Five Pillars of Islam/Talk

I cut this bit out:

Note:
In spite of the fact that the five pillars are obligatory and meant to be absolutely essential for every Muslim to keep, not all individual Muslims do, or are able to faithfully participate. Many secularized Muslims, have stopped participating in religious duties; many of them are so-called second-generation muslims in western countries, the children and grandchildren of muslim immigrants, who live in-between two cultures and have developed ambivalent feelings towards their religious duties. On the one hand they tend to cling to their traditions for identity reasons, on the other hand the influence of western mentality, daily life and peer-pressure tears them away from muslim culture. Plus, a complicating factor for observing Ramadan and the five prayers is the fact that western society is not designed for such radical habits.

This is also true for Judaism and Christianity; perhaps this paragraph could be written in a more general form, and then it could have minor modifications made for Judaism, Chrisitianity and Islam. It could then be inserted into all of these topic? RK

I'd say not. It's is, as Manning said below, 'commentary' on sociology of religion and not encyclopedic description of religion. There's certainly a place for it, but not on the pages devoted to the description of the religious groups themselves for themselves.--MichaelTinkler

Actually, I have a number of books by Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jewish rabbis, all of whome bring of this precise point. They do not view a discussion of this as an attack on Judaism; they view it simply as a description of the changes that Jewish people have experienced since the Enlightenement and emancipation of the late 1700s and early 1800s. All of the major Jewish movements regard responding to this phenomenon as part of their religious mandate. I think many Christian groups feel the same way. I think a better differentiation would be that this description does not fall under theology, but under some other category describing the religion. Real world Judaism has less than 50% of American Jews following any form of Judaism as at all (recent surveys published last month have reaffirmed this.) Even a personal survey of gentiles I know shows that many, many people in America's northeast are only "cultural" Christians, and do not accept most tenets of their faith as expressed in their particular church's principles of belief. This phenomenon is growing among American Muslims as well, although I have no idea how widespread this actually is. RK

Michael Tinkler writes "There's certainly a place for it, but not on the pages devoted to the description of the religious groups themselves for themselves." Do we really have any such pages? I don't think so. If we did, then the entry on Islam would have a long list of proofs "proving" the Torah, the Tanach, and the New Testament are all corrupt, and that only the Koran is true, and that Jews and Christians are trying to fool the followers of God. If we had such pages, then the entry on Christianity would have entries proving that the Jews are stubborn and the offspring of the Devil, and that worshipping Jesus is the only way to God. If we had such pages, then the entry on Judaism would contain polemic after polemic condemning idolatry and any form of polytheism, as well as condemning all those who follow atheism and agnosticism, and Deism. But we don't have this. Instead, we try to impartially describe what each faith/community teaches, but not 100% from their own point of view. More from a friendly outsider point of view, right? Thus, perhaps each section might include a paragraph on the real world sociology of the followers of these faiths, as distinct from the theoretical positions? RK

This seemed to be a commentary on modern muslim sociology and not really related to the Five Pillars. Not to say it isn't a worthwhile subject, only that it was off-topic. - MMGB

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The matter of to what extent the Five Pillars are actually observed in practice by various groups within the muslim community is in fact directly relevant to the subject and is not at all "off-topic". Yes, it may be relevant to other topics, such as "modern muslim sociology", or "modernity and religous traditions", etc., but that doesn't mean it is not relevant and appropriate here. IT IS. -HWR

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(From the old page) -- This needs to be incorporated or to incorporate the Five Pillars of Islam article (unfortunate capitalization, but pre-existing). --MichaelTinkler

As you were typing this, I was merging the two :) - MMGB

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this is looking VERY good. --MichaelTinkler

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Thanks for every suggestion here. About the 'note' paragraph above (which I wrote), it seems we are talking about two different subjects: 1. the loyality problem of the so-called 2nd generation immigrants, and 2. the practical difficulties people face when observing religious duties and traditions in 'foreign' cultures. Could both be worth a separate article? With my paragraph I wanted to emphasize the first. I have looked into the 'Sociology of religion' page, but cannot see how it would fit in there. I still think it should at least be mentioned in the Five Pillars article. In order to be able to elaborate on it, probably we should have a separate page named 'Muslims in western society', or something like Hank suggested and include both subjects there. I do not think it would be the best idea to broaden it to make it fit all major religions. Each religion has it's own background culture and it's own specific problems. We could then add more acceptation/adaptation/integration problems and processes into such an article. Ofcourse, it should then also be linked to some sociology page. What do you think? -- TK

I have put back in a rewritten version of the paragraph. I've tried to keep it as close to the Five Pillars as I could, leaving out the 2nd generation topic. The issue of 'Muslims in Western society' in my opinion still deserves a separate treatment -- TK

TK - yeah, the rewritten version is fine, it still relates directly to the discussion of the Five Pillars so is appropriate. Nice work - MMGB

Thanks, and thank you for your style corrections -TK

I agree - the fit is much better. --MichaelTinkler