The Difference Between Marx and Mo

Greg at Burchismo wrote a very interesting article called Marx and Muhammed (thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit).

Greg's main point is that the most important distinction between Marxism and Islamism is that Marxism:

promised specific material results in the material world to a broad group of people (the proletariat).

Whereas Islamism rejects science and stricly focuses on the 'afterlive'.

Brian Micklethwait at Samzdata.net rightfully adds:

Another good Islam-related meme emerged from a not-that-recent (but it deserves to be placed on the Samizdata record, I think) conversation between me and Perry de Havilland. Perry perpetrated that widespread meme-that-ain't-so, to the effect that Islam needs a Reformation. The muddle here is that it confuses Reformation in the sense of reform in the direction of sanity and niceness with reformation in the direction of more devoted adherence to the original texts, which of course means the exact opposite of sanity and niceness.

My so far rather limited reading of the Koran causes me to agree with Islamic fundamentalists about what the Koran says and what it demands of Muslims. Reformation, in the sense of what happened historically in Europe with Christianity - believers reading the stuff for themselves and not allowing the message to be bent out of shape by priests before it gets to them - is what Islam has for many decades now been busily engaged in, and that, from the point of view of Western civilization, is the problem, not the solution.

This is - indeed - the main problem we, the West, are facing regarding Islam. Islamic teachings that carry authority call for aggression towards infidels. Yes, there are also verses that teach peace and love, but there is something we all need to realize when we are talking about Islam: in contradiction to Christianity (Bible), Islamic tradition teaches that whenever there are verses that contradict eachother, the newer one overrules the older one. Much like lex posterior derogat lex priori regarding laws. Sadly these newer verses call for Jihad and aggression (Muhammed's great 'conquerdom').

Brian further recalls this Perry saying:

Perry quickly rephrased what he was all along trying to say. Islam, he said, needs a New Testament.

The problem is quite simple: it doesn't have it.

Cross posted at Liberty and Justice