Turkish vs Arab Islam

Submitted by Marshall Shapiro (Canada), Aug 16, 2002 at 23:24

In the column, Dr. Pipes wrote:

"My response, however, is that no matter what Islam is now or was in the past, it will be something different in the future. The religion must adapt to modern mores.

This can be done. One recent example: In May, the Turkish religious authorities ruled..."
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Islam may have benign faces but they are not in the Arab world. There, Islam is practiced with savagery and little regard for human worth.

This is the weakness in the article. To equate the Turks with the Arabs is a serious fault in the argument that Islam can be modernized. Certainly it can be ... for the Turks and maybe for some Pakistanis. But Arab Islam is destined to remain anchored to the least enlightened Islamic traditions and practices in which shame, not guilt, rules the morality of their society.

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