17.11.2023, Moscow.
If we do not properly treat the artificially constructed Islamic radicalism, which is called “Islamism,” we will face grave strategic consequences in about 3-4 years, political scientist, philosopher, and leader of the Essence of Time movement Sergey Kurginyan said on November 3 on the Conversation with a Sage program on the Zvezda radio channel.
The political scientist explained that Islam is a great world religion. He proposed to examine the issue historically and reminded that by the 11-12th century Islam was more enlightened and more philosophical and intellectual than Christianity.
“The Crusaders learned a great deal during the Crusades, which we could talk about separately. For example, in the Spanish parts of the Arab Caliphate, enlightenment triumphed, everyone was reading Aristotle, the latest philosophical studies, and so on. But then something happened – and this is one of the greatest mysteries of world history. What happened somewhere in the 14-15th centuries, how Islam began to lag behind, in fact, how this Islamic periphery was formed,” the philosopher emphasized.
Islam is, anyway, a powerful religion with enormous humanistic potential, very passionate against the background of a certain cooling observed among large religious groups in Europe and in Western civilization on the whole and even in the East.
“Islam is something that is the most heated. And last but not least, we have many fellow citizens who profess it, whom we should respect, be very attentive to their positions, and so on. This is all certainly true,” the philosopher said.
Kurginyan notes that he says all this not to say “but”. He wants to draw attention to the fact that no such phenomenon emerges by itself. The more passionate a phenomenon is, the more powerful it is, the more appealing it is internally, the higher certain risk. It always contains something that can become a problem. This something is called artificially constructed Islamic radicalism, which is called “Islamism” – not to be confused with Islam.
“Islamism is a rather new and rather strange phenomenon for a person who thinks that everything in the world happens by itself. <…> One cannot say about Islamism that it ‘emerged by itself’. It was indeed a construct, unlike Islam, which was cultivated in certain, let’s say, social and cultural flasks by certain people at certain times,” emphasizes Sergey Kurginyan.
According to the political scientist, all this is very well known to specialists in Islam in general and Islamism in particular. But Russian ordinary citizens, and perhaps some of our politicians, are not quite aware of it.
“Or it [Islamism – Rossa Primavera News Agency] is discussed, on the one hand, as something obvious, and on the other hand, as something excessively exotic. The obvious point of view stipulates that everyone knows all the troubles are caused by the UK or US elites. And the exotic one says ‘Well, why do you start discussing some connections there; who knows whether they exist or not. The world is simple. Who is against the Americans is with us, who is for the Americans is against us. Period.’ Such a picture may bring us grave strategic consequences in about 3-4 years.”
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
