Praising Allah in the trek universe

[Min Zife]

Praising Allah in the trek universe
Ever since The Sundered (right after 9/11) it seems we've been getting an influx of Muslim characters as a lesson in inclusive polictiaclly correct doses, started by the commie writers Mangles and Martin.

We've got people like Khatami the Iranian captain of the Endeavor praising Allah and so forth, but the rest of religions are always looked down upon. PIcard in Who Watches the Watchers for example and Starfleets opinions about the Prophets.

My real question is will Islam really exist in the 23rd and 24th century? Common sense tells us the Eastern Coalition will form in the Middle East\China and the nukes that fall there will do just as much damage if not more (since the American weapons are more powerful) as in North America.
After the fires of WW3 do you think a broken people will still look to the teachings of Islam for salvation after such a quest nearly caused the destruction of humanity.

 

[T'Girl]

(since the American weapons are more powerful)

As I understand it, since American targeting systems are more accurate than (current) Russian and Chinese versions, this allows our nuclear warheads to be lower in yield. Because they will detonate closer to their targets, they don't have to be "area" weapons.

Most Muslims live in Indonesia, not the middle east.

 

[Min Zife]

(since the American weapons are more powerful)

As I understand it, since American targeting systems are more accurate than (current) Russian and Chinese versions, this allows our nuclear warheads to be lower in yield. Because they will detonate closer to their targets, they don't have to be "area" weapons.

Most Muslims live in Indonesia, not the middle east.

but the EC will be teamed up with China, i'm sure we'll rain fire on Indoesia just the same.

 

[Christopher]

Praising Allah in the trek universe
Ever since The Sundered (right after 9/11) it seems we've been getting an influx of Muslim characters as a lesson in inclusive polictiaclly correct doses, started by the commie writers Mangles and Martin.

Ummm... you do know that communists are atheistic, right?

We've got people like Khatami the Iranian captain of the Endeavor praising Allah and so forth, but the rest of religions are always looked down upon. PIcard in Who Watches the Watchers for example and Starfleets opinions about the Prophets.

We also have the Jewish Captain David Gold in the SCE/Corps of Engineers series. Jasminder Choudhury in TNG is a highly spiritual person whose beliefs are influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism as well as other faiths. In Vanguard, there are places of worship for various faiths and spiritual leaders for the station's Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other occupants.

My real question is will Islam really exist in the 23rd and 24th century? Common sense tells us the Eastern Coalition will form in the Middle East\China and the nukes that fall there will do just as much damage if not more (since the American weapons are more powerful) as in North America.

Islam is perhaps the most geographically widespread and culturally diverse religion on Earth. It originated in the Mideast, but only about 1/5 of the world's Muslims live there. Most Muslims live in Asia or Africa. The single largest Muslim-majority country on Earth is Indonesia. Muslims are found in every country on Earth, and there are nearly 3 million Muslim citizens in the United States today. All told, roughly one out of every four human beings alive today is a Muslim -- and only one out of every five Muslims is an Arab. It's the second most widely-followed religion on Earth, and it's arguably growing faster than Christianity. It's completely unreasonable to expect either religion to cease to exist in the foreseeable future.

After the fires of WW3 do you think a broken people will still look to the teachings of Islam for salvation after such a quest nearly caused the destruction of humanity.

Your ignorance is staggering and sad. I can't understand how such profound bigotry and xenophobia could exist in someone who likes Star Trek. You're completely missing the entire point of the franchise. Star Trek is about looking on those who are different from ourselves with curiosity and wonder, not fear and hate.

 

[David Mack]

^ What Christopher said. And to that I'll add that Star Trek has been all about inclusiveness since its very beginning. Remember that in 1966, during the height of the Cold War and the interracial strife in the U.S., Star Trek showed us a future in which an American captain served alongside a Russian navigator, an Asian pilot, and black female communications officer.

To denigrate the books for continuing that tradition demonstrates only an ignorance of the guiding ethos of Star Trek itself.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's also worth noting that nowhere in Star Trek is it ever established that Islamists started World War III. (In fact, the screenwriters probably had the Cold War in mind when they established that bit of Trek history back in the eighties.)

It's sad. I was watching one of the old Ray Harryhausen "Sinbad" movies the other day, in which every other line of dialogue is "Allah be praised!" or something like that, and it struck me that you probably couldn't get away with that today. If an American movie studio made a kid-friendly fantasy film in which the hero invoked Allah at every turn, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh would be all over them . . . .

 

[Christopher]

^And that's sad, because groups like al-Qaida and the Taliban are no more representative of the mainstream of Islamic belief than the Ku Klux Klan or the Branch Davidians are representative of mainstream Christian belief. They're militant fringe groups that corrupt the core teachings of their faith (for instance, the Qur'an blatantly forbids killing women, children, and noncombatants, for jihad is meant to be waged only in defending the community from invaders). And when Americans give into xenophobia and bigotry and condemn the entire Muslim world for the abuses of a minority, we just give the militants what they want. People like Limbaugh are no better than people like bin Laden. Hate is hate no matter what faith or ideology it uses as its excuse. And Star Trek is about learning to be better than that.

Oh, by the way, the other thing that's foolish about the idea of the Mideast starting WWIII is that the core conflict in the Mideast has never been about Islam vs. the West, except as a secondary issue. Primarily it's about traditionalist and modernist voices within Islam competing against each other for the right to control and define the future of their civilization. The West certainly hasn't helped through its tendency to meddle and to side with brutal, oppressive dictators when it suited our self-interest, but mostly what the Islamic world wants is for us to leave them alone and stop screwing things up for them. Surely anyone who's paid attention to international news in the past year has seen the Arab Spring, the wave of populist uprisings against the oppressive regimes of the Mideast and North Africa. It should be clear that the Mideast is anything but a united bloc seeking to aggress against the West. It should also be clear to anyone paying attention that the influence of militant groups like al-Qaida is increasingly irrelevant. Al-Qaida had virtually no role in the Arab Spring, and of course bin Laden is dead and the organization crippled thanks to the focused efforts of the Obama administration.

 

[Min Zife]

^And that's sad, because groups like al-Qaida and the Taliban are no more representative of the mainstream of Islamic belief than the Ku Klux Klan or the Branch Davidians are representative of mainstream Christian belief. They're militant fringe groups that corrupt the core teachings of their faith (for instance, the Qur'an blatantly forbids killing women, children, and noncombatants, for jihad is meant to be waged only in defending the community from invaders). And when Americans give into xenophobia and bigotry and condemn the entire Muslim world for the abuses of a minority, we just give the militants what they want. People like Limbaugh are no better than people like bin Laden. Hate is hate no matter what faith or ideology it uses as its excuse. And Star Trek is about learning to be better than that.

Then why did we give Osama bin laden a "proper islamic funeral."?

 

[Christopher]

Then why did we give Osama bin laden a "proper islamic funeral."?

Did you mean to say "why didn't we?" Well, nothing else you've said has been properly grounded in fact, so I don't see why this should be any different.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Min, This entire thread could be rephrased to discuss Kirk's vague mentionings of God in TOS. Think about that.

 

[Greg Cox]

Then why did we give Osama bin laden a "proper islamic funeral."?

And people are going to care about that in the 23rd century because . . . ?

Heck, we make peace with the Klingons eventually. You think Starfleet is still going to be holding a grudge over 9/11 three hundred years from now?

(And I say that as someone who was twenty blocks north of Ground Zero when the towers came down. I had to put towels up against the door and windows to keep the smoke and ash out of my apartment.)

Repeat after me: Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. It's a good thing.

 

[Min Zife]

Then why did we give Osama bin laden a "proper islamic funeral."?

And people are going to care about that in the 23rd century because . . . ?

Heck, we make peace with the Klingons eventually. You think Starfleet is still going to be holding a grudge over 9/11 three hundred years from now?

(And I say that as someone who was twenty blocks north of Ground Zero when the towers came down. I had to put towels up against the door and windows to keep the smoke and ash out of my apartment.)

Repeat after me: Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. It's a good thing.

And if WW3 does start it will because of a backwards society trying to usher in the 12th Imam from the bottom of a well. And I'm called hateful for calling this barbaric and that it is being put into literature so we can love and respect islam, and I've yet to see a christian represenation in the books.

 

[Relayer1]

^And that's sad, because groups like al-Qaida and the Taliban are no more representative of the mainstream of Islamic belief than the Ku Klux Klan or the Branch Davidians are representative of mainstream Christian belief. They're militant fringe groups that corrupt the core teachings of their faith (for instance, the Qur'an blatantly forbids killing women, children, and noncombatants, for jihad is meant to be waged only in defending the community from invaders). And when Americans give into xenophobia and bigotry and condemn the entire Muslim world for the abuses of a minority, we just give the militants what they want. People like Limbaugh are no better than people like bin Laden. Hate is hate no matter what faith or ideology it uses as its excuse. And Star Trek is about learning to be better than that.

Oh, by the way, the other thing that's foolish about the idea of the Mideast starting WWIII is that the core conflict in the Mideast has never been about Islam vs. the West, except as a secondary issue. Primarily it's about traditionalist and modernist voices within Islam competing against each other for the right to control and define the future of their civilization. The West certainly hasn't helped through its tendency to meddle and to side with brutal, oppressive dictators when it suited our self-interest, but mostly what the Islamic world wants is for us to leave them alone and stop screwing things up for them. Surely anyone who's paid attention to international news in the past year has seen the Arab Spring, the wave of populist uprisings against the oppressive regimes of the Mideast and North Africa. It should be clear that the Mideast is anything but a united bloc seeking to aggress against the West. It should also be clear to anyone paying attention that the influence of militant groups like al-Qaida is increasingly irrelevant. Al-Qaida had virtually no role in the Arab Spring, and of course bin Laden is dead and the organization crippled thanks to the focused efforts of the Obama administration.

Please, allow me to lead the standing ovation...

 

[Christopher]

Most of the Islamic world reacted to 9/11 with horror and condemned al-Qaida for their un-Islamic attack on innocents and noncombatants (including the dozens of Muslim employees and visitors to the World Trade Center who were killed in the attack, including a woman who was 7 months pregnant). For a few precious months, we had the vast majority of the Islamic world firmly on our side and al-Qaida's influence was badly weakened in the Muslim world. And then Bush had to go and do the stupidest thing imaginable by invading Iraq. That played right into al-Qaida's narrative that the West was an aggressive enemy and that their actions were taken in self-defense. So all the sympathy we'd gained in the Islamic world was squandered.

Star Trek has almost always taken the view that force is not a good way to solve problems. Usually, ST stories are resolved by finding alternatives to conflict, by reaching out and finding a basis for understanding and peace. Because conflict tends to be self-perpetuating and just makes things worse.

 

[Greg Cox]

And if WW3 does start it will because of a backwards society trying to usher in the 12th Imam from the bottom of a well. And I'm called hateful for calling this barbaric and that it is being put into literature so we can love and respect islam, and I've yet to see a christian represenation in the books.

Well, to be fair, you started this off by calling two of our friends and colleagues "commies," which possibly got things off on an adversarial note!

And just having a Middle Eastern officer in a Star Trek book isn't necessarily endorsing Islam any more than having a Midwestern character represents Christianity. Honestly, aliens tend to be more religious than humans in the Star Trek universe.

I suspect that Kahless and the Bajoran prophets have been mentioned hundreds of times more often than Jesus or Mohammed!

 

[Amaris]

And if WW3 does start it will because of a backwards society trying to usher in the 12th Imam from the bottom of a well. And I'm called hateful for calling this barbaric and that it is being put into literature so we can love and respect islam, and I've yet to see a christian represenation in the books.

Because Jesus returned in 2143 and shot J.R.

 

[Greg Cox]

And if WW3 does start it will because of a backwards society trying to usher in the 12th Imam from the bottom of a well. And I'm called hateful for calling this barbaric and that it is being put into literature so we can love and respect islam, and I've yet to see a christian represenation in the books.

Because Jesus returned in 2143 and shot J.R.

But was it really Jesus or just his clone?

'Cause, you know, they tried that trick with Kahless . . .

 

[Kemaiku]

What if it was a terrorist group not associated with any current ideology or belief that formed in the early 21st century in Trek's timeline and brought together similar minded militia's from Eastern Europe to Oceanasia in an attempt to bring about a major shift in power by overthrowing various democracies throught the 2020's to 2040's?

 

[Min Zife]

And if WW3 does start it will because of a backwards society trying to usher in the 12th Imam from the bottom of a well. And I'm called hateful for calling this barbaric and that it is being put into literature so we can love and respect islam, and I've yet to see a christian represenation in the books.

Well, to be fair, you started this off by calling two of our friends and colleagues "commies," which possibly got things off on an adversarial note!

And just having a Middle Eastern officer in a Star Trek book isn't necessarily endorsing Islam any more than having a Midwestern character represents Christianity. Honestly, aliens tend to be more religious than humans in the Star Trek universe.

I suspect that Kahless and the Bajoran prophets have been mentioned hundreds of times more often than Jesus or Mohammed!

As soon as modern trek novel respectfully refers to jesus I'll lose my grudge. But the sugar coating of Islam makes me angry when the snide smirks of christians continues.

 

[Amaris]

And if WW3 does start it will because of a backwards society trying to usher in the 12th Imam from the bottom of a well. And I'm called hateful for calling this barbaric and that it is being put into literature so we can love and respect islam, and I've yet to see a christian represenation in the books.

Because Jesus returned in 2143 and shot J.R.

But was it really Jesus or just his clone?

'Cause, you know, they tried that trick with Kahless . . .

Unfortunately, we won't know until Season 8 of TNG, which I expect to happen any time.