Islam will collapse too (or is already collapsing)

Submitted by Prashant, Apr 20, 2019 at 19:04

Dear Dr Pipes, Your reader Dave said that Communism collapsed despite the support of academics. I contend that Islam will also collapse or is already collapsing. Islamic history can be divided in three periods:

First period should be called the period of Islamic Imperialism. This period continued from the time of Islam's inception till the time when Islamic forces started to lose to European colonialism (roughly 7th century to 17th century). This period was a period of tremendous growth for Islam. In this period Islam expanded from Arabia to India and Indonesia and to northern Africa and the shores of the Atlantic. In that era, it was permissible for nations to raise armies and create growth by plundering other nations. Islam took full advantage of this method of growth. Muslim kings captured Jerusalem (with all its real estate) and hundreds of other cities, captured Hagia Sophia and hundreds of other places of worship, and built great Islamic monuments like Tajmahal and hundreds of others. It was one single Islamic economic system that thrived by plundering and capturing lands and that expanded from central Asia to India to north Africa.

The second phase was that of decline in Islam. This phase came when European colonialism got an upper hands on Islamic imperialism. I should say that European colonialism saved a lot of the world from Islam. In this second phase Islamic imperialists lost India, Egypt, North Africa and many other parts of the world to European colonialists. This phase continued till the second world war and ended when European colonialists found that colonialism was not profitable for them any further.

In the third phase different newly freed nations fell in different political blocks when the European colonialism ended. It is very instructive to see what happened to whom. Non-Muslim Indian mindset is extremely democratic (barring the unfortunate caste system). It values education. And Indians are always eager to learn and adopt new secular values. So after experimenting with socialism for about 50 years, India adopted free market. Freedom of thought was never an issue even in socialistic India. So India is now on the right path. I am citing Hindu-majority India here because for centuries India was under Islamic rule and because Hindu majority India presents a nice contrast with muslim-majority India.

Muslim-majority India (that is Pakistan and Bangladesh) should be considered with all of the Islamic nations of the middle east and north America. These countries constitute our main subject matters in this article. These countries were culturally Islamic. Being culturally Islamic unfortunately means their fundamental mindset is anti-democracy and anti-freedom. I contend that if plundering other societies is not available as a method, democracy and freedom become necessary conditions for growth and prosperity. Communism collapsed because it did not have democracy and freedom. Communists tried to plunder other nations (like Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, and Africa) but found that in our modern world plundering is not very possible. So they also adopted freedom and democracy (Eastern Europe, China, and Soviet Union are all more democratic today than they were 40 years ago). That brings me back to the Islamic societies. Why Islam as a political system did not collapse as fast as communism and why will it collapse soon?

Islam's decay was slower because of two reasons. First, it is a political philosophy hiding under the umbrella of a religion. Islam's imminent collapse will involve a slow, steady, and painful separation of Islamic politics and economy from Islamic spirituality. Muhammad carefully built non-separation of church and state into the Islamic religion. The separation of church and state in Islam will not happen until Muslims abandon parts of Islamic doctrines. They will be forced to do it due to economic forces. There is no other way out. Economic forces would have already forced Islamic societies to abandon their counter-productive doctrines but for the oil wealth. Trillions of dollars of lucky oil wealth that flew into Islamic hands by a sheer accident of nature slowed the pace of Islamic collapse compared to, say, communism. As the role of petroleum wealth in the world's economy declines Islam's rate of decay will accelerate.

It is not my purpose to wish the demise of spiritual Islam. It is the political Islam and the role that it plays in the secular aspects of people's lives that will need to collapse. It will collapse very soon. In fact it is already collapsing.

Social media will furnish a relentless pressure on Islam to mend its ways. It will force Islam to treat women better. It will force Islam to treat non-Muslims with respect. It will force Islam to drop the stubborn theories about God. It will force Islam to drop hypocrisy in its day to day behavior with respect to non-Muslims (e.g.in the affairs of marriage and in the affairs of conversions and apostasy). The social pressure will be compounded by economic pressure. Muslim women will be forced to work outside of home not just because that is a matter of human rights but also because if they do not work then their families will be in an economic disadvantage compared to non-Muslims families. Both men and women will have focus on the problems that are plaguing humanity instead of obsessing with God 24x7.

As a final note in this long message, I will provide examples that collapse of Islam is already happening. Very few travel dollars flow into Islamic countries (if you discount the travel to oil-rich nations), Islamic countries are in perpetual civil wars, and Islamic youths are revolting against the inherent contradictions of their societies,

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