We enter our second week of getting a new kitchen floor. Total disruption: everything in the kitchen had to be removed, including the fitted cabinets, so a damp proof course could be laid down. The cabinets have been taken down and stored in the front room along with other things from the kitchen. The hall has the counter tops and sink stretched along it. The open patio outside the back door has the appliances, standing on flats, covered with tarps. All but the fridge - that's in the hall. Damp proofing involves three layers of stuff that dries to a plastic and each layer must dry before the next goes on - thus the week long expected time. I've spent as little time as possible in the middle room next to the kitchen, where the computer is, because whatever chemicals are used makes my eyes water and gives me a headache. We thought Friday was more or less the last day. I'm having cork tiles laid, they were supposed to go down Friday, the appliances come back inside, and, the day after, the cabinet specialists were coming to put the cabinets back in. Friday morning, the floor specialists came, looked, poked with a meter and said a section of the floor wasn't completely dry. So they're coming back Monday to put down the cork tiles.

I wanted to post my blog on time - watering eyes and general disruption prevented it. I thought I might cut and paste something about an argument I got involved in in one of my writing workshops, It involved a more or less on-going argument about Islam. 

I usually do not contribute to the threads posted by crazies: how many times can you say that Obama is not a Communist/secret Muslim born in Kenya intending to kill your granny? But this argument didn't involve the Usual Suspects. One is a Libertarian (self-description).  I usually disagree with him, but he's rational and fact-based. The other opponent was a Democrat (again, self-description) and we agree most of the time. Neither are religious; neither are racists. One voted for Obama, the other for McCain.

The Libertarian wrote that Muslims forced their daughters into arranged marriages, had honor killings, and were suicide bombers. All were potential terrorists, if not actual ones; in short, scum of the earth. There was no point in trying to introduce democracy or human rights to Muslims.  Islam could never change because it was tied to a text. The nice Obama supporting liberal Democrat said he completely agreed with the Libertarian and couldn't have said it better himself.

I posted a reply to this, pointing out, among other things, that Islam had a number of different sects and, like any world religion that existed through time, changed parts of the religion in response to different times and cultures.

The Libertarian demanded references for the notion that Islam can change. I'll quote what I posted:

You want references: at best, you'll google or wikopedia them, so I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this. Start with The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.  Look at the entries for Arabic Philosophy, Sufism, and other suggestions within the entries. Next, Edward Said,  Orientalism. You won't read the book but if you google it you'll get his basic argument about Western misconceptions of Islam. You might also google Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Sayyid Khan, Chief Justice Munir, al-Ghazali as examples of people who argued that Islam required different interpretations in different places.

References to justify the next couple of paragraphs are general knowledge and thus not required.

Islamic jurisprudence and the opinions offered by religious scholars to rulers in Islamic states are based on four things: the "roots of the fiq'h" These are the Quran, the hadith (sayings and actions of the Prophet) consensus among the learned, and ijtihad, the making of a decision based on independent reasoning [strong form] or qiyas, analogy with other teachings of the Quran [weak form].

Ijtihad and quiyas very directly introduce the non-textual element in developing both theology and jurisprudence. Consensus among the learned, somewhat less directly, does the same thing.

The Libertarian responded that he didn't care about books - he talked about the way Islam was 'really' practiced.  He'd seen a BBC discussion and a Muslim maulvi had said Islam never changed.

My response: I didn't see the BBC DOHA debate - I am quite sure that most religions insist that their dogma is eternal and unchanging and all have assorted fudges to get around this.. (cf Liberation Theology and back tracking as more conservative men became pope.) Both Christianity and Islam condemn usery. Both found ways to lend money at interest.

You say you don't care what the books say - women are forced into arranged marriages and acid thrown in their faces etc.

Part of the marriage ceremony in Islam requires the official involved to question both the man and woman separately, in private, to make sure they are willingly entering the contract.

Hindus as well as Muslims arrange marriages for their children. Arranged marriages are cultural - nothing to do with religion.  How a marriage is arranged depends on class, education, age of the people concerned. Even rural versus urban. 

A marriage between strangers - where the bride and groom first meet at the marriage ceremonies, is less common than other arranged marriages. Sometimes you have a marriage arranged between kin, cousins that have grown up together. Sometimes a marriage might involve  two professional people  who met at work.  It might be described as an arranged marriage, but the bride and groom did the arranging.  Upper class Lahoris may allow daughters contact with young men that would make suitable husbands - the young people choose among a very restricted group. Among poorer groups, girls meet the friends of their brothers - that can result in marriage. I’ve set in front of young, unmarried females at assorted marriage ceremonies. They spend a lot of time speculating about the male kin of the other family. They saw the brother of the groom, and he was really cute. He has become a potential spouse. It's a very diverse set of practices, but, generally speaking, parents want their children, male and female, to be happy and that is the ultimate parental goal in most arranged marriages.

Honor killings are another thing associated with culture - you find them in Sicily and Italy as well as Islamic countries.

Honor killings do occur in Pakistan. There were several hundred in 1990 and the number has gone up - around a thousand last year. But a young woman with an inconvenient pregnancy is not normally killed. The options described to me: abortion, the girl marries the father of the child, the girl marries someone else, usually a relative, the girl goes to spend some time with an auntie in the village, who acquires a new baby as a result. And, sometimes, the girl has the baby and the family finds it very embarrassing. How different is that than what would happen in the US or UK in 1950? Read something about Ireland and unwed mothers and the Catholic Church in the 1950’s.

Suicide bombers? Only Islam has them? Look at the anarchists - it's not particularly Islamic. It's asymmetric warfare, not religion, that uses suicide bombers.

I don't know what, or if, there was any response to that. I went to bed and when I checked a day or so later the thread had fallen out of the room.

There seems to be an assumption that all the things we think about human beings, family ties, affection for children, desire for security, don't apply to Muslims. It is discouraging that large numbers of people know very little about Islam; more discouraging, they think they do. They believe they know all that is necessary: Muslims are simply Middle Eastern lunatics, rag heads with oil, all potential terrorists. 

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. (In comparison, there are 2.1 Christians world-wide.) The greatest number of Muslims live in Indonesia - not a Middle Eastern country.  Of the ten countries with the largest number of Muslims in their population, only Turkey, Iran and Egypt are part of the Middle East. Turks, Iranians and Egyptians are not Arab. They wear different head gear.

It is not a good idea to dismiss that much history, that many people with such cultural, geographic and economic diversity with simple minded inaccuracy.

Am I using the arguments on the writing site to set up a straw enemy? Reducing opponents to absurdities that are easily challenged? It would be nice to think so.