OJ,

Where are your best posts/reviews that define what you call "rationalism" and "the Enlightenment?"

I need to bone up on my studies.

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1519/

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1208/

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1002

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1264/

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1344/

http://brothersjuddblog.com/archives/reason_vs_faith/

Bruno, write a cliffs note on the above for the rest of us, so we can bone up for the quiz.

I haven't read any of the links above (yet), but I will venture to say that the influence of European rationalism (and reductionism) on the Arab world (and Iran) has been horrible for the Islamic world and culture. The corruption in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, the expedience of stroking the Wahabbis (and other nutjobs), the rejection of Western political and economic success (i.e., democracy and transparency) - all of these flow from the structural weaknesses of Islam, as infected by guys like Qutb (who would have fit right in with Robespierre, no doubt).

Look at this way - if Paul Johnson were to revise "Intellectuals", Qutb might warrant a chapter all his own. So might Ayatollah Khomeini.

Back in the 50s and 60s, one of the 'conservative' objections to the Soviet Union was that the State subsumed and commanded all, under the ruse of collectivism. Radical Islam is in the same position, except the State is replaced by the mosque. But the boot is still in the face, no?

To pretend that nothing within ideological islam leaves it susceptible to the various rationalist isms reflects a grave misunderstanding. The concentration of political power within the hands of the 'faithful' have always been the goals of the rationalists as well as the followers of Mohammad. There was never a 'seperation' of church and state within the plan of the prophet nor is there one within the system of atheistic materialism. It all comes down to the finality of the ideas regarding social organization within both ideological frameworks. 'Science' leads the way within one while the example of a 7th century political cult leader sets the tone for the other.Heaven on earth are promised by both through the actions of men.

jim, you bring up an intriguing question. Could Johnson be writing a sequel entitled, "The Anti-Intellectuals"? I sure hope so.

Wow, what a profoundly inane point. Everyone has proved vulnerable to the cancer of Rationalism. The question is whether you're so secular that it metastisizes, as in continental Europe and the Asian nations or whether you have an immune system such that you can fight it off, as we have and Islam may.

Western rationalism was the basis on which Qutb built his back to basics Islam? What influenced Wahab?

Tribalism. That the Europeans have arrived at again separately, due to Darwin, after a brief Christian interlude.

The only thing Qutb borrowed from western rationalism was Marx's historical determinism. Within Islam and prior to Marx it was called revelation. Qutb's was kind of a 'scientific' spin on prophecy. An analysis of each Q'ranic verse led to Qutb's 'stages of history'. Marx's context was dialectical materialism' while Qutb's was an absolute belief in the prophet and his sayings. Marx believed in the certainty of his 'science of history' while making his own prophecies while Qutb believed in the certainty of his Q'ran. In Qutb's case it might be more rationalization rather than a reliance on reason. The Muslim Brotherhood is Leninist in terms of political action action although the goal is 'religious' in nature. Islam doesn't need 'rationalism' to maintain it's utopianism. That was always there.

The determinism is insignificant. It's the totalitarianism that he imported.

Sunni Islam and the notion that the ummah can be perfected is compatible with such, but it had, of course, never been tried.

Islam was always totalitarian. Western technology made western totalitarianism possible. Islam only lacked the technology. It always had the ideology.

oops, you stumbled into a truth there. Islam has never been totalitarian. The West pioneered totalitarianism. Technology helped, but bureaucratic, legalistic, etc. efficiencies were far more important. The very inefficiencies of older systems insulated people from the State.