Fascinating Info, but Message not entirely clear

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Sep 17, 2015 at 15:57

Daniel Pipes' broad survey of examples for and against the role of Fatalism in Muslim life over the centuries is a fascinating and compelling read, but I'm not entirely sure what the final message is. It seems that in the extreme rationalizing that characterizes so much of Muslim thinking, the violent outbursts that puncture much of Muslim history, especially in recent decades, could as easily be interpreted as expressions of God's Will - God/Allah willed the rebellion against the Shah in 1979 and against the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 - as attributed to evidence of Free Will among the Muslim population.

After all, since Allah has tolerated the successful and productive existence of Israel for 67 years, doesn't that invite the fatalistic acceptance of its existence as God's will? Which doesn't exactly seem to be on the horizon of Islamic thinking.

So I remain inclined to think that the idea that fatalism is not one of the fundamental ideas that impede any useful change in the mindset of Islam, if that is Pipes' message, is [not convincing].

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