Back Again After 500 Years

A thought-provoking article concerning what we have done to ourselves and what we must do next:

Back Again, After 500 Years

A new mosque opens in Spain. Good news? Not necessarily.

For the first time in six centuries the muezzin's cry echoed over Spanish Granada with the inauguration in that city of a new mosque last week. The call to prayer hadn't been heard in the old capital of Moorish civilization since the last Muslim king was expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.

A rather ominous remark by a top mosque official was quoted approvingly in the Muslim coverage. The new mosque, he said, would be "one of the purest sources of Islam."

Here, then, is a precise illustration of the West's complicity in its own troubles.

The mosque seems customized for Spanish soil and the traditions of Spaniards only aesthetically. Spiritually and politically--which are the same thing to hardline Islamists--the mosque remains a product of forces from outside Spain.
The problem hardly concerns Spain alone. The U.S., Britain, Germany, France--all have paid a price for their nuance-free welcome to all brands of Islam. Underpinning this welcome is the well-intentioned liberal tradition that we don't tell anyone how to worship. It may be time, however, to take a closer look at our own responsibility.

But there is some inspiration for those fighting on the Hearts and Minds Front in the larger war:

Why shouldn't Spain actively try to re-create Moorish standards of Islam in doctrine as well as in brick and mortar? It can start by sponsoring a Spain-inspired creed within its own borders. We in the West complain incessantly about anti-Western thought in Saudi-inspired madrassas, or religious schools, around the world. We demand that they open up to a freer market of ideas, but we shy from entering the marketplace. We can start within our own borders by sowing new ideas in mosques and madrassas. The benefits will accrue as much to Islam as to the West. After all, the grandeur of Moorish culture grew not out of a pursuit of purity but from the irritant of exposure to other cultures.

The whole thing

Monk