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Comment by FreedomToCreate | Hacker News Reader

To give people some context, the difference between the two (Shia vs Sunni Muslims) is that the Shia believe Mohammed's son-in-law should have been his rightful successor (and he eventually did become the leader) while Sunni's believe that Mohammed Father-In-Law was his rightful successor (too bad God couldn't have made that more clear).

Also Saudi doesn't just follow plain old Sunni Islam. They practice Wahhabism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism) which has a more literal reading of the Quran (which explains the higher percentage of extremism). The royal family leveraged Wahhabism to gain and keep power of the region.

As long as the countries remain governed by religious politics and inflict God's so called will on others, there cannot be an end to the conflict.

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To get a Western-style wall between mosque-and-state in historically Muslim societies requires an almost unthinkable rewriting of the social contract.

Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body.

Trying to make a wedge between Islam and government in these places simply will not work. Many European historians contend that Western state secularism was a direct result of there being no lasting European empire following Rome to enforce religious doctrines (whereas most of the ME has been in the hands of one empire or another since the founding of Islam), and the Protestant Reformation only cemented the expectation among various nobles that they get to rule the world while the church sticks with ruling the soul.

In short, the greater Middle East will always remain governed by religious politics. Something has to fix the mess out there, but excluding religion simply won't work.

> Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body.

Christianity is not any different.

"You shall not cut your hair round or trim your beard". 3rd book Mose, 19:27

Read the Bible, and you’ll find definitions for when to eat what, how long to preserve what, how to punish crimes, etc.

Trying to justify one terribly gone wrong political ideology with another isn't a good way to justify an argument. And in the modern age, many Christian majority nations have successfully created secular states, something Islamic states won't and never will consider unless major reform can occur.

The difference being the New Testament was written decades after Christ's death by apostles who expected worldly salvation a lot earlier, and so the stories are ripe for exaggeration and misremembered details (and the parts that the Catholic Church destroyed because they were incompatible with their ruling ideology but we'll let that go for now).

As for the Old Testament: how many Christians keep kosher?

Islam's founding story is much more straightforward: Angel tells Muhammed to transcribe a book that exists word-for-word in heaven. No ambiguity there.

Exactly no ambiguity. The Quran and the Hadiths clearly state things as they should be and leave little to ambiguity, and that is why reform is extremely difficult within Islam. When the book clearly says that it is the one and true word of God and is perfect, how will you justify reformation. Saying that religion is not a political issue in the middle east is a complete misunderstanding by people.

I never said religion is not a political issue in the Middle East, I meant that you cannot simply fix the Middle East by "fixing" religion. You also cannot fix America's dysfunctional government by making it more like Singapore's. Whatever happens must be compatible with the cultures of the people living there, not what outsiders would prefer it to be. Come to think of it, that's a hefty reason the region is such a mess in the first place.

Edit: the Hadiths are continually debated for accuracy and adherence as they have varying levels of perceived legitimacy, somewhat like interpretations of passages in the Christian New Testament.

Christianity also has the very convenient line "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"[1] in the New Testament that basically codifies separation of church and state into the religion. Islam has nothing equivalent, in fact more so the opposite.

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar

The fact that a rule is in the OT doesn't mean it is Christian belief that it is applicable. In fact, the rejection of most of the OT Jewish law as inapplicable to non-Jewish Christian is itself in the Bible (Acts 15).

The difference is that the New Testament explicitly rejects at least part of the Old Testament's rules: http://crossexamined.org/cherry-picking-the-bible-are-christ....

Moreover, the elevation of faith over adherence to law as the path to salvation also has the effect of deemphasizing the latter.

And yet, there is a nice quote, attributed to Jesus himself, in the New Testament, saying that "I am not here to replace the old laws". Which can be interpreted as meaning that the OT still is relevant.

Challenging the Catholic Church and the divine right of kings was unthinkable too, and was a "full stack" social control model.

Ideology doesn't do anything. People do things. Ideology is completely instrumental. Material forces dictate the way ideology manifests because, having no power of its own ideology must be propagated by something physical.

The enlightenment, first of all a 20th century reinterpretation of history was not ideology overcoming ideology, but material forces of social change outmoding old ideology and fertilizing new.

So the question is, what are the material, physical forces driving the political situation in the Middle East?

Would it be ridiculous to say that the petrodollar, coups and bombs drive it?

Yes, exactly. The debacle in the Middle East has far more to do with imperialism and neoliberalism than religion. Trying to fix a religion-dominated society by viewing it primarily through the lens of religion misses the larger picture, which unfortunately I see as (and am complicit with) being willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses of our past and present leaders so that I don't have to spend too much on gas.

The motivations are tied to the ideology. You simply cannot protect the ideology from the people and say its not the way that is wrong but the people who follow it when there are so many of the people follow the so called "wrong way". The Catholic Church ruled in a period where opposing it was difficult not only because of societal norms but also the peoples understanding of the world was limited and so opposing views were hard to justify. That is no longer the case, and as can be seen, secular nations have arisen in the west.

> The Catholic Church ruled in a period where opposing it was difficult not only because of societal norms but also the peoples understanding of the world was limited and so opposing views were hard to justify.

That's your claim. I say that the catholic church ruled because it had a stranglehold on material power. It behaved as a cartel for monarchic control. The ideology of the catholic church never prevented challenges to its power that were heterodox, like the multiple antipopes that arose through the years. The ideology of a celibate clergy never stopped popes from siring children and placing them in power.

The catholic church declined because technology and economic activity developed into a system that could not be controlled by an entity like the church. Monarchies and the church became obsolete for material reasons, not the appearance of competing ideologies. The ideologies that came about were filling in the vacuum left by the church. A new social order had to be explained. Ideology is post-hoc.

That's my claim.

Ideology is not post-hoc but tied in with the process that creates it. Look at stat ups. The culture of a start up is its ideology and gives direction to the company which reciprocates by cementing that culture as a definite if it causes that startup to be successful.

Ideology and social order go hand in hand, and even more so in Political situations and you have to be very oblivious to say that Islam is not an political religious ideology for most of the Middle East.

The culture of a startup is a reflection of its economic context: A startup receives VC funding, has few employees to start with and must optimize growth in order to be successful. It's also a reflection of the power relationship of the founders and the other employees: the culture of a startup optimizes the values and preferred organizational structure of the founders. Startup culture does not cause these things, it is the reification of these relationships. It is symbolic.

It is an important characteristic of ideology that it is symbolic: it means that multiple people can interpret it in different ways. Which interpretations are "correct"? The ones that conform to the underlying power structure. The power structure punishes "misinterpretations" and rewards "correct" interpretations.

Just as different start-ups have different ideologies because they have different power structures and economic relations, Islam in the Middle East is not a coherent political ideology. The Islam of Iran reflects the organization of its government, not the other way around. The Islam of Saudi Arabia reflects the organization of its government, not the other way around.

The Islam of Da'esh, which is considered heterodox by literally every other sect of Islam, is a reflection of its power structures.

The same signs and ideas reflect different physical realities. What drives the development of signs and ideas? The physical reality. Only the material can propagate ideology, and only the material that propagates itself succeeds in the long-run.

What use is it to say that "Islam is a political religious ideology for most of the Middle East"? What analytic and predictive power does this statement have?

I agree with what you are saying but not to the degree that the ideology is purely influenced by the governmental structure. Islam existed far before either Iran or Saudi existed. Their formation was influenced by the type of ideas Islam enforces as much as Islam was influenced by the power structure that eventually formed as all the pieces fell into place by the formation of those nations. Islam enables interpretations that lead to the formation of these oppressive regimes and then these regimes and then the power structure continues to enforce that interpretation.

> Islam enables interpretations that lead to the formation of these oppressive regimes and then these regimes and then the power structure continues to enforce that interpretation.

Ok, sure. I can agree with that, but in my opinion it's a low-power assertion. Liberalism as an ideology allows imperialism and coups, too. Like the one that ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and replaced him with the autocratic Shah.

There is nothing especially poisonous about Islam. The politics of the Middle East are largely driven by global capitalism, imperialism, and war. What has more political force? A cruise missile or a copy of the Quran?

> Challenging the Catholic Church and the divine right of kings was unthinkable too, and was a "full stack" social control model.

It also took hundreds of years, and numerous very bloody wars.

> Ideology doesn't do anything. People do things.

What people believe definitely affects what people do. I don't see how you can seriously argue otherwise.

People who believe that killing is wrong engage in bloody wars. People call themselves pro-life but support the death penalty. Countries that claim to promote peace invade other countries. People say they believe in freedom and democracy and push a police state.

People go through contortions to square the dissonance between their ideology and their actions. Ideology serves people, not the other way around. At best ideology is a hint at what people are like. There are always gross contradictions between what people believe and how people act.

Ideology does not arise from pure reason, it does not spring from the void. Ideology does not exist on its own, only in conjunction with power structures; ideology is completely subordinate to physical power. Ideology does not create power, it rationalizes it.

I agree that there can be contradictions, but those contradictions don't stand in complete separation from the ideology like you say. Ideology can serve people in power, but for the average citizen it forms the way they think and conduct themselves, and that is where the problem is.

I can provide two counterexamples.

Lebanon has been a highly secular state with a varied population when it comes to religion (Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Druze). Unfortunately Hezbollah now has far more influence than it should have, which is what is ruining Lebanon in my opinion.

My country Tunisia is slowly shifting towards a pseudo-secular republic. The constitution currently lists Islam as the country's religion, but freedom of religion is guaranteed. The majority are Sunnis, but there are some Shiites, Abadis, and a small historically Jewish population based on the island of Djerba.

Lebanon was a Christian-majority country prior to the mass wave of immigration in the 19th & 20th centuries and if we overlook this historical fact, it still retains a sizable population of Christians that makes the idea of an Islamic theocratic or fundamentalist rule highly unlikely but I agree with you that the main prob with Lebanon political system is its deep-rooted Confessionalism resulting from Taif Accord and political factions capitalizing and exploiting this system and this includes Iran-backed Hezbolla or Saudi-backed Future Movement.

For anyone else wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessionalism_(politics)

And yet, many historically Muslim societies do have a significant degree of separation between church and state. Turkey - a 99% Muslim society - introduced a secular constitution decades ago, and its secularist policies has seen women barred from political office or even jailed for covering their hair in a religiously-prescribed manner. Similarly, whilst the central Asian states and Muslim parts of China originally had secular government imposed on them by outside powers rather than phased in by indigenous nationalists, there's little doubting the separation of church and state exists.

Sure, I'd be the first to agree that trying to introduce the wedge from the outside is incredibly dangerous and liable to backfire (even though in the long run it worked pretty much everywhere in the Soviet sphere of influence bar Afghanistan). But a large degree of separation of church and state is entirely possible with most of the population remaining Muslim.

And frankly, the degree of separation of religion and politics is often overstated in the West. I mean, I live in a country with govt-funded parochial schools and an actual established church with formal political power... and I'd still consider it to be a society where religion has less influence on politics than the US.

Not to mention, pre-Soviet invasion and disruption, Afghanistan under the monarchy was fairly secular:

https://hmstur.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/afghan-women-and-a-m...

I'd disagree with that assessment. It seems that Kabul had pockets that were growing into secularism. The country as a whole was not. Qandahar never had the dip into secularism.

Too many Westerners (my apologies if you are not, I am, and I see this contention that you have brought forth from many of them) read things about 'Afghanistan' that are really about Kabul. It's similar to equating New York City to all of America.

Turkey is slowly become less and less secular and the same can be said about many of the former muslim majority Soviet Nations. Iran and Saudi are already way past any form of separation (Iran is a complete Theocracy and Saudi is essentially a religious monarchy).

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_Turkey

Northern and eastern African states are rapidly adopting Islam and it's merging with state policy. Also Malaysia and a lesser extent Indonesia. There is definitely a trend away from separating mosque-and-state. Examples of the inverse all seem to come from before the last two decades.

Time will tell if it will have a positive impact on developing nations that currently lack strong community/political structure.

Turkey is none-the-less a curious case given their economic status and political history.

Also Indonesia and Malaysia, both large Muslim-majority countries (Islam is the state religion of Malaysia).

>Islam is not just a religion. It is a very deliberately structured guide for the entirety of society. "Full-stack" social control as we on HN might call it. The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body.

You are sort of right that Islam was more full stack than Christianity is in western civ now, but this is an over simplification. There were points in Western civilization were the Catholic Church had strong control over western laws.

And while Islam started off with a pretty much unified religious and state body, that hasn't always been the case. The Ottoman Empire didn't use real Islamic law. In the far flung corners of the Ottoman Empire (like what is now Saudi Arabia) they pretty much practiced a more pure Islamic law, but the Ottoman Empire didn't. And it's successor states really didn't either.

Most of the middle east is on a legal system that quite different from Islamic law. Only really the Saudis are following anything that closely, and even they don't do it 100%. The rest of the Islamic world really just uses it as a family court.

The push to bring back Islamic law into full legal force is somewhat new. It's a fundamentalist movement that pushing that idea.

Plus the idea that Islamic law is the only law isn't just a bad idea it's essentially unislamic too. Tazir crimes are laws that rulers make for their people and that has been part of Islam since the start.

> Plus the idea that Islamic law is the only law isn't just a bad idea it's essentially unislamic too.

Could you expand on that?

> The Quran is a complete manual that details everything expected and required of a good Muslim, from the food that can be eaten to the appearance of your body.

This couldn't be further from the truth. For example, Salat (Praying) which is the 2nd most important pillar of Islam right after the oral declaration (statement of faith - Shahada), you can't find anything whether How-To guide or tutorials in your so-called manual, and the same holds true for thee rest of the pillarsm and this very reason is the chief problem mainstream Sunnis have with Koranists[0] who only endorse the teachings of the Koran while rejecting completely Mohammad's sayings (Sunna).

So, no the Koran is not a complete manual for the Sunni Muslim fundamentalists, far from it. It just complements Sunna and both constitute the canonical reference for those people.

As with your deterministic overview of the inability to separate Islam and State in Muslim-majority countries, you just have to read about the experiments of Tunisia, Turkey and Albania and see for yourself how secularism developed in those countries despite all the challenges and concerns you cited in your comment.

Literal Islam whether Sunni or Shiite version pose indeed a challenge for secularism to flourish in Muslim-majority countries but to write off in absolute terms, secularism taking root in those countries not now not ever is shortsighted and unfair. However, it's still refreshing to hear orientalists views every once in a while on those topics.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism

> For example, Salat (Praying) which is the 2nd most important pillar of Islam right after the oral declaration (statement of faith - Shahada), you can't find anything whether How-To guide or tutorials in your so-called manual

The Quran orders Muslims to obey the Prophet Peace be upon him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4cARWalY4

Anything that Mohammed commanded has to be followed. For example all Muslim men must grow and beard and shave their mustache because that is what Allah through the prophet commanded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpSgEr2vnwk

A critical but oft overlooked piece of Saudi history is the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and its consequences:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure#Policies

The Royal family essentially entered into a Faustian pact with the religious fundamentalists who've held massive sway over the country ever since. (Not unlike The Sparrows in GOT).

Of course, religion never exists in a social vacuum. The Sparrows, at least in the books, came to power with support of the common people who were sick of the depredations of turmoil caused by fighting between the noble houses. So what empowers the fundamentalists, beyond moral authority?

The supposed beliefs are not the best way to look at the distinction, especially sociologically - that's like examining Catholic / Protestant split through the lens of their position on transubstantiation.

Far more interesting is the way in which they, eg, handle selection of clergy, or marriage patterns.

Shia clergy for instance is far more hierarchical than Sunni, which arguably is better for social stability since it avoids as many random yahoos deciding they have a hotline to god, who incidentally wants them to go on jihad.

> avoids [...] random yahoos

Have you seen the video of an Iraqi Shia cleric claiming that eating rabbit meat is forbidden because rabbits are insects?

Hierarchy can only take you so far. There will always be uneducated idiots. The best way for quality control is to educate clerics at the national level and allow only those certified to actually preach or lead in prayer.

> plain old Sunni Islam

It depends on your definition of "plain old". If you are referring to that some people choose not to follow the violent part of sunni Islam, then you are correct. However, under the normal definition of "plain old", Wahhabism is the plain old sunni Islam as Islam was 1400 years ago.

Totally wouldn't dispute their support of Wahhabism, but can you elaborate on how Wahhabism helps them retain power? I've never really got that argument b/c it doesn't seem like there are moderate subversive elements. The subversive element seem to be all from the more extreme end.

The royal family has an alliance with the clergy and basically the clergy helps the royal family maintain the support of the people while the royal family allows the clergy to spread Salafi (the nice way to say someone is a follower of Wahhabism) beliefs without much hinderance.

The royal family is really lacking in the pedigree department. They've married into the right families now, but originally the Sauds were a bunch of hicks. They allied themselves with religious outsiders on the understanding that the priests would legitimize the Saudis (vs. the much better pedigreed Hashemites [1] while the Saudis would give the priests preeminence over their rivals.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites

>>As long as the countries remain governed by religious politics and inflict God's so called will on others, there cannot be an end to the conflict.

This is very important. The people from the Islamic countries should rise above their God's so called will in a similar way as how the European Christians rose above their God's so called will. We need a Islamic Arab renaissance and a corresponding Islamic Separation of church (mosque/sharia) and state.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

I know this opinion is highly unpopular, but until said "Renaissance" happens, I see mass Muslim immigration to Western countries as a dangerous and very short-sighted policy. Very liberal and accepting countries will start (or, conversely, have already started) feeling the effects of a foreign culture that has vastly different cultural norms and values and refuses to adapt.

Not highly unpopular everywhere, resistance is brewing and I don't think (or hope) the Merkel type of recent past will prevail. Wonder whether Europe will end up as an extension of the middle east one day (say 50-100 years) or start reverting to the previous status quo...

Not the real difference. Too bad most Muslims don't know their history well enough to understand how the Shia empire was first established and why.

Could you explain what the real difference is?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iran#Safavid_Empire...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safaviyya

It was basically just something invented, or adopted, ad-hoc by a Sufi Saint who practiced Sunnism and his followers who did not want to be under the yoke of the Ottomans any more, actually in those days this concept did not even exist and it was the 15th century already, and then the whole Shia Sunni myth was invented after the empire took power in the 15th century, like 700 years after Muhammad died.

The Fatimids existed before this in 900, around 200 years after Muhammad's death. But this empire was completely different from the Fatimids, and it came into being hundreds of years after their fall.

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