Suicide Attacks: weapon of the future?

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

Are you talking about Murad IV? I'd actually use the Ottoman time period during that time as a good example of ulema independence vs state authority, specifically in their collective refusal to endorse the war against the Shia Safavids as a jihad.

<sound of hand slapping head>Sorry, yes Murad IV, my mistake. I was referring to his outlawing of alcohol and tobacco, and his reign of terror both in Istanbul and Anatolia.

Eh ... very iffy IMO. The ulema do not represent anything like a priesthood in that there is no claim to holy writ in their opinions, thus removing the "intermediary to God" aspect that one finds in Roman Catholicism. You could almost make that argument with regards to Sufi masters, but since most Sufis orders reconciled with the ulema centuries ago I'd even doubt that one. If the God-king discarnated, it discarnated to the Quran, I suppose, but it's tough to get a holy kingdom when you're being ruled by a book --- see the difficulties the Saudis have had, in which the clash of religious justification for an earthly kingdom has resulted in widespread Islamist mockery and hatred for the Saudi royal family.

I wouldn't use the RC church as an example, the theologies are too different. Your observation about the Quran are interesting, but I think that they neglect the importance of Hadith (oral tradition) and "continuing revelation" (I know, it's a Christian term, but it does capture most of the flavour of post-Ghazali Sufism up until, say 1600 or so).

Part of the problem is that this is hard to talk about without using a lot of technical terms. A "culture complex" doesn't necessarily deal with the lived reality of a people at a particular point in time; it deals with mutually reinforcing symbolic "perceptions of reality" that state what social relationships should be in a given situation. The God-King meme is really an absolutist, authority ranking meme that combines divine authority with secular action. In many pastoralist societies (85% according to Lenski's survey), it tends to be transposed into Storm/Sky Gods and act as a rationale for particular kinship forms and overall social organization, even if no particular individual is considered as "divine".

Marc