Pan-Islamism Would Be Dreadful In Application

To make up for my previous absences, I’ll merge my rebuttals alongside my opening arguments. Argument /Rebuttal: Historical Caliphates In order for one to answer whether or not a theocratic government could work in application. It would be best to see previous examples of Islamist governments in application. This is very important, since one of the primary goals in Pan-Islamism is to bring back a Caliphate or Caliphate like state, much comparable to the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates. Below shows maps of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates at their heights respectively: https://upload.wikimedia.org... http://img10.deviantart.net... As seen in the maps above, the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates both covered mass swaths of territory. The concern that my opponent had made in his first argument: “Each nation also has its own traditions, history, background, and customs. Uniting people under the name of Islam has more idealistic than realistic application, as there are many details that coincide with a united Muslim Caliphate.” Yet the Umayyad Caliphate covered large diverse territories, under Islamic government and law. This includes but is not limited to Spain, Persia, Egypt and Jerusalem. Each of these countries have had diver sly radically different cultures religions and backgrounds. Persia was Zoroastrian during conquest, Spain was mostly Catholic and Egypt/former Byzantine territories were mostly Eastern Orthodox. Yet the Umayyad Caliphate lasted from 661AD-750. That is practically an entire century, and the main reasons for the Umayyad’s overthrow had little to do with theocracy, since the Abbasids that replaced them were equally theocratic. In fact, The Abbasids continued on to rule for another The problem with my opponents argument is that he has made the assumption that a trans-national Caliphate has not been done before, and that diverse religious demographics under singular religious rule is not realistic. As seen above, that is not the case. Sources: 1. http://www.middleeastpdx.org... 2. http://img10.deviantart.net... 3. https://upload.wikimedia.org... Argument 2: Negative impacts of Nationalism Since a Pan-Islamist state would be in Muslim territory that means that the decision as to create such as state would be up to Muslims in said state. Statistic by the Pew Research Centre has shown that much of the Muslim world is in favour of Sharia Law As seen in the image below, the idea of using Sharia law in Muslim majority countries sits fairly well with the majority of the population. As a result, it would be in said population’s best interest in doing so. http://www.pewforum.org... Sources: 1. http://www.pewforum.org... 2. PEW Research Centre Q7a, Rebuttal 2: Lack of evidence By instigating a debate, and asserting a claim. Pro has the Burden of Proof to his argument. In numerous occasions in Pro’s arguments, he had made a variety of claims whilst failing to give proof to said claim. This can be seen in the following quotes. “It is clear and evident that a formation of a theocratic nation dominated by Islamic law will eventually result in a process of dehumanization, denial of basic liberties, and widespread corruption. A primary argument of a Pan-Islamist would be to state that idealistically, corruption will not occur. Idealistically, Communism is about extreme equality, where people cannot transpire between classes, as there are none. Realistically, a Communist nation will occur in deep poverty, corruption, and ultimate autocratic rule of the governmental elite. The same will occur in a Pan-Islamic nation.” He has first made the assumption that a Communist country would immediately devolve into deep poverty and corruption, He had done so without giving a sufficient example as to whether it was the case. The burden of proof is hence on pro to prove that Communist policies lead to poverty or hunger. Similarly, the BoP is also on him to prove that a Pan-Islamist would succumb to similar problems. However, Pro fails to prove why this would be the case. Even after the argument in his “Evidence and statistic” list, he doesn’t show any proof to his previous assertion, he only gives stats on the geographic size of each country. This does not act as sufficient proof to his previous claims. Rebuttals 3: Size (This one is a short rebuttal as it’s in response to a short point in my opponents argument) “It is unrealistic to assume that one federal theocratic body could rule over such a massive nation and population. Due to this irregularity, regional governments will need to be formed, in order to maintain judicial and legislative balance in the nation.” Historically, Empires of much larger sizes have sustained for long periods of time. Here is an example of what the size of a potential Caliphate may resemble: Say that the countries above the 60% range are the countries within the Caliphate, similar to the size that my opponent proposed in the beginning of the debate. This landmass would cover most of the Middle East and North Africa. Now compare that land mass to the British and Mongol Empires at their height: https://upload.wikimedia.org...http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net...; As one can see, both empires are of larger size than the Caliphate. The Mongol Empire had sustained been sustained been sustained from 1206 until 1296, as well as the British Empire having survived from 1783 until 1997. Empires far larger size then the Caliphate have existed and survived, hence it wouldn’t be unrealistic to think that the Caliphate could survive even with such a large size. As large, trans-national Caliphates have existed before (Such as the Umayyads and the Abbasids). Sources: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org... 2. https://upload.wikimedia.org... 3.http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net... 4. https://upload.wikimedia.org... 5. http://www.britishempire.co.uk...