You’ve got the “Islamic Left” - progressive Muslims, secular Muslims, Sufis etc. - and you’ve got the “Islamic Right” - Wahhabis, Salafis etc. Yup, that’s pretty damn monolith I say.
It’s often forgotten in the West that there are different ‘branches’ of Islam, just like there are in Christianity. What’s more, there are many millions of individual Muslims. Individuals seldom believe the exact same things. For proof look no further than, say, Catholics (Tom and Christine?).
Believe it or not, even Muslims are individuals, first and foremost. Whether that makes it more difficult for us to understand them and to put them in a box or not.
Made your point!
Thanks for the link Michael. Indeed there are many branches of Islam. It’s most certainly not a monolith.
I hope so AP.
No thanks. You’re right to point that out.
There are Muslims like yourself who strongly oppose extremists. Why some on the right continue to ignore that is beyond me.
Like I said in a previous comment I made on your blog, at the end of the day it’s ultimately the spiritual aspect of Islam that Muslims find comfort in.
I’ve always said that one should be careful when assigning fault to a group. Each group has more than one inbound vector - the evil that you ascribe to their religion may be better fit to their culture instead.
I think it useful to remember that even in Saudi Arabia there are different ‘flavors’ of Islam. While one interpretation dominates, it’s not necessarily even parsed the same way by its practitioners.
Mike
Check out Ali Eteraz’s blogs. He has one where he is trying to provide a dividing line(s) between the different kinds of Muslims. You might even want to link it to this piece.
PS: The piece I mentioned above is called “The two types of Muslims.”