[MD] What's missing

[skutvik at online.no]

Platt and all fanatic MOQists ;-) 

On 20 Mar 2007 you quoted Magnus'

> > Fanatic 
> > Christians are just as "relieved" from intellectual values as
> > fanatic Moslems. So don't use the MoQ to demote or promote religious
> > beliefs, that's *not* what the MoQ is about.

and commented:
 
> Except fanatic Christians today aren't going into crowded marketplaces
> and blowing themselves up while killing hundreds of innocent
> bystanders.

Agree.
I have answered Magnus, but a bit more on this subject. As I 
have understood history Islam had its heyday around year 1000 
in our calendar, and while Europe was at its low ebb Islam was 
the "cutting edge" culture and may be seen as having had the 
same role as Antique Greece regarding sciences, if not exactly 
regarding democracy. Anyway there were a most secular 
leadership of Sultans, Kalifs and other potentates who did not 
exactly followed the most strict regime regarding prayer and 
fasting, and at that time there arose a sect in Persia called the 
Assasssins that can be compared to Al Qaida with a mission to 
cleanse Islam of its decadent elite. They started a terror 
campaign against the establishment by sending assassins to the 
various courts to kill the head figures. This was before firearms 
and explosives so they had to get near enough for a dagger stab 
and spent years to obtain confidence for such an event. The 
attacks were just as suicidal as the present day bomb martyrs, 
but the followers were absolutely devoted and ready to jump off 
cliffs if their leader wanted to impress a visitor. This group 
terrorized the Islamic world for about 70 years, before they were 
hunted down. The conclusion is that it looks like each time Islam 
is about to turn "normal" - as it was with Egypt after Nasser and 
Sadat's peace settlement with Israel - some built-in mechanism 
prevents it and there arises some assassin-like movement that 
starts to cleanse Islam internally. The present day Al Qaida 
emerging from the "Muslim Brotherhood" wasn't originally so 
much concerned with the West as with their own Egyptian regime 
that didn't meet their standards. There may be moderate 
muslims, but they are helpless against the purists because - as 
said - there exists no reformation or humanist movement in that 
culture. Taleban-like regimes and Sharia Law are - and will 
remain - the muslim ideal. And while the rest of the world evolves 
economically the said region is notoriously stagnant.   

End of history lesson.                      

Bo