Because monks are supposed to be disinterested and detached from the world, and giving them a load of political power is asking for corruption and abuse, which isn't uncommon in some South Asian countries such as Thailand.
Advertisement
by Reikoku » Sun Oct 28, 2018 12:55 am
by Kowani » Sun Oct 28, 2018 1:00 am
Abolitionism in the North has leagued itself with Radical Democracy, and so the Slave Power was forced to ally itself with the Money Power; that is the great fact of the age.
by Saranidia » Sun Oct 28, 2018 1:03 am
by El-Amin Caliphate » Mon Oct 29, 2018 7:17 am
Saranidia wrote:Sahansahiye Iran wrote:The country calls the Quran its constitution.
theocracy noun
the·oc·ra·cy | \thē-ˈä-krə-sē \
plural theocracies
Definition of theocracy
1 : government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided
That pretty handily fits this definition if you consider the direct words of God to be your constitution.
oh ok In that way Gaddafist Libya would be a theocracy due to the cultural revolution http://countrystudies.us/libya/79.htm
Saudi Arabia is de-facto not a theocracy though do it's haram actions such as child murder in in Yemen and it's murder of people under the protection of other Muslim ruled states(Turkey) who are not combatants against them.
by Sovaal » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:19 am
by Internationalist Bastard » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:21 am
Sovaal wrote:Theocracies are dumber than even monarchies and communist politburo states. Change my mind.
by Saranidia » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:44 am
Sovaal wrote:Theocracies are dumber than even monarchies and communist politburo states. Change my mind.
by Sahansahiye Iran » Mon Oct 29, 2018 5:06 pm
Saranidia wrote:morality(including natural rights which is a spiritual/religious concept at least originally) unlike
communist states.
by Kowani » Mon Oct 29, 2018 5:13 pm
Saranidia wrote:Sovaal wrote:Theocracies are dumber than even monarchies and communist politburo states. Change my mind.
Monarchies rule purely by birth, theocracies rule by laws and typically some degree of expertise(EG Iran) furthermore
theocracies rule by spiritual ideologies involving
respect for the sacred,and morality(including natural rights which is a spiritual/religious concept at least originally) unlike
communist states.
Besides if you believe in God then surely rule based on the will of God
is the ideal form of rule.
If you don't then of course you don't agree with theocracies but then a left-wing person supports a left-wing government and a right wing person a right wing government etc. EG
everyone would rather have a government they agree with.
Abolitionism in the North has leagued itself with Radical Democracy, and so the Slave Power was forced to ally itself with the Money Power; that is the great fact of the age.
by Kowani » Mon Oct 29, 2018 5:22 pm
Abolitionism in the North has leagued itself with Radical Democracy, and so the Slave Power was forced to ally itself with the Money Power; that is the great fact of the age.
by Kowani » Mon Oct 29, 2018 6:19 pm
Abolitionism in the North has leagued itself with Radical Democracy, and so the Slave Power was forced to ally itself with the Money Power; that is the great fact of the age.
by Vedastia » Mon Oct 29, 2018 6:52 pm
by The Empire of Pretantia » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:04 pm
by Sahansahiye Iran » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:34 pm
by The Batorys » Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:52 pm
by The Batorys » Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:55 pm
Saranidia wrote:Sovaal wrote:Theocracies are dumber than even monarchies and communist politburo states. Change my mind.
Monarchies rule purely by birth, theocracies rule by laws and typically some degree of expertise(EG Iran) furthermore
theocracies rule by spiritual ideologies involving
respect for the sacred,and morality(including natural rights which is a spiritual/religious concept at least originally) unlike
communist states.
Besides if you believe in God then surely rule based on the will of God
is the ideal form of rule.
If you don't then of course you don't agree with theocracies but then a left-wing person supports a left-wing government and a right wing person a right wing government etc. EG
everyone would rather have a government they agree with.
by Reikoku » Tue Oct 30, 2018 1:52 am
Saranidia wrote:So monks can't do charity work? because that is being involved in the world. Maybe they can't.
by Western Vale Confederacy » Tue Oct 30, 2018 1:54 am
Reikoku wrote:Saranidia wrote:So monks can't do charity work? because that is being involved in the world. Maybe they can't.
Monks aren't allowed to own, or in some countries even touch, money, so I'm not sure how they're supposed to provide charity work, or how that is supposed to relate to theocracy.
by Kubumba Tribe » Tue Oct 30, 2018 5:43 am
The Batorys wrote:Saranidia wrote:Monarchies rule purely by birth, theocracies rule by laws and typically some degree of expertise(EG Iran) furthermore
theocracies rule by spiritual ideologies involving
respect for the sacred,and morality(including natural rights which is a spiritual/religious concept at least originally) unlike
communist states.
Besides if you believe in God then surely rule based on the will of God
is the ideal form of rule.
If you don't then of course you don't agree with theocracies but then a left-wing person supports a left-wing government and a right wing person a right wing government etc. EG
everyone would rather have a government they agree with.
Would you want to be governed by a theocracy who worshiped a god that was not yours?
by El-Amin Caliphate » Tue Oct 30, 2018 1:36 pm
Sahansahiye Iran wrote:El-Amin Caliphate wrote:Rashidun
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pact_of_Umar
Are you serious right now lol? Just a few of the bits:
-Obligation to show deference toward Muslims. If a Muslim wishes to sit, non-Muslim should be rise from his seats and let the Muslim sit.
-Non-Muslims must host a Muslim passerby for at least 3 days and feed him.
-Christians were forbidden to show their religion in public, or to be seen with Christian books or symbols in public, on the roads or in the markets of the Muslims.
-Prohibition against rebuilding destroyed churches, by day or night, in their own neighborhoods or those situated in the quarters of the Muslims.
So on and so on.
The second, and ostensibly the more historically impactful document is the Pact of ʿUmar, or al-shurūṭ al-ʿumarrīyah, which consisted of a list of agreements between Umar b. al-Khattab (ra) during his caliphate and the people of Syria.[15] It is to this pact that the “controversial issues” are traced back. The pact has been broken down into various sub-themes by later scholars but can essentially be summarized as promoting Christian and Jewish self-government and legal autonomy, while also requiring their support against enemies of the state when needed. The nuances of this pact are important to discuss because, as we will come to see, later Muslim scholars based a lot of their legal arguments about religious minorities on it. Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (ra), the student of Ibn Taymīyah, for example, wrote what is considered to be the most comprehensive work on the regulations pertaining to religious minorities in his compendium, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimmah, which spans close to two thousand pages.[16] One of the most commonly cited sources that is encountered in this massive legal text is the Pact of ʿUmar, to which Ibn al-Qayyim actually dedicates an entire portion of his compendium for analysis.[17] He also goes as far as mentioning that the Pact is so well-known among the people that it was not necessary to cite its isnād, or chain of authority.[18]
Now, when you take a closer look at the details of the ordinances in the pact, you will come across what a lot of Islamophobes and Orientalists cite as evidence for Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims. Take for example the notion that Christians and Jews must dress differently from the Muslims. This example is one among many that are interpreted as “discriminatory laws” rooted in humiliating the non-Muslim, but let us take a closer look.
Albrecht Noth, a scholar well known for his analysis of the Pact of ʿUmar argues that these regulations were designed for a long-term coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims, and by no means sought to persecute non-Muslims.[19] At the same time, however, the Pact mainly dealt with what he calls the “sensitivities of Muslims” and not the victimization of religious minorities.[20] The reality of the matter was that the Muslims were at war and then entered a new place as a minority. When the Muslim army entered a newly conquered land, in the case of justifiable war, the inhabitants of that land were presented with one of three options, according to the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ: respond to the call of Islam, surrender through treaty and become a dhimmī, or leave the land.[21] As you can imagine, the majority of situations resulted in the people agreeing to remain as Christians, Jews, or Zoroastrians in exchange for abiding by the rules that they themselves agreed to. At the end of the day, the Muslims were initially outnumbered so they needed to take extra precautions to ensure that their authority would not be challenged. This new environment also posed a threat to the still developing Muslim identity.[22] Hence, when examining the ordinances, it is understandable that they would favor Muslims as they now governed the land.
There are a few approaches that can be taken when discussing the nature of these laws. First, we should consider a more contextual perspective on the so-called “discriminatory laws.” Take for example the ghiyār element, which is the term later developed to express the requirement that non-Muslims dress differently. To start, distinctive dress codes were very common in this era to demonstrate one’s social ranking, and Milka Levy-Rubin provides evidence of this being common throughout the Sasanian Empire. More interesting, however, is the origin of the dress code. A famous piece of clothing that the Christians and Jews were required to wear was the zunnār or belt.[23] Historically, however, the belt was foreign to Arab Muslims, considering its Greek origin. And so presumably the Arab Muslims only encountered the belt as the Islamic Empire expanded. The belt, in essence, was an item of clothing introduced by the non-Muslims to the Muslims, so at the end of the day the Pact of ʿUmar required them to wear something they had always worn. Noth further argues that the other ghiyār elements also subsumed customs the non-Muslims presumably already followed. Thus, he posits that non-Muslims were not being forced to wear clothes that were discriminatory; rather, they were required to not copy the Muslims in their dress.[24] And for the record, this was still not discriminatory, because the Prophet ﷺ himself commanded Muslims to not dress or act like the non-Muslims, so this law was in effect a two-way street.[25] Some scholars have even contended that the point of creating these physical distinctions was simply for administrative purposes, so as to not wrongfully punish a non-Muslim for selling wine or to collect the jizyah tax from a Muslim because the collector was confused as to who was Muslim and who was not.[26]
The uniqueness of the Pact of ʿUmar arises from the broader expectations it expressed for a society of both Muslims and non-Muslims. The heart of the Pact consists of ordinances that promote religious legal autonomy. So what exactly does that imply? Early Islamic society was composed of multiple religious communities living together with each following its own law and religious leader. This was by no means common historically. In Hellenistic societies and under Roman rule, most emperors before Constantine persecuted Christians. There was no option of living autonomously.[27] By allowing religious communities to adhere to separate bodies of law, boundaries were created between those communities.[28] That also translated into the Muslim government not interfering with these systems and thus allowing them to continuously develop.[29] There are two potential ways you can view this construction of society: you can either say to yourself, “Well that’s great, religious people can continue to follow their religions respectively,” or you can see it as creating a rigid demarcation between dhimmīs and Islamic society at large. For Muslims, the sharīʿah encompasses both creed and religious laws. So the permission for religious minorities to freely adhere to their own respective sharīʿah is one of the strongest expressions of tolerance found in the Pact of ʿUmar. Many Christians and Jews also affirm the positive aspects of this Pact, as discussed below.
Both legal scholars and social historians have acknowledged that law in general can be used as a form of social control, so the Christian and Jewish communities at that time no doubt appreciated the power to continue administering their own religious laws.[30] An example of lack of Muslim interference within communal spheres is demonstrated in a group of Nestorians, a Christian sect. The synod of George the First in the late 7th century allowed their church to legalize marriages in the presence of a Christian judge because, prior to that new ruling, marriages in this group of Nestorians occurred only through the civil courts.[31] At the time, however, the Muslim rulers appointed judges on behalf of the Nestorians, but the Nestorians required that judges be chosen through the consent of the community. As a result, Imam Abu Hanīfah allowed them to appoint their own judges. This example demonstrates that not only did the Muslim authority not intervene in other religious communities, but these communities also sought to maintain their own religious autonomy.
Along with religious autonomy came the option for Christians and Jews to seek legal counsel from the Muslim courts. But this was a concern for the Christian and Jewish religious elites because it threatened their judicial authority. If members of their congregations were turning away from their respective courts to seek justice from the qāḍīs (Muslim judges), then you can only imagine how that would strip these elites of their social and legal power. You cannot command people in your community to do things based on your religious calls and create a culture of normative behavior if they are not turning to you for religious advice. Those religious leaders who sought to preserve their authority consequently went out of their way to ensure that their communities remained loyal. Jewish women in the Umayyad period, for example, would lose their property rights if they sought a divorce in rabbinical courts, so naturally many of these women would go to Muslim courts to get a divorce in order to prevent that loss.[32] In turn, the rabbis issued a new decree by which women could sue for divorce without losing their property rights. As a result, more Jewish women remained within their communities and continued to maintain religious autonomy.
As a side note, one might notice that the regulations for minorities were based on a society that was defined by religion. People were associated with their religious communities as markers of their “national” identity. Neophyte Edelby argues “the Semites were unique among ancient peoples in that they never conceived any form of social organization other than theocracy, with God as the sole source of law.”[33] For a long time, the only social groups in the East were groups formed by religious communities. Islam, Edelby argues in particular, views religions as nationalities because for every nation, God has sent a scripture.[34] Either way, in the modern context, when we think about many of the laws regulating minorities, we view them as a form of religious discrimination, but the reality of the matter is that religion was the only form of distinctive identity in that era. So the regulations were not necessarily because someone was Jewish or Christian, but because, before the rise of the nation-state, religion was the distinctive marker of identity.
by Herskerstad » Tue Oct 30, 2018 2:37 pm
by Reikoku » Tue Oct 30, 2018 3:13 pm
Herskerstad wrote:Reikoku wrote:
Because monks are supposed to be disinterested and detached from the world, and giving them a load of political power is asking for corruption and abuse, which isn't uncommon in some South Asian countries such as Thailand.
I do recall during the Fujiwara ascendancy some empires would retire to monasteries and practically run them like banks. Nearly checking the power of that influential family.
Users browsing this forum: Cathay, Emotional Support Crocodile, Guahih, Gun Manufacturers, Haganham, ImperialRussia, Melrovia, Narland, Ostroeuropa, Picairn, Rary, Saint Norm, The North Polish Union