From: hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: The Question of Culture
Date: 26 Dec 92 20:13:34 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.arabic
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <1992Dec26.184525.16737@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> lhermi@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Lotfi Hermi) writes:

> hubal@pilot.njin.net (Hubal) writes:

The name is Hubey not hubal.
 

> There is no such supplications as people pointed out.  No need for me to
> translate since other netters already posted stuff about it.

And I'm still waiting for an consistent interpretation of what it
means as I have already posted twice.


> time).  It is the same to ask why does every person that lives in the U.S.
> has to speak English.

Yes. If one group does it it's 'cultural imperialism'. When another
group does it at another time, then it's just 'natural' and 
sometimes "God's Will."



> The use of Arabic words is a sign of belonging to the Islamic Ummah, because
> of the "melting pot" culture and language that developed throughout
the ages.

So  then it's OK to have melting pot cultures. It doesn't necessarily
mean that it's xxx-centric. And even if it does, it's not something
that's never happened in the past.


> Why egyptians have to use the Persian word "palto" to describe a coat while
>they have the word 'mi'taf' to describe it.   

I thought it was from French.

>So many words that are of common
> use in the Arab world are of Turkish and Persian origin, one thing that 
> proves the opposite of what you are claiming.

It proves no such thing. If we were to add up the number of words in
Ottoman from Arabic and Farsi as a ratio of the total  words in the
language and compare it to Turkish words in Arabic, I'm sure you'd
come up with a number that will prove exactly the opposite of what
you are claiming above.


> Because the decendants of Ibrahim were Hanafites, puritants in belief and
> action, not because they were semites. 

YOu've lost me here. Which Ibrahim's descendants were Hanafites ?? The
Ibrahim in the supplication is Abraham (father of Ishak and Ismail).

Besides that, If you mean one of the four Sunni schools (by
Hanafites), then you'd probably have more arguments on your hands.
Hanafites are traditionally known as the more (most) liberal of the
schools.


>  The ummmayades was a purely arab
> dynasty, the Abbaside was a mixed Arab-Ajam dynasty, and the Ottomans was
> a purely Ajam dynasty, why then Arabs did not feel degraded to be ruled 
> by Turks (who are Ajam) may be until Lawrence of Arabia, the British General
> came and helped then desert mobs revolt against the Turkish
>Khalifah. 

1) Ajam (acem) in Turkish means easterner-colloqually as the word
acemi means a novice in something. Ajam (Acem) also means --in
Turkish, strangely enough--both Persian and non-Arab at the same
time, whereas in Arabic I believe in means 'foreigner'. So now
the Turks are foreigners.

2. Turks were and are still considered in Arabic history as
foreigners who dominated. I'll leave aside the excesive Nasserite
rhetoric, such as calling Turks animals.
 
Now we clearly have an asymmetric situation. Turks accept Arabs
as people of the book, people of the Prophet, superior to them,
so that they can offer supplication to 'aala aali' of 
Mohammad and Abraham (which still lacks interpretation) while the
Arabs can still refer to Turks as foreigners.

And now you claim this is natural and just and equal. Right !!!


 The
> problems is not with us, but with the West who with its sophistication still
> thinks with a narrow tribalistic mentality of Francs against Britons and 
> Germans against Polish, and Western Church against Eastern Church, they hide
> these, but the animosity and greed to dominate other groups is still there.
 
Exploiting weaknesses of other countries was and is still used by
everyone. The heyday of imperialism is gone. Now we have a different
kind of competetion among countries--economic. Divide and Rule.
If you don't want to be ruled then you don't divide. The Arabs were
already divided when the Crusaders barged in. In fact, before the
CRusaders, the Arab world was divided.  The Turkish slave soldiers
took over parts of the Arab world before the Crusaders came.

In any case, ARabs used the division among powers to conquer, so
did  the Ottomans. If the divisions are not already there, people
can't use them, can they ? Some of the Balkan peoples blame the
Turks for dividing them. It's ridiculous. They were already
torn asunder, and still are.

And finally, this still says nothing about the original point of
what the post was about.  Cultural imperialism comes in many forms.

Religion is also a part of what constitutes the culture of human
beings. In certain systems it's less important and in others, much
more important.  


> I tell you another thing, the names of fruits that are mentioned in the 
> Quran are the ones that grow only in Arabia.  A great proportion of the
> subject matter of the Quran is dedicated to the study of the Israelites 
> and the nations that dwelt in the middle-east.  What does that prove??

Great. The hell is also a Middle-Eastern hell. The Greeks' hell
(Hades) and  I think the Scandanavian  hell was cold.  And heaven 
is also full of things that lack in the ME-- cool waters, and trees.

What does that imply?


> but the two WW that occured in this century show how much different that
> mentality is different from the old times, Zilsh.   You are bound to think
> within the cultural and geographical group you were born in, that is why


True. YOu are bound to think in terms of the cultural and geographical
group you were born in, furthermore to 'write' in terms of the
cultural and geographical areas that you were born in and are familiar
with. So much for universal truth.


> You talk about internationalism and a Euro-Asian traditions but in fact most
> of Western Culture to my humble understanding is ethnocentric in character,
> egocentric in deductions.


I think there's a little confusion here. Western culture is certainly
ethnocentric if by culture you  mean only clothes, food, music, poetry
and the like. On the other hand a lot of its products are universal. 
This universality is not dependent on the cultural and geographical
area in which it was developed. It withstands the test of flow of time
and change in geographical space. It is this part of western culture
that  was hegemonistic for a while. And whose fault is that ? The
Ottoman reactionaries refused to take it. Now, it seems a foregone
conclusion, that even the most illiterate priest cannot fight against,
that science is a good idea and is universal. I don't find any other
kind of 'truth' to be as universal as that. Do you ?

And still, the question remains--what I've posted over the past
few months. What part of what passes of as  Islamic is nothing
but a localized phenomena--localized in time and localized is space--
and what part of it belongs to the core of Islam?

Too many things that would-be-Islamists and saviours try to
pass of as Islamic are nothing but old Arab customs. That's all.
And anyone who would still insist on this forum that 7th century
Arabia had enough scientific knowledge and does not need anything
from the West is setting himself (or his people) up for a
fantastic fall--worse than Humpty Dumpty. 

A simple case in point--interest rates. Do people still expect
answers to the problems of a modern economy from 7th century
Arabia--no algebra, no calculus, no machines, no computers
,no paper money, no nothing.
-- 

	mark	

   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
   hubey@pilot.njin.net               ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey