[jomamaxx]

Preventing women from driving, from being in public without family members, from touching others, from having other see their face etc. etc. is 100% part of the 'intellectual deficit' imposed by Arabic flavours of Islam.

Islam is a religion, an ideology and a culture all blended into one. Parts of it are bad.

But I don't think it's any of that. I think it's something simpler: there is nothing in the desert. It's really hard to build a civilization of nothing. Absent civilization, even if there is Oil in the ground ... the surpluses won't be managed effectively or fairly.

I think that were the Arab world to be green and lush, it would be a better place, because civilization and power would have developed from an agrarian base ... which is more distributed, then higher level civic institutions can come into place etc.

With desert+oil, basic and important institutions don't get a chance to form, and you have a Fedual system which depends on the intelligence and benevolence of the Feudal Lords, aka House of Saud, Qatari 'royal' family etc.

[visarga]

> I think that were the Arab world to be green and lush, it would be a better place, because civilization and power would have developed from an agrarian base ... which is more distributed,

We are going to enter a similar situation in the developed countries as the workforce will be replaced by automation. Work has been a great "distributor" of wealth, each person being in charge of his own work potential. But after automation, people will have nothing to trade for. Regular people will become like "muslims in barren countries", dependants upon the state and wealthy. And the riches will collect in the hands of big corporations who operate the robotic fleets.

The only solution I see is to open source and democratize AI and robotics so it doesn't concentrate wealth like it happened with operating systems (Microsoft), search (Google), social networks (FB) and oil (arab countries). People need to be independent from now on. If corporations are to function without hiring people, then people need to function without needing said corporations. We need to focus on agriculture, 3D printing, solar and open source AI. We need to be self sufficient.

[intended]

There is no AI or hard logic based systems that humans will agree upon as fair, because inherently human beings don't realize that they may be have been, or continue to be the recipients of hidden benefits.

We also used to say statistics is what people should study (in the early 1970s? iirc). Not everyone has the inclination or bandwidth.

This is a problem that will only be solved by figuring out tools to help the human component.

And Unfortunately any tool created has immense scope of being misused. The power no man should have.

For example, a tool which can identify the intent of a speaker online by studying the sum total of all conversations they have ever had, would be vastly useful in in helping people build bridges with each other. IT would solve immense problems with law keeping, justice, and even mundane things like moderation on a forum.

At the same time knowing intent would be the scariest thing to see abused by an unscrupulous third party.

[ihsw]

You are confusing Islam with the cultures of the Arabian Peninsula -- it may be the birthplace of Islam but Muslims have done much more than eek out a meager existence among sand dunes.

Education curriculum, fairness, equality, social justice, civic duty, personal accountability -- all of these things are similarly as present in Islam as they are anywhere else.

Also, governance by royal decree is one of the most un-Islamic things possible. This is not lost on the Gulf monarchies so they are forced into a submissive position when confronted by the relevant Sunni Islamic authority.

[spriggan3]

> Education curriculum, fairness, equality, social justice, civic duty, personal accountability

The problem is which form they take. Women are clearly not men's equal in the Koran. The Koran talks about all these subjects, it doesn't mean it promotes these. According the to Koran(and the Bible) , slavery is acceptable, the Koran even tells how Muslims should treat their slaves. Is that the fairness,equality and social justice you are talking about ? Or are you twisting the meaning of these words at first place ?

You can argue the Koran is a product of its time,which it totally is. Saying that is a good way to invalidate the fact that it should be taken as "the final, perfect word of \"God\" " if it should be read in context. But it's forbidden for Muslims to criticize the Koran at first place... so back to square one.

[ihsw]

Inequality between genders in Islam is a difficult subject to discuss without pointing out that many female Muslims in the Western world are afforded the same rights and freedoms as male Muslims -- indeed, Muslim women have achieved equality without being permitted to enter Islam's holiest sites.

That said, women are most definitely treated differently under Islamic rule as outlined by Islamic law, and there is no point of view that can deny this. Some would argue that women and men are inherently different and that it would be imprudent to ignore this, and this line of reasoning leads us to unpleasant situations like women being denied the same opportunities to achieve success as men are.

Millions of Muslims in the West find slavery to be barbaric and none of them own slaves, and not only that but one of the central tenets of Islam is donation to make slavery unnecessary. This is evidence of fairness, equality, and social justice not only being compatible with Islam, but encouraged.

That said, slavery is permissible in Islam under certain circumstances, and the primary basis for this permission is the profound lack of protection afforded to non-Muslims outlined in Islamic teachings. This is intentional and personally I hope it falls by the wayside.

Finally, criticism of the Quran is a touchy subject. The study of mathematics was regarded as being unable to bring perfection to the human soul, but many Muslims studied it nevertheless and humanity advanced in indescribable ways. Death was similarly regarded as an act of God regardless of the cause of death, but the study of medicine was defended as not being un-Islamic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidah

[jomamaxx]

"Education curriculum, fairness, equality, social justice, civic duty, personal accountability -- all of these things are similarly as present in Islam as they are anywhere else."

My friend, no, they are not, and there is not a single nation on Earth where Islam is the prevailing religion where this is the case.

Now - I'm not saying that Islam is compatible with these things, and I agree that my comments are directed towards the 'Arabic and Arabic influenced world' - and that Islam in Indonesia is obviously something altogether different - nevertheless, your comment does not hold.

[jcranmer]

The Arab world is literally where civilization--the first development of agriculture, of urban settlements, of writing, coherent state polities, etc.--was first invented in history (note that most of these developments happened independently in a few places). They've had those things for at least 1000 years before anything in Europe showed any signs of comparable developments.

[ZanyProgrammer]

Your comment makes no sense. So Hammurabi was "Arab"? That's extremely anachronistic. Prior to then advent of Islam the Christian Roman Empire was much, much more wealthy advanced and sophisticated than the Arabian desert.

[jcranmer]

If you're criticizing a region for its geographic resources or lack thereof, it makes sense to discuss its history in terms of that geographic region as opposed to using cultural or ethnolinguistic definitions.

I'll also point out that Hammurabi was likely speaking an Afro-Asiatic language (of which Arabic is the most widely-spoken in modern times), so ancient Mesopotamia is as close to the modern Iraq ethnolinguistically as ancient Greece is to modern Western Europe.

[ihsw]

While true, this is unrelated to Islam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia, the "cradle of civilization," is in Iraq. Keep in mind that it is just one of many, it is nevertheless an area that is green and not an endless sandy expanse.