tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post866276421737801427..comments2024-03-27T13:13:25.164-04:00Comments on johnshaplin: The Making of Salafism by Henri Lauzierejohnshaplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-39284757554188927922015-12-15T13:55:46.115-05:002015-12-15T13:55:46.115-05:00The futility of this exercise in religious purity ...The futility of this exercise in religious purity is perhaps best expressed, from among my sources, by George Kubler in The Shape of Time; Remarks on the History of Things:<br /><br />“The survival of antiquity has perhaps commanded the attention of historians mainly because the classical tradition has been superseded, because it is no longer a live water; because we are now outside it, and not inside it. We care no longer borne by it as in a current upon the sea: it is visible to us from a distance and in perspective only as a major part of the topography of history. By the same token we cannot clearly descry the contours of the great currents of our own time: we are too much inside the streams of contemporary happening to chart their flow and volume. We are confronted with inner and outer historical surfaces. Of these only the outer surfaces of the completed past are accessible to historical knowledge.” That is, the perspective of the pious ancestors is actually inaccessible, a delusion, reactionary in its very nature.<br /><br />So, it seems like, though perhaps it presumes an exaggerated notion of the influence of Salafism in the contemporary Islamic world, that the conflicts to which it gives rise will not be resolved without a prolonged period of war, much as in 16th and 17th century Europe (not-with-standing such broad-minded and tolerant figures like Erasmus) in which the involvement of the so-called Christian nations- which have similar problems along the same lines even today- can do no good.<br />johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.com