leoj,

You asked about Aayaan Hirsi Ali's books in our library
catalogue?

We have all of them.

You asked what makes Karen Armstrong a preferable source
to Aayaan Hirsi Ali?

Why does one have to be preferable over the other?
I haven't read anything of Karen Armstrong yet.
But I am interested to read what she has to say on the
topic of religion and the history of violence.

I did read the following review:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/29/fields-of-blood-review-absorbing-study-religion-violence-karen-armstrong

To what extent exactly religion plays in violence and terrorism is extremely complex and will vary greatly from person to person.

When it comes to terrorism, many on the Right tend to blame Islam exclusively for the problem, while many on the Left don’t blame it at all.

Both extremes are wrong.

Of course religion plays a role in Islamic terrorism, even if it’s just the excuse. It’s also a bit much to claim that these people would simply find another justification for their violent behaviour in the absence of religion. Our environment always plays a role in how we behave; we don’t get to pick and choose then that applies.

There is a lot of research (http://goo.gl/ut1CME) demonstrating that religion, in many instances, plays only a minor role in radicalisation in the West. A lot of the time, these people become disaffected and then find purpose and meaning in Islam. There is one such example where copies of Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies were found in the unit of a couple of guys who left to fight for ISIS. That’s how little they knew about Islam before they took off.

However, there are examples of where religion seemingly played the only role in an individual’s radicalisation: educated people with good careers and families. One example is the Australian doctor who left to help ISIS (http://goo.gl/9MFZTh). The most infamous example (although not a Western-born example) would be the 9/11 hijackers, who came from wealthy families and were well-educated.

There are attempts by many on the Left to disassociate Jihadists from Islam by, say, pointing to the fact that they may have drunk alcohol before. There have been many attempts to disassociate the 9/11 hijackers from Islam by pointing to the fact that they went to a strip club the night before the attack, however, as Maajid Nawaz (a practicing Muslim and founder of Quilliam) pointed out in his dialogue with Sam Harris (pp. 28-29), there’s enough in the Qur’an to justify their night out.

These men could only be described as men of the most perfect faith.

Dear AJ,

It is interesting isn't it.

I want to read more on the subject though. What piqued my
interest was the summary that I read on the library
catalogue about Karen Armstrong's book which stated:

"... Religion is as old as humanity. The book "Fields of
Blood" goes back to the stone age hunters-gatherers and
traces religion through the centuries from medieval
crusaders to modern-day jihadists. The West today has a
warped concept of religion: we regard faith as a personal
and private matter, but for most of history faith has
informed people's entire outlook on life, and often been
inseparable from politics. Humans undoubtedly have a
natural propensity for aggression... with our growing greed
for money and wealth came collective violence and warfare.
With the arrival of the modern all-powerful, secular state
humanity's destructive potential has begun to spiral out of
control. Is humanity on the brink of destroying itself?
"Fields of Blood" is a celebration of the ancient ideas and
movements that have promoted peace and reconciliation across
millennia of civilisation..."

Now I don't know much about the author. And,
Not having read the book I am unable to judge exactly what
the author's message is (and whether I agree with it.)
However I am looking forward to finding out as the subject
does interest me. Can we really fully blame religion for
humanity's actions? It's a question that I'd like to see debated.

I believe in this specific instance A.J.PHILIPS is quite right. Some of these knuckleheads are not particularly clever, and if you were to sit 'em down in front of some charismatic speaker they'll listen to what he'll say, especially if they think their otherwise dull lifestyles may be dramatically improved, by a subtle injection of purpose. Individually, if you were to quiz them on their knowledge of Islam, you'd more than likely find them 'wanting'.

There are others, who have been devoted to Islam, all their lives, many of them are well educated. Some of them perhaps with a seemingly interminable history of psychopathy? An illogical belief of consummate idealism, together with this conviction of an idealistic Utopian afterlife. I believe A.J.P drew a comparison with those who were responsible for the Twin Towers horror.

Evil buggers for sure; but the immense planning, overall logistics, strategic and tactical preparation for seizing their desired aircraft: 3 x Boeing 737's (sic); None of it, was the mark of some querulous and very impatient young men. Men dedicated to refining their strategies precisely, and timed perfectly.

We've been having dreadful mass murders, similar to these terrorists events for years, without having a shred of influence from the practitioners of Islam or Christianity, or anyone else for that matter. I have no precise knowledge of Islam or Christianity. But awful crimes the like of Port Arthur, or Hoddle Street, down in Melbourne, were not the product of any religion, Islam or otherwise. Just the work of a couple of crazed murderers, is all.

Dear Foxy,

Like you, I’m reluctant to comment on such a small snippet. But going by what you’ve quoted, it sounds like Karen Armstrong takes a very pessimistic view of humanity with her talk of our propensity for violence, destruction, and greed.

In criminology, there are two competing theories of deterrence: Social control theory and Social bonds theory. Social control theory starts with the assumption that we are all potential criminals, and that it is only because of the controls in place that we don’t offend. Social bonds theory starts with the assumption that we are all essentially good people, and only deviate from socially acceptable behaviour when our attachment to society is weakened (e.g. from things like loss of job and loss of marriage to marginalisation, discrimination, and crime victimisation).

Anyway, it sounds like Karen Armstrong would favour the former. I tend to favour the latter.

But whether Karen Armstrong is right, or to what extent, will forever be debated. I think both sides of the debate are right to varying degrees in varying situations, and each criminological perspective is useful to varying degrees depending on what needs to be done.

The other part I would take issue with is her claim that our destructive potential has begun to spiral out of control, and that secularism is propelling this spiral. Depending on what exactly she means by “destructive potential”, that could be highly debate to just flat-out wrong.

http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.pdf (Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies)

<<Can we really fully blame religion for humanity's actions?>>

Certainly not fully. Clearly there are many things people do, both good and bad, that has nothing to do with religion. So I think it’s a bit of a stretch for Karen Armstrong to claim that religion has informed our “entire” outlook on life. It would be interesting to see how she justifies that.

But, yeah, there’s not enough there to bother going too far into detail.

It is interesting that the discussion is continually being railed towards terrorism. Must be familiar ground to some and suits their purposes.

However the thread is about 'beating your Islamic wife' and it follows, the treatment of women generally by Islam.

Womens rights campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali has said many times that the reformation of Islam is not solely concerned with terrorism but mainly the treatment of women.

On an earlier Q&A that all here would surely know about, Ayaan Hirsi Ali said she had Muslim friends who had been subjected to forced marriages and female genital mutilation, and who had been forced to wear a veil. Ali herself was subjected to female genital mutilation as a child. She urged people not to be “squeamish” about criticising those practices.

“This is what is happening to Muslim women,” she said. “If you have young girls who are subjected to forced marriage, it is not a marriage, it’s an arranged rape. It is a forced rape and I wish we were not squeamish about it. We were not squeamish about slavery, we were not squeamish about eradicating apartheid, and I wish that is one thing we would not be squeamish about.”

and,

"It is becoming increasingly difficult to criticise Islam and Muslims in western countries such as Australia, the Somali-born author and human rights campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali has said, because “we only see them [Muslims] through this prism of victims and victimisation”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/17/ayaan-hirsi-ali-qanda-west-muslims-only-as-victims