The Closing of the Muslim Mind
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
My only criticism is that the book seems nervous when it comes to pointing out that aggression and violence at the centre of Islam, not only in its texts but also in the life of Muhammed himself, is an inescapable bane within the faith.
If you have read my predecessors rather indepth review I would urge you to ignore statements that seem oddly pro-protestant, stating progress beyond Catholic countries, flying in the face of the renaissance,the first modern empire - Spain, the French, Austro-Hungarian etc. The rather prejudiced Anglo view of history does not warrant the three stars (I am not Catholic by the way). It is a thoroughly good read with lots of interesting ideas and facts for those looking to explain some of the motivations in the Islamic world.
If you have read my predecessors rather indepth review I would urge you to ignore statements that seem oddly pro-protestant, stating progress beyond Catholic countries, flying in the face of the renaissance,the first modern empire - Spain, the French, Austro-Hungarian etc. The rather prejudiced Anglo view of history does not warrant the three stars (I am not Catholic by the way). It is a thoroughly good read with lots of interesting ideas and facts for those looking to explain some of the motivations in the Islamic world.
5 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A fascinating and important book, but there is a problem with the thesis that Islam only needs to free itself from the shackles of the eternality of the Qur'an, introduce neo-Mu'tazilism and that will reopen the gates of ijtihad (effectively of critical thought based on causality). Christians also believe in the eternality of the Logos, yet Arianism (its heretical denial, wedded to a form of neo-Platonism the author applauds) was not accompanied by an intellectual emancipation, to the contrary. The vast majority of early Protestant Christians also believe in predestination and the absolute Sovereignty of God and His decree - (though not so as to deny Divine rationality, secondary causation or the independent reality of natural law). Yet early Protestantism was associated with an intellectual and commercial revival and laid the roots of the industrial revolution, and the beginnings of renewed European imperialism, in a manner that largely bypassed nations still under Rome's yoke.
There is something more theologically basic to the petrifaction of the Muslim mind - the rejection of Mu'tazilism was its watershed, the catalyst for its rigorous and unfettered expression, and ironically it's a philosophical import also partaken of by the scholastic Christian theology Reilly lauds and post Messianic Rabbinic thought (from whence Islam probably derived it), albeit in both as a diluted, less rigorous brew. It is a concept wholly unsupported by their sacred texts, which unlike the Qur'an restrain its expression - the absolute simplicity of God. By compelling an abnegation of balancing Divine attributes, Plotinus' Simplex which peculiarly haunts the Tauhid has sterilised Islamic theology, stripped out Divine glory, crippled His Personhood and by it poisoned the fountain of creative thought and aesthetic. (There is much here shared with Western materialists.) The rejection of the rationalism of the Mu'tazilis triggered the fossilisation, as Reilly explains, (just as the idolatry of reason has reciprocally poisoned materialists), but the bitter root which provoked this barren backlash was active in Islam well before.
There is something more theologically basic to the petrifaction of the Muslim mind - the rejection of Mu'tazilism was its watershed, the catalyst for its rigorous and unfettered expression, and ironically it's a philosophical import also partaken of by the scholastic Christian theology Reilly lauds and post Messianic Rabbinic thought (from whence Islam probably derived it), albeit in both as a diluted, less rigorous brew. It is a concept wholly unsupported by their sacred texts, which unlike the Qur'an restrain its expression - the absolute simplicity of God. By compelling an abnegation of balancing Divine attributes, Plotinus' Simplex which peculiarly haunts the Tauhid has sterilised Islamic theology, stripped out Divine glory, crippled His Personhood and by it poisoned the fountain of creative thought and aesthetic. (There is much here shared with Western materialists.) The rejection of the rationalism of the Mu'tazilis triggered the fossilisation, as Reilly explains, (just as the idolatry of reason has reciprocally poisoned materialists), but the bitter root which provoked this barren backlash was active in Islam well before.
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45 reviews
97 of 102 people found the following review helpful
Robert Reilly has written a masterpiece!
14 July 2010
Format:Hardcover
In tracing the historical evolution of Islam into the backward and calcified state it now finds itself in, Reilly has done us great service.
The most important point, implicit in this work for those willing to self-examine, is that most of us in the West stubbornly continue to try to understand and explain the Muslim world through the eyes of our own experience and evolution, refusing to see that it cannot be explained by our logic and reason, that it can only be explained by theirs. And theirs is an entirely different worldview, arising from an entirely different history in both thought and in action.
Being originally from a Latin American country, I have always found that most Americans cannot fathom some of what goes on in other countries, and cannot conceive of other peoples' having different values and worldviews upon which they base their actions and thought, and which necessarily do not fit into the rational mold of Westerners and Americans.
This is why we continue to ignore their own words and deeds as they relate to their seemingly irrational and destructive actions, and why we continually try to find "excuses" for them; we just cannot imagine people thinking differently from ourselves and having motivations which seem self-destructive to us. This is best expressed by Hussein Massawi, a Hezbollah leader: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." And yet we persist in trying to find something to "offer", believing that we have something to offer that they want and will stop them. We don't. And not everyone wants freedom and democracy.
In order to understand the reality of Islam and their seemingly irrational actions and words, we must first discard our own notions of right and wrong, our own notions of rational thought and action, and understand theirs. This book does that very well, leading us through the events and processes which led to the current state of development of Muslim thought and worldview.
Reilly meticulously traces the process through which, starting in the 9th Century, Islam discarded the Greek notions of rationality and reason, cause and effect, effectively divorcing faith from reason. It is this process and the consequences derived from it which has placed Islam and those who adhere to it in conflict with reality, and with those who chose a different path.
An important work, which belongs in every thinking man's library.
The most important point, implicit in this work for those willing to self-examine, is that most of us in the West stubbornly continue to try to understand and explain the Muslim world through the eyes of our own experience and evolution, refusing to see that it cannot be explained by our logic and reason, that it can only be explained by theirs. And theirs is an entirely different worldview, arising from an entirely different history in both thought and in action.
Being originally from a Latin American country, I have always found that most Americans cannot fathom some of what goes on in other countries, and cannot conceive of other peoples' having different values and worldviews upon which they base their actions and thought, and which necessarily do not fit into the rational mold of Westerners and Americans.
This is why we continue to ignore their own words and deeds as they relate to their seemingly irrational and destructive actions, and why we continually try to find "excuses" for them; we just cannot imagine people thinking differently from ourselves and having motivations which seem self-destructive to us. This is best expressed by Hussein Massawi, a Hezbollah leader: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." And yet we persist in trying to find something to "offer", believing that we have something to offer that they want and will stop them. We don't. And not everyone wants freedom and democracy.
In order to understand the reality of Islam and their seemingly irrational actions and words, we must first discard our own notions of right and wrong, our own notions of rational thought and action, and understand theirs. This book does that very well, leading us through the events and processes which led to the current state of development of Muslim thought and worldview.
Reilly meticulously traces the process through which, starting in the 9th Century, Islam discarded the Greek notions of rationality and reason, cause and effect, effectively divorcing faith from reason. It is this process and the consequences derived from it which has placed Islam and those who adhere to it in conflict with reality, and with those who chose a different path.
An important work, which belongs in every thinking man's library.
97 of 107 people found the following review helpful
Deep insight on an enduring dilemma -- history persists
29 May 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an extraordinary clear, clinical, and dispassionate exposition of the contemporary Islamist crisis and the implications for Islam's neighbors - including the Western cultures to which so many Muslims are migrating. The author masterfully elicits the historical, political-ideological, and philosophical lessons from the fourteen hundred years of political Islam's turbulent history and finds the original locus of that turbulence in Islam's seminal struggle with rationality in its deep past, in which rationality lost out. Reilly evokes parallels to such original crafters of similar analyses as political philosopher Eric Voegelin who charted the links between the Gnostic traditions of antiquity and contemporary "isms" (e.g., Marxism); or to the seminal exposures of the results of such murderous "isms" by Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes in their devastating studies of the bloody-minded and mass murdering intellectuals who created and ran the USSR. After Reilly, the sound bites on Islam by politicians, government officials, and celebrity "experts" are exposed for what they are: ignorant boilerplate. No comfort may be taken in that observation.
By John J. Dziak, Ph.D., author of "Chekisty: A History of the KGB."
By John J. Dziak, Ph.D., author of "Chekisty: A History of the KGB."
66 of 72 people found the following review helpful
Extraordinary
22 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A few years ago Bernard Lewis wrote a short book titled "What Went Wrong"--with Islamic countries, that is. As expected of Dr. Lewis' work, it was excellent, but the book never answered the question posed in its title. Amazingly, and beautifully, Mr. Reilly's book does explain what went wrong with Sunni (and to some extent Shia) Islam.
In about a two-hundred-year period (9th through the 11th centuries, A.D./C.E.), the intellectual ferment having to do with Islamic theological issues, and how to examine those issues, ripped through the Islamic world. On one side were those Islamic thinkers whose logical tools derived from Greek philosophy; The other side was made up of those who insisted that the Koran was eternal, and must be simply accepted without question. In fact, for this latter group, the very act of questioning was blasphemous--a capital crime.
Despite the Hellenistic intellectual outlook actually being supported and adopted by three Caliphs, the argument was eventually won by the literalists. It was reason versus power exercised by pure will. Reason lost, and the results are painfully still evident.
Mr. Reilly carries us along from the 9th century up to the present, and his writing is elegantly precise. His book is very clear about the dangers Islam poses to the West and to Islam itself. Despite the war in which we are engaged, in the best sense of the Western Tradition, Mr. Reilly's words will give the reader an appreciation and respect for those ancient (and modern) men of Islam who chose humanity over tyranny. Sadly, of course, they lost.
In about a two-hundred-year period (9th through the 11th centuries, A.D./C.E.), the intellectual ferment having to do with Islamic theological issues, and how to examine those issues, ripped through the Islamic world. On one side were those Islamic thinkers whose logical tools derived from Greek philosophy; The other side was made up of those who insisted that the Koran was eternal, and must be simply accepted without question. In fact, for this latter group, the very act of questioning was blasphemous--a capital crime.
Despite the Hellenistic intellectual outlook actually being supported and adopted by three Caliphs, the argument was eventually won by the literalists. It was reason versus power exercised by pure will. Reason lost, and the results are painfully still evident.
Mr. Reilly carries us along from the 9th century up to the present, and his writing is elegantly precise. His book is very clear about the dangers Islam poses to the West and to Islam itself. Despite the war in which we are engaged, in the best sense of the Western Tradition, Mr. Reilly's words will give the reader an appreciation and respect for those ancient (and modern) men of Islam who chose humanity over tyranny. Sadly, of course, they lost.
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