Islam and the West

The interactions of Muslim refugees in Western countries has been problematic. In order to understand the difficulties, I’m going to explore one specific subject that shows the gulf between Islam and Western Civilization, with a third comparison as well to round out the picture.

The subject is how a person is to respond to temptation, and I will examine Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism.

So, let us suppose you are out doing your daily routine and you see a particularly attractive person who brings up some feelings of physical attraction. That means that on some level you are tempted. Even if you never act on it, you are temped. What do the three named religions say about that temptation?

In Christianity, being tempted is a fault of the person feeling temptation. I’ve never been a big fan of thought crime, which is what this is. Still, the important point here, is that it is the fault of the person feeling tempted, and the job of the person feeling tempted is to resist temptation. Then, when the temptation is over, to beg forgiveness for the crime of thinking the wrong thought.

Now the implementation isn’t perfect. Many areas have morality laws. The city I live in only recently legalized alcohol sales on Sunday. In most of the United States prostitution is legally forbidden. Laws against vice have come and gone over the years, and are often pushed by people who have a religious reason for pushing for those laws. They should heed the words of Martin Luther who said he cannot stop a bird from flying overhead but can stop it from nesting in his hair.

The Buddhist response is similar overall. A Buddhist in that situation recognizes that he has not yet purified himself to the point where he is no longer tempted. He doesn’t have a thought crime, he hasn’t actually done anything bad by being temped, but he still recognizes it as a fault on his own part that he has not yet overcome earthly desire. It is still his problem that he is tempted, and his job to resist temptation. This is similar but not the same as the Christian response.

Then there’s Islam. The Islamic perspective is that it is the fault of the person providing the temptation, not the fault of the person feeling tempted. The person feeling tempted is therefore justified in giving in to temptation. It isn’t his fault, a temptation was placed in front of him.

This provides a great deal of perspective on the problem of Muslims in Europe, especially with respect to sex offenses. The burka and the hijab are both meant to cover up their women to the point where they can no longer tempt their men, and that is only one of the ways they act to prevent women from providing temptation.

In the west, the concept that the onus of resisting temptation lies with the tempted has persisted even after the separation of church and state and in many countries where there has been a decline in religion itself. That is why women in Europe can walk around wearing very little, but women in the Middle East must cover up. Men from the Middle East who are in Europe face a situation where their culture says they are allowed to do what they want to those who tempt them, but the laws in Europe say they must control themselves.

If that isn’t bad enough, they view their religious laws as overriding secular local laws. Therefore even though local laws say they must not attack the women, religious laws says they are allowed to.

For a while Europe had two sets of laws, one religious and one secular. The best way to behave was to follow both laws so to avoid getting in trouble under either of them. Again the implementation was imperfect, but it generally worked. Saying “but church law allows it” would not stop the Baron from punishing a person for disobeying secular law, and saying “but secular law allows it” would not stop the Bishop from punishing a person for disobeying religious law. Since Muslims believe that religious law trumps secular law in every case, they actually believe “but religious law allows it” is a valid excuse.

Three religions. Two of them say if you are tempted, your job is to deal with the temptation. One of them says it is acceptable to give in to temptation because the fault is on the person who produced the temptation. This also accounts for the desire to ban anything considered haram, such as the purchase, sale, or consumption of alcohol. Just as women must cover up to avoid tempting men, stores must not be allowed to sell sinful items to avoid tempting people in general.

This is only one of the reasons, although an important one, why Islam is incompatible with western civilization. We must stop a bird from nesting in our hair. If a bird nests in their hair, it is the bird’s fault.