Islam doesn’t evangelize, i.e. try to convert the un-believer… that’s more a Christian thing. In fact Islam is more exclusive, similar to Judaism.

Islam is not a ‘religion of the sword’ – again think of these statements and apply them to other religions, particularity Christianity.Islam is not expansionist. Say Islam is expansionist and you might as well say Christianity is expansionist because of every war waged for power-mongering desires but ‘in the name of God’.

Islam is not repressive to women. Patriarchal societies are. Read the Quran- Muhammad empowered women in his community. His first wife, Khadijah, was an older, inflectional businesswoman. Under certain interpretations Islam has been used to repress women, but those interpretations are based off ones cultural perspective. You also have to hack away liberal western notions of what equality is. There always seems the assumption since the ’sexual revolution’ in the west that if a woman isn’t burning her bra and heaven forbid is veiled then she is obviously repressed. Standards of social conduct and modesty, decorum, that we have lost somewhat in some aspects of western culture under the all encompassing banner of ‘progress’ are different.

I think you may have drawn the wrong conclusions about tribe.

It’s pretty clear that tribalism does not define an East vs. West or an Islam vs. Judaeochristian dichotomy. Rather it’s a dichotomy of affluent vs. poor; safe vs. unsafe; and where we get our sense of dignity. When we’re poor or threatened or feeling dislocated, tribalism is our comfort and security. When we’re affluent and safe and confident in our own worth, we have a choice of adhering to tribe or going alone.

In the affluent West, tribalism can be found wherever poverty and fear is… Prisons, schools suffering bullying… The rise in the US of the Mano Nero — the forerunners of the US Mafia — occurred in part because of the dislocation of Italian immigrants. Likewise in Australia where I live, the rise of Vietnamese criminal gangs also arose from the social dislocation of children of refugees from the Vietnam War.

But there’s also evidence that even in civilised societies, tribalism remains an end in itself. We have sporting tribes, religious, political tribes. Many retain a warrior’s ethos of supremacism through conflict (though the the conflict may be symbolic or social rather than physical), and a warrior’s mythology of being the oppressed or aggrieved (even in Christian-dominant US, Christian tribalists consider themselves oppressed by atheists and infidels).

This is not simply a story of a clash of cultures; it’s a human story — a story of trying to find self among the faceless enormity of our own species, against the fears of our own inevitable death and insignificance. But it’s also a story of civilisation and evolutionary psychology — as our civilisation is enabled by affluence and growing safety, it’s also cemented by humans developing a sense of greater self beyond just self and tribe.

For goodness sake, what country in the world is always at war with other tribes? Afghanistan? Yes, on a tiny scale similar to the gangs you see in other impoverished areas, where people fight to retain resources adequate to sustain the tribe. But this is nothing in relation to the scope of tribal aggression we see among Judeo-Christians groups, particularly in America.

I am concerned that you don’t see the irony here.

Molon Labe

-Chief

Also, many of the similarities between Islam and tribalism also apply to Judaism.

O311 2nd BTN/2nd Marines 94-98′ -Semper Fi

It’s very likely that early humans organized themselves the same way. The pattern is recognizeable in human history. The ancient Greek city-states often went to war because of border disputes over farmland taken over by one city or the other. The Apaches drove off other tribes from New Mexico hills they claimed for their game.

Islam is a religion all about borders. It divides the world into the dar al-Islam (House of Islam) and dar al-Harb (House of War). Those borders are bloody. Islam also believes that any land conquered by Islam is forever Islamic. Muslims still pine for their lost empire in Spain, Andalusia. They also object to the Jews carving Israel out of the Middle East which the Muslims conquered from the Christians. Still, none of this would matter were it not for Saudi petrodollars which fuel the worst of Islam and amplify its belligerence.