Histories and commentaries about Islam often mention the ironic labels that Muslims place on the two "houses" that define the two parts of humanity, as they see them. In this cosmology the realm of the infidels is referred to as the "House of War" while the sphere of Islam is called the "Ummah" (roughly, the community of the virtuous and faithful). The implication is that the West is condemned by their failure to "submit to the will of Allah" to a process of internecine struggle. This has been a useful fiction for the Ummah because not only does it provide a sense of moral superiority, but serves as a figleaf to hide the Ummah's private shame. The term "House of War" manages to convey the notion that the long struggle for justice, freedom and responsible government in the West was the mere pathology of an inferior and faithless people. But the current "cartoon crisis" informs the confused that what the Ummah has really been in submission to for these many centuries is not Allah's will, but a long tradition of tyranny that oppresses in the name of Allah. Avoidance by the Ummah of the kind of struggle that, for centuries, plunged the House of War into a bloody-but-purifying crucible has left the "House of Mankind" contaminated with dross.

And threatens to plunge us all, this time, again into the crucible.

(Cross-posted to Demosophia)

Posted by: Demosophist at 11:43 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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