilisation’. Gummer subsequently became a cabinet minister and chairman of the Conservative Party.

Seems like you’ve decided to take on the relative success of Sikhs in London (not in places like Birmingham mind you, where there’s lots of poverty, or in Vancouver) and decided that suddenly Sikhs are great and its the Muslims who are stupid. And yet… you sound strangely similar to Gummer above.

I think I’m quite justified in calling you a brown version of a BNP troll. And now I’m closing this thread because too much time has been wasted debating you and not enough on useful things.

You have failed to read the argument. If you have two groups of people from virtually identical backgrounds, with the only exception being religion, and one group is successful and the other an abysmal failure, what conclusions can you draw from that?

In the modern context, only one Muslim has one the Nobel prize, he was an Ahmadiya/Mirzaya. There are over a billion of you; where, today, are the intellectuals?

As for the Muslim thinkers, intellectuals and astronomers of old they were able to flourish because Islam had, and could, not become dominant as an ideology. The Islamic rulers were more concerned with waging war on other peoples and didn’t have time to measure girl’s hem lines, or make sure that Mushtaq was at prayer rather than in the science lab.

Raz

Are you the board’s resident school kid? Don’t be ashamed, every board has one.

You are right in thinking that Islamic puritans were against partition (even Maudodi) but as soon as it happened they towed the line.

I dislike all people who make broad, sweeping generalisations.

Sunny, you want Naxal to breed?!!! Why bother with him/her/it? Hate-filled, disrespectful garbarge, no matter how eloquently put, is still hate-filled, disrespectful garbage.

No, we could then have a sensible discussion taking apart some of the assumptions. Your brain doesn’t seem to have comprehended that this article, and the one by Zia, was actually trying to bring other factors into play that we felt the JRF did not cover adequately.

We don’t need people who want to disrupt a discussion just for its own sake with pretensions of intellectual analysis. Your arguments are not dissimilar to the piss-poor BNP analysis that the religion is to blame without looking at factors properly.

When someone refutes your bad arguments, you move on to something… while at the same time trying to play the role of the brave contrarian who makes a point that these liberals are over-looking. We have another disagreement and debate here without needing trolls pretending they are adding to the debate.

Wrong, in fact most of the hardline Islamist parties were always the biggest opponents of creation of Pakistan, in fact even today they insult Quaid-E-Azam (note how they refer to him as Jinnah):

“http://pakistaniat.com/2007/02/09/jinnah-maulana-fazlur-rehman-jui-freedom-fighter/”

“that Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are huge failures in all spheres of Western life.”

Again you completely ignore the fact that this is not supported by the evidence of North America (which is most certainly a part of the West).

You wrote: “please stop confusing Muslims with Islam. Simply because a Muslim happens to be an excellent astronomer/scientist/philosopher, it does not automatically equate to ‘Islam is great’.”

I wonder if you also subscribe to the idea that simply because a Muslim happens to be unschooled/relatively poor/outside the formal labour market, it does not automatically equate to ‘Islam is the problem’?

You seem to find a correlation in the UK, but others here say that this doesn’t imply causation, because the correlation doesn’t hold in North America. But you also identify some causes – for example in Islamic economic theories, in your interpretation of the example of the Prophet, in your view of where Muslims believe knowledge resides. These don’t seem likely explanations to me, because there are very common interpretations which oppose those currents of thinking.

But if you want to make your argument persuasive (that Islam is the main explanation for people’s economic, cultural or other achievements), then you would need to explain why people in thrall to Islam can simultaneously be “an excellent astronomer/scientist/philosopher”. Do you believe they have a more enlightened form of Islam, or that Islam only has negative effects in particular contexts which exist in the UK and India but not necessarily elsewhere?

What I am saying is, first, that Islam has to find its own answers to the demands and challenges of the 21st Century from within – its needs Islamic solutions, not the imposition of Western solutions from the outside.

Our respective cultural histories are too different simply to map values from one to another and have them retain meaning.

My second point is simply that Islam’s past does show historical precedent for its capacity to adapt and sustain what, for want of a better word, we might call an enlightened culture. It is possible and being possible our approach to Islam, in the West, has to be to encourage and support those whose efforts take Islam in that direction.

The problem with all golden age myths is that they’re both ahistorical and no less fixed in their perspective that religious literalism/fundamentalism.

Islam cannot go back, but it can rediscover and revive its own cultural ingenuity and capacity for change and innovation, and its that that needs to be encouraged and, equally, appreciated.

Thank you for your response, which seems to disclose two intentions. One, to see that discussants not settle comfortably into mutual appreciation. And two, simply to advance such ideas as you do.

The latter might be an end in itself. That is to say you might, if I have understood correctly, be motivated to put abroad notions which you feel need ventilating, simply for that reason, without regard for the impact of your contributions, or their persuasive effect. The former, however, suggests that you are concerned about the impact of your contributions and have some interest in seeing that they influence thinking.

Is that right?

Zia

Imagine if I didn’t contribute? You would all go merrily along patting each other on the back and high-fiving each other with boundless glee.

Although you don’t agree with me, at least I am putting an idea forward as to the possible reasons for the appalling level of underachievement by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in the UK.

Do you have a problem with me contributing?

there’s a hierarchy of course of each region – which is no different to gujratis and bengalis and punjabis etc. having digs at each other.

heh.

I have been following the discussion with some interest. You will forgive me if I don’t engage your points but I would rather ask you the question that has been troubling me somewhat.

Why are you participating in this discussion? This should not be taken as a rhetorical question, since it is not intended as such. So, to paraphrase, what motivates you to take part here, what do you hope to achieve?

Zia

there is no sylheti/bangladeshi divide in bangladesh – it’s a purely British Diaspora thing! I’ve never seen it or heard it anywhere amongst bengali expat groups in other countries around the world – or in Bangladesh itself. it seems to be very much part and parcel of the immigrant experience here -for whatever reason.

Ahem.

In doing so, YOU are buying into the liberal myth of how great Islam was before the West touched it.”

interesting that..

Bit like a comparison of democracy, the Ancient Greeks and their slaves..you know what i mean?

I know where you’re coming from and I understand why you think that I am as dogmatic as Islamic fundamentalists in interpreting Islam.

But you fail to understand why this interpretation is relevant to this thread.

The strict, rigid Islamic ‘invention’ is indeed a relatively recent concept. The very creation of Pakistan was a by-product of neo-Islamic puritanism; the desire not to be ruled by, or live alongside, the infidel.

And it is a further by-product of this version of Islam that Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are huge failures in all spheres of Western life.

Please don’t forget why we are discussing Islam in the first place and try not to regurgitate a Romanticised polemic that depicts early Islam as the best thing since sliced pork.

In doing so, YOU are buying into the liberal myth of how great Islam was before the West touched it.

Also, please stop confusing Muslims with Islam. Simply because a Muslim happens to be an excellent astronomer/scientist/philosopher, it does not automatically equate to ‘Islam is great’.

Some perspective, please.