Figure 1.-- These Pakistanis are protesting an American film critcising Islam. Criticism of Islam is illegal in Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries which hsve adopted blasfemy laws. Many Muslims believe that they have a right if not a moral duty to kill critics. Here they are demonstrating for the right to deny Americans freedom of expression. More is involved here than freedom of religion. Islam is not just a religion, but a far reaching social system, extending into the the arts, culture, economics, eduation, family, fashion, individual rights, politics, slavery, and many other areas. This means that individuals can be procecuted or attacked for a commenting on a wide range wide range of topics. It is no accident that since the Golden Age of Islam when free expression was tolerated to a substantial degree, the Arabs and the Muslim world in general has lived in a time warp virtually unchanged since the 13th century. Virtually all technology and science in aition to modern medical tecnology which has saved millions of Muslim lives is imported from the West. More science is done in tiny Israel than the entire Muslim world--one fourth of humnity. And in our conversations with Muslims we find few have even considered the consequences of limiting free speech. And if you ask why Muslim countries generate so little science scince you get a list of Muslim scientists (who worked before the 14th cenury) and blame continuing problens on either the lack of Islamic purity or the macinations of the Jews and the West.

Freedom and Islam is another important topic. Modern conflicts are often described as between Islam and the West. This is a not altogther an accurate expression of the conflict. Mohammed in writing the Koran used the Jewish Old Testamnent and Christian New Testament as iportant sources. He identified the Jewish Prohets as important spiritual teachers and included Jesus in the long line of such teachers. As a result, it is not entirely possible to separate Islam from the West. Just as Paul helpfuse the Jewish Jesus movement to the classical tradition, creting Christianity, Mohammed essentially fused Jewish Old Testament teachings with Arab tribal traditions. While Mohmmed recognized Jesus as a prophet, little of Jesus's teaching and Christian doctrine appear in the Koran, rather there is a reversion to the older harsher moral code of the Old Testament which was more in keeping with the traditions of Arab tribal culture from which Mohammed came. The interesting historical developmnt is that at the time of the rise of of Islam. Christianity in the form of Orthodoxy and Roman Catholocism was a highly repressive rpressive religion or alternate Christian ideologies, allowing no other religions except Judaism which was beng increasingly repressed. Islam offered a degre of rligious freedom, not only for the Jews, but non-conforming Christian dictries such as those of the Copts. One reson that Islam spread so widely, so fast (7th century AD) is the Arabs offered the populatijon of the Levant and North Africa a greater degree of religious freedom than under Byzatine rule. And the result proved to be a cultural flowering at a time that Western Christendom was experiencing what we now call the Dark Ages. This was the Golden Age of Islam--the Caliphate. And the nost advnced and tolerant state in Europe was al Andalus in Spain. Tragically, the importance of freedom in the achievements of Islam is virtully unrecognized in the Muslim world today. When after three centuries of Muslim attacks and invasons, Christendom finally struck back in the form of the Crusades. The Crusaders from the west while abhoring Islam, could not but be impressed with the cultural level of Muslim society. This did not begining to change until the Italian Renaissnce (13th century). This was a vital turning point in human hisory. And the same time that Europe began to change and adopt new ideas and concepts, freeing itself from the dicates of the Church, Muslim state and Islam begn moving in the opposite direction. Islam never experienced the Renaissnce, Reformtion, and Enlightnment, key steps in the development of our modern concpt of freedom. Rather Muslim countries, especially the Arabs continued in a kind of time warp which could only be reasonably depicted in scoence fiction. As Mohmmed was seen as the Last and Final Prohnet and the Koran cotinues to be viewed as the very word of God, Koranic pribciples can not b questioned. New ideas and the feedom to discuss those ideas were and continue to be rejected as blaphmous in the sme way that the Catholic Church attempted, but failed to control such thoughts in the West. This can vividly be seen in ealy photographs taken in Arab world. The scenes we see are a world that is lagely unchanged foe centuries. They are images that could have been taken in the 13th century if not earlier--vivid evidence of the end reslt of spresing freedom.

Created: 4:14 AM 5/29/2015
Last updated: 3:38 AM 6/6/2015