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'The Roots Of Muslim Rage Revisited'

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One of the biggest issues in our world today is the issue and conflict that the West is having with Islam. For almost the past two decades, it seems that the West And Islam have been in constant conflicts with each other. This papers will discuss and compare the opinions of Bernard Lewis in The Roots of Muslim rage and Nicolaas van der Zee in The Roots of Muslim rage Revisited, and their respective opinions on this issues. Both authors in many ways fundamentally disagree with each other, when searching for a cause and solution to this problem. This essay will discuss the valid points made by both authors, and will attempt to show how both authors have valid and sensible arguments on the issue on hand.

One of the good points that Miller makes …show more content…

Both authors believes that the fundamentalists within the religion, are upset at the change that has caused the Islamic countries to change economic and socially. But where both authors differ is in where the issue comes from. Miller believes the fundamentalists have a problem with the West, While Zee belives that it is the Reformist who are really threatening the fundamentalists. Zee suggests that this is not a conflict between the West and Islam, but rather between Islam and itself. It is a Clash within a culture, clash between the reformists and the fundamentalists.[ Zee , 12] Unlike fundamentalists, reformist believe that change needs to come both politically and socially. But social and especially political change results in theological change.[ Zee, 14] This is something that the fundamentalists are absolutely against. Thus the clash between the reformist who want the Muslim countries to change, and the the fundamentalists who want it to stay the same existed. . The reformist believe that some Western social and government trend are needed in their countries. But to put these changes into action, there needs to be a change in the theology of Islamic country as well. This is where the main conflict between the two sides lie. As stated by Zee, fundamentalists are completely against the notion of changing their old way of living. This type of conflict is nothing new, and many of the major religions have gone through it. A good prime example of this would be the conflict that the Catholics and the protestants had. Which engulfed a whole continent into almost thirty years of war. This battle inside the culture is what is really hurting Islam according to Zee

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