Non-arab Islamic Cultures

Rev Hellfire

I’m not sure if this is the right place for this question but I’ll ask it here anyway and hobbes can move it if he feels it’s inappropiate.

A lot of noise has been made about west vs islam, where to my mind islam is linked to arab in the typical westerners mind. But one thing I would be interested in hearing about is what people from traditional non-Arab Islamic cultures feel about the increased influence of Arab schools in these countries, and if arab view of islam as a whole is skewing the wests view of the religion and doing it a disservice, arabs do after all only account for around 20% of the worldwide muslim population.

As a non-muslim I have a passing interest in the religion but would be quite interested in seeing some references to Islamic culture as traditionally practiced in these countries. For example I remember reading on the BBC website about Chinese muslims who have female iman’s for example, or the malaysian terengganu woodcarvers who where closely associated with that nations islam practices but are getting pushed asside in the arab-fication of that country.

Suff

I am sure that non-arab-Muslims are influenced by their culture to some point but part of being a muslim you have to learn arabic in order to pray.
prayer is only in arabic, in prayer the muslim recite from the Quraan.if you read an english (or anyother language) Quraan for exmaple technicaly your not reciting the Quraan your reading a translation of the meaning, you can only get the feel of the Quraan by reciting it in arabic.

as regarding to the Chinese muslims who have a female iman, that is not allowed in Islam. it's not a arabic culture that ask for the Imam to be a Male it's Islam.

Lemming

Suff wrote:

as regarding to the Chinese muslims who have a female iman, that is not allowed in Islam. it's not a arabic culture that ask for the Imam to be a Male it's Islam.

Suff, is this a direct command from the Quraan, or something that's "just not done", much like the concept of women priests in the catholic church.

In otherwords, is this a command from God? or some 'n'th century mysoginistic "tradition" ?

Suff

TBH...I have to get a ref on that one to be clear.

Rev Hellfire

When I say the Arab-faction I'm not speaking about the language.

If we take the push of Wahhabi schools as an example into countries which can have a strong Islamic identity already, but whose Islamic culture may be at odds with the ideology of the Wahhabi schools.
The woodcarvers I gave as an example to illustrate this idea, the terengganu woodcarvers come from a rich Islamic culture and incorporate Islamic idea's and ascetics, but these are now frowned upon due to the emergence of schools funded by organisations which are linked to Arab oil states.

Now I may be doing a disservice here, I freely admit to little knowledge on the matter, hence the questions.

In away its similar to the way Europeans talk about the effect of overriding American culture to the expense of a rich and diverse European one that it is replacing.
Is Islamic culture in a sense also been overridden by the ideologies from Arab states to the expense of cultural diversity and the stifling of Islamic thought which may come from these countries.

Wibbs

Suff wrote:

I am sure that non-arab-Muslims are influenced by their culture to some point but part of being a muslim you have to learn arabic in order to pray.
prayer is only in arabic, in prayer the muslim recite from the Quraan.if you read an english (or anyother language) Quraan for exmaple technicaly your not reciting the Quraan your reading a translation of the meaning, you can only get the feel of the Quraan by reciting it in arabic.

That's a sticking point for me TBH. IT basically says that the message of God is only to be fully understood in the context of 7th century Arabic. It seems weird to me that any God would be so specific, that only a small group of people in a small place in a short space of time, in all the vast universe should be the only ones to have access to the mysteries of the divine. IIRC the form of Arabic that's found in the Quraan has even a fair few differences to the Arabic spoken today.

Surely the purity of God's word can be transmitted in any language, for any time or people? If you take as an example, a scientific book, it's possible to translate 99.9% of it into any language and still get the proof and point across. Whether you're a Irish, Syrian or Maasai, E=MC2 still works. Surely the same should be said for God?

If you look at the other faiths out there, few of them are recited exclusively in their original languages. Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity would be examples that are successfully translated into 1000's of languages. Given that Jesus likely spoke Aramaic/Hebrew, his lot seem to be doing OK with the message in the vernacular. You could argue that Protestant faiths grew faster than the Catholic faith precisely because local translations were available. The other argument of course is that the Catholic stuff was in Latin and therefore universal. Fine, but there was a lot of dodgy reasons for that too.

The other issue would seem to me that because Islam is in the Arabic language, it could be very open to imperialism, both cultural and physical on the back of that(english could be accused of same). Language is one of the cornerstones of any culture* and to limit such an important area such as faith to one language/culture would seem to me engender a them and us mindset among non believers. It comes across as exclusive not inclusive. While all faiths have this element of exclusivity (chosen people, all others goin to hell sort o' thang), to add the language angle could further that division. On the back of language, other aspects of the Arabic culture, both good and bad might tag along for the ride.

A message and truth for all and for all time, should surely have no limits put on it by language? Just a rambling thought.


*Don't worry I see the irony of this as an Irishman writing in English.:)