Tuco suggests that the turmoil ravaging Syria and Iraq, and threatening to engulf (no pun intended) the whole world, is not so much about religion as politics. I suppose that implies that the self-styled caliphate is just a belated reaction the the Assad dynasty's tyranny and that were Assad toppled tomorrow the world would settle back into a peaceful somnolence.
It wouldn't of course - but is that because of politics or Islam? Not an easy question I know, seeing as how Islam admits no distinction between religion and state.
Oh dear... looks like we might be heading back towards News, Politics and Current Affairs again, if we're not careful. I really did intend this thread to be about Islam!

This was discussed on today's Beyond Belief on Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04g8400

(I really should put a warning before linking to that programme, although there was a funny moment where some guy tried to claim that it wasn't discriminatory to allow Muslim men to marry non-Muslims but forbid Muslim women from doing the same.)

Is not so much .. I prefer my own wording. As a response to:

Oeditor wrote:It's nice to know that the quite extreme goings-on in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria are, evidently, nothing to do with Islam. Otherwise, I would have thought, at least some of the knowledgeable people here would have found something about them to discuss. Or are they, like me, just world-weary with it all to the point of being rendered almost speechless?

I said:

tuco wrote:The first sentence is either fallacy or sarcasm.

[snip]

As Mazille pointed out, the conflicts in question are not necessarily and in my opinion not even primarily about religion, in this case Islam. It is not surprise that experts in media and academia concerned with these conflicts are not necessarily experts on religion. Why that is is trivial.

[snip]

Just making sure. Do not mind me to carry on.

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edit: To contribute something

UK prof: Islamic State has “reverted to a model that has been the reality in parts of the Islamic world for most of its history,” but “what they are perpetrating is not Islam”

The Rev. Professor David Thomas is a professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham. Here he writes a very strange article. Most of it is a brief and reasonably accurate history of the caliphate, in which he notes that in declaring a caliphate, the Islamic State has “reverted to a model that has been the reality in parts of the Islamic world for most of its history. For nearly 1,400 years the caliph was head of the entire Islamic state. He often wielded unimaginable power, and always great influence. So it would appear that the Islamic State is placing itself firmly within the Islamic tradition. But toward the end of his piece, Thomas refers to the Islamic State’s “twisted interpretations of scriptural teachings,” without giving us any examples, and concludes, again without explanation: “One thing is clear: what they are perpetrating is not Islam.”

[snip]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/uk-pr ... -not-islam

An Historian response: it will be a long time before we can develop any confidence about motivations in this. Primarily because everyone involved with it, has Political Facade as their overwhelming top priority. That means that every source for applicable information has good reason to lie about why they are doing what they are, even to themselves.

It is much easier to discern what every side is taking advantage of in their opponents and hoped for subjects. ISIS obviously has religious and cultural biases and allegiances to take advantage of. But then, the use of religion as a mythical utopia for people to escape to, and get away from oppression of any kind, is as old as words.

Those who are claiming to want to lead the people to a grand Islamic state may be no different in practice, from those who want to lead everyone here, to a government inspired" by Christian teachings: yeah, some of them may even believe themselves, that it's all about purity of the religion. But as soon as someone declares themselves to be the true source of religious purity, they cross over into declaring themselves to be gods on earth. And as soon as they do that, their cause changes to being earthly rule, and is no longer about the religion at all. Of necessity.

That means that trying to determine what the motivations of something like ISIS are, will be impossible, because those motivations are constantly changing, and each participant or member of ISIS is following a different facet of the total pursuit. It is quite possible, that just as some of the Christian groups here are being manipulated like sock puppets, by purely secular, greed-motivated people, that there too, it's all a standard scam, where they harness religious fanaticism to resentment foreigners and fear of federal government oppression, all in order to arrange for a bunch of expendable nut-case peasants to do the dirty work of putting some local Napoleonic scum bag into power.

Something recent.

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Islamic Caliphate for Kazakhstan: Disturbing Signs and Signals

On June 29, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared the emergence of an Islamic caliphate and renamed itself the Islamic State (IS). The organisation proclaimed that all existing Muslim states should support and provide their allegiances to the Caliphate, which according to IS, must stretch not only to Turkey, the Middle East and the Maghreb, but also include the entire Central Asian region—referred to by the historical name of Khurasan (Sayasat, July 4).

[snip]

Radicalization and destabilisation could also emerge from within the region itself—perhaps due to the poor economic situation, weak governmental structures, corrupt leadership, absence of constructive succession procedures, weak civil society, weak governance, lack of comprehensive religious education, growing urbanisation, a growing gap between the rich and poor, exploitation of the available natural resources by the elite minority, lack of transparency, and so on. Moreover, the Central Asian republics are normally seen as authoritarian regimes with leaders unwilling to give up the power.

[snip]

Overall the experts agree that IS does not present any tangible threat to Kazakhstan as such. However, what matters is its implications for the wider region: how the fighters will behave upon their return and whether they might be ideologically driven enough to start importing ideas of the Caliphate back to their home communities. That said, it is still too early to judge how effective IS will be in spreading beyond the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria, or how easily its members will be able to recruit new fighters upon returning to Kazakhstan and the wider region. The threat of radicalization within the country, therefore, remains vague.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttn ... A47Bxvlp9B

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No comment

Proxy?

/shrugs

Can it be both?

Typical fence sitting answer, but surely motivations of ISIS are not solely political or solely religious, but a mix of both.

Clearly, there is an Islamic flavour to their actions. It is, after all, a self declared Islamic state driven by a jihadist branch of Sunni interpretation of Islamic fundamentalism. Its primary drive seems to be Salafism - a return to some previous ideal stage of Islam, that rejects Western ideas and regresses to 6th century standards of behaviour.

At the same time, its also a manifestation of the internal dispute within Islam as well as within nations in the Levant. So its Sunni vs Shia jihadism and the post-withdrawal breakdown of Iraq and the Syrian civil war all wrapped up in one messy present, shat into the cesspool of conflicting ideologies in that region of the world. Declaring yourself a nation state is inherently a political action, even if the motivations are religious.

Should we the motivations of ISIS in line with mainstream Islam? It depends.
Why? Because it depends on what you consider mainstream Islam.

If you're like my Islamic friends in Australia, the US or even the UAE, then Islam is just a facet of their lives, like Christians in the West and Buddhists in Japan or Thailand. The sort of extremism displayed by ISIS is as far from their brand of Islam as the Westbro Baptist Church would be for a liberal Protestant or a Jesuit Catholic. It is deplorable to them.

On the other hand, if you're like some of my acquaintances from Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, where the more fundamentalist types of Islam are the primary determinant of how they interact with the world, then ISIS behaviour is understandable, or even laudable. These guys (and they're almost always guys) would see this sort of fundamentalism as in line with Muslim teachings.

Religion is a marvelously effective goad, get's the cannon fodder all het up. I'm sure Average Muslim Rage Boy running about shooting his Kalashy in the air and loping off infidel heads figures he's on the right side of Allah, but the leaders are a far more realpolitik bunch. One might be forgiven for characterizing them as 'cynical opportunists". In that respect they're remarkably similar to our bunch. Baseball and apple pie might work for some of our troops, but the majority of them need that Old Time Religion to go all Warrior Jesus on the A-rabs. Our Dear Leaders are no more or less cynical and manipulative than whoever is pulling ISIS' strings.

What laklak says!

Besides, what does it matter? It's behaviour that counts.

Arnold Layne wrote:What laklak says!

Besides, what does it matter? It's behaviour that counts.

It might not matter if it were a trivial matter but in dealing with a problem on this scale it would be helpful to know what motivates the perpetrators. On the one hand, some chant "Islam is Peace". On the other, "just read Koran x:y and you'll see why they're doing it". Robert Spencer can reel off survey findings that say large percetages of Muslims in the West favour IS, while for instance an article in the Turkish Today's Zaman completely dissociates Islam from terrorism. (http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_is-islam-more-violent-than-any-other-faith_358053.html)
The motives of the people pulling the strings may be cynical and complex, but what about the people flocking to their call? Are they really just young thugs seeking a thrill, or do they see IS as the true fruit of their religion? What about the UK women said to be out their enforcing strict Islamic behaviour on the local women? Their motivation?

Obviously when there's political instability in a country, all sorts of extremist groups come out in the grab for power, and they certainly have political aspirations. But to what end? Their aim is to impose their ideology on the wider territory they're fighting for. Very few people in the world want power for powers sake. They either want it for some form of profit, or they want it because they want to implement their ideology. And in the case of the latter, it then comes down to what type of ideology it is. It might be free market, or communist, or nationalist. But in this case, it's explicitly a religious ideology. The fact that it doesn't correspond to the Islam that most Muslims in the West associate with is irrelevant. The Westboro Baptist Church don't cease to be a religious organisation on the grounds that most Christians don't share their views. The only way you could claim it's a political organisation is by suggesting that all actions by religious that aim to impose their views on wider society through politics (and crucially on those who don't share their beliefs) are actually political rather than religious. But it seems to me that it ignores the ideology behind the actions. When the Catholic church campaigns against abortion rights in Ireland, it's a political action. But to try and deny the religious roots of the political action seems ridiculous to me.

I always wonder why people say this, religion or politics. As if there were any distinction. Hell, there's been no distinction in the US since Jimmy Carter. Religion is politics and politics is religion, and it's especially true whenever we start talking about anything Islamic.

The idea that it is even possible to make even a partial separation is very recent and very local and even then it isn't taken seriously. And even then, it's completely one-sided, the idea that you can have a politics that to some extent isn't religion. But religion is ALWAYS political. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS. Religion is always about what people should do, that that's politics, pure and simple.

It's so obvious that I think that even people who say this don't really believe it. It's just tactical. If you say, "this is politics, not religion," then you get to avoid being called an Islamophobe (though, of course, playing this card to protect your image is more Islamophobic than everything the people who do this like to call Islamophobic. But if you're loud and cliquish enough, all your buddies will be so busy being upset that nobody will notice. And that, of course, is also the essence of all politics, pure and simple.)

Of course, there is distinction and structure of this board recognizes it. That is what the OP was initially asking about: Why are news about ISIL in Politics and not in Islam?

If I was to follow the logic of "there is no distinction between politics and religion" I would need to conclude that militant atheism or active anti-theism is religion which is of course absurd, or?

I believe there are good reasons not to sound like Islamophobic but that's for another debate.

Oeditor wrote:

Arnold Layne wrote:What laklak says!

Besides, what does it matter? It's behaviour that counts.

It might not matter if it were a trivial matter but in dealing with a problem on this scale it would be helpful to know what motivates the perpetrators. On the one hand, some chant "Islam is Peace". On the other, "just read Koran x:y and you'll see why they're doing it". Robert Spencer can reel off survey findings that say large percetages of Muslims in the West favour IS, while for instance an article in the Turkish Today's Zaman completely dissociates Islam from terrorism. (http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_is-islam-more-violent-than-any-other-faith_358053.html)
The motives of the people pulling the strings may be cynical and complex, but what about the people flocking to their call? Are they really just young thugs seeking a thrill, or do they see IS as the true fruit of their religion? What about the UK women said to be out their enforcing strict Islamic behaviour on the local women? Their motivation?

And I still maintain that it doesn't matter whether you put the behaviour in politics or religion. The behaviour is still the same. When a group of people, for whatever reason, behave like they are at war and invade lands and kill innocent people, then they should be treated the same way. No reason is sufficient to kill innocents.

If, however, you want to stop something like this happening again, and want to find out the root cause, then finding out the complexities of the organisation could be important. Whether the reasons are religious or political or both, imho, does not help with ISIS. They need to be shown that this sort of behaviour is just totally unacceptable.

Yeah, we should show we can work together, despite our believes, when needed.

Both the United States and Iran have rejected the notion of working with one another against ISIL.

We have Christian nutjobs in the US that are just as backwards as the WBC but enjoy more tolerance because they're smart enough to not be anti troops.

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Oeditor wrote:

Arnold Layne wrote:What laklak says!

Besides, what does it matter? It's behaviour that counts.

It might not matter if it were a trivial matter but in dealing with a problem on this scale it would be helpful to know what motivates the perpetrators. On the one hand, some chant "Islam is Peace". On the other, "just read Koran x:y and you'll see why they're doing it". Robert Spencer can reel off survey findings that say large percetages of Muslims in the West favour IS, while for instance an article in the Turkish Today's Zaman completely dissociates Islam from terrorism. (http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_is-islam-more-violent-than-any-other-faith_358053.html)
The motives of the people pulling the strings may be cynical and complex, but what about the people flocking to their call? Are they really just young thugs seeking a thrill, or do they see IS as the true fruit of their religion? What about the UK women said to be out their enforcing strict Islamic behaviour on the local women? Their motivation?

In any group there are different motives. For a lot of people who join up with IS it is mostly anger I think.

IS "officially" follows a religious, apocalyptic script of a battle against unbelievers that will culminate in the final victory for Islam, and Judgment Day. It's religious, but in a way religion is a form of politics.

As god doesn't exist, its is mad politics headed by an dead man with a red beard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk

Just saying, religion and politics are often used as excuses for each other.

Religion pretty much is politics.