I feel that this board requires a few caveats to be taken seriously, or- so to speak- for anons to come stripped bare to expose any daggers they may have hidden underneath.
>Caveat 1
Yes there will be a concurrent thread on /pol/. I wanted to diversify my answers. That shouldn't invalidate this line of questioning.
>2
Yes, I'm aware arguments can be made that the Christians were not blameless during the various crusades, that Muslim rule may not have been as oppressive as some claim, that the actions of some caliphs and pirates may be divorced from Islam, that the slave trade numbers vary- some from dubious sources, etc. I'm purposely speaking from generalities, as would a European viewing the Islamic world, and its history in relation to one's own, in totality.
>3
INB4 "Anti-egalitarian thought,anti-democratic thought and/or 'traditionalist' thought doesn't deserve out respect to be addressed".
Even if one disagrees with the philosophy, it certainly can be worth learning how it operates from within, and how it developed.
>4
INB4 "Fuck off Fascist!" I may not hold any of the aforementioned views, and if I did, it would be irrelevant.
>5
Yes, I'm aware I'm lumping different people together, however they do have a commonality
>TLDR
Why did the Right once have a fascination with Islam?
>TL
Thomas Carlyle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Julius Evola, Adolf Hitler. Men of different times, roles, and beliefs. However, they all are cited by the same schools of political thought. They are all skeptical of Democracy and egalitarianism. They all had an a greater interest in other religions than their Christian surroundings did. They were all men of Europe. Why then did they speak fondly of Islam, Muhammad, and Islamic states?
Did they do so to be polemic? To show the contemporary worlds that even if Islam by itself may be unsuitable for their people, they had more respect for it than modernity?
Because they knew next to nothing about Islam itself and used it as a blank canvas to paint their romanticized notions of "tradition" onto. It wasn't that Nietzsche actually loved Islam, rather, the orientalism affecting Europe at the time allowed him to paint his ideals onto it. And it's not like anyone could argue against it, no one knew dick about Islam at the time.
>>908603
But they read the Qu'ran.
They knew about the Islamic conquests that led to its spread.
They knew about the conquests and blockages that led to (some of) the crusades.
Even if they just had a respect for exotic religions and mysticism, they knew about the conquest of Persia and driving out of Zoroastrianism.
They knew about expansion into Alexandria, Antioch, the Levant, Spain, Italy, Constantinople, Byzantine lands, and Central Europe.
They knew about the Barbary pirates, and the Arab/Ottoman slave trade of Europeans as well as Africans and the conquered lands of the middle east, and that slaves took on commercial, military and sexual (in the case of harems) roles.
So what gives?
Hopefully this won't be a double/triple post
>>908590
>>908590
Did they have fundamental aesthetic and/or philosophical agreements with it? With its orderly ways?
There were notes of praise for Islam, Muhammad, and the conduct of the Islamic Empires. However, didn't they have a greater affinity for Europe and Europeans; were the following not on their minds (why redact them, while focusing on the positives):
>The violence, dubious morality, and inconsistencies in the Qu'Ran
(Yes, I'm aware there are blocks of poetry as well)
>The loss of the Christian world to Islam
Alexandria, Jerusalem (which was once a protectorate), Antioch, Chalcedon- at one point at the gates of Tours
-and later Half of Spain- later still half of Sicily, then a third of Italy,
later still Constantinople, Anatolia, and the last vestiges of the Eastern Roman Empire, and just 266 and 112 at the gates of the heart of Europe- Vienna.
These weren't some small skirmishes. They were sorta a big deal in European/Christian history.
>Quotes
>Carlyle
"The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped 'round this man (Muhammed) are disgraceful to ourselves only"
"The word of Mohammad is a voice direct from nature's own heart, all else is wind in comparison"
Those guys loved "Eastern" religions in general, Hitler wouldn't have financed Himmler expeditions to Tibet if he truly hated them.
It's not difficult to envision the far right being enamoured with Islam when you see, for example, how Islamic legal codes punish faggotry, how Muhammad united all the tribes into a world power, or retard-proof simple views of God (see Hitler on propaganda and simplicity thereof).
/pol/ hates Islam on the grounds of being foreign (i.e. the Kaaba is in Arabia, you must recite the Aqidah in Arabic to become a Muslim...), Islamic terrorism targeting their countries, and wishing to live in a golden mean between the Islamic countries' degree of extreme conservatism and antisemitism (the Blood libel is taught in Palestinian schools, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have been adapted into a popular TV series), and their own freedoms and human rights.
>>908647
>Evola
""Islam, which originated among the Semitic races also consisted of the Law and Tradition, regarded as a formative force, to which the Arab stocks of the origins provided a purer and nobler human material that was shaped by a warrior spirit. "
" Finally, Islam presents a traditional completeness, since the shariah and the sunna, that is, the exoteric law and tradition, have their complement not in vague mysticism, but in full-fledged initiatory organizations (turuq) that are categorized by an esoteric teaching (tawil) and by the metaphysical doctrine of the Supreme Identity (tawhid). In these organizations, and in general in the shia, the recurrent notions of the masum, of the double perogative of the isma (doctrinal infallibility), and of the impossibility of being stained by any sin (which is the perogative of the leaders, the visible and invisible Imams and the mujtahid), lead back to the line of an unbroken race shaped by a tradition at a higher level than both Judaism and the religious beliefs that conquered the West."
>Nietzsche
" The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was fundamentally nearer to us and appealed more to our senses and tastes than that of Rome and Greece, was trampled down (—I do not say by what sort of feet—) Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly instincts for its origin—because it said yes to life, even to the rare and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life!... The crusaders later made war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them to have grovelled in the dust"
""If Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam at least assumes that it is dealing with men."
And there is also this interpretation of how he squared the obsolescence of religion with affinity for Islamic discipline
http://arabicstudies.in.ua/library/general/101.pdf
>>908696
>Hitler
"By the Church the Unknown is described and explained with precision, and if she
advances with the times, the ground must inevitably be cut from under her feet. For this reason she is opposed to all progress. It adds little to our knowledge of the Creator when some parson presents to us an indifferent copy of a man as his conception
of the Deity. In this respect, at least, the Mohammedan is more enlightened, when he says: to form a conception of
Allah is not vouchsafed to man. The most pressing danger, as I see it, is that Christianity, by adhering to a conception of the Beyond which is constantly exposed to the attacks of unceasing progress, and by binding it so closely to many of the trivialities of life which may at any moment collapse, is ripening mankind for conversion to materialistic Bolshevism"
" It angers one to think that, while in other parts of the globe religious teaching like that of Confucius,
Buddha and Mohammed offers an undeniably broad basis for the religious-minded, Germans should have been duped by a theological exposition devoid of all honest depth"
"Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers [...] then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies the heroism and which opens up the seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world."
"The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
"The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France"
>>908650
>Those guys loved "Eastern" religions in general, Hitler wouldn't have financed Himmler expeditions to Tibet if he truly hated them.
But why the soft spot for Islam, which drove out the Arab pagans, then the Zoroastrians, had clashes with Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists,
>It's not difficult to envision the far right being enamoured with Islam when you see, for example, how Islamic legal codes punish faggotry, how Muhammad united all the tribes into a world power, or retard-proof simple views of God (see Hitler on propaganda and simplicity thereof).
I agree with this, but there was also an affinity for the mystical and esoteric aspects of Islam, especially when it came to Nietzsche and Evola.
>>/pol/ hates Islam on the grounds of
>being foreign (i.e. the Kaaba is in Arabia, you must recite the Aqidah in Arabic to become a Muslim...),
>Islamic terrorism targeting their countries,
>and wishing to live in a golden mean between the Islamic countries' degree of extreme conservatism and antisemitism (the Blood libel is taught in Palestinian schools, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have been adapted into a popular TV series),
>and their own freedoms and human rights.
That about sums up modern conservatism's aversion to Islam. Whence came the "big shift"? Even in the 80s Reagan was lauding the religiosity if Islamic freedom fighters. Who were the first major thinkers who were fisking Islam left and right?
>>908590
That is because Islam advocates for traditional gender roles which slowly started to change in the last few centuries also Islam glorifies people who are ok with giving their life for their country/people/etc.
>>908590
>it's an OP conflates praise or agreement with a religious group who have some similar views with being a member of or adopting the same philosophical underpinnings of that group thread
This is one of the flimsiest sourced arguments I've ever seen on this entire site.
>>908722
>But why the soft spot for Islam, which drove out the Arab pagans, then the Zoroastrians, had clashes with Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists
Again, it's precisely because of the Jihad.
I don't see the surprise with Hitler having issues with universalist compassion and preferring a warlord over Jesus.
>I agree with this, but there was also an affinity for the mystical and esoteric aspects of Islam, especially when it came to Nietzsche and Evola.
Because the Islamic view of God is far closer to (Neo)Platonism (the Greeks! always the Greeks!) to a dude that dies for your sins.
By the way, read Esther and you will see why antisemites hate having it in their holy book. Pure Judaist propaganda, I tell ya!
>Who were the first major thinkers who were fisking Islam left and right?
Ottoman Empire, then Zionism.
Israel continues to highlight the differences between West and Middle East, it makes it impossible not to notice them for all parties involved - and uninvolved.
>80s Reagan was lauding the religiosity if Islamic freedom fighters
The enemy's terrorists are our freedom fighters, and vice versa.
Needless to say, once the fighting is (mostly) over you have an overabundance of veterans who are still armed, bloodthirsty jihadists you armed, trained and radicalized yourself. What could possibly go wrong?
We've seen this over and over again with the so-called "Arab" Spring degenerating into tribal warfare all over North Africa and the Middle East which culminated into the rise of ISIS.
So the idea of Islam being synonymous with unity isn't that relevant these days, it's pure romanticism by the aforementioned authors.
In fact, it never was after like the 3rd Caliph.
You have Salafis, Sunnis, Shiites fighting one another over who's the most orthodox, and right wingers don't want the battleground to include their cities (i.e. enough Muslims and eventually they start killing one another over who's more Muslim than thou).
>>908643
>But they read the Quran.
You got a source for that faggot?
Either way it doesn't take a western right winger's condemnation to see how at odds with eachother each side is. There's a reason Islam has mostly only been spread through war in Western society.
>>908781
I think Evola would have had a different view on Islam if he was here and now. On the other side of the Mediterranean is Libya. Well, what's left of it.
In Libya there are two governments, one set in Tobruk and one in Tripoli, the former is loyal to the West and the latter isn't, some cities bear the ISIS flag, others belong to some fourth party.
Hi, where's the
>line of an unbroken race shaped by a tradition at a higher level than both Judaism and the religious beliefs that conquered the West
?
Because from here things look pretty fucking broken. Ummah my ass.
>>908754
>it's an OP conflates praise or agreement with a religious group who have some similar views with being a member of or adopting the same philosophical underpinnings of that group thread
That was not my intention. For example, I'm aware that Nietzsche was no fan of religion of any sort, but in a comparison between the cultures of Christianity and Islam, lauded the superiority of Islam.
If you want me to reframe my question more clearly (which is legitimate)
>1.
Why did these writers and others laud Islam, Muhammad, and/or the Islamic feats/empires as they did?
>2.
Why did these writers and others minimize or redact the various aspects of Islamic history that were at times vile, and at other times threatening the European/Christian way of life?
>3.
Why did they minimize the history and culture of Christianity in comparison to Islam?
>This is one of the flimsiest sourced arguments
The only argument I made was that there seems to be an affinity for Islam among European thinkers who happened to share certain characteristics (skeptical of modernity, democracy, egalitarianism). I genuinely wanted to know if there was any significant basis for this, and if so, what were its roots?
Also, each quote is verifiable.
>>908727
>That is because Islam advocates for traditional gender roles
But did not Christianity do the same? It surely had a 'weaker' form of gender roles than Islam, and restricted itself to lifelong monogamy, but even for those seeking a patriarchal system, is it worth throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
>Islam glorifies people who are ok with giving their life for their country/people/etc.
But the Christian nations were flooded with the blood of their ancestors who died for Christ and peoples. Why the fetishization of Islam for doing the same?
>>908813
>You got a source for that faggot?
>For Carlyle? Sure
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12685866/Hero-as-a-Prophet-by-Thomas-Carlyle
Or pinpointing to his actual literary assessment of the Quran
https://goo
DOT
gl/JBkXIw
a strike against my own point, that even he said it has flaws.
>As for Evola, he at least cites the Quran several times, which implies he cracked it open
http://www.juliusevola.it/risorse/template.asp?cod=284&cat=EVO&page=14
http://www.juliusevola.it/risorse/template.asp?cod=520&cat=EVO&page=7
>As for Nietzsche, he claims to have read the Quran, and I would be inclined to believe him
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power
"If one wish to see an affirmative religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the ruling class, one should read the Koran"
>As for Hitler
That's a more difficult one to pin down, but if you trust Walid Shoebat as a source
"Hitler supposedly quoted the Quran, allegedly saying, “The hour is near, and the moon was rent asunder.” This Qur’anic quote was allegedly uttered so often by Hitler that Ayed Al-Qarni, one of the most respected Saudi Muslim theologians, remarked why Hitler had this Quranic quote engraved on the canons and tanks of the SS Arm"
>>908830
1. Jihad
2. Might makes right
3. Because it's basically over
Read A History of God, written by anything a right winger is not, to see why Western Christianity found its way to extinction, its evolutionary cul de sac, in it's obsession with rationalism.
On gender roles and self-sacrifice, Christian countries in the 18th Century went more and more secular while Al Wahhab's reformation of Islam made everything fundamentalist. Of course these contemporary writers would praise the latter while telling the former to go fuck itself.
You don't see too many Christian suicide bombers for the same reason you don't see too many feminists in ISIS.
>>908590
Islam is an ideology that celebrates many traditionally masculine values. This caused many traditional rightists to admire the faith, and the impressive military successes of early Muslims.
The European right did not begin rejecting Islam until non-white Muslims began living in Europe. Even during the era of Ottoman expansion, Islam as an ideology was generally never attacked by any Europeans outside of the church.
