You knew I couldn't resist a reference to Waziristan, right? He seems to justify the conclusion that the problem is Arabism more than Islam, no? (And can we get the Sufi to predominate?) The article prompted Christopher Blosser at Against the Grain to ask some basic questions about IslamWhy were the Pashtun, and not another tribe, made the bearers of Wahhabism in that area? Because they are the only tribe in that place that boasts an Arab genealogy: Wazir, one of their ancestors who gives the name to the Pakistani province of Waziristan, was from the Arabian peninsula. Wahhabism, born in the 1700’s in an Arab context, has functioned as a unifying force for many of these tribes. Al Qaeda understood well that the phenomenon of the Taliban could become a political experiment, a laboratory from which political Islam could draw, in order to bring the entire Muslim world along with it.
The battle taking place in Afghanistan is, therefore, a battle of meaning, and the fate of much of the Muslim world depends on its outcome.
What is the nature of our present conflict with Islam?Can it be characterized as a "clash of civilizations"?Is it a war with Islam per se, or only a variant thereof? What is the true nature of Islam?and give us a near-exhaustive round-up of answers from Ratzinger et. al. Many items of interest, many we've discussed here, but now they're collected for you in one place.
