Jahiliyya - being ignorant of guidance from God

The last few days have been filled hosting for my Kuwaiti family. Yes... my Arab, Muslim family is now in the Midwest America... I felt obligated to show them a little culture while they visit the place furthest from.

If you ever read the 9/11 Commission Report (google "9/11 pdf"), it says that the roots of the fundamental Islamic movement can be traced to one man, Sayyid Qutb, sent by Egypt to study in the US during the 1940s (p.51). He was appalled by Western culture, saying we were affected by barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition known by Muslims as jahiliyya).

This was fine until he observed that jahiliyya was spreading, not just through the Western world, but also penetrating into Islam lands, thereby posing as a direct threat to Islam and her culture, caused by Western culture.

... there's more, but 60 years later, here we are, and simplistically, that's why 'they' hate 'us'... because our culture promotes god-lessness by worshiping money and actors, we advocate freedom but lack within ourselves the restraint needed to responsibly wield it, and we are barbaric; we don't care for our citizens and in some cases, even kill them, so how can we be civil to others?

Knowing that... I was in Kuwait 20 years ago and then, it looked like a middle-eastern city. Now they tell me with all of the corporations and media, it looks like an adjunct of America. Advertisements for Western companies are now peppered through the city. Western fashion with its emphasis on sexually evocative models line the store fronts. Etc., etc.

For what it's worth...

Of course, not all Muslims feel Western culture is undesirable, which causes further friction and fragmenting because that would appear to bolster Qutb's claims! (Now because of Westernism, Islam is being attacked from without and from within!)

I'm not sure we're entirely to blame for internal affairs within the Muslim world, but looking around at my America, I don't completely disagree with Qutb. I'm an ex-pat for precisely those reasons; I too feel the American people have lost their way. To me, it's self-evident in our apathy, obesity rates, drug use, materialism-as-substitute-for-love, and anger management issues.

Although I don't hate America for her decadence, it does cause me to blush.