Allah is not Jehovah.

No Muslim believes that Allah's son was made man, died on the cross for anybody's sins and was resurrected.

The idea that Christianity, Judaism and Islam are connected and 'Abrahamic' won't fly. They are connected historically, but it is not possible to make them connected doctrinally.

I do not know of any Muslim who believes that the religion is not supremacist. Some are more violent in that belief than others.

Christianity's main sin in the eyes of the left is that it's an underpinning of both Western democracy and the capitalist system. Othern religions then gain the de facto support of the "Christophobes" based on their ability to challenge Christianity's dominance. That can range anywhere from liberal Hollywood stars seeking out alternative religions like Buddhism or Kabbala, because the sheep out in the heartlands don't follow those paths, to openly rooting for victories by radical Islamists against the United States in the war on terror simply because they want to see the U.S. and the Western capitalist system in general dismembered.

Does that make Excitable Andy a Homosexualist?

Raoul:

That sounds too glamorous. He's just a butt pirate.

As I understand even mainstream Islamic theology (and thus I speak subject to correction), Muslims can not make the statement OJ posits. Judaism and Christianity allow for a human sphere that Islam, which holds that all things are willed by Allah, does not allow.

how do they form governments?

Look at the governments they've formed.

They seem to range rather widely from monarchy to military dictatorship to mullahcracy to democracy. There's plenty of room for humans.

Actually, I'll expand on that a little bit. As you've noted, Islam is different from Judaism and Christianity in that it went from new to triumphant without any intervening oppression. Both Judaism and Christianity were required to experience (and as both sects posit a G-d who is not subject to time, were designed to experience) oppression. Thus, both see the realm of the secular government as not necessarily connected to the realm of religion and are willing to tolerate a secular sphere. As so many people have noted, the seperation of church and state is not a one-way street. It also protects the church/temple from the corrupting influence of government.

This brings us to the American founding (and dovetails nicely with where the "Ring out the Old" comments have gone). The colonies had vastly different religious populations. Some had established churches, some didn't. Maryland was majority Catholic, Pennsylvania was trying to stay Quaker. Massachusetts was congregationalist and a member of an established Anglican church from another colony would not have been able to hold political office in the Commonwealth. The attempt of the British crown, after years of benign neglect, to impose the established Anglican church was one of the causes for the revolution, so a powerful general national government wasn't going to fly. The national government could have broken over religion as easily as over slavery if national religious rule had been imposed. Fortunately, American Christians were able, because of their history, to imagine a secular, limited federal government that wouldn't interfere in the state's religious preferences (and 150 years was a pretty good run).

The Declaration, likewise, is very specific in time and place. It almost certainly could not have been written at any other time or for any other nation. One necessary component was the tolerance, properly understood, that history had forced upon American culture, that odd amalgamation of dissenters, high church Anglicans, Catholics, pre-civil war Britain and the British enlightenment. Islam, as currently understood, can't incorporate that sort of tolerance or impurity.

I may be missing something obvious, but which democracy have Muslims formed?

Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Palestine, Pakistan at times, Iran to a considerable degree, Iraq. Millions of Muslims live quite happily in India, America, etc., as well

The political dominance of Islam from its birth does seem to predispose Sunni Islam--though obviously not Shi'ism or Sufism--towards a rather totalitarian system, but there's nothing theological that requires it and we're reforming them fairly rapidly at any rate.

Some of the countries you named were had their democracy designed by the Christian West (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Palestine, Pakistan) Imperfectly formed I might add.

Iraq? yeah right. The other two Turkey and Iran I suppose you could call Democracies as long as you are not a Kurd or Armenian or you don't have a death warrant out on you for writing an offensive book.

h:

and?

Mr. Judd;

First, I still prefer "Caliphascist" for those wanting to recreate the dominating theocratic state of the Caliphate. Your example above nicely illustrates something an Islamist could write but a Caliphascist couldn't.

On the other hand, considering your examples of Islamic democracies, I am less than impressed.

• Turkey: Democracy imposed by explicit secularism.
• Indonesia: Colonial legacy
• Bangladesh: Colonial legacy.
• Palestian: Not even remotely a democracy. The very suggestion is laughable. When the political "parties" stop executing their political opponents as "collaborators", I would be willing to reconsider.
• Pakistan: Colonial legacy.
• Iran: Colonial legacy.

My reading of Islam, its history and its theology is in agreement with Mr. Cohen, that Islam requires the unity of theology and government. I will grant that the Shia heresy (and it is a heresy) permits non-theocratic government.

AOG:

American democracy is a colonial legacy. Your point eludes me.

American democracy is not a colonial legacy. It was an organic growth.

The revolution was conservative of a system that had, willynilly, grown into something that looked (and was) radically innovative from everywhere else.

There has never been the slightest sign of an organic growth toward democracy in any Muslim society. Sufis are mostly indifferent, and Shia are resentful.

Neither provides the engine required for self-government.

Whether western political ideas can be successfully grafted onto Islamic social ideas is as open to question as whether western scientific ideas can be successfully grafted onto Islamic social ideas.

The complete lack of scientific achievement in the Islamic world suggests an answer.

In addition to what everyone else has said, in Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan the armed forces are the limiting factor on civilian government, not the people. Iran is no more a democracy than the USSR was. Real power lies with institutions parallel but superior to the state and anyone can run, so long as they all believe if the same things.

I assume that AOG's point is that those are not democracies "formed" by an Islamic people, in the sense that United States was formed by a Christian people. Seems right to me.

Harry:

You got the "conservative" part right.

David:

They're Muslims, no? And democracies? Your resort to qualifiers amply disproves your point.

I didn't say, and wouldn't say, that Muslims can't live peacefully in a democracy. Clearly they can. I doubt that Islam allows for a democracy to form organically, but that doesn't distinguish Islam from 99% of world historical cultures.

I do believe that Islam does not permit Muslims to say that all men were created equal, or that all men were endowed by Allah with certain inalienable rights, or that all men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nor that Islam would allow "men" to mean "men and women." But reformation is coming and the Caliph is in Washington.

Men doesn't.

I got all of it right, Orrin.

The reaction of the rest of the Christian world to the American Revolution offers enough proof for anybody but you that the USA was not a Christian nation, though it was a nation for Christians (and Jews and Hindus and voodoos etc.)

As pj remarked, we Americans rejected 7 out of 10 Commandments along the way.

Harry:

As you rightly say, it was conservative, all we did was tweak the British system. They objected because they thought the current iteration sufficient. It would have been had they just given us parliamentary representation.

Which one of you wants to be Scylla and which Charybdis?

Harry: Of course it's a Christian nation, though it's not just for Christians. And I doubt that PJ thinks that that is what he said.

OJ: Charles Beard and Howard Zinn understand the revolution better than you do.

The modern understanding, yes.

Harry - Refusing to establish 7 commandments in law is not the same as rejecting them. Those 7 commandments are moral and spiritual (Love ... do not covet) rather than justicial.

We rejected 'em, pj.

It's been a while since anyone was stoned for blasphemy around here.

Harry:

In that too we merely aped Britain.